Return to Progression's Garden

Something was wrong. Siri could feel it, a force beyond anything that she had ever felt before, pulling at something deep within her, leeching away at something that she couldn’t quite explain. It called to her, a horrific whisper that spoke to her very being, although no one else seemed to hear it. Her hands trembled as a leaf fell from her tree, turning to dust before it even had a chance to reach the ground. Her blood ran cold, her skin growing cold and ashen as the severity of this change fell in full force upon her.   She didn’t know how she knew where they were; she rarely did. That had never really made sense, and she had long since given up on trying to understand it. Instead, she pressed her hand to the trunk of the tree, and when she looked up, she stood in the Garden; at least… it was the Garden. Something had gone terribly wrong, and all that she could do in that moment was call the Adventurers to her. They would never be able to stop what was coming - not like this. They needed time, and that was, fortunately, one of the few things that she could give them here.   They didn’t understand this world; but, how could they? They had never known the power of a true god; the Ten had been gone for millennia before any of them were even born. And they certainly didn’t understand the power of this place; the Wald, the Spine… but, of course, that wasn’t their fault, either. As far as Siri could tell, this land had been all but abandoned for centuries, abandonment fueled by stories and legends of curses and strange powers that kept outsiders away by design.   Things were beginning to stir, now; the destruction of the Orb of the Earth had started something that Siri couldn’t explain. And if she couldn’t understand it - however could they?   It was all that she could do during the battle to keep the destruction at bay. It came closer, spreading slowly from the heart of the Garden, a creeping, sickly scourge that quickly claimed everything that it touched. Such death and destruction, unnatural and untouchable, were terrifying to witness. It would have been so easy to fall into this despair, to be consumed by it, to allow it to take her, and the tree.   But they needed a way out. She had to keep the tree alive, at least long enough to bring them home.   She breathed deeply, the pungent smell of rot nearly overwhelming her; but from her perch on Reinn’s back, where she sat neatly atop a small saddle designed to allow her full use of her hands, she played. The sound of the pipes was nearly undetectable over the sounds of the battle; of lumbering trees and rising monstrosities from deep within the earth, of anguished adventurers and determined foes. But a dim light emanated from them as they rode in a wide arc between the corruption, and the tree.   From her shoulder, Bua raised his tiny paws, a steady, thrumming blue-green light intermingling with hers, strengthening it as the corruption was held at bay - for now.   The battle raged, and their enemy’s desperation became clear as the corruption spread harder, faster, threatening to claim even more of the Wald with each heartbeat. Siri could hear the blood rushing in her ears; her hands trembled as the struggle to hold her line intensified. She was vaguely aware of each Adventurer’s plight - hounds without direction; too many enemies; a monstrous entity that seemed impossible to overthrow; the death of a friend; a sacrifice; a return.   No...   Three returns.   And… and something else.   The Garden went quiet; and the spread of the corruption stopped. Reinn slowed to a stop at the base of the tree, and both Siri and Bua allowed their barriers to fall. Something was wrong. Something… was… wrong.   The adventurers were returning, celebrating their victory as they reached for the branches of the tree. Siri tried to let go of the feeling of abject terror that gripped her from deep, deep within her being. By all accounts, they had won. But then she saw him, looming in the distance, clouded by darkness. A face - a familiar, once beloved face, now rotting and hollow and wrong.   “Unlan…” she whispered, voice wavering as her eyes began to burn. Her entire body began to shiver as the tree’s magic began to take them, and she let out a small, anguished cry as the rotting, skeletal deer answered in her mind: “No. I am… Decay.”   The tree returned them to Mornhold, just outside of The Gracious Squirrel. The adventurers needed to rest; they needed time to regain their strength, to regroup. Siri did her best to compose herself, promising to return as soon as she could; assuring them that they had done well, that they had prevented the spread of something terrible, although she worried that something even worse may have been born from the chaos of the day.   ***   She sat high in the boughs of her tree - the true tree - at The Crossroads, tears falling silently from her eyes as she looked out into the Wald, towards the Garden. The corruption had stopped - for now; still, Siri couldn’t forget the sight of his eyes. Unlan had once been the most vibrant light in the world, a true representation of the world’s bounty, its beauty. Those dead, hollow eyes, staring at her through the darkness… the fruit rotting and falling from his antlers… the vines and the flowers adorning his head withering and dying over, and over, and over.   “I am… Decay.”   Progression was dead, and had been for millennia; Unlan, too, had perished, but an image of the great stag had remained, an echo of a true, powerful soul, not unlike Siri herself. She tried to tell herself that he was already gone, long before the corruption had taken him. She tried to reason that the thing that had given its life for the Dwarf King’s hadn’t really been Unlan; because if it hadn’t been Unlan, then the thing that now remained… how bad could it be?   “This… was not a part of the plan.”   Siri nearly fell out of the tree as a voice - familiar, yet different - spoke softly from down below.   The Crossroads had virtually died millennia ago; no one remembered it, no one could find it, except for Farmer Fred and his companions. She had a theory about that one, but this? What was he doing here?   She slipped down the branches, hand flitting to a small dagger at her waist, teary eyes narrowing as she prepared to unleash the full force of her fury upon that arrogant, egotistical, vile --   “You… aren’t Orrick.” She lowered her hand, watching the old man warily before dropping to the ground, sparing only a brief glance towards where Bua sat high above them, conveying a simple message - hold. A hulking half-orc stood with the old man, though he seemed far more interested in the carvings on the trunk of her tree, and the intricate statues surrounding it than he did in Siri.   “An astute observation,” Galadar answered dryly.   Siri wiped her eyes and looked between the two of them as silence stretched between them. Finally, she sighed. “Alright, fine. What wasn’t part of ‘the plan’?” she asked, reluctantly gesturing for them to follow her into her tree.   “I thought you’d never ask,” he answered as he followed her inside.