Field Research Journal Entry 30: Circle of the Mango

We headed out to the circle we found on our last mission to further investigate it. When we arrived we were approached by two men of nature. The first was a younger boy named  Darrel who began speaking to us as we inspected teh trees that were planted in a circle. After a few question an older man came to talk to us named Roland. He was more serious and wondering our intentions and mention he and Darrel are from teh Circle of the Mango. A druid circle that moved west due to the gnolls and kobolds over taking the east. When he realized we knew about the invasive species of plants  growing near the road he apologized for being the one who caused it. They were trying to strengthen their bond to these woods and then their Focus was stolen and they needed it back to preform the rituals to stop the spreading growth. He warned us of a mixture of bandits that had recently left the Ishah Plains due to more gnoll and kobold activity. These bandits were the ones with the focus. We told him we would make an attempt to return it and he thanked us as we parted ways. Traveling towards the woods

As we slept the first night we met up with another member of the Circle of the Mango named Melona who was tracking these mechanical creatures (same kind that came to our camp) that are trapping smaller species of animals. She asked us to look into it, but we already had one task to do and felt the need to take care of that one outweighed this one.

Before we met Melona we hada run in with a thing that fired a net out of its chest at Twee.  He came to our camp trying to catch a deer and scared it away and changed target to Twee. As a team we brought this metal creature down but on its final tick of gears it exploded burning all of those around it. Apparently there is more of these things south of the Silent Woods and the Circle of the Mango is looking for help with them.

We followed Roland’s direction and soon founda camp of a couple men cooking some food. As we approached the men got pretty defensive and then some arrows came at us as an alarm spell was tripped. We moved into battle and from the woods came some ratfolk and druid. We fought down the druid from his bear form and took out the men and the ratfolk. The druid did escape into the trees. We rested the night and headed towards the cave the Circle of the Mango told us about.

Reaching the cave we found the “Bandits” ready for us as they have summoned an earth elemental to block the entrance. We took care of that and then the paid bandits were firing crossbow bolts at us.

After clearing the way we found the druid and some sort of blood mage. The druid eventually escaped our grasp, but we did kill the mage and reclaim the druidic focus. The druids met us when we left the hideout and told us that the blood mage was enhancing his abilities through their focus. His ability to heal himself using our blood was insanely strong magic I had not witnessed before. 

On the way home traveling through the woods we saw this massive tree walking through the Silent Woods. GarGot told us it is an ancient protector and we assumed that it could be quite deadly towards us if we angered it. Of course gargot wanted to fight it… what doesn’t he want to fight though. We left it to its patrols and hurried home to Ruined Oak.