Catching up on the story…

A lot has happened, and the chronicles of the story have fallen behind. 2020 was an insane year, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2021 continues to follow by example. Some sessions were skipped, for various reasons including illness. That sucked. Let's get caught up…
– The DM

Highwall

• Leo faced down with his old friend, Val, whom he had previously crippled in a fit of rage. The two eventually came to a balanced agreement on their views of the world...or at least as balanced as a calamitous berserker and disabled martial artist can manage.
• Lucy found himself near pissing with fear at the sound of a call he had not heard in a lifetime, and one that went largely unnoticed to his friends.
• The Chamber Maid reasoned with General Cerridan, who agreed to return to Alderheart to stand trial and make her case for the good of the wood after it was revealed that she had only directed her forces to steal supplies to aid refugees...Further crimes were the doing of her former Lieutenant, Krall, who now fancies himself "The Scavenger King," and continues to wreak havoc on travelers and unfortified perches.
• The fires are not the work of the banditry

Return to Alderheart

• On the way down from Highwall, Yarrow's dreams trapped the party within a test set by the Amaranthine of Storms, Altus the Enduring, his presence most keenly felt in the mountains he pulled from the land itself.
• The party opted to sneak General Cerridan into Alderheart by means of an elaborate disguise - That of Billingsley's old instructor, the legendary Ihlrune Farlana, finest swordsman in all the Wood. They planned a grand parade and spread word throughout society high and low...ultimately their plan worked a little too well.
• During their preparations for Cerridan's audience with the council, it was revealed that Billingsley's mother was accused of having had an illicit affair with Farlana.
• On meeting the council, a Gate opened, and out stepped Treekeeper Janily of the Everchanging Sky, Ihlrune, and Shireen, a Vulpin Cleric of Hath. The grand preparations had alarmed the Tenders, who were afraid that their Treekeeper, off searching for answers on entirely separate planes of existence, was missing her bodyguard and companion, Ihlrune, and the trio had temporarily returned to sort the matter out.
• The Birdfolk Council was dissolved, Cerridan was impressed into the service of the Tenders for her actual and admitted crimes, rather than being put to death for the crimes of which she and her coalition were not guilty, and the Chamber Maid were tasked with helping spread word and appoint new councils members for a more balanced Humblefolk Council.
• Janily revealed to the party that the great calamity which created The Scorched Grove was the result of an unbalancing of nature itself which had wiped treants from the face of the wood and destroyed the grove. She and her companions seek to find reasoning and solutions in other realms, and expect the next incursion into the prime material plane to occur just weeks in the future at the most.
• Shireen, noticing an oddness, determined that Yarrow's memories had been cruelly modified by magic...while the trickster priest was able to lift the curse, only time will tell if introspection and care will return the lost memories...Memories which already fail to match the ones Yarrow still has in her possession...like why there are missing pages in her journal that she never remembers not having written.

Repaying a Debt

• Cathus Gright, the fence and adoptive father of Finnan Softpad, requested that the party assist him with a shakedown racket being run by Aster the Thorn, a nasty Hedge bandit under Krall's banner.
• The party tracked Aster's lackies to a small farm on the outskirts of Brackenmill's vast expanse of subsidiary farms, and defeated him. The farm, Gaspardian Gourds, was found to produce a delightful pumpkin beverage, and a trade agreement was struck. Before being called back to Alderheart, it was revealed that news of the upheaval had not yet spread to outer perches, and the sole surviving bandit, Moira, admitted to having sold out Durbin and Liann Softpad as a spurned lover.
• It appears that Krall has set up camp in a ruined town far to the north; a town only bearing the memory of a mark on Lucy's maps; a place he seems reluctant to go, and referred to only as Stonemoss. Further, Krall has a full platoon at his command, and may have tamed several fearsome local beasts.
• On the return trip, a galloping Vulpin rider bearing a new banner and insignia, "The Wood's Brigade," sped past the encamped party.

Planning Ahead