Lady Teresa

Lady Teresa is a wood elf druid in the district of Sınır Sapı in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"). The elf commander Ignorr, from what the local elves told him, says that she has lived and healed there for some hundreds of years and that the people trust her. She took a human name so as not to draw notice; her elven name is not given. Her looks, which do not age as a human's do, can make life in the Empire hard.¹²

Disappearance

Through her bond with nature she was valuable to the inquiry into the sickness, for watching and for sending word outside, and her presence was kept above all from the witch hunters. She went missing, whether through sickness, capture by the hunters or something else no one knew. Ignorr showed Jonathan River on a map where she had last been seen and asked him to look for her quietly; Jonathan agreed, and no payment was spoken of.¹²³

The tree house

Jonathan and Olaf could not remember anything after setting out to find her: they woke in the cellar of a house inside the roots of a great, thick-trunked tree. Its sloping walls follow the hollows of roots and branches, at different levels, with a dining and sitting area, a kitchen, a dark bedroom and a larder; tables and chairs were broken and the bookcase scattered. Small spots of dried blood and the signs of a scuffle showed the rooms had been searched by hand, yet forty or fifty books were left; there were no bodies and no sign of slaughter. The tracks of two people led towards the town, but whose they were could not be told.⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸

Among women's clothes Jonathan found a ragged, torn and patched cloak. At a word of darkness it spreads wide enough to cover several people, and in the dark it hides whoever stays still beneath it for a minute, until they move. When he laid it on his shoulder, a face came to him like a memory: a mature woman with green hair and elven ears, her hair and clothes woven through with branches, animals and teeth. He took it for Teresa. He took the cloak, food and some cleaning tools with him, saying he would give them back if they found her. On their return Ignorr recognised the fruit tree he described.^9101112

The lost days

Their dwindling food, spoiled provisions and empty flask spoke of days gone by; the innkeeper reckoned they had been away twelve or thirteen days, Jonathan later ten to twelve. With Jonathan's consent, the old elf Ektelyon searched his memory for that span alone. He felt a resistance within that Jonathan was not making and judged it a barrier set from outside; the work was painful and brought back only fragments.^13141516

In them the two came to the house as ordinary guests and were met by someone in Teresa's shape, anxious and at times weeping. Then a second Teresa, bloodied and weary, kicked the door open; a pouch was thrown, a branch intervened, and the memory broke off. Which of the two was the true Teresa was not known. Later, looking from afar, Jonathan saw a few foxes searching the house and took them for her friends.¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹

Accounts of her

A hooded man whom Jonathan met at night passed on word that had come from Teresa's friends to her and from her to him: an imperial officer whose face no one had seen had met with the drow. The governor told that Teresa held the thing buried in the forest to be a gift of the forest spirits, and that the district would slowly decline if it were taken away.^20212223

The dwarf Fundin half remembered a drinking talk at her house seven or eight years before, about a tie between the heart of the forest and a dead fey. Ektelyon told instead of a forest spirit that had become one with the district, and of Teresa settling there to protect it. Jonathan came to suspect that a long-lived druid might put the forest before human lives.^24252627

Spoiler: What the foe said of herGösterAçık ettiği: Zincirsiz #13 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

The will that spoke through Captain Markus said that it had driven Teresa from her home for her choices and pressed her to hand over the thing it wanted.²⁸²⁹

In the forest

After another span of lost time, on a rainy night, the two came out of a rocky hollow. Olaf saw a figure talking with an animal outside; Jonathan knew her for Teresa through the eyes of his owl Bold, and mended her staff with Mending. She told them that their latest loss of memory came from the fey, whose reach sends those it does not count as friends of the forest home knowing little; there had been no attack on them. Of their first meeting at her house, she said she had explained things before; Jonathan did not remember that either.^30313233

At her whistle a very old deer came. She stroked its head, whispered in its ear and killed it with a single blow of a sharp wooden knife hardened by magic, leaving the rest of the meal to Olaf. From her bond with the animals and the way she treated them, Jonathan believed she was the true Teresa.³⁴³⁵³⁶

Spoiler: What Teresa told themGösterAçık ettiği: Zincirsiz #15 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

Teresa told them that the foe did not always go in its own shape, and had several times worn hers to deceive those who were looking for her. She thought it likely that it had been forced out of its life below, and that this had to do with its use of magic. At its first offer, she said, it had promised to use the heart only underground and do no harm above; she would not vouch for that promise.³⁷³⁸³⁹

In the forgotten meeting, she said, she had proposed that they go together to where the heart lay and win the fey to their side, and they had agreed. She had once persuaded the fey not to harm people, and judges its nature a spoiled mischief that can do harm without knowing it. She told how the foe had come along hidden animal paths to talk and to turn Jonathan against her, and had drawn away rather than fight when they attacked it together.^3640414243

She thought they might have been found by someone tracking Jonathan's bracelet, and sensed strong magic in it, but did not press him about it. She was in hiding, she said, because she herself was being sought, and being found would be dangerous.⁴⁴⁴⁵⁴⁶

She would sooner destroy the heart than let it fall to the foe, but only once flight, battle and every other hope had failed. She said openly that she cares for the people and the town's welfare, yet on her scales the forest and the heart do not weigh the same as human lives do for Jonathan. Her plan was to hide with the heart if the fey agreed, to try to protect the town while the two fought with the forest's help, and to flee with the heart if they lost. She promised to fight any fire and to warn the animals away, and told them that soldiers who had come into the forest had their minds attacked and were made to kill one another.^47484950

The water spirit

After the meal she led them along a zigzag path to a small lake, which she called the first step of the journey; its water quenches an animal's thirst for a long time. Speaking in the snakes' tongue, she went up to a giant black water snake; after they had greeted each other, it swallowed her whole and dived.^51525354

In the cave under the water she found her welcome less friendly than usual and felt unrest in the fey. She wished to study the origin of Jonathan's bracelet, but let it be when he objected. She likened the branch he carried to the things old fey give to those who serve them long under oath, things that work as compass, key and door; she did not know how long it takes to learn, but said that a master of it could reach far places and other planes, and judged that Jonathan could not. She advised him not to let it fall into evil hands, and to give it to the chain-bearers if he did not want it.^5556575859

She was the first through the opening, and told them to speak simply and literally and not to raise the tension, though not all fey are alike. She named the forest spirit Aqua: water-born, it prefers to live beneath the water. She counted Olaf's bond with another spirit an advantage, and said the snake did not usually come so far inside; its following them now might have to do with the unrest. Afterwards she was seen again on the lake shore.^6061626364

When Jonathan came back with a clear agreement, her respect for him grew, and she said she would honour it without knowing the details of the plan. She told them that the foe's attempt to master her mind at their last meeting had failed. Jonathan suggested that an animal's shape would protect her better, though he admitted it was only a feeling.^65666768

The cave

She was struck by a cave stripped of all natural life. She helped bring the fireflies Jonathan called, though they came as a handful rather than an army, and she too was shaken by the bodies they found. Asked to watch a side path, she met a drow with two swords coming out of it, in the shape of a bear; a symbol could be seen on him, but not made out. Heavy wounds ended her bear shape; she later took it again, and after a first failed attempt helped Olaf catch and bind a fleeing drow.^697071727374

When Jonathan said he had freed the prisoner in exchange for knowledge, she said she would rather he had died, but understood the wish to let the people bury their dead. She told them that the witch hunters had been ordered not to touch her, as a friend of the elves.⁷⁵⁷⁶

Spoiler: The heart passes to TeresaGösterAçık ettiği: Zincirsiz #18 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

Thanking them for freeing the forest of a great evil, she took Jonathan's hand, and with that touch the heart's power passed to her; the touch alone was enough, she said, the heart did the rest. She named them friends whom the forest would always welcome, and when Jonathan offered back the cloak and tools taken from her house, she left them with the travellers, who needed them more.⁷⁷⁷⁸