More enthused than ever after collecting the Ember from the Eternal Flame, And finding another Hinde, the red-wing slip she had adopted pokes her. Its eyes shine brightly with the promise of spring, the Sleipnir bows ever so slightly, beckoning her to climb aboard.
Soon she is at the bottom of the gorge...again.
The gorge looked drastically different than what it was the first time she was here. The trees were now all dead, withered branches lay on the gorge floor.
As the Redwing hippogryph flew her to the top of the gorge, a sense of dread enveloped her entire being. Not a creature stirred here. The dead trees lay testament to the fact that she and her adventurers had lost this race to Oblivions curse and the disease that plagued the Endless Forest.
Those of Oblivion had beat her to The Tree of life.
Upon reaching the top of the gorge Kleo, the alchemist, sat quietly, holding several blackened and curling leaves in her hand. The tree itself was a blackened empty husk, extending it's skeletal almost fossiled, dead branches into the sky. How will we get a leaf?
Plague Doctor Griffins sat silently upon its dead branches as if mourning the loss. It looked like a battle scene. Dead followers of Oblivion lie everywhere, their bodies mimicking the symptoms of the very disease they imposed upon the Trees of the Endless Forest.
How ironic, this had been the tree that she climbed down to find the temple Of the Endless Forest those many moons ago.
It had come full circle, and this time, she may have been too late.
She ran as fast as she could to Kleo, trying to plead her case, to show that she had tried...
Kleo! I'm so sorry! What has happened? Are you alright? All these dead followers of Oblivion! We have found the... In her eagerness to explain herself, she accidentally tripped over some dead follower of Oblivion. Bobbling her torch, which contained the ember from the Eternal flame, her backpack flew, landing abruptly beside Kleo.
All was silent as Kleo riffled thru her backpack, taking the bottle with the drop of water from the fountain of youth, that pinecone she was going to eat for snacks and gently took the torch from her hand. Kleo spoke:
You and your Adventurers have done well, and you have retrieved something that will work better and faster for the concoction to kill the disease, you have the very seeds of the Tree of Life, contained within the pinecone. All I need is the Essence of the Winds of Change. Use the otterling and the Plague griffins for the final battle. it will not be easy, for those of Oblivion now know they have formidible adversaries, those that are attuned to the magical properties of Eldemore itself.