The Angry Clouds

Black could forms on the sky above the River that separates shadowdale Woods from the Fox Ridge. It blocks the Sunlight, creating shadows bellow. Winds follow this change in the weather, making the trees to "dance", grass to wave, and they disturb the waters of the river. A woman in green could be seen walking through the Fox Ridge, and blood drops from her spear. The gnolls attack her, but fully warded witch of this chaotic nature has no problem to defend from gnoll scouts. With almost perfect zest of her spear, the oyster enters the mouth of a gnoll and exits on the other side, sending the heavy drops of gnolls blood to the red grass. As she quickly pulls her spear out of the gnoll's head and the blood spatters towards her, with a single wave of her hand, with the strong wind she sends the coming blood away from her, as she obviously cares to not be that dirty. A melody comes from her closed mouth, as her throat begins a quite and peaceful song that lures few drops of rain from the cloud. But after few moments she suddenly opens her mouth and unleashes a powerful scream that perfectly fits within her song and with the weather, the scream that triggers a first thunderstrike in the coming storm. It sounds echoes powerfully through the open space on the land. The winds become stronger, the rain becomes heavier. The woman places her spear on back, and obviously angry, focuses her rage towards the enemies of dryads, the gnolls. She attacks them unarmed, weapons are obviously not needed for her. Her fist and foot attacks deal storm damage to the gnolls, she is skilled enough to even disarm them barehanded. As she moves from one gnoll scout to another, she spins around herself like a ballerina, creating winds around herself that raise dirt from the ground, and as she strikes the dogmen enemies, she adds another elemental damage of air and cold wind to her attacks. The number of gnolls she killed is very small, but the way she killed them looks like a it was done by the feral dangerous beauty of the dancing moves and song of the chaos. The woman that some can recognize as one of the Lyons moves to the highest point of the Fox Ridge, and continues to summon thunder strikes and heavy cold winds upon the land around herself. If any gnoll would come closer to attack her, she would raise her hand towards the dark cloud and summon electrical energy from it to her hand, that would would channel through her body into her other hand, from where she release this energy and shoot storm bolts at the hostiles. She breaks the balance of the nature, but she only represent another form of the nature. "I could not find you in the grove, druids of the circle, and Mushrooms don't know where you are either. But now you know where I am, so you can find me instead." She speaks to herself as she waits to see if anyone will approach.

Approved by Dm Kraneia

As she sees a big gray wolf to approach the storm, at first she suspect it is just a random animal. She is unable to see through the shapeshift abilities and magic, but she created all this performance with goal to lure druids, thus she suspects that if the wolf observes her, he could be one of them, as normal wolves would probably find place to hide to not get all wet. When she sees that her audience grows with another man by the Ranger's Camp, she decides to raise her performance on a whole new level. As she dances she claps with her hands to create winds on the cloud above her. The winds make a hole in the cloud, allowing sun to break through it and shine Maya's dancing scene, while the space around her remains in the cloud's shadow. She plants her spear in the ground, and starts to dance around it, as the wind plays with her long blonde hair, and rain falls over her face. Full with confidence and longing for cool waters, this rain is exactly what she needs, she starts to sing with smile on her face, as the wind and rain play the background music of this chaotic nature. She believes that there would be rare people who would find this performance beautiful and fun, and only those like herself may truly enjoy this freedom. Her emotions change quickly, as the melody in her voice becomes almost instantly aggressive, and it calls for lighting that strikes more than once in a same spot next to her or to any nearby gnoll that would come close. And so she continues to enjoy creating the chaos with music and dangerous natural phenomena together, with goal to bring more druids to have a serious word with, as much as serious could Maya Lyon be. She will stop eventually, when she gets tired, and if none comes, her opinion will be formed in advance. But at least her performance will not be for nothing, she clearly surrendered fully to its joy.

Seeing the sudden change in the weather, Leo enters the woods and searches for the source, as this storm looked too familiar. Once he sees his sister Maya doing her thing on the top of the Fox Ridge, he facepalms: "Not this again." He walks up the hill towards her, and even if he usually loves to be on rain, he dislikes a rainstorm and so he sounds annoyed: "Maya, what are you doing? This is not the place for your performance. Not to mention a dangerous one with high level of magic. We both know how clumsy you are even with simple spells. You can hurt someone who is not a gnoll." He then glances from the top to see what became of the place nearby, and wonders if Maya can even hear him from these winds. He raises tone in his voice for a bit to be sure that she can hear him: "We don't want to anger spirits of this place. Can you please stop all this so we can talk!? If you make the wind too strong it can break the branches of the trees."

"Ah Leo, brother! Come dance with me!" Maya happily runs towards Leo and takes him for both hands and playfully starts to jump trying to force him into the dance. "Don't worry it will not last long. Best things never last long. You should enjoy it! It's beautiful. I am just trying to summon druids of the circle because I did not find them in the grove, you have the powerful throat, maybe you can help? But I think they will not respond to this disturbance in the balance, they don't care much for it, so the least thing we can do is to give in to our nature! Come!"

Leo allows to his sister to drag him to the "stage" but he does not dance. At least while he is here he can observe and react on time if something goes wrong, instead to leave Maya alone to do who knows what. "Alright. I think I heard a disturbing wolf howl from somewhere. If we are trying to get attention of druids I will try with ... your suggestion. But then you have to tell me why are we doing this. Why do you want to meet with druids at all?" Leo looks around the place again and whispers some words on sylvan, which covers him in storm and wind. He tries to melt with the weather by covering himself with storm avatar. After that he climbs on a nearby tree, and for a moment a smile escapes from his face, as this event for a moment becomes enjoyable and fun even for him. Even if he is more mature and reasonable, he is a one of Lyons after all, it would be unnatural to try and be something he isn't. Once he has perfect position on the tree on the highest ground in Fox Ridge, his throat begins to work as well. He opens his mouth as powerful roar leaves it, and makes his jaw tremble. The sound can be recognizable to nature walkers as a specific roar of the Talisid Lions, much more stronger than a spell similar to it. A holy word is in it, and it has nothing to do with Maya's music in the storm, it does not match, and its outstanding from it. When the roar ends, Leo jumps from the tree and walks to Maya. "There. If they don't answer to this, they will not answer to any of our calls. The circle here only acts when damage is made, they are not known for acting in advance to prevent damage, so don't be much surprised if not even single member of the circle shows. And we are not here to damage nature. Can you please end the storm now and explain the true reason behind it, beside being .. um .. beautiful and enjoyable?"

"Well ... when you put it that way ..." Maya ends her performance, and the weather starts to return to normal. Black cloud fades, and then shadow cast on the land disappears. It is sunny again, without winds. "I don't know is it my place to tell you, I see that Mylanis did not tell you anything." She takes a deep breath: "Do you not know why there are no druids upon this land? Obviously. All the druids that came to vote against you so the druids can take the control over the grove? They are not here, they left, they served their purpose to give leadership to that gnome and her very cute bunny. Lhanir confirmed this, apparently she is now the "arch-druid" of the circle and she said that they left to travel away from the circle." Maya then avoids to look in directly in eyes of her older brother and looks down the hill as she expects for someone to come. "I wish Mylanis was here to tell how is so called "circle" making treaties with Zhentarim, who are guess what, creators of undead. I mean I am not even a druid and I have to teach the arch-druid Lhanir what a druid should do. How can she not know the basic cycle of nature that all druids of all faiths follow? So I who is not a druid have to come and teach them. We left because we are not druids so they can have a traditional druidic circle and look what it became, it bows before Bane. There is birth, growth, death, rebirth. The undead are enemies of the life, they break this cycle. And anyone who summons them or creates them is acting against any druid, be it the circle or not. And even after they, you know, make treaty, the Zhentarim, as they have done it countless times with the circle in past, break it, as they are incapable of standing behind their words, Zhetarim are liars, they always were. The victim from all this was of course Mylanis, and even when she chose to stand with them when you offered her hand to come with you, when you know, they allowed furies in the grove, the circle does nothing to save Mylanis, because of her last name Lyon. I know that Mylanis loves you, it is why I tell people to eat Mushrooms so they don't get infected with the Age of Eyeless Men, but I think that she was infected by this curse of the Black Horses, and that is why she was blind and made wrong decision to leave your side and stand with the druid circle, who in return leave her to root in zhentarim cage because she still loves you. This is the only logical explanation." Maya looks at Iwean with sad eyes, not even capable to greet him respectfully as Iwean deserves after all they went through together in war against gnolls. She is focused on this conversation and all her words are filled with emotions, anger and sadness and disappointment in the circle, especially the gnome that she personally liked the most. "There is no circle here Leo, it is broken, druids do the same thing again as they did in past, they abandon it. What does it tell about them if they allow their own members in circle to be caged? They sit on different chairs, they do not form a circle. They are not even here to see this storm at least, that is how much they care for the nature."

Hearing that Mylanis was victim of something, Leo grabs Maya for her shoulder, almost harshly as he becomes deadly serious and worried: "What are you saying Maya? Where is Mylanis, is she alright?" Leo asks his sister with a disturbed sound in his voice. He knows that beneath all the insanity that Maya can radiate, somewhere deep there can be truth that needs to be dug up to the surface. And Leo knows well that that process can be very long and annoying.

Maya nods many times to assure Leo that his wife is fine now: "Yes yes yes, she is well now. I found out all this from the conversation between her and Lhanir. Lhanir was the only person in the circle who tried to do something for her. But she didn't do anything as a fellow druid and sister of the circle for Mylanis. She was going to just chit-chat with Zhentarim, and that is all what she did. I mean how stupid can she be, or blind, to not realize that the history with zhentarim just repeats over and over again, and that diplomacy will never work and will always fail. Hmmm ... maybe she is infected with the Age of Eyeless Men too? This would be the third female affected by this curse ... Black horses probably found the way to infect females now with male curse. Oh this starts to be very serious? That means that Lhanir was a victim too." Maya ponders.

Coming to himself as he hears that Mylanis is fine, Leo stars to walk nervous from one side to other. "This does not make any sense. I know Lhanir, she is a druidess from who you can learn more about the nature. She helped us with the ritual to remove the blight from this land and the grove. She is not one of those druids who suddenly appeared to vote for Cejari and then disappeared who knows where, she was with the grove and circle before that, and after that she still is, I saw her couple of weeks ago. She saved my spirit once from the claws of Zhentarim. She isn't the one who would turn her back on other druid like this. Are you sure you know what you are saying? This isn't some dream you had, like for the example that time when you were accusing Attis for stealing birds from your dreams? Can Mylanis confirm this? We were together, she didn't say anything." Maya's words were too much for him to take. It was like a thunder strike from a clear sky. He starts to defend Lhanir.

"It's real Leo! I am not crazy, stop asking me questions like that. Just because the birds were in my dreams it does not mean that it is ok for someone to steal them!" Frowns. "And yes, Mylanis can confirm what I said, but I can't believe that you don't believe me again. You know I am the one who is eating the Mushrooms, I am not the blind one here." When she sees Blood Panther moving around them she panics and hides behind Leo. "Ah I did not see it! Is it one of them, of the druids?" And when new cloud forms by someone else, Maya starts to wonder is her storm actually still active. Once she realizes it is not herself, she states to be innocent to Leo before his another wave of questions: "No that isn't me doing. I stopped."

Leo looks at the panther and then at Iwean. He remembers what Iwean did last time they were here together. "You are not here to shoot me in back again Iwean, are you? Is that pet one of yours?" He motions towards the panther, still wondering why would Maya hide from it, he thought she likes all the cats. Leo then casts True Seeing on himself and Maya to be able to see real forms of beings, to be sure is that some sort of druid or a shapechanger, or was it just an animal. Panthers are not known to live in this location, unless they walk along side of a forestwallker. Leo still does not get chance to properly examine the other cloud and its storm.

"Let's see if anyone came around." Leo suggest Maya to get down from the hill, as he was not able to figure out what the blood panther's goal was, so he leaves it be. He makes his way towards the river close to the Ranger Camp, and on the way meets with the figure of the broken woman who uses stick to keep her balance. He approaches to her and wonders if she is alright. "Miss, is everything okay?" Leo examines the woman to see if she is wounded or old or simply tired of something. But now, when closer to the river, Leo spots Aranion (treant form?) in the river, wondering what is he doing there and is he alright too. This storm that ended could have made some consequences, if not on the land, then on the people who were on it. As soon he would see if he can help the woman any way he could, Leo would make his way further down the hill and offer help to Aranion to get out of the river.