I am so glad those guards didn't catch us. I am so glad those guards didn't catch us.

I am so angry that Azrael uncovered himself. Those white streaks... He really is diluted kin. And I really am a weak half-breed.

I am so relieved that Elephants are stupid enough to attack my spiritual weapon. Blight beasts too.

I am injured, but I will be fine after a rest.

Tree blood is tasty.

An elephant... A FUCKING ELEPHANT! Worse of all, a SPORE MUSHROOM ELEPHANT! and a fucking bear??? Can you believe that bullshit? and after that, I had to fight a bunch of mushroom creatures. Even worse, I had to give my disguise to a friend, which of course I am fine with, then next thing I know, little frog people, which is whatever, then suddenly there is an Elephant. How the fuck can I do anything to an ELEPHANT? If it wasn't for this new spell I had gotten, the others might have died. If I see another mushroom, I WILL burn the forest to the ground, I swear.

We were summoned to assist a Dryad by the name of Maple. When finally we managed to get away from the world's most interesting sign, we learned the forest has been overrun with parasitic mushrooms.

Tealight's tried to assist this before, but unfortunately, their solution of carving eyes into the trees to watch the mushrooms so they do not regenerate (something they do when damaged, so long as they go unwatched) failed only partially; the dryads, she mentioned, looked better than before.

Maple sent us to Shiitake, another dryad whose forest had experienced the same issue. Shiitake had survived by choosing to embrace the mushrooms were so many of her fellows died. On our way there, we were set upon by mushrooms made sentient and beasts infected with spores; the infection grows.

Shiitake, seeming somewhat complacent to the mushrooms (a side effect of joining with them, I'm sure) examined the mushroom we gave her and remarked it was many species of mushroom slammed into one. She suspects that the Drow man who did this to her forest, now all flesh-like mushroom and spores, is still experimenting and that it's spread.

She's asked for a few weeks to study the specimen and learn what she can. I fear Maple does not have a few weeks.

Jacob, a druid in the college of Silvery, was kind enough to teleport us back home.

22 Flamerule 1502 DR
Party: Azure Eyes (Cyrus), Azrael, Wuyon'e, Sunbeam (Orri), & Myself

We were summoned once again by the dryad known as Maple.

I had assisted Maple previously, along side Lady Death, in removing a parasitic mushroom infestation from her forest. Unfortunately, it appears our earlier efforts were only a temporary solution. The mushrooms had returned, and with them came renewed concern for the surrounding woodland.

Maple believed another dryad, Shiitake, might possess the knowledge necessary to understand what we were facing. Unlike Maple, Shiitake had chosen not to resist the parasitic fungi that had infected her own grove. Instead, she allowed them to consume and bond with her.

The decision came at a terrible cost.

Many of her followers had succumbed to the infection over time, while Shiitake herself remained alive—changed, certainly, but alive nonetheless.

Our journey to find her was anything but peaceful.

The forest had become home to numerous creatures overtaken by the same spores. We were forced to fight through creeping vines animated by the infestation, an elephant consumed by fungal growth, and finally a bear whose body had become little more than a host for the spreading colony.

Curiously, many of these creatures appeared resistant, if not entirely immune, to the enchantments of my fey magic. I found myself relying upon my whip far more than my spells, which is not a complaint, merely an observation. Adaptation is often more useful than stubbornness.

After clearing the infected beasts, we eventually located Shiitake.

She spoke calmly, almost serenely, despite the fungi that had rooted themselves throughout her body. Whether this acceptance was born from wisdom or simply the influence of the mushrooms themselves, I cannot say.

After examining samples from Maple's grove, Shiitake reached an unsettling conclusion.

The infestation was not the work of a single species of mushroom, but rather an amalgamation of many. She believes someone intentionally combined them.

According to Shiitake, a drow had once devastated his own forest through similar experimentation. She suspects he continues those experiments even now, and that the corruption spreading through Maple's woodland is a consequence of his work.

Rather than offering an immediate solution, Shiitake requested several weeks to study the specimen further. She believes understanding the fungal amalgamation is necessary before attempting to remove it safely.

With little else to accomplish, we returned to the city, where one of Maple's associates kindly arranged our journey home through teleportation.

For now, the matter remains unresolved.

I find that... unsettling.

It is one thing to defeat a beast.

It is another entirely to know the true enemy is still somewhere in the forest, continuing their work unseen.

• Tealight