Quote from The_Summoning_Dark >>

Somewhere deep in the castle, there is the sound of loud smashing. Something heavy is being pounded on something that crunches and splatters. Inbetween the frequent blows there is the faint sound of wings flapping. 

Helianth, having visited the Keep of Painted Leaves for one last look-around, hears the commotion and searches the halls for its source.

Quote from Former_Queen_Yvonne >>

Quote from The_Summoning_Dark >>

Somewhere deep in the castle, there is the sound of loud smashing. Something heavy is being pounded on something that crunches and splatters. Inbetween the frequent blows there is the faint sound of wings flapping. 

Helianth, having visited the Keep of Painted Leaves for one last look-around, hears the commotion and searches the halls for its source.

 You follow the sound through the halls, tracing the growing echo up into a massive clocktower. As you open the door into the clock tower's mechanisms, you are greeted by a bizarre scene. A finely crafted automaton rabbit is hopping about amongst the cogs and pistons, wielding an oversized mallet above his head. Every time he lands, he swings it down with enormous force upon clusters of large eggs that lay all around the room. Thick yolk and bits of grey egg shell are splattered across his intricately shaped, metal form. His antics have stirred up a swarm of large bats that are frantically flapping about near the ceiling. 

He notices you and stops for a moment, straightening up some. "Er, hello." He looks around him and then back at you. "I'm not the Easter Bunny."

Quote from The_Summoning_Dark >>

Quote from Former_Queen_Yvonne >>

Quote from The_Summoning_Dark >>

Somewhere deep in the castle, there is the sound of loud smashing. Something heavy is being pounded on something that crunches and splatters. Inbetween the frequent blows there is the faint sound of wings flapping. 

Helianth, having visited the Keep of Painted Leaves for one last look-around, hears the commotion and searches the halls for its source.

 You follow the sound through the halls, tracing the growing echo up into a massive clocktower. As you open the door into the clock tower's mechanisms, you are greeted by a bizarre scene. A finely crafted automaton rabbit is hopping about amongst the cogs and pistons, wielding an oversized mallet above his head. Every time he lands, he swings it down with enormous force upon clusters of large eggs that lay all around the room. Thick yolk and bits of grey egg shell are splattered across his intricately shaped, metal form. His antics have stirred up a swarm of large bats that are frantically flapping about near the ceiling. 

He notices you and stops for a moment, straightening up some. "Er, hello." He looks around him and then back at you. "I'm not the Easter Bunny."

The crooked sunflower looks around the room as well, shambling the rest of the way into the chamber proper. "Hello. May I ask what you're doing?" Its flower heads look between their mallet and the eggshells. "Aside from the obvious, I mean."

Quote from Former_Queen_Yvonne >>

Quote from The_Summoning_Dark >>

 You follow the sound through the halls, tracing the growing echo up into a massive clocktower. As you open the door into the clock tower's mechanisms, you are greeted by a bizarre scene. A finely crafted automaton rabbit is hopping about amongst the cogs and pistons, wielding an oversized mallet above his head. Every time he lands, he swings it down with enormous force upon clusters of large eggs that lay all around the room. Thick yolk and bits of grey egg shell are splattered across his intricately shaped, metal form. His antics have stirred up a swarm of large bats that are frantically flapping about near the ceiling. 

He notices you and stops for a moment, straightening up some. "Er, hello." He looks around him and then back at you. "I'm not the Easter Bunny."

The crooked sunflower looks around the room as well, shambling the rest of the way into the chamber proper. "Hello. May I ask what you're doing?" Its flower heads look between their mallet and the eggshells. "Aside from the obvious, I mean."

 "Extermination. If these eggs hatch, they could destroy this entire clock and we can't have that now, can we?" He sets down the mallet and picks up an egg. "They were lain by a bejeweled monitor. Beautiful lizards but they feed on metal and this is not their larder."

outside, in the forest, something slumbers beneath the earth. it is as old as the forest. a presence that always was and always shall be. it rolls over in its sleep, causing the bed of lichen and moss and leaves to shift. an October wind blows through the grove of The Rotman.

Helianth is at the Spelljammer, running diagnostics on the ship's myriad mechanisms and enchantments to make sure everything is in working condition before they leave for the stars. It's been waiting centuries for its dream to be this close, and now the glory of the cosmos lay mere moments away- it wants everything to be perfect.

a deer runs out of the forest. it still has the velvet on its antlers. it runs for a long time before dieing on the side of the road, mushrooms and lichen already feasting on it. when passers by investigate it, its skin sloughs off, revealing clean, white, bones. a wind whispers through the trees. you think you hear something, but tell yourself you don't.