From Nadras’ smoldering castle on the hill, whence came a stream of molten lava and the fire-giant, now crackling lightning and purple flickers of magic descend to envelop our heroes. Titanius, Gunther, Thestil, and Mashito were standing in the fields bordering the village of Blackstone; now they are instantly transported back to the inside of the Ménhù monastery.
They are in the training and meditation room where they first entered a portal created by Master Wǎnzhéng – was that a few days ago? There are no windows, and no one is there. Arabal and his wolf companion have disappeared, as have the giant gauntlet and oversized sword.
Hearing yells, they enter the dining hall. It is almost dusk as seen through the demolished wall. Two other walls are covered in vines, ivy, and branches so thick in some parts that it becomes a dense forest in the darker areas, covering the room’s walls, floor, and ceiling. Some monks are trapped in about fifteen separate wooden cages high up in the tree trunks.
Titanius strikes his wooden faerie staff on the floor, growing a large tree which takes the staff up in to the high branches, away from Titanius’ grasp. Gunther jumps into the hole in the floor, following two soldiers of the Order of Eustathius. Thestil moves into the shadows of the woods. Mashito grabs a metal kitchen utensil and uses it to pry open a wooden cage to release a monk.
Gunther kills one soldier and threatens the other one in the tunnel under the main hall. The threatened one tells Gunther that the Order wants to save peoples’ souls by stopping the monks’ portal magic; when he passes out, Gunther carries him upstairs after taking the ankh symbol from the other’s body.
Mashito and Titanius try to free the monks. A voice booms from the back of the forest, deep in the hall: a Treant, a spirit of an old tree, expresses his malevolence against the fighters through black openings in the bark where its eyes and mouth would be in the largest tree. Mashito grabs a torch from the wall and is plowed over by a large branch. Titanius rips open a trunk to free a monk, and is also smashed into by boughs.
The Treant’s rage is crushing some of the monks in their tree-lined cages. Mashito charges the Treant’s dark face in the woods, lit torch in one hand and sword in the other. Titanius hacks at the trees but is soon surrounded and overwhelmed by branches ensnaring his body.
Thestil appears from part of the woods in the hall – with him are some of Titanius’ kinfolk from the wilds of Barbanus! They attack the forest with clanging steel. More of the monks are freed; Gunther talks to Tony Wan and Tonitu, who confide that one can only counter magic with other magic.
The warriors of Barbanus free Titanius, whose shouts challenge the Treant and encourage the tenacity of our heroes. Mashito plunges his sword into the Treant’s face and throws his torch through the eye. Titanius hacks further, then collects the tears and sweat from Tony and Tonitu’s faces into his silver bowl – the moisture evaporates into a rising steam, becoming a thicker fog floating up to the ceiling and dissolving or poisoning the tree branches.
As the Treant dies, about 10 monks are freed and some scatter while Gunther tries to talk to them. Soldiers from the Order of Eustathius gather outside the walls with hundreds of other villagers. Our heroes have only a few minutes to decide what to do.