Continuing along the trail of the fairy rings, Rayne reached a clearing in the Blighted Woods. Trees were tightly packed at the edge of the clearing, trunks like posts and interlocking branches like meshes, fencing off a perfectly circular patch of dark bare soil about a hundred twenty feet wide, where not even a dead blade of grass, fallen leaf, or broken twig lay. For the first time in a while the clearing offered an unobstructed window to the view of the sky above, where the noon-time sun shone directly down on the bare patch. The only thing growing within the clearing was one final fairy ring in the exact middle of the circle, but every mushroom in it was of the large red variety.<br/><br/>The whole placed screamed "boss fight arena" and now seemed like a good time for any last minute preparations...<br/><br/>The moment Rayne entered the clearing proper, there was a swishing sound behind her. The good news was that it was no attack aimed at her back; the bad news was that the supposedly dead branches had shifted and sealed off the exit behind her, trapping her within the clearing. Overhead, the leafless canopy turned in on itself, interlocking and overlapping to form a dome high overhead that blocked out the sun's rays from directly striking the ground. In the shade the soil practically erupted in mushrooms of all shapes, sizes and colors, covering every square inch of ground, while the fairy ring's red mushrooms grew at supernatural speed until they were as tall as a woman, and melded together to take a distinctly humanoid form.<br/><br/>Rayne was reminded of the nymph in the forest pool, but this creature had pallid skin the dull gray color of mushroom stalks, while its hair and extremities were the red hue of mushroom caps. It had gills in the sides of its neck from which spores wafted. Though marred, its flawed beauty still possessed the nymphic power to strike onlookers blind, and only the distance between them saved Rayne from being struck blind, her eyes aching whenever she looked directly at it. But that was not all - high above at the apex of the woody dome, a shadowy shape moved, darting from shadow to shadow cast by the web of branches. Like her foes the previous night it was a being of pure darkness and shadow, only more powerful this time around.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">Fungal Nymph: initiative 14<br/>AC 23, touch 21, flat-footed 19<br/>hp 84<br/><br/>Greater Shadow: initiative 20<br/>AC 18, touch 18, flat-footed 12<br/>hp 58<br/></div></div>