Chapter 1: The Great Grain Robbery

Here and there in the wilds of the Verduran Forest, a seemingly normal plant suddenly reveals themself as a leshy, a curious little human-shaped plant crafted by a druid as a companion or minion. Sometimes, leshys outlive their druid creators, while many others are set free to live their own lives. Most of those who live in the Verduran Forest today have stories along these lines, yet recently the forest’s clusters of
leshys have seemed thinner and fewer. You are but four of these stories.

It’s hardly unusual for the leshys of Verduran to come and go as they please, but this morning it has become impossible to ignore the fact that your numbers have dwindled significantly. Many of those who remain grow fearful, and as the larger and more powerful leshys in the area, it’s your duty to protect the smaller spirits. It’s time to admit something is wrong. It’s time to investigate.

The latest vanished locals are a pair of lavender leshys who often played down by a nearby river crossing. So far, no one’s been to the river to look for clues and you have been tasked to do so as you are the closest thing the local leshys have to an authority—they and their missing companions are very delicate creatures, unable to even speak, and so can offer little assistance.

Bottlespeaker surveys the Leshy's of the Verduran Forest. The news of the missing pair disquiets him and his beloved daughter, Twinsprout seems unnerved. He commands his familiar to take are rest in his gourd, then seeks any Leshy that would have known the missing part well. Perhaps they saw something unnatural?

"...Lavender" Briarthorn grumbled as he gathered with the others. The fairly large, middle aged or older, well armored, well armed, root leshy stood with his scarred root like appendages crossed in front of his chest just below his face. Small seedpods adorned his upper half, showing through in the areas that weren't covered by his armor and weapons. The acorns hung like ornaments and as he grumbled his whole upper half shook and a creaking could be heard along with the rustling of the seedpods against his gnarled bark.

"Probably out rubbing up against things making things smell fresh and clean"

Popcorn grumbles as she adjusts her grip on her flail. The snapdragon leshy wears a perpetual scowl on her face. "Whatever the case, we’re not going to find out just standing around here. Let’s go!"

She leads the way toward the river crossing.

Reaching Rings was meditating near the base of a tree. To most, they would have looked like a giant blue mushroom, and would pass by. That suited them fine, as when deep in thought, they preferred not to be bothered. Besides, the missing Leshy were trouble enough for now. As much as the mysteries of the universe needed contemplation, family, as it were, comes first.
They stood up, not that much taller then when they were sitting, and spoke; "I agree with popcorn. 'Failing is hard, but 'tis worse never to try'. If we have no clues to follow, we should simply start moving."

The river’s rapid flow makes it difficult for lightweight creatures like leshys to cross. Normally, swimming isn’t required, however. In her youth, Popcorn found herself at a loss at this very spot when the sprites she enjoyed playing with flew across the water with ease and taunted her from the far side. Though there was little she could do that day other than fume in rage, Popcorn returned the next morning and used vines and fallen branches to build a leshy-sized rope bridge strung between a pair of trees on opposite banks.
In the years since, many local leshys have learned of the rope bridge and come to appreciate its convenience, and particularly enjoyed using the bridge as a sort of swing to sit on and sway back and forth over the river.

When you arrive at the river you see Popcorn’s carefully crafted handiwork lies in ruins. All that remains of the rope bridge are fragments of vines hanging from the trees on both banks.

Briarthorn looked at the rope bridge in tattered ruins and uttered a low sound like bark scraping on bark, "What a waste." he then turned to Popcorn, "You build a fine bridge lass, this type of malice has no place here" he then looked back to the area around bridge. He began to look at the ground trying to find some hint as to what might have happened here, a scuffle, a storm, something destroyed this bridge. Then there was the missing leshy's, was he able to spot tracks from their tiny fine footed roots?

"No! My beautiful bridge!" Popcorn fumes. Her eyes go red, and fire crackles around her body briefly before she gets control of her rage.

"Whoever did this is gonna be in for a world of hurt," the snapdragon leshy promises. She looks around for any clues as to who the perpetrators might have been.

"Violence will not get the bridge back" Bottlespeaker calmly chimes. "Come Twinsprout, lets take a closer look at the tree that bore the bridge" the gourd leshy says are he approach the tree on the closest bank, intently looking at it and the broken vines.

Reaching Rings doesn't say anything, they rarely find they have anything to add to most conversations anyway. They know their next step is crossing the river, so they work toward that goal, and start searching for materials to build a suitable replacement.

Briarthorn the Roothless examins the damage on the bridge and determines conclusively that the vines didn’t snap on their own; they were cut deliberately with a sharp knife.

Bottlespeaker notices a scattering of tiny purple flowers amid the gravel on the bank. He identifies them as lavender flowers.Popcorn examins the far muddy bank and finds footprints of a Medium-sized, bipedal creature who wears shoes in the mud, appearing to emerge from the river and then lead up the opposite embankment.

Reaching Rings begines to sort out the bridge support and with time (and some wet feet) the bridge can be repaired.

"The destruction of the bridge was done by a blade, those two Lavenders may well have found trouble."

"A lavender Leshy was here" Bottlespeaker announces to the others. "Come little one help my find where these Lavenders went off too" he whispers as he pulls Twinsprout from her gourd nest. "hurry!" Twinsprout chirps as she vigorously starts to collect tiny purple flowers.

"Grrargh," Popcorn growls as she moves to follow her fellow leshys.

After you cross the river, you follow the footprints and the occasional lavender flower. After an hour of tracking you come to a small clearing in the forest in which sits a recently used but currently unoccupied campsite.

Up in the branches, you notice Glimmer the fairy.
She waves at you when you see her, then she tosses a seedback down to popcorns's feet before fluttering down.
Hey guys what are you doing?
Why do you have mud on your feet?
What is that little thing? She points to Bottlespeaker's familiar
Can I play with it?
Why do you carry a stick around?
The rapid fire questions continue

"ughhh" Briarthorn groaned at the onslaught of questions from Glimmer the fairy. "We are trying to find the lavender Leshys that have gone missing. Have you seen anything?"

Popcorn peers up at the playful pixie. Glimmer is the one who gave the leshy her nickname.

"No time for games, Glimmer. Tell us what you know about them, or the people who wrecked my bridge!"

"Abrasive like a thornbush" Bottlespeaker quietly mutters, as he motions to Twinsprout to come closer to him. Looking up at the fairy he asserts "We can't play now, we need to find our missing friends. If you help us find them we can come back and play later."

You prooomis?! Why are your friends? Not that big man who made camp here? He was not nice!
Can we play catch?
Or Sports? She grins. Do leshy do sports? Or do you just grow?
Reaching Rings knows that in the summertime big humans come to the meadow to do sports. It is almost always a rough and fair one and by the end of it, they have shed all their colourful bark and just lie contentful in the grass. He still havent figured out why they need to make all that sport before they can enjoy the grass, but it might have something to do with the sap rough one makes.

When you push Glimmer for more infomation she continues to describes the camp’s occupant as a human man with shiny teeth, messy red hair, a green and yellow outfit, and muddy boots. When she arrived, he’d just finished yelling at a squirming burlap sack to "Be quiet or I’ll throw more than your toys in the fire!" The sack went still after that, and the man enjoyed his lunch in peace. Glimmer watched for a bit but didn’t confront the man; she then grew bored when he took too long, so she settled in on her tree branch for a nap.

"We do promise to come back and play, though little Leshies only can play gentle games" Bottlespeaker replies. After Glimmer provides the information Bottlespeaker asks with quiet anger "Can you take us to this camp? We urgently need to ... hmm, play a game with him"