Elarwyn did not offer Dayat the luxury of a slow morning. He hadn't even had the chance to brew the last packet of instant coffee hidden in his tactical pack before the world came knocking. Just as the orange sun began to crawl behind the suffocating curtain of yellow spore-fog, four guards clad in polished Sandalwood-Ironwood armor were already standing outside his makeshift shack.
They hadn't come to offer gratitude for the few Manaferum Sativa sprouts that had begun to reclaim their green luster. Instead, they had come to escort him to The Hall of Wood-Echo.
An emergency session had been convened by the Council of Elders. The charges were heavy, whispered through the boughs with a chilling weight: desecration of the sacred roots and the deployment of forbidden substances deemed toxic to the very soul of the World Tree.
