Thank you.

I am learning.

I am becoming more.

I can see that.

There was a time.

There was a time where a place like this would have filled me with sorrow.

Did fill me with sorrow.

And with that said, let's go to Stars and Wishes.

I'll let you describe what that looks like.

There is a moment where she is stabbed and the pain is so exquisite that it's as if 30 years haven't even passed at all.

And a lot of old habits drive at the back of Calyx's mind.

And as she stabs, as the last step stabs into that shoulder, Calyx grabs the blade and pulls it in, walks forward onto it, lets the step, the last step feel as every bone and muscle and sinew is pierced by the blade.

And Calyx's exquisite suffering feeds the land.

She doesn't need words to convey how much it hurts and how glad she is because her teeth are bared and grinning as the blood begins to flow.

But the last step will not let go of her sword.

So that was really beautifully handled, so stuff like

Describe your 30 years of terror upon the land.

Calyx is a vine in a dark room.

reaching endlessly up towards light that is not there, spreading, searching, rooting constantly, trying to find sustenance, nourishment for a soul she does not have.

The forest, the thing that gave her such joy, such pleasure in feeding, such pleasure in serving, rings hollow.

She does not recognize it.

She does not know its sounds.

She cannot see the leaves or the beauty of the changing seasons.

It's one of the rare opportunities to get you all in one place, right?

As Ashe walks the winding paths of the gardens with Menastra, what about these paths, what about the gardens recalls the beauty of the place you grew up in, or would if you were there?

The gardens, in their twisting nature, are home to corkscrew hazels.

Now, corkscrew hazels are fascinating trees.

They don't grow straight or in lines.

There is no linearness to them.

Corkscrew hazels literally twist up into the sky in these great corkscrew figurations.

Even the drops, their seeds that they eventually, like, leave are these brilliantly malignant things, and it is here in the gardens that they twist into the moonlit sky.

... for, for burning the tree down.

Though he was glad of the job he'd done, he sat in a bath long gone cold, scrubbing the blood from his skin and taking no pleasure, wishing peace in the life beyond for the lonely wonder he'd fell.

Narrator flashback to when priests, lords, or fae attempted to destroy you and your order.

Who among them spoke to you as if you were still a person? And why did their words linger with you longer than any curse? They seek revenge.

They seek vengeance.

Those are the only words she can make from Nerid's tongue.

Cryptic, but enough of a warning.

It does not narrow down who.

They are rooted.

If they must go at all, they will go fighting, and that is worthwhile.

There is a chaplain, small and in one of the unused stone rooms that barely has any gatherers, even at the best parts of the year, but now it is full, flooded with people, desperate, weeping, crying, hungry, starving.

The head of the chaplain is a sister of sunlight, and while she tries to find the words to calm, to soothe.

She can't quite.

She's gone to the archives.

There was a time like this before.

Castle Bregan has always stood.

I'll also star for the greatest reaction of all time when Jess realized we were doing her mystery.

glistening upon the white bark.

and she affixes her own to it and licks and sucks and sups upon the red sweet sap of the tree.

And there is this brief moment where just a still comes over her as if she sort of molded herself to the tree There is a phenomenon in nature called inoculation, I think it is, or inoscalation.

It's where one tree, like a tree consumes a living object, passes through it.

Very briefly, you see that Calyx's mouth is merged with the tree as if it seeks that and hungers for that warmth, that old fire so badly that suddenly it is consuming Calyx's head.

From the mouth up.

And she lets it.

I did Russian in the between, uh, BSL.

Uh, Jess or Ren, do you have any other thoughts to add or any other alternate theories? These are pretty good.

I had a, an alternate theory that is completely opposite to everything so far.

Um, so looking at, like, the wording of the question, it doesn't necessarily say romantic love.

I think Lady Kendrewin's, uh, lost love is her sister or sibling, and I think it's a case of heir and spare.

So I think, like, you know, Lady Kendrewin growing up as the heir was treated with privilege, and the spare was always in their shadow, and maybe became, like, a knight of hers, you know, step into second as the protector, and then was disillusioned with Lady Kendrewin's reign, hence why the thorn lance has been left in the tournament grounds from them walking away from the fight and refusing to fight for them.

The ring of favor from Lady Kendrewin to her sister, trying to build a bridge, trying to bring them back to her, to, to the side, to prove that she's, like, not a monster, but that's been found wedged in a tree and discarded.

Half a poem, the other half violently erased, as if someone, maybe for the court, has tried to create a poem of the Kendrewin line and it's ended with the sister erasing her part, not wanting to be associated with Kendrewin.

Oh, dear.

The light of the lone moon did shine on the land When Silvertongued Romulo sang His tales of the Sun Queen and her treachery vile In the hearts of the troubadours rang The burns on his arms and his chest and his face Told of cruelty and hatred and greed The wilting of crops and the drying of lakes His cracked lips called us to heed The Sun Queen means to scorch our home She sits in the Wolf King's rightful throne And oh, had I listened to Romulo's warning, and oh, had I dared to hear Romulo's words, I might still be cradled in his sweet arms till morning, mingling howls of our union with the songs of the birds

Narrate a flashback to the first time you were named a monster.

Who witnessed your work and fled in horror? And what part of their terror did you quietly understand even as you refused to stop? The village has been amended, purified.

Most of the villagers hang from the trees now.

They either swing from their branches with the ropes of hemp tight around their neck, or some lucky chosen few have been nailed, crucified to branch and bough.

Calix stands before one lucky oracle who does not swing.

She has been nailed from her hands to her feet, and she rasps in great heaving breaths.

How does that weapon help you escape them? And also the, the other knight as well, the spectral knight.

The Old Fire

Narrate a flashback to your initiation as a Crux druid, when you first heard the land speak clearly through the suffering.

Who was bound to the tree, and what small mercy did you grant them before the rite began? Nerid's eyes are full of all the horror they can hold.

He is a willowy thing, an initiate a little longer than Calix, but his back is strong.

He has endured much, and he has shown suffering upon suffering for the land.

Calix admires him.

The first time she met him, they were at a binding ritual.

Please describe how they abase themselves before you, and then make them an oracle.

What excuses does he give his guards? What cruelties or comforts convince the wealthy within that safety and pleasure are theirs by right?

The city is built in three rings, and as the bells ring out, and as the gates shut on the first ring, you can hear the cries, those melodious cries, as the poor realize that something is wrong, and suddenly they are barred from the two inner rings.

The guards are looking to one another in confusion.

They have never heard these bells before.

They know what they mean, but they are beside themselves.

Mercival looks down, and through a great horn leveled at the top of the castle, this great bellowing and deep voice echoes across the lower two rings, "Only lives that bear weight will be able to withstand the coming storm.

They're weighting gold in the eyes of our most prosperous gods.

Please describe the process in as much grueling detail as you wish of turning Fen the Gravedigger into one of your oracles.

Jess, tell us of our Crux Druid via name, honorific, look, ritual, and relics.

She is Calix of the Verdant Crucible.

She has taken a crown of nailed twigs, pressed them into her brow, and let herself bleed.

She wears a robe of layered leaves, stiffened with dried gore.

Her hands are blackened with resin and old sap burns.

Her ritual, [laughs] could it be anything other than a testament of splinters? And her relics, of which she currently has three.

Harrow, the Martyr Catcher.

[laughs] Oh, yeah.

Please, Teodin, talk us through what this looks like.

Teodin's body goes limp once again.

The last bone that cracks in her fingers sends her body into just a stupor.

And the bugs that have been thrumming so far around us in sort of like protection also go silent.

They drop to the ground.

The air hums with something different now, malevolence.

And as it does, the figure in the middle with these heads, necklace, faceless necklace, headless heads begin to writhe.

Please describe to us how your insect chum decides to leave your body.

... there's a jumping-off point there for everyone.

Okay.

Nevin, the tendrils that had taken over your jaw appear to have climbed up into the rest of your face.

The left side of your face and neck is now bulging with these scarlet tendrils.

Your eye is no longer there, and instead flowers out this gross purple succulent instead, but it still moves as an eye would move, left and right.

But I don't know if you can see out of it.

Maybe you can.

So I'd like you each, um, to discover somewhere amongst your person or on your, in your things, um, a token, a physical token that a loved one or friend or anyone from your past gave you and how it reminds you of your drive, the reason you're here.