So here we are in the land of Cairn, once again. Here's last time.
The characters are up in the treetop homestead of the Bredencour family, and the trees are shaken and swaying from the intensity of the storm. Ratatosk starts making preparations to cast a spell to soothe the storm, but needs to clear the front room. Rummy starts singing and Snootabur starts cleaning, all of which help boost Ratatosk's Harmony.
Snootabur moves the bodies in the front room into one of the bedrooms, and hears the creaking of wooden beams from further into the homestead. She goes to look and finds the dryad of the tree in the workshop (the room that opens to the mined-out trunk, and in turn to the hodag's lair) standing in the room pushing on the ceiling. The roof is beginning to give out. She says that her intention is to break this place apart and let the elements have it.
Snootabur tries to talk her out of it, pointing out that the Knights are likely to die, but the dryad just kind of brushes that off ("oh, you're not going to die, stop being so dramatic"). She pushes up and the ceiling cracks, and water rushes in. Rumdiggle calls up her charm and asks the dryad to stop until the storm abates, and she agrees to that. The Knights breathe a sigh of relief, and Ratatosk casts the spell.
The storm calms, but doesn't stop entirely. The Knights go to sleep, and wake in the morning to a lighter drizzle. They confront their next issue: cleaning up the homestead so that the dryad can heal.
Rummy, Snootabur, and Russelet head down into the trunk of the tree to see if they can purify the hodag's lair. They find that the hollow in the trunk is filling up with water, and the bottom of it has some black sludge, probably residual from the hodag. Rummy digs into the bark using the Claws of the Stripefang, and makes a small hole so that the water can drain out. It carries the sludge away, and the Knights head back up into the homestead.
Meanwhile, Ratatosk goes scampering around looking for food. He finds a bunch of acorns and brings them back, and Russelet cooks for the others. The Knights decide that tomorrow they will bring the bodies down to the forest floor (along with any metal tools still left in the workshop).
The next day, the weather is colder, but the rain has dropped to a drizzle. The Knights quickly work together and fashion a woven basket and pulley to lower the bodies down. Rummy digs out a space under the tree to bury them, and Russelet collects some leaves and beetle shells to make a marker. Snoot creates a trench to draw the water away from the tree, and the Knights call down the dryad again. Her face appears in the bark, and she sleepily thanks them.
Ratatosk, noting that the hodag's body is nowhere to be seen, asks the dryad if she saw what happened to it, but the dryad falls asleep. Ratatosk figures it must not be important, and the Knights head back to Cairn.
The next day in Cairn, they wake to find a light dusting of snow. Winter has arrived. Snootabur gives the map she made to Hester Woodfolly in the Town Hall, and they decide that come spring they'll find some folks to go back to the homestead and fix it up ("no metal tools, though," insists Snootabur). The Knights settle in for winter.
Snootabur spends the winter making plans for an earthworks amphitheater. Rummy learns to knit, and spends the time doing that and composing songs. Ratatosk works in his lab, developing potions and, at least once, accidentally setting his tail on fire. Russelet gets to know Juffin Longbottom, the constable of Cairn, a very friendly and jovial groundhog.
Come spring, the citizens of Cairn emerge to find that a powerful winter storm has blown down trees around Cairn, leaving it more exposed than before. This might be something that the Knights will have to deal with, on their next adventure!
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