Now that Gerald has his own residence, Darelle decides it's time for her to do the same. She makes a sizable deposit with the Hellknights and uses some of the proceeds to purchase a small house worth 800 crowns three doors down from Dr. Mordel. This way she has a place to live within the walls, and can easily assist the good doctor. She still plans to stay often with her aunt, however.
Rova 6, 4711
It's been a while since they have been out hunting goblins, so Darelle and Daryle take their gear and head out of Fort Inevitable. The largest concentration of goblins is northeast of the town, but the pickings have been slim that way. The Coopers instead head out in a southwesterly direction, towards the halfling village of Dimsdale.
The hunting goes well in the morning, but by midday they've only dispatched three goblins. When the skies begin turning black, the sisters look for shelter. Rain starts to fall, and the sky turns a dark shade of green, a strange type of storm the Coopers already lived through. At the time they were near Fort Inevitable, and they had witnessed the Hellknights deploy their entire force on the walls of the town. They had heard strange noises in the woods, and had felt the ground shake on many occasions. Fearing a repeat of this phenomenon, the Coopers spring through the woods, looking for the best shelter they can find.
They quickly discover a small outcrop of large rocks piled upon each other which provide enough protection from the rain. The boulders appear to have been thrown together eons ago, with many large gaps. Darelle follows a path and emerges on the other side of the boulder pile. There she discovers the largest tree she has ever seen, stretching upward so high that the top of the tree disappears in the dark green clouds. A large fir, it is easily a hundred yards in diameters. The tree reigns by itself in a sea of raspberry bushes. It seems to rain less here than it did on the other side, so she returns and gets her sister Daryle.
When she first sees the tree, Daryle is awestruck. It is huge. But strangely, she feels there should be life around it, such as fey or nymphs. However, nothing can be seen or heard. Maybe it's the storm, or maybe something else is at work here. They carefully make their way around the shrubs, and discover a large hole at the base of the tree. Unfortunately, it will take some serious hacking to make it to the door. That's when Darelle spots a small wooden bowl with a pile of raspberries next to it. She and Daryle quickly figure out that they must make an offering, so they each place a couple of berries in the bowl, and the shrubs magically reveal a path.
At the base of the tree stands a small pool of pure silver liquid, with a trickle coming from high up above. Daryle climbs up about sixty feet and reaches a small hole made by a woodpecker. This is where the silver trickle oozes from. She collects a sample in a small vial and returns down to Darelle. She possesses a similar vial, which she collected in the sewers of Fort Inevitable during their unfortunate encounter with the silver demon.
The Coopers enter the hole in the tree and begin heading downward. The walls glisten with an effervescent green color, giving just enough light to see. Daryle spots some tracks on the ground, and the sisters follow some small humanoid foot prints through a few forks, before reaching a small room in which three small frogmen worship a wooden statue of a king frogman. Poorly dressed, and ever more poorly armed, the three are no match for the deadly sisters. Daryle discovers that the statue rotates, and a mechanism opens a door somewhere in the tree. Retracing their steps, the sisters discover that one of the dead ends has opened up.
Slowly the Coopers ascend the path, leading up inside the tree. They encounter more frogmen, but this time one of the frogmen is bigger and casts a few divine spells before running away. Eventually, the Coopers enter a room filled with raspberry bushes and more frogmen. They meet the King Frog himself, who offers them a deal, money for safety. The Coopers agree and tell the King Frog that they'll let the tribe be for 1,500 crowns. The King offers them four barrels filled with liquid silver, but Daryle tells him that's not enough. Battle ensues, and eventually all of the frogmen, including the King, are slain.
With the pungent smell of broken and bleeding dead frogmen filling the air, Darelle discovers the source of the liquid silver. A silver demon is partially embedded in the tree, and is slowly bleeding out, filling buckets. The Coopers try to kill the silver demon, but it just won't die. Daryle realizes that the tree is keeping the silver demon alive, so she makes a small offering of raspberries to the tree, and suddenly the silver demon is released and drops to the ground. It looks up at the Coopers and begs them to release it from its wretched life, which they quickly do.
When they emerge from the tree the storm has blown over. They trek south to Dimsdale, where they turn in their goblin heads as well as the King Frog's head to the Hellknights for a tidy reward. They are also informed by Dunleaf Appletop, mayor of Dimsdale, that they are invited to attend the harvest festival in a month's time. The Coopers readily accept.
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