After-Action Report (Session 9)

Location: The Great Tree and Subterranean Root System, Eastern Forests, Wildermarch

Date: Year One of the March

Subject: Re‑entry Beneath the Great Tree, Feywild Contact, and Shadowfell Incursion

I commit this report to record with steadier hands than the events themselves deserved. The Great Tree yet stands. That alone must be considered a success. But I would be remiss - and unjust - to record this mission as anything less than a warning.

We did not merely uncover corruption beneath the Tree. We interrupted a process already well underway.

The land remembers.

Initial Movement

Morning preparations proceeded without incident, though I note a growing pattern among this unit: each member sharpens themselves in response to the Wildermarch rather than retreating from it.

Thalen studies magic as a scout studies terrain - cautiously, but with hunger. Shadow refines discipline over instinct, a necessary evolution given what stalks these woods. Madam Helena’s communion through cards and craft grows more pronounced, and Kouzlo remains as methodical as ever, bracing for threats both mundane and psychic.

I conducted dawn prayers and drills as is my custom and summoned Luminor openly. There was no concealment in it. Tyr does not ask us to hide our faith - only to carry it without arrogance.

We departed mid‑morning.

Approach to the Great Tree

The river was clear. That alone gave me pause.

Corruption rarely withdraws cleanly unless forced or redirected. As we moved deeper into the forest, my Divine Sense confirmed what the silence already suggested: undeath suffused the land itself.

The sensation intensified as we approached the Tree, like pressure behind the eyes. Leaves crumbled underfoot. Sound thinned. Even the light seemed reluctant.

And yet - the Tree stood healthier than before.

Gold shimmered through bark and branch. New leaves caught the light. Whatever wound we helped close previously had begun to mend.

But Shadow’s eyes found what mine could not: a section of canopy darkened unnaturally, untouched by that renewal.

The chwingas emerged soon after. Chweech and Chwong bowed deeply, gratitude unfeigned.

Feywild Intercession

Within the Tree, the chwingas revealed a basin of gold‑sheened liquid and beckoned we drink. Kouzlo confirmed its safety. Before drinking, I etched a rune of friendship into the soil - an acknowledgment of the trust I continue to put into this friendship with the chwingas. We were guests in a place that had already given much.

The transition was immediate.

Three Eladrin manifested: Autumn Laurel, Solstice Briar, and Sun Shade. They spoke plainly and with restraint - hallmarks of truth. Madam Helena confirmed this through her art, though one thought echoed again and again from Solstice’s mind:

Shadowfell.

The Eladrin explained what the Tree truly is: an axis touching the Material Plane, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell. Direct contact between the outer planes should not occur. Ever. The Material Plane is meant to be the barrier.

That barrier is failing.

Before more could be said, the pocket collapsed. The Eladrin promised further recompense if we succeeded and faded from view.

Descent Beneath the Roots

Chweech and Chwong opened the previously sealed passage below the Tree. As roots unwound, the air grew colder. The gold etchings vanished. Water flowed deeper below.

My Divine Sense surged violently - a wave of nausea and certainty. The same undead presence from the forest, but concentrated. Focused. Weaponized.

I warned the unit to proceed with extreme caution.

The chamber beyond was wrong. Thorned branches twisted into paths above a pool that did not reflect reality, but another version of it - bleak, inverted, and stripped of life.

I faltered during the crossing. The branches reacted like living restraints, crushing and shifting. Kouzlo cut me free without hesitation. I record this without shame. Strength is meaningless if it rejects aid.

Shadow descended first. The “water” was a barrier.

Gravity inverted.

Shadowfell Engagement

When Shadow’s escape rope was severed by hostile magic, the party followed without debate. That decision likely saved his life - none of us would have chosen differently if given the chance.

The other side was a scaffold of branches suspended over a dark forest. Necromancers operated massive green crystals, channeling energy directly into the portal they’d corrupted. Piles of bone and flesh confirmed long‑term operation.

Combat was immediate and brutal.

Necromantic magic blinded me early in the engagement. I record this only because it did not matter.

“I do not need eyes to render justice.”

I summoned Luminor into that place of death and fought mounted, guided by Tyr’s will rather than sight. The party coordinated flawlessly - stunning strikes, divine force, arcane pressure. One by one, the necromancers fell.

When the last was destroyed, my Divine Sense revealed the truth:

The crystals were siphoning undead soul‑energy from something far below.

We were not sealing a breach. We were interrupting a supply line.

Destruction of the Crystals

The presence below stirred as the crystals cracked.

An undead dragon - vast, ancient, and cold beyond reason - rose in answer.

There was no debate. No valor in staying.

We destroyed the remaining crystals and fled as the portal collapsed, ice breath tearing through the space we had occupied moments before.

Escape was not clean but it was sufficient.

Aftermath

Back beneath the Tree, the chwingas emerged, embracing as the wood continued to heal. Golden light spread through the roots as more joined in restoration.

The portal remains unstable - but the immediate threat is ended.

For now.

Recovered materials include:

• A necromancer’s journal in unknown script, referencing two additional sites of interest
• A spell scroll containing Life Transference
• Golden acorns from the Great Tree, each capable of invoking Blink once
• A log of Shadowfell‑tainted wood, radiating persistent undead energy

The Fey Eladrin have since extended a formal invitation for further reward - to us, and to N.O.D.E.

Final Assessment

This was not an incursion born of chance.

Someone - or something - has learned how to press the Shadowfell against the Material Plane without shattering it outright. The Great Tree was not the target.

It was the conduit.

We stopped a catastrophe today. We did not end the threat.

Something ancient noticed the resistance.

By Tyr’s scales, it will learn what that resistance means.