As the Wardens of Burden ferried their precious and dangerous cargo, the Arboreal Wellspring, back to the Stormvault, they encountered Wildercorps on their journey. The mortal soldiers explained that they were searching the forest for missing citizens from Hammer’s End. Tcimmera offered to take her Lightning Echelon and join the Wildercorps in their investigation, leaving Bartheliman with a Thunderwave Echelon to take the Arboreal Wellspring onto the Stormvault.
As the two forces split up, neither knew that they were being watched, or were dancing to a tune they couldn’t hear.
Some hours afterwards, Bartheliman’s detachment came under attack from the trees themselves. Sylvaneth leapt from the branches and undergrowth, steely-taloned limbs reaching to rip apart the Stormcast. Bartheliman tried entreating with those he considered allies, but the Spite-Revenants ignored him and only redoubled their efforts to rip the nullstone lockbox from his grasp.
A massive Branchwraith, empowered by Jade magic beyond anything Bartheliman had seen, leered out from between the leaves, anticipating reclaiming the Arboreal Wellspring. No offer of clemency was given in exchange for the artefact; perhaps the Sylvaneth knew that the Stormcast would prefer to die than surrender such a powerful artefact, or they simply relished their murder. In the face of their insane assault, Bartheliman grimly opened up his Warding Lantern, shining the light of a star across the glade. The holy energies of the lantern barely phased the Sylvaneth, but it wasn’t for them that Bartheliman had opened it.
Soon after, Tcimmera and her Lightning Echelon thundered onto the battlefield. Luckily for Bartheliman and the Thunderwave Echelon, Ticmmera and the Wildercorps had discovered the missing citizens of Hammer’s End; they had been slaughtered by the Spite-Revenants, deliberately so to split up the Wardens of Burden. Tcimmera and Ahvria had been aflight when Bartheliman opened up his Lantern, and so led her Lightning Echelon straight to him. Upon witnessing the cruel fate of Hammer’s End folk, Tcimmera felt little inclination towards mercy.
The battle opened up with a rapid assault upon the Sylvaneth force by the Wardens of Burden, destroying or forcing away a third of the enemy along with their leader. The surviving two-thirds of the Sylvaneth quickly switched tactics and attempted to drag down the Stormcast with hit-and-run tactics. They grievously injured a few Stormcast and Dracoths, but eventually the Wardens caught up with them and sent them running into the forest’s depths, the Arboreal Wellspring denied to them.
Ahvria’s sudden and fortuitous return to his original Stardrake body after being reborn as a Dracoth at the start of the campaign was a mystery, put down to the ineffable properties of the Arboreal Wellspring. Despite the unexpected boon, the Tcimmera was not tempted away from her original mission, and ensured that Bartheliman returned the artefact to its proper prison.
