In Arcfira, deep in what Earth would refer to as the Congo Jungle, there was a place that no elf would dare to tread. In that place, that horrible, terrifying place, the normally friendly Tree-kin, flora, and fauna desired nothing more than to destroy the elves themselves. It mattered not to them what kind of elf you were, nor did it matter to them what your position was or even your intent. If any elf of any kind set even a single toe inside that place, death was almost certain to claim them.

And if death did not claim them immediately, then they would yearn for it for days, week or even months afterward, as the hateful wills within that section of the jungle would go out of their way to make any elf that tread upon that ground wish very much that they had never been born. There were, and are, a great many ways to meet your end, and few places on Mortis had both the capacity and intellect needed to make such horrifyingly drawn-out ends a reality.

But why does this place bear mention at all? Should not the focus of these pages be on something more pressing to Darksol? Well, that is the secret. This place did indeed have a connection to Darksol, although most certainly not in the way many would expect.

Back near the end of the Great War more than 1500 years ago, back when the Creator had abandoned everything and allowed it all to move and evolve as existence itself saw fit; Mortis changed. Some would argue that it changed for the better, some would say that things changed for the worse, but regardless of optimistic or pessimistic ideas about the nature of the ‘shift’, new lands came into being and new peoples did as well.

But, as with all radical alterations to reality, there were, of course, things that no one could account for. Such things included, in this case, the creation of a kind of ‘World Tree’. Or, rather, two World Trees. One of them was the one that still remained vibrant and flourishing to this day, and the other… well that sentient tree did not exactly make the best choice that it could have.

The first tree wisely realized that trying to rehabilitate the Gallows Woods and the city of Necrograd was not only a futile endeavor but also a suicidal one. To attempt to redeem and revitalize such a corrupted and twisted place was the height of foolishness, and all that could be done would be to contain it, rather than remove the innate corruption.

The other Tree did not think that any land could be so utterly unsalvageable and foolishly extended its consciousness there to try and coax the corrupted lands, flora, and fauna back to purity. This was a very bad move. The Second Tree quickly realized just how poorly it had chosen, and hastily retracted its will, but the damage had already been done, and it was irreparable damage at that.

The taint of the ruins of Darksol had gained a foothold in the deepest parts of Arcfira, and both Trees quickly realized that one of them was slowly succumbing to the sickness that it had picked up. If nothing was done, both of them would be forever lost and the entire continent, possibly even the whole world, would fall to the twisted evil that the more foolish of them had unintentionally picked up.

The Second reached out to its sibling, begging for help, but the sibling refused. The fool had brought this upon itself, and now the only thing that could be done was to contain the disease before it could spread even further. In a panic and fighting for survival, the Second did what neither of them had ever wished to do and started a civil war.

Tree-kin fought Tree-kin, beast fought beast, plants and fungi battled each other for the will of their master, but when the Second was about to claim victory an intruder arrived to permanently swing the balance in the First’s favor. This intruder was a race of beings with elegant forms and pointed ears. They had a deep connection to all flora and fauna of all kinds and came to the conclusion that the Second had to be defeated to save both themselves and the world.

With aid of these newcomers, the Second was pushed back to the territory it now retained and was severed from the rest of the world. All it could do was stew in its isolation along with those who still followed it, slowly falling deeper and deeper into anger and violent vindictiveness. Left to fester unchallenged, the remnants of Darksol’s will turned the once loving and compassionate Second of Two World Trees into a hateful, vengeful, and horrifyingly malicious monstrosity.

It had been ages since it was locked away alongside those who had followed it, and now there was something pulling it out of its endless mad ranting and rambling. There was a force, a kind of presence, if your will, that was drawing it up from the bottomless well of rage and hatred it had drowned itself it, and said force was acting as a sort of siren’s song.

The Second World Tree, a massive and towering leviathan made of tainted wood and bloody sap, was awakening from its slumber as the chains that had been woven around its will began to break. Soon enough the nightmare realm that its sleeping form had presided over would be called to war once again, and this time there was a very good chance that things would end differently.

After all, the Tree and its realm hated all elves, but with one exception. Hidden from prying eyes, secluded in spots that the First Tree could not see, there were those for whom the horror stories of the War of the Wealds were not but glory days that had long since vanished. The young, the vain, the arrogant, the foolish; these people made up a growing cult that thought worshipping the Second Tree was ‘cool’. Little did they realize that they were irreversibly binding themselves to a force that wanted their families dead and their world destroyed, but those in such delusional cults rarely realize just how damaging their beliefs and deities are.

Not that it mattered, anyway. The moment they gave themselves over to the Second Tree, they lost the right to refuse its will. Once the slumbering behemoth awakened, a second War of the Wealds would begin and the First would soon find itself dealing with a mass uprising from within its own sphere of control.