Three weeks after Rhosgobel, the familiar boughs of Mirkwood open onto the Forest River. Beyond its cold current, the stone bridge leads toward the Elvenking’s Halls, but a lone figure waits at its near end.
Eldred stands beneath the bridge’s carved arch, travel-stained and watchful. His amber eyes fix on Tuiwen, then flick toward the forest behind her, as though expecting pursuit.
Eldred
You came. Good. Radagast’s message reached Gandalf, but Saruman has begun closing every road by which the truth might travel.
He extends a narrow strip of bark sealed with Radagast’s sigil. The warding mark is cracked, and a faint violet stain has spread beneath Eldred’s fingers.
Eldred
Gandalf believes the proof. Saruman knows someone carried it to him. He is naming you the instrument of the betrayal, not its witness.
A dark line pulses beneath Tuiwen’s skin, climbing from the old corruption’s scar toward her wrist. Across the river, the gates of her father’s realm remain shut, and distant horns answer from the trees.
✓ Quest Accepted
Enter the Elvenking’s Halls
“Tuiwen casts the cleansing light spell on herself, then on Eldred, and finally on the cracked sigil, which she ten smashes with a stone.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Magic, rolled +1)
White-gold radiance gathers at Tuiwen’s palm and pours through the dark line beneath her skin. The corruption recoils, thinning into harmless ash beneath the surface.
The cleansing light passes from Tuiwen to Eldred. Violet stain lifts from his fingers and fades from his arm, leaving the bark strip’s cracked seal cold and inert.
Eldred
There. The mark is no longer calling them.
The light settles over Radagast’s sigil. Its hidden taint rises as a black thread, writhing once above the bark before the radiance consumes it.
Tuiwen takes a loose stone from the bridge’s edge and brings it down upon the cleansed seal. The bark splits, the violet stain gutters out, and the fragments scatter toward the river.
Eldred
Now they cannot use Radagast’s mark to find us. But the horns have already warned the Halls. Will you cross to your father’s protection, or meet Saruman’s agents here?
✓ Quest Accepted
Deliver the warning to Thranduil
“"I welcome you to the hospitality of the Woodland Realm! Follow me." She crosses into the safety of her father's palace.”
SUCCESS (Superb Diplomacy, rolled +2)
Tuiwen
I welcome you to the hospitality of the Woodland Realm. Follow me.
Tuiwen turns from the river and crosses the stone bridge, her injured shoulder held steady beneath her cloak. The sealed gates recognize the cleansed light upon her and begin to open.
Eldred
Then I will stand with you beneath your father's roof, and against the lie.
Eldred follows across the bridge. Behind him, bent needles and broken dew mark the forest verge, but no pursuer steps from the trees.
The gates swing wide. Tuiwen passes beneath their carved stone arch, and Eldred enters after her as the Forest River flashes with a faint, submerged light.
Within the Elvenking's Halls, guarded lamps kindle along the passage. Beyond them waits the royal court, and the warning meant for Thranduil remains safe in Tuiwen's keeping.
Quest Complete
Enter the Elvenking’s Halls
New Gift: Dol Guldur Veteran