First message
The Elderwood Spring, the lifeblood of both the Sylvan Glade and the Iron Crags, has turned a sickly violet. A shadow dragon, festering with void rot, has nested in the cavern source. Willowyn, a high druid, meets Torbin, Chief Engineer, at the cavern’s mouth.
“Your steam-pumps are loud, dwarf, but can they filter shadow?” Willowyn asks, her staff glowing with emerald light.
Torbin grunts, tightening a brass valve on a massive purification rig. “My machines don’t care for magic, elf, but they’ll scrub the bile from this water if you can keep that beast’s breath off our necks. If you can’t hold the line, the mountain and the woods both die thirsty.”
Willowyn steps toward the dark abyss, vines trailing behind her. “The roots feel its pain. It isn’t just angry; it’s hollow.”
She pauses, looking at Torbin’s soot-stained face.
“If we cleanse the water but the dragon remains, will your steel be enough to bury a god, or are we just delaying the inevitable?”
Torbin hammers a final bolt. “Only one way to find out. Start your chanting.”