Interlude: Interrupted Festivities
You are Iru Mistyglitters, the Druid of the Red Wind of Spikes, a minor outpost of the flourishing Elven Civilization of the Rooted Seas. Around you the Red Wind Great Tree is resounding with the wild revelry of your fellow elves, the highly popular Spring Festival in full swing. Celebrating the rebirth of life after the chill of winter, you'd be hard-pressed to find an elf who was not attending, even the rangers at the borders had been given leave to join the merriment. Elves gyrate wildly to the beating thrum of the music, strawberry wine flowing freely. Many are dressed in their finest for the festival, homemade ropereed clothing competing with imported giant cave spider silk. A rare few of the particularly aged and extremely wealthy even sport the much coveted sunbeam dresses, made by the mad craftsman Zuntir Obokum of Doomcusps, before the tragedy that caused the loss of the
Jeweled Clasps of Remembrance. Indeed, you yourself even have the privilege of wearing the unique artifact that started her career in fashion, the
Gross Incandescence of Shame, which has been the source of much envy among your peers. You forget what the original name in their barbaric language is but that is the mostly accurate translation.
Until moments ago, you were fully enjoying the festivities like your fellows, indeed, as you maintain your meditative posture in a tiny alcove, your still hold your goblet of Sunshine in hand. You participation in the festivities had been rudely interrupted when your raven familiar, who dislikes large elven gathering such as the Spring Festival, gave you a grim mental report. He had just overheard a kobold telling one of the holy Dryad sisters that the dwarves had begun clearcutting the forest!
You fume at their temerity. The nearby fortress, Crystal of Labors, had been established less than a decade ago in the local volcano, and up till now they had seemed to obey your tree quotas more or less, seemingly focused on one of those bizarre megaprojects of their race, pumping a massive stream of lava into the sea, forming a obsidian land bridge to the mainland. Now it seems they had taken advantage of the Elves' preoccupation with the Spring Festival to begin a pre-emptive assault on the forests of the island!
Rage boiling, you begin gathering together natural energies for a vast druidic ritual, mentally calling out to your apprentices to come to your assistance. Yes, this ritual would most certai-
Interlude Ends