[LOCKED LOCATION] The Druidic Grove

[Fox]

After heading North for sometime in the Naturan wilderness, a traveller would find themselves breaking into a clearing... the skeletal ghosts of the past season’s living leaves now the dead carpet for the forest floor, which was largely unseen beneath the growth of the lush grasses, rustling in the breathless way of old leaf-fall. These fragrant wild grasses bent and released their spicy aromas into the clear air... and muted sunlight, stained golden green by its passage through the thinner leaves in some places, filtered down into the small, hushed glade.

This place held such an ethereal and yet earthy beauty that it almost seemed to have been birthed from the imagination of some rather lyrical poet, since by rights no place in any given forest ought to be this perfect, this free of weeds and bird droppings and animal scat and, oddly enough, there were no footprints either. Real forests, after all, the real tangled snarling dark forests floored with leaf-mould only had damp, scratching bracken and endless slightly musty trees to offer an Adventurer… they usually didn’t have secluded little gem-like glens hidden by the arms of ivy and the bodies and arms of the sentient, ever-listening trees. Nor did the usual groves and glades have a small ring of standing-stones, snowy white under their growths of lacy silver-green lichen, a faint glow as if of reflected moonlight pouring off them

The rushy glen merely lay there, looking like a terribly beautiful piece of reality… there was downy moss near the brook and pool with it’s myriad of feathery green fronds interweaving in a dense mat across the aromatic, loamy-dark earth, and where there was grass there were a few tiny little white flowers growing in little patches as if Faeries had sat there the previous night for a bit of gossip, their petals peeking out shyly from their buds to greet the dappled sunlight that reached them through the latticework of interlocking branches and leaves crafted over the decades by the trees above and around. Those selfsame trees seemed to almost be on the verge of walking, or turning around and talking… and they certainly gave off the impression of listening so intently that the skin of any traveller would tingle… within the Henge of glowing stones, everything seemed more aware, more sentient.

There was even a small pool, the production of a spring that, if you traced the flow of water through the ferns just to the right, came from further upstream, the path of the stream itself hidden by the bulk of trees. This pool was the sort of sandy-bottomed little pond that you might expect to find in the mountains, crystalline in it’s sweet purity, shining with the soft warm rays of the sun or speared with the cold light of the moon streaming down in silvery motes, although if the eye concentrated hard enough, it looked almost as if there was pale fireflies of pure energy, as small as a grain of sand, rising up and into the air… absolute perfection… and it rested here like a jewel on the velvet of time, just waiting for someone to stumble upon it, or for those who knew the path to walk through the large white Henge-Stones into this place of peace and tranquil whispers of trees.

One of Natura's best-kept secrets was barely in view through a shroud of flower-laden vines, the small well from which the Spring-water bubbled up and out into the streams all over Natura was privacy incarnate, ebbing and flowing with the essence of life, walled in by life-magic from the curious footsteps of the uninitiated. This barrier could not be crossed unless the way was led by the Archdruidess herself… the source of the Spring, the Tears of Carmelya. This is where the secrets of nature arcana were taught, the ancient discipline of druidism. It also served as a meeting place, where each and every druid can gather to converse and meditate. Loosely scattered about, barely visible through the barring trees, were snowy marble benches for this purpose, placed so as to make them almost blend in with the scenery. And there was a small twinkle of water beyond that… the Spring of Tears itself, the waters bubbling up to form the Pool in the clearing outside the Grove.

ooc: You are not allowed to walk up to the Spring’s Source proper unless you are led in by Dhwae... but it is in this thread that you can seek training. You cannot get through the vines; so don’t try. You cannot drink the water; so again, don’t try.

This location is permanently locked. If you have reason to post at this location please begin a new thread with [Druidic Grove] in front of the title. Please note that you must first post in the Moderation Needs thread as this is a moderated location

Originally written by Niobe, tweaked by Nimh and minor minor tweaks by me!