It was in silence that Chance and Yrip left the abode of Maedryn, returning back to the surface. Maedryn even helped them through one of the windows, over the wall, so that they did not have to risk traversing the hall of whispers again, before bidding them farewell.

Both had too much to mull over, on the information that the troll had imparted on them, to speak much beyond the most perfunctory of farewells. Chance was unsure which was the more profound revelation, his or Yrip’s. Whichever it was, it had left them deep in their own thoughts, contemplating what they had learned.

The kobold seemed changed as they walked back over to the water’s edge. No longer did he crowd in close behind Chance as he had previously been want to do. Now he walked alongside Chance and his face was set with a new expression, that of determination.

They stopped when they reached the bank of the island, looking back across the swamp, knowing that they must cross it once more. “I guess we have no option but to endure the waters again,” Chance remarked.

Yrip nodded slowly. “We can’t stay here, no.”

Chance tapped ahead with his staff as they waded out into the murky waters, but as they progressed further, they found a strange thing occurring, for the waters were not as deep as when they had first crossed, rising little at all as they went.

“This is odd,” Chance noted, looking around as they walked. At the halfway point of the marsh, where previously he had been forced to carry Yrip, it had not even reached the little kobold’s knees.

“Troll magic would appear to be most powerful,” Yrip exclaimed.

“It would seem so. Yrip, I can not help but notice that neither on the way across the first time nor now, that you have been afraid of any water-demons like you were back at the stream.”

“There are no water-demons here,” Yrip replied. “These waters are still. Water-demons only lurk in running water.”

Chance couldn’t quite understand the reasoning, but it seemed to work for the kobold and so he wasn't going to question it. As long as they made it across, then that was all that mattered.

The trip back was much quicker than when they had first crossed, aided by the shallow water, and they made it back only slightly damp and muddy when compared to their original journey. Chance scraped the mud from his boots, stamping the rest out.

It was still only the middle of the afternoon and he had no desire to return back to the cave yet. Too much had happened that he needed to process and he felt like a walk, to get his head in order. Instead of heading back along the path towards the cave, he headed in the opposite direction, towards the south, and the bridge that crossed the stream.

“Where are we going?” Yrip asked.

“I want to return to the dead zone,” Chance told him. “There is something that I wish to try.” He held up the druid’s staff as he walked. “This has the power to restore the land, and I felt it time to test it. Where best to do so than there. I am a druid after all, or that is what the parchment says, so I might as well start acting like one.”

There was another reason as well, though one that he said nothing to Yrip about, as it concerned Craghand, locked away inside. It would be, no doubt, what the dwarven druid would have done, and he owed it to the dwarf for what had happened to him. Moreso, if it placated the dwarf so that he had less need to try and rise up and wrest control over the body, all the better; he needed to keep using it until he figured out a way to get home. It did not help much with the load of the guilt that he felt. While not responsible for what had happened, he was the one in control and doing things the wrong way.

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He took out the parchment that he had stored away; remarkably it remained dry and unstained despite having been submerged in the murky waters of the swamp.

Power: Rejuvenate Land

Required Stats: Mind 4, Soul 4.

Required Affinities: Nature.

Power Source: Primal.

By pouring the essence of nature into the ravaged lands of the world, a practitioner of the primal art is able to restore the land, to bring life back, to encourage growth.

Those required stats were well outside of what he had. Why then would he be provided with a staff that had that power if he could not yet use it? It made little sense. His spear had a hidden trait, much like the staff had when first viewed, but the staff’s powers had been revealed to him. Which suggested, perhaps, that he could. His steps picked up as he neared the bridge and started across it, eager now to try it out, to see if he was correct. Not until he reached the dead zone though, not until he was sure how he knew it worked and if there were any limitations to it.

He hurried along the path, forcing Yrip almost to scurry to keep up, and through the old goblin camp, where the remnants of it and the refuse left behind remained.

“Snarl would like to know of this place,” Chance remarked as they walked by. “Plenty of cleaning for him here.”

Yrip responded with a short barking laugh. “Yes, yes, I am sure that he would.”

They climbed from the camp up into the barren hills that overlooked it, the skeletons of the dead trees all about. The physical discomfort that he had felt the last time he had been there did not plague him, now that the lair of the undead had been dealt with. There had been no change to the land itself though.

When he reached the top of the hills, he stopped. Taking hold of the staff in both hands, he planted the end of it on the ground. Now to see if it would work. The words to activate it came to him, just as he expected that they would; Craghand was aiding him, that he knew now.

“Voraak Var.”

It felt different this time around. All previous times that he had access to the primal magic of the druids, it had come from within and he felt the magic surge through him. He felt no such thing with the staff and at first felt as if nothing had happened but then the staff quivered in his hands. A soft green mist emanated from it, starting to flow outwards around them, across the ground. Onwards it rolled, like waves upon the shore, out over the hills in all directions Then it began to sink into the ground, as water into parched soil, fading from sight.

The land had changed at its touch, for a faint green tinge could now be seen across it. Here and there small shoots began to push up out of the soil, and on once-dead trees, buds began to form. Life was returning, slowly at first, but in time the hills would blossom again, and the apple trees that once stood there would flourish and bring forth their fruits.

“Voraak Var.”

Chance tried one more, to see if he could further hasten the process, but was instead met with one of the internal messages that cropped up.

Charge Expended. Cooldown Seven Days.

So it was a one-a-week thing. Handy to know. Besides the hills, there was also the area where the dragon had come down and burnt; it needed rejuvenating as well.

Chance looked around the changed landscape and nodded to himself, a warm feeling rising up in him. It took a moment for him to recognise what it was; satisfaction for a job well done. Pride yes, that he knew, but this was different, and strangely felt better as well.

“I think we are done here, Yrip,” he said.

Yrip grinned broadly. “Trees grow again. That is powerful magic.”

“Aye, m’laddie,” Chance replied, but with Craghand’s words, “We’ll all make this land what t’was always meant ta be.”