<div class="floatright">(https://img0.etsystatic.com/050/0/6315979/il_214x170.678932170_j5b6.jpg)</div>After week of riding hard past hill and vale, the letter carefully folded in Olivia's bag has begun to tatter around the edges, but the crisp, flowing hand of Seedbringer Athia has remained legible and beautiful.  Though the scent of honey that came with a stamped bee-wax seal has faded, the urgency to her plea has only become stronger.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">My dear Olivia,<br/><br/>You know that it is difficult for me to write you, for our last time parting paths was more painful than either of us had hoped.  So you must also know how important our difficulties must be that I would write you and beg for you to come to my aid.  I have heard rumors that you are working now with the Delvers Company and between my knowledge of your piety and strength and their reputation I feel that you may be our only hope.<br/><br/>You will receive this letter ten days after I send it and coming southwest for eight days upon the Heaford road and then south through the forest for two will bring you to where we have begun our latest colony.  The land there was already lush with flora when we arrived and our hive took to it like, well, bees to honey.  Since the month ago when we arrived, we have built a small town, raising the hive quickly and consecrating a shrine to Ovara, but four days ago the land seemed to turn on us.  Plants grew with incredible speed, trees forming from the ground, flowers bouqueting.  At first, we thought it was a sign, a good omen to build our lives upon, but we fear that something terrible has happened.  Our seedbringers remain steadfast, but several of the workers we have brought with us left into the trees, likewise the woodelves of the forest have begun to act strangely, hostile and angry.<br/><br/>A red light passes through the forest during the night and just this morning it was discovered that one of our seedbringers, Zial, was gone.  Someone saw her walking into the forest after the light.<br/><br/>We don't know what is happening or what to do.  Surely Ovara would not abandon us, but our people are scared.  We are only a small community, no more than forty people before the disappearances, but I hope you will come to our call.  And I pray, above all, that when you arrive there is still a hive to protect.<br/><br/>Ever loyal,<br/>Seedbringer Athia Hochina</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>That would have been sent eighteen days ago, the runner had made good time and the Delvers set out right away.  The new colony should be only a day away or so.<br/><br/><div align="center">(https://fireinthejungle.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/forest_trees_js.png)</div><br/>The gallop down the Heaford road was largely uneventful, some merchants and farmers getting quickly out of the way for the adventuring women but this far to the southeast the new colony will be among the first communities.  Upon coming to their eighth day, however, the area to the south of them wasn't forest, it was jungle.  As Athia had described, the woods have changed and those Delvers with deep connection to nature can feel it.  Switching to walking on foot, they began to make their way through the deep jungle, bramble and vine preventing any safe passage on horseback.  The trees and plants that surround the Delvers are vibrantly alive, after breaking to eat lunch there were some plants that went from budding to flowers even, and the sheer size that much of the plant life has reached is beyond what would be possible without magical interference.  The jungle is alive with animal sounds, though only birds, squirrels, and the occasional deer is spotted through the trees, none of them the tropical sorts one might expect from this sort of place.  The air is thick, hot and moist enough to leave clothes sticking to skin, hopefully Seedbringer Athia will have cool mead when the Delvers arrive.<br/><br/>After several hours of cutting through the woods, there is a sound in the distance, a loud crashing of wood falling, branches breaking, and the sound of a woman crying out in surprise and pain.  From the sound of it, she could not be further then thirty feet ahead, after the first call out there is only the sound of songbirds above.<br/><br/><strong>Delvers, this jungle is dark and treacherous and not all who go through it are as capable as you.  What do you do?</strong>