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Last modified: 3 November 1997.
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"The Dark One" Copyright (c) 1997 Simon E. Phipp
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# The Dark One

The happy event of the Curing of the Great Tree of Hellwood came about through a series of moves, none of which had anything to do with the Great Tree.

First, the vampires of the Tower of Lead needed a favour of the party but they did not want the party to know the favour was for them. Therefore, they contrived to have certain members of the party travel to Hellwood for a meeting with some third party. (Once again, I cannot remember the exact details as it was a long time ago.)

Second, the Giant King of Neverdead heard that the party was heading for Hellwood and decided to ambush them. He managed to beat them to it and stood in a clearing disguised as a tree. Unfortunately he fumbled his disguise roll and looked like a giant painted brown and holding a few handfuls of branches. Anyway, his vampires created a false trail leading to the clearing for the party to follow.

For some reason the party had split into two parts, with Derak and possibly Brankist in one group and Bolgar and possibly Rilldick in the other, although Solaris may have been with Derak, I honestly do not know. Anyway, the group with Bolgar in came to the clearing and Bolgar had to make a Scan to see the Giant King, which he duly fumbled, seeing only a clearing in the trees. Fortunately, they were totally paranoid and cast a Detect Enemies spell as soon as they entered the clearing at which one tree, which looked remarkably like a Giant holding a couple of branches, lit up like a Christmas Tree. There was then an ugly fight which resulted in the Giant King using a Teleport to escape before Bolgar ripped his head off with a lucky Garrotte.

Meanwhile, Derak and accomplice had been met by a group of elves and were being questioned. Why were they there? "To Cure your Great Tree" said Derak, never one to miss an opportunity. Fortunately for him, the elves were from the non-Krjalki faction and had a duty to allow anyone who would try to cure the Great Tree to have the attempt. So, they led Derak to the Great Tree which he duly cured using the Hero Stone to suck the Chaos from the Tree.

I seem to recall that there was a subplot here somewhere. Derak used the High Priest or a Dryad as a link and that person died in the attempt to cure the Tree. Somebody there was part of the subplot and immediately, using the Lie spell, shouted "Look - he has killed (The person who died)". In fact, he may well have used a Sever Spirit - that sounds right, the person killed had to not resist the Hero Stone and at the same time someone cast a Sever Spirit unknown to Derak. It’s all coming back to me now. Anyway, Derak believed this with a conviction, he immediately staretd to apologise and offered to make amends and said that he was an Elf Friend and had an amulet to prove it. Luckily enough, the Elves were so pleased that he had cured the Great Tree that they let him go.

As a linked theme, Derak used this act to persuade the Marching Aldryami of Hellwood to take an area around NeverDead and put it under Solarus’ control to release him from the Golden Eagle’s Crusade. Also, Brankist used the powers he gained from the Dead Wood to influence the Elves of Hellwood.

The people who really gained, of course, were the Vampires from the Tower of Lead and NeverDead as they now had the Aldryami of HellWood in a Civil War again with Poisonthorn almost certainly ready to become involved. This weakened them and stopped them attacking the Vampires and the grain fields of NeverDead. The party only later found out that it was a plot by the Vampires and they were not at all happy.

Still, never mind, eh?