The Treekin began to die.

The gentle giants of the Black Forest, evolved from wildling trees
accidentally given sentience by Demeter and Eris, began to manifest
signs of the black disease that had malformed the hazel-tree shrines of
Demeter. Blackbark, Greenthorn, Rootweaver and Sapmoore succumbed one by
one, toppling quietly where they stood.

The community of the forest sought valiantly to cure the remaining
Treekin, demolishing the last of the shrines within Demeter's temple in
hopes of halting further corruption of Nature. Though they saw no
immediate effects, they had in fact cut off the Wyrm of Worlds from his
final sources of power.

While the Wyrm's taint spread into Demeter's realm, killing it slowly,
the one whose form he had usurped was not entirely unoccupied. In the
netherland to which she had been banished, the soul of Demeter was beset
again and again by hordes of demons. If not death, her immortal soul
experienced something of the pain of death there, a desolate wasteland
nightmare of the fertile woods she had once ruled.

But she clung to hope and survived, focusing her thoughts towards the
prime material plane in an effort to contact her followers. Her efforts
caused a series of visions to surface within the consciousnesses of
mortals in the prime material plane, dark with the horrific imagery of
her tribulations in the netherworld. With the destruction of the last of
the hazel shrines the Wyrm had twisted to his service, the visions
quickened.

After long meditation, Talyesen Grovebourne, the Hazel Prophet, and
Kalleah, the Spirit of the Hazel, proposed to lead the concerned mortals
gathered at Demeter's temple in a ritual to lend the Green Lady the
strength she would need to overcome her captors. Those within the ritual
circle were: Lirian, Elizabeth, Aztecia, Elwik, Jibrille, Kyler, Finchy,
Aelyn, Landon, Delphinus, Haydre, Blujixapug, and Foehn, led by Kalleah.

Fresh plants harvested from the temple grounds were placed within an
altar, followed by the self-sacrifice of the elemental faeries of the
temple. It was, thankfully, enough: the power generated through the
ritual to Demeter allowed her to break free from her netherworld prison
at last, reborn into a new corporeal frame.

She came as a shrouded woman, mysterious and full of purpose. Her voice
rang out with a challenge to the Wyrm of the Worlds, and that challenge
was met in kind by the startled, yet still arrogant Wyrm inhabiting
Demeter's former form. Their struggle this time was not internal, but
writ large across the heavens for all to see. Fiery bolts of energy
sizzled across the sky, and at first it seemed perhaps the two were
evenly matched.

However, having been completely severed from his source of power, the
twisted hazel shrines of Demeter, the Wyrm of Worlds tired quickly.
Unable to expend the energy to keep up his masquerade, he discarded the
divine mask and reverted to his ancient demonic form. At that instant,
the goddess struck with a magical golden net and, as the Wyrm howled
with fury, overcame and imprisoned him once more.

Triumphantly, the shrouded woman proclaimed to the world her victory in
ringing tones that carried across the planes. Further, no longer would
she be known as Demeter, the Green Lady. Having undergone a profound
spiritual growth from her experiences in the netherworld, she would no
more be called the goddess of the wildwoods but Melantha, the Goddess of
the Seasons, keeper of the cycles of light and dark within Nature.


Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Daedalan, in the year 409 AF.