“Diiiieeee!” The words weren’t shaped by human mouths, but manifestations of the only desire the Bloodthorn Monstrosity before them possessed. Putrid red liquid, more blood than sap, streamed from its gaping maw and oozed from fissures across its body to create a red haze of its life force that threatened anyone who dared to step into the cloud.

“You’re one ugly beastie!” Drynthor cried out. The Satyr leaped into physical range with his spectral shield in the front, which the fighter used to bash the monster in the face. Dahlia used Take This, Too! to cast Shadowy Whispers through Drynthor. As the plant creature recovered from the stagger, inky shadows clouded its mind. Unfortunately, the mind-clouding effects of Shadowy Whispers and the disorienting shield bash did nothing to weaken the hazy condition around the monster, nor did the damage from either attack seem to amount to a true wound.

“Fuck, this red stuff hurts!” Drynthor warned the party, although the way the red cloud clung to Drynthor and ripped at his very being provided ample visual warning without the screaming.

One blast of fire, and then another, struck the creature. The first splashed along its upper shoulder, while the second hit the creature mere inches to the left of its terrible maw. Although Ruth’s fire attacks could bring down powerful Hyena-men in a one-two combo such as she just used, the Bloodthorn creature barely reacted to the incendiary attack.

Lorien’s Spirit Hornet imbued arrows continued the trend. Two arrows flew unerringly to strike the abomination and infest it with two hornets that crawled within the creature and attacked it from the inside out.

Shade jumped out of its shadow, its dark claws found purchase against the creature's backside in a vicious critical hit. Yet even with such a potent attack, the weak Shadow appeared to cause even less visible damage to the Bloodthorn than any of the other Ebon Chorus members. Levels, Dahlia noted, were more than just numbers—especially small numbers like ½.

Dahlia cast Wisp Heal in a hurry, skipping the spell song and instead reducing the chant to muttered words of ancient Sylvan, and when the Wisp appeared over her shoulder, she immediately discharged one of its charges to heal Drynthor.

“Everyone but Drynthor and Xeras stay out of the red haze as much as you can,” Dahlia ordered.

The magic and healing didn’t go unnoticed. Recovered from the shield bash, the Bloodthorn Animus lashed both of its arms toward Mr. Disapoofer and Dahlia. The Warp Wolf waited until the very last moment to poof itself and Dahlia ten feet away. The vines struck the ground where they had been, leaving a small crater.

“Good boy!” Dahlia praised Mr. Disapoofer for his unflagging protection.

The Spirit Hornet Swarm descended on the tree; hundreds of spectral insects attacked in a surge. The damage they dealt was seemingly trivial, but it all added up. It did all add up, didn’t it?

“I am your opponent,” Xeras scolded the Bloodthorn Animus before he stepped into the red haze. The red energies in the air struggled to harm the wooden body of the Gloamknight, and if Xeras took an injury, it was minor enough to not even elicit a response from the determined warrior. Gloombough slashed in and proved to be the superior wooden material as green flames danced along its razor edge and cut into the monster.

Xeras took the momentum of his attack to spin and, calling upon his skill as a fighter, launched a second attack with everything he had, only to land a vicious critical blow. Unlike Shade, Xeras’s lucky blow left deep gouges from which bloody sap practically gushed out. If everyone else had merely scratched the Animus, Xeras was the first to truly wound it, and thus the manifestation of the curse turned its wrath on the one who damaged it.

The sap-dripping maw of the Bloodthorn Animus opened wide, and the creature screamed. Its wail held centuries of collected suffering, hatred, and misery. Blood trickled out of the ears of those who had them, and the others gripped painfully at their heads as the psychic attack ripped at heart and mind.

“Bad plantie!” Drynthor scolded his opponent. The Satyr took a deep breath and slammed both of his shields into the side of the creature, dealing minimal damage but forcing it to turn its gaze back his way.

Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Ruth’s fireballs bombarded the creature, and Dahlia used Take This, Too! to fire another blast of Shadowy Whispers at the creature. The damage quickly added up, leaving even deeper fissures in the plant-like body of the Bloodthorn, and Ruth’s second fireblast managed to burn off and sever its right arm.

Shade, the weakest of the Ebon Chorus, managed to scratch the back of its opponent before in a cry of hatred, the Shadow burst into pieces. Fighting in broad daylight was not one of the strengths of a Shadow on a good day and fighting an opponent magnitudes more powerful than it proved to be too much.

Dahlia growled in the back of her throat but focused and used a charge of Wisp Heal on Drynthor and Xeras. It felt wasteful to give up casting another spell, but she couldn’t risk either of the two warriors going down the way Shade had.

“I shall avenge you, Shade!” Lorien cried.

The elven ranger’s voice nearly burst with emotion, and his first arrow utterly missed the huge target. His second shot, though, hit true and slipped through one of the deep fissures to strike at the heartwood deep inside the Bloodthorn, and delivered another Spectral Hornet to attack it from the inside. Lorien’s expression danced between pride and disappointment that his emotional outburst had seen him fail so miserably on the first shot but it had propelled him to land a lethal wound.

Bzzz! The Spirit Hornet Swarm angrily cried and attacked the Bloodthorn. With more fissures opened up, with each blow the creature suffered, the bites and stings of the spectral swarm were much more effective at helping end the life of the monstrosity.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Ruff!” Finish it, Xeras! Mr. Disapoofer encouraged the Gloamknight.

Xeras didn’t respond to the encouragement of the Warp Wolf. Instead, he took another swing with Gloombough and severed something vital within the Bloodthorn. It toppled immediately, and the red haze around it immediately started to dissipate.

You have gained 1300 experience.

Quest Complete: Send the Mortal Souls to the Afterlife.

Reward: Volume of Ruling Presence, Shield of Reflection +1

Volume of Ruling Presence: This book contains instructions to manipulate and influence others. Each word is charged with potent magic. If you spend at least 48 hours out of the next 7 days studying the book, you may increase your Charisma by 2. This book allows you to raise Charisma above 20. The book becomes magically dormant for 100 years after being used.

Shield of Reflection +1: This enchanted shield grants a bonus on top of the normal defensive properties of a shield. Additionally, when you block an attack with it half of the damage prevented will be transferred to the source of the damage. Retaliatory damage ignores immunities and resistances and is the type of damage originally dealt.

“Drynthor, I’ve got you a new shield,” Dahlia said in a burst of laughter.

“I like shields,” the dual shield-wielding satyr stated. This summoned a round of laughter at his statement of the obvious.

Quest: Find the Bleeding Grove Completed.

Quest Reward: You gain 500 experience, and Heart of Anger.

Heart of Anger: Crafting component.

-When used in a weapon, a weapon will gain a life-draining property.

-When used in a staff, rod, or wand it will imbue spells with extra power and visual manifestation of the crimson blood sap of the Bloodthorn Animus.

-When used in armor it will provide resistance to life-drain.

-When used in accessories it will provide fear immunity.

-May have other uses.

Description: The Heart of Anger is the only remnant of the Bleeding Grove to survive. This piece of crimson heartwood is shaped like a sphere and emits extremely potent magic. Although the Bleeding Grove has been freed of its curse, and the monster this heart once belonged to slain, the anger, hatred, and suffering of hundreds of years and hundreds of beings suffused within this clearly cursed object refuses to be so easily forgotten, or undone.

“Ugh,” Dahlia groaned before she shifted the Heart into the Feywoven Satchel. She didn’t need to have the Voice of Nantes tell her that the item was potent, concentrated hatred to recognize the manifestation of a curse when she saw one. While powerful, such items always stayed true to their origin and exacted a price. The mere idea of keeping the Heart made her uncomfortable, but she hadn’t met any mortals she hated enough to dump a cursed item on. Yet.

The more Dahlia learned about Nantes, the more she felt there were mortals who needed a good cursed object to ruin their lives. Maybe if any of these Feybane Legion people were still around, she’d find them.

“What about Shade, Mistress?” Lorien asked as he approached the thoughtful fairy.

“Shade? Oh, well. Maybe I’ll summon him again later. He’s weak, only situationally useful, and not very smart. Sure, he’s cute, but he spends most of his time hiding from the sun. So, we’ll see,” Dahlia answered honestly. Perhaps a bit too honestly, she immediately felt the surge of doubt it sent through the Ebon Chorus.

“When I have time to make him stronger, I’ll summon him again.”

Xeras grunted and pointed to the south.

Dahlia immediately noticed a powerful magic source not far from where they were, potent but subtle in comparison to the cursed awfulness of the Bleeding Grove. It had a familiar feel; the Banshee of the woods must be close by, but it also felt like something else Dahlia couldn’t put her finger on. It was a magical sensation she had been exposed to recently though, and it gnawed at the back of her mind that she couldn’t recall whatever it was, to the point the fairy kicked at the air in annoyance.

“It feels familiar,” Dahlia murmured.

“It’s the ruins of Aelwyth Morghaine, which used to be the largest Fey city in this part of Nantes,” Ruth answered. “If there’s a Banshee holed up there, there’s a good chance it's Maeravel Thornheart. Lord Thornheart was a military man, but Maeravel was a diplomat and ruler. The desperate fights so many of us died for were to keep them away from Aelwyth Morghaine.”

The spectral mage fell silent, looking in the same direction as Dahlia.

“Then we go to the Ruins of Aelwyth Morghaine. I won’t allow a noble Fey to be chained to the curse of the banshee,” Dahlia declared, while internally she pondered how useful a banshee might be to her own cause.

“She’ll fight us, she will. The curse has had ages to warp her mind; no fragment, not even a splinter of Maeravel Thornheart, is likely to remain.” Ruth said. Her shoulders slumped as she stared into the distant horizon towards the Ruins of Aelwyth Morghaine, and the darkness seemed to dominate her insubstantial form more than fire for a few long moments.

“Of course, she will, it wouldn’t be much of a curse otherwise, would it?” Dahlia asked with a small chuckle. The fairy squared her shoulders, and her lips pressed into a thin determined line. “Still, I’m starting to understand why the Fey left this world, and it’s not giving me the warm fuzzies for humanity.”

“Ruff!” Humans aren’t all bad. I liked Amelia. Mr. Disapoofer made a half-hearted defense of mortal-kind, but even the Warp Wolf would admit he’d been swayed by the mortals slipping him choice cuts of meat.

“Me too, boy. Let’s see if we can reach the ruins before dusk,” Dahlia ordered and the group fell in. While they left the remnants of the Bleeding Grove behind Dahlia used the remaining charges of Wisp Heal to top up the health of all her minions. As Ruth said, Maeravel Thornheart was now a banshee and could not be reasoned with as if she were still Lady Thornheart. Dahlia also suspected that there would be more undead than a mere banshee in the ruins.

Banshees were not more powerful than the Bleeding Grove, and the source of magic Dahlia sensed in the distant ruins dwarfed the corrupted power of the Bleeding Grove.

Still, a cool breeze thinned the air of the destroyed grove. The once-fetid air, stifled by the cursed sap and the phantasmal cries of suffering mortals might as well have been a memory. When Dahlia looked back at the area while Mr. Disapoofer followed Lorien and Xeras, she saw tender shoots of green had already emerged among the piles of briars and thorns. Only a few glints of dying red sap shone like spent embers—and they turned black and withered before her very eyes. New growth competed to replace them.

The oppressive weight of decay receded in mere yards, and with each step, the air felt more vibrant, as if parts of the ancient Bramblewood were on the cusp of a rebirth. The rays of sunlight that reached between the boughs brought a warmth that reinvigorated each member of the party.

Noon came, then went, and still, they trudged through the Bramblewood. Minor annoyances such as Blights periodically drew their ire, but after a few hours the trees thinned, and they stood on the outskirts of a city swallowed by time. Alabaster stone worked in glorious arches, and climbing spires declared to any the nature of the city before them. Dahlia could imagine sylphs dancing above the once whole marble gates, but now even the faded artwork of the air spirits seemed a tall tale amidst the ruins that sprawled before them.

“There’s a Warding Glyph dead ahead, don’t detonate it. If we are forced to retreat we can lure an enemy into it,” Dahlia said. The fairy’s lips twisted up into a smile, her purple eyes shimmered at the beautiful mental image she conjured of her enemies walking cluelessly into magical explosions.

“Welcome to my home, Lady Dahlia. Welcome to Aelwyth Morghaine,” Ruth said.