3. Ghost of the Wilds - Old Two Skins Ear Neck Vine

Ghost of the Wilds - Old Two Skins Ear Neck Vine


  • She opened her eyes to the concerned gazes of friends and to the shame of knowing she had failed in her dance. The dance of the hunt, which she had done uncountable times throughout the years. To fall to the green men was a shame she would could not bear. Even before rising from the ground were her spirit was lured back into her body, she prayed to him. The Lone Wolf. And he did not hear her prayers, nor come for her in the place of fog and waiting. Fenmarel knew that she had failed and had abandoned her.

    The friends wanted vengeance and the green men had come to finish what they had begun. Herding their digger beetles ahead of them… they attacked from the dark woods. Her friends went to meet them… but she had no heart for the hunt. She had failed. She slunk off to try and bear her failure alone.

    She wandered aimlessly, but could not find purpose without her lord and guide. Days later, having not tranced, nor eaten, nor drank she found herself delirious and wandering amongst the webbed canyon forests. She finally fell on the very spot where she had been graced by the appearance of the Wood Mother herself… Mielikki. She had shown herself after she and others had saved one of her servants, a wood nymph many moons before from a band of arcanists wanting to experiment on the wood nymph’s tree.

    She lay there… looking up at the canopy of trees above her and knew that this time, when her spirit left her mortal coil that her god Lord Mestarine would not come for her. She would be in the mists forever. Her eyes blurred with tears and she knew she would never see her home again.

    A dark shape loomed above her blurred view of the dappled canopy light. It reached for her and whispered in the sweet language of the fey, “Earth, wood and water child. It is my turn to save you.” Her eyes went dim and she felt the cool embrace of earth and the reaching grasp of roots enter her. For the first time… she slept… for the first time… she dreamt.

    In her dream she was a young tree, a sapling. She was called the Soul Holder. Reaching for lightgrowth with her brancharms and wriggling her rootstoes in the earthfood. Her skin was her young bark and she could feel the wind bend her. Her leaves were her mouth. When is rained her thirst was quenched by the waterblood.

    Each blossom and bud a rebirth… the cycle was good. But she felt something grow in the depth of her trunk. A different seed. It grew fast and strong. It was her child… and it had a purpose. As it grew in her… she fed it her strength and taught it her skills. Skills she did not know she had, and did not understand. When it was full it was birthed from her roots and clawed its way out of the earthfood.

    It was the Seeker. It was the Soul Holder’s extension. Kharbeh saw through it’s unblinking sap colored eyes. It went to the nearby stream to take it’s first drink. Through it’s eyes… it saw the reflection of itself in the water. Kharbeh saw a creature that reminded her of something… but the though was fleeting and she turned her attention back to the Seeker’s movements.

    The nymph came from her nearby home… and talked to the Seeker. It taught her nymph words and told her a story of a green elf named Old Two Skin. She was part fey and wore the skin of an animal over her own skin. She was as old as an oak and taught by the Hunter. She was a seeker as well. Knowledge for her clan. But first she was a hunter.

    One hunt that should have been well within her skills, she failed at. The green men that fell her took a vine of ears from her neck. It was her pride. It was her skill. It was her heart of hearts. It was hunting that they took.

    This was the purpose. Old Two Skins would help the nymph with an enemy. Spider elves with bad water and sharp metal axes. The nymph needed Old Two Skins back. And the ear neck vine would lure her back from the embrace of the tree. It would give her power to stop the spider elves. The Seeker had purpose. Get the Ear Neck Vine from the Green Men. Make sure it was returned to the Nymph. The roots of the many tree would lead her to the one tree that had fed on Old Two Skin’s blood when she fell. Then she would have to find the Green Man from there.

    The nymph told of a warm blood man that would help find help. He guarded a pixie glen near a man nest. The nymph told of warm blood tree helpers… the circle men that would help. The nymph said that Old Two Skin had allies and to tell the story of what had happened to her to other warm bloods to try and find help there.

    The Seeker was filled with thoughts and purpose. She would find strength in roots and earth and water. She would wander far from her Soul Holder. She would have to find lightgrowth and waterblood and earthfood as she went further from her center.

    She grew stronger and found a man nest that fed woodflesh to the harmfires. But she also found a circle man. Not many knew the nymph word language… but the circle man did. He had a large wolf that made the Seeker think of the story the wood nymph had told about how Old Two Skins was a wolf once.

    She found she could go further and further from her tree. And that the trees of the open spaces had long roots. She found her way towards the forests of the green men. She would talk to those warm bloods that saw her. Telling her story in the language of wood when the nymph words were not enough.

    Pictures would form from the grain of the wood sheets she would pull from the trees. Pictures of Old Two Skin’s high hair. Pictures of the ear neck vine. Pictures of the green men and of the nymph and the spider elves.

    She found the warm blood guarding the pixie glen. Vino was what the warm blood called himself. He would tell the green elf’s allies of her blight and tell them to meet in the glen before the dark of moon came… and the spider elves returned to poison the nymph once more.

    She waited in the glen with sister dryad and cousin grig and pixie. When many warm bloods were in the glen, she came awoke from her stupor. Many of the warm bloods and circle men that she had talked with were there. They would find the green men.

    There were many…

    As different from each other as are the types of plants in the forest. But all with one thing that bound them… Old Two Skins.

    The root talk of the dark wood trees pointed the Seeker and her warm bloods to the place that the Old Two Skins had fallen. Many green men were there. Many fed the trees with their waterblood. But the ear neck vine was not there. The guide warm blood used man words to say that there was a green man hole was nearby, so they warm bloods thought it a good place to look.

    The Soul Holder’s dream grew fuzzy then. Her roots had a tough time reaching the Soul Holder and seeing through her eyes. There were digger beetles of many kinds. There were even the largest of diggers with eyes that made the mind circle and with shells like oak bark and claws like iron. The Scarred Treecutter and the Guide and the Big Hands made their metal shards fly and cut through the large diggers like skyfire cuts through a trunk.

    And green men. More green men than ants in an anthill. They had made tricks over everything. All tunnels and openings. The Seeker would feel them. She had the patience of a redwood. The warm bloods would make man words. And she could feel the warm air from the closeness of the Big Hands behind her. Sometimes she could not feel how to untrick the tricks. So she would simply step on them. The digger bodies had liquid and the water trickles and dark mushrooms would stop her sap from flowing.

    She was growing weak from not having lightgrowth. But being deep in the earthfood made up for it. Down into the earth they fought. Arrow and blade, arced magics from god and weave, they inched.

    They came to one opening. Inside a circle of green men sang a ugly song of dark stone and lava and a beast was born. They lost control of it and it slew them in a swing of it’s mighty arm. Made of crystal and stone, it turned and waded into the warm bloods and the Seeker like a stone rolling down a hill. The rolled and ducked and when that failed… try to hold their ground with armwalls of metal and catclaws of bone.

    When the crystal guardian fell… the turned their eyes to the cavern it guarded. A stone covered with blood on a ramped stone platform. The circle woman and Big Hands went to read the blood.

    A crystal as blue as the clearest waters flowed from the base of the alter. Called by it’s power. It swallowed the circle woman before she could even raise her hands and was near to drowning. Big Hands threw himself into the bubble of water and knocked the circle woman clear. The water crystal launched itself at Big Hands and he held it off long enough to breath life back into the circle woman with a healing hand.

    It went after the Seeker as if nothing else was there. Had her rootfeet not been swift… it would have surely waterlogged even her wood. Fire and cold and blade and bow, the warm bloods finally shattered the water guardian into a rainbow of tiny water droplets.

    And in the shadows… a green man fled. The Seeker felt strongly. She sprinted with a few others through the tunnels after it. Slain quickly, the Seeker kneeled and saw it. The Ear Neck Vine. She touched it and knew she was done. The warm bloods would return the totem to the nymph. She could rest.

    She fell over as the warmbloods said frantic man words over her. But they gave her waterblood and earthfood. They must know. She way happy. Her life fulfilled. Her body slowly fell apart back into the plants she was made of. The wood golem of the Soul Holder was gone.

    Without vision she waited as a tree can wait. The warmbloods were there in less the a darklight cycle. She felt their footsteps near her roots. The nymph mother came from her tree and spoke with them. They carried something with them that she yearned for but did not know why.

    They approached and place the thing upon her trunk. The instant it touched… the knowing grew. Old Two Skins would come. The memories flooded through the tree as it’s wood changed. Wood to flesh, water to blood, leaves to hair, sap to mind. Her casement fell away as her bows creaked.

    Soul Holder held no more and Kharbeh was reborn.

    _((A lesson for anyone out there wanting to do a character based event. Plan well, set up the plot hooks for the adventure in game and in character, check with your SDM and any other DMs that the plot may effect and be patient. The more you run with the ball on your own and develop the plot, the more interested the DMs will be in running with it.

    This event for Kharbeh was a personal quest for redemption after losing a hard won level that almost made me lose motivation for my character and continuing with this server.

    There were FOUR DMs that helped me realize this event and MANY players that helped set the mood prior to any DM being involved. As well as the players who risked thier own characters in a quest to bring back one of their IC and OOC friends.

    Thanks for reinvigerating both me and Kharbeh.))_


  • It was loads of fun. Honestly, it's been a while since I had a nice big adventure like that. Thank you to all the DMs and all the players that made the night wonderful.

  • G

    Great job, Kerb. Also to the players and DMs involved, it was a blast.