Mineas Well Revisited

[lord_wizard]

Who: Felix and anyone on the expedition
What: Exploring Mineas Well
When: November 17th-18th
Where: Mineas Well
Rating: PG

After days of walking in the dense woods, the group eventually came across a slightly grown over but clear path leading through the trees, courtesy of marked circles on the towering trees all around them. Many of the trees seems filled with some kind of strange fruit, though they seem rather grey and unappetizing to look at, and the wizard leading the group only stares at them with an frown. Those who have been here may before may recall these were once glowing tubular creatures that came alive at night. But now they seem dead, or at least dormant. Early after setting out this day, they come across a large hand-made gate, absent of any fence to connect to it, sitting just slightly ajar in the middle of the path. A sign to one side reads "PRIVATE PROPERTY: To all uninvited guests:
please ring the bell to speak to a messenger. Thank you." A cord extending from the branches above seems to indicate it leads to such a bell. After a moment of consideration, Felix pulls it, and it rings softly in the quiet. After a few long beats, nothing at all happens. Sighing, Felix pushed past the gate with a slight shove, and towards the clearing on the other side...

...and the enormous tree on the other side, many hundreds of feet tall, with several levels of tree house built into the different sections of it's branches. Unlike last time, it seems a bit to dim here. Too quiet.

EXPLORING | STAYING THE NIGHT | THE MORNING

Comments

[inafadingcrown]

Galadriel has had much the same the thought. Her journal is out and she is making notations on an older map, updating it with the these new additions.

"I wonder where she has gone- and under what circumstances."

[lord_wizard]

Felix is silent a moment. The room around them is eerie in it's peacefulness, and he's afraid to say what he believes, but it seems the only thing logical to his mind.

"She was old. I don't think she would simply pack up and go. This tree gave her power, and power isn't easily surrendered. The fact that the tree is in this state tells me she's no longer in this world. There's really only two options, in that case. Either she was killed somehow, or the castle finally sent her back home."

[inafadingcrown]

It's a concise and, to her mind, reasonable assessment. She had, in all honesty, been thinking along much the same lines.

"For her sake, I shall hope it is the latter." She's silent for a moment more, not wanting to be morbid, but feeling the need to continue. "There seems to be no sign of conflict here, at the least."

[lord_wizard]

"I'm inclined to agree. This whole place speaks of abandonment rather than a battle. And I'm sure she would have been difficult to kill here. I am more than certain she used it to protect people inside of the Dead Zone. She should have been just as capable of defending herself."

At least, from physical attack. Which only leaves him to wonder why and how the castle sent her back after so much time.

"And with her gone, the bond to the tree seems to have broken. It seems to have been a kind of partnership. Without a bond, the magic in this place seems to have withered."

[inafadingcrown]

"Would that I knew how she sustained it here to begin with. Unless we chance upon some answer in her papers, it seems we are destined to remain ignorant as to how she managed to thwart the Dead Zone."

[lord_wizard]

"The tree has more to do with that than Flora did, I am quite certain. Lente said as much to us when we spoke her. Both it and the crystal those shards came from are something of a power to rival the castles." He pointed at the table where the small pink crystals lay scattered.

[inafadingcrown]

"Oh, I do not doubt it. But it was Flora who found some way to harness that power, was it not?"

[lord_wizard]

"We can't be sure it was a quality unique to her," he said. She wasn't native to this world after all. Her presence was as circumstantial as anyone's.

"It's possible that, with her gone, someone else may be able to do as she has."