In the recent month of Miraman, this scribe felt tremors within the
earth of increasing frequency and intensity. Rumours ran rife of
elementals departing their watch over a flawed master crystal in
Shallam; alas, these are yet to be confirmed. Blizzards howled, steaming
fissures gaped open like wounds in the earth, lava flowed, and
sandstorms swept across the Mhojave desert, carrying off hapless
travellers in their paths.

In the midst of these alarming events, Titania, the Queen of the Dryads,
was plagued by painful visions of trees aflame, trees dying in droughts,
and trees shattering beneath the weight of ice. Misty Corten, who had
been standing vigil over a fissure in the Eastern Ithmia, hearkened to
the Queen's cries and went to her aid. There, the woodswoman heard these
words pass through Titania's lips:

"Old fostering new birthing old,
in a place of forgotten struggle and forgotten teachings.
Ten shells to be burst, but nine may fall to complete the one.
She who speaks now listens to her mother as old wisdom takes a new shape
in an old temple."

As Misty mulled over the meaning of these words, Jaizsur Ta'sa joined
her in the effort to unravel the omen.

Meanwhile in the Darkenwood, three adventurers named Shomaragu, Nixxe,
and Asenath were keeping watch over a fissure which has broken the
ground there. The exiled forest spirit Propasia, once the guardian
spirit of a forest in the Southern Vashnars which had long ago been
razed for the building of Cyrene, resided in the Darkenwood with her
sister Urania, the spirit of those woods. The adventurers there heard
Propasia begin muttering to herself:

"First, destroy nine walls of protection and restraint
Tionolaim sibh, anachaine!
Then find renewal in the sprouting of the paradoxical seed within the
paradoxical temple.
A new form for the end, sprung forth forth from a temple of life and
creation which is dead and destroyed.
Tionolaim sibh, anachaine!"

After some thought, the "nine walls of protection and restraint" were
interpreted as the nine sacred elder trees within which the spirits of
the forests, save Urania and Propasia in the Darkenwood, had retreated
during the years of the triple eclipse. Though the eclipse had come to
an end long before, the spirits remained yet sequestered within the
elder trees.

The three departed the Darkenwood in search of the elder trees and found
that chanting the strange words that Propasia had murmured - Tionolaim
sibh, anachaine! - would summon a sudden and violent cataclysm that
destroyed each tree in turn. As Titania had foreseen, the elder trees
were indeed destroyed by fire and wind, by water and quake, through the
chanting of the mysterious words. However, the result was not disaster
as feared, but the release of the forest spirits. The first to be freed
in such a manner was the spirit Clio of the Western Ithmia.

Elsewhere in the Western Ithmia, Misty and Jaizsur had determined that
the "place of forgotten struggle and forgotten teachings" spoken of by
Titania referred to the old temple of Gaia, and they journeyed to that
place. There, they found the old dryad teacher Caladriendra crouched
upon the ground, crooning to the earth and speaking of a seed that she
could feel growing beneath her feet.

Like Titania and Propasia before her, Caladriendra was overcome by a
prophecy herself and intoned:

"Two ancient contestants dance in circles around this point of
potential.
There is no end without a beginning,
thus shall death be brought here to fuel a new birth.
The houses of the nine must be sundered to free the one that completes
the cycle."

As each of the forest spirits were freed, each silently made her way to
the temple of Gaia until all were assembled there, including Urania and
Propasia of the Darkenwood. Those gathered slowly realised that the seed
of which Caladriendra spoke was a yew-tree seed gifted there by the
former goddess of destruction, Makali. As the Great Oak landmark had
been annihilated at the birth of that goddess, She had seen fit to gift
the seed to the forestal community as a symbol of rebirth. The seed had
been planted there and remained dormant all these years, forgotten,
until the energies of the recent natural cataclysmic events had
nourished and awakened it.

The forest spirits then encircled the earth above where the seed was
buried, and the adventurers in attendance joined them. Propasia led them
in incanting the same chant as had freed her sister spirits: "Tionolaim
sibh, anachaine!"

As spirits and mortals alike chanted the words of power over and over
again, a small sapling pushed itself rapidly upwards from the earth.
Before the astonished eyes of all, the sapling grew into a flourishing
young yew tree, then a mature tree in the space of a breath. As the
chanting eased, Propasia approached the tree and lay her hands upon it.
As a deep green radiance spread over the temple grounds, the Exiled One
melded with the tree as her sisters had previously done with the sacred
elder trees of their forests. As her form became one with the tree, a
fierce whisper came one last time from within it:

"Tionolaim sibh, anachaine!"

A deafening peal of thunder sounded as a bolt of lightning from nowhere
struck the yew, splitting it in twain. Standing between the smouldering
halves: a woman, not Propasia, clad only in vines. Ignoring those
gathered there, the woman murmured to the earth, which had been shaking
violently the entire time. The earth calmed, and the woman took to the
skies in a whirlwind of movement.

The forces of the cataclysmic occurrences currently raging through the
realm focused upon her as if summoned to her, and her body was wracked
and ravaged as ice pierced her flesh and fire consumed her. As the
goddess slowly drifted down to the ground, the whirlwinds and fires and
quakes abated and controlled, cries of joy and welcome rose up from the
forest spirits:

"Hail the one called Artemis - the - rebirth of Propasia, the Exiled
One! Hail the Warrior of Nature!"


Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Valnuary, in the year 437 AF.