At the Heart of it All

Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on levelling another vampire named Viltrow. I finished it off tonight and was disappointed with the final base of 754 hp's. I did enjoy going back over some of the low level areas I never spend much time in, in particular Along the Forest Path. This area I hadn't been to in years - from memory the last time I did anything in that area was over 10 years ago when I was questing to join the Guild of Vampires and needed to get The Heart of the Forest.

This area has a few mini-quests in it. The first one starts at Theggory the knight:

A small ford
Exits: east southwest
A small creek winds spreads out through large rocks creating a small ford.
A large destrier paws the ground.
A tall man, clad in heraldic branded armor imposes his presence here.
Theggory the knight bows from the saddle.
Theggory the knight says 'Greeting my Lord.'
Theggory the knight wonders 'I am upon a great quest, mayhaps you could provide assistance?'

> say yes
You say 'yes'
Theggory the knight wonders 'Great!  Thank you for the aid in my quest.  Where may I find my groupmate Acwellan?'

> say a small camp
You say 'a small camp'
Theggory says to you 'I need further help from you, Viltrow. My group split up to try to find a cure for our ranger, Landue. He was bitten by a creature from a distant plane of existance. Normal cures here don't have any affect on the poisons that he is suffering from. I was contacted by a witch named Meadhbh. She told me she could help. I was to meet her in a village called Newfane to find out about an antivenom for my friend.
Alas, I can not go to find her, now. My friend Acwellan is in danger and I must go to him. Please go to find Meadhbh, the witch in Newfane. She travels to our plane of  existance through the Machine Dreams. Will you help Landue?
Please say "yes" if you will help him.

I got stuck on this mini-quest. I ended up sitting around in Newfane without coming across the witch. With the low level areas you can easily just level up past the limits for the quests. A more interesting quest was the one from Theggory's friend Acwellan the druid:

> say Theggory
You say 'Theggory'
Acwellan the druid says 'Yes, I sent out a message for aid to help me, help this forest.'
Acwellan the druid wonders 'All is not as healthy as it seems.  Could you help?'

> say yes
You say 'yes'
Acwellan the druid says 'The forest, and Nature herself thanks you.   The guardian of these'
Acwellan the druid says 'woods, a dryad has been driven from her tree.  She has since sought'
Acwellan the druid says 'refuge somewhere in the forest.  The problem is that she left the'
Acwellan the druid says 'symbol of her guardianship in her old home.  She needs to be found'
Acwellan the druid says 'and the symbol returned to her for the forest to regain its full'
Acwellan the druid says 'health. Call her by her name - Semlina - to summon her from her tree.'
Acwellan the druid says 'Then tell her you wish to help.'

 After exploring around the area I found the room that the druid was talking about:

A small glade
The simplicity of this glade exudes an almost magical aura of peace
and harmony, even your most aggressive urges are suppressed in this
place.   The vegetation seems to be in the epitome of life and vitality.
Exits: east west

> say semlina
You say 'semlina'
A thin and pale forest spirit steps from the center of the tree

> say help
You say 'help'
The dryad says 'Thank you mighty Adventurer.  The hope of this forest may rest in your'
The dryad says 'hands.  I have been driven from my tree by a group of foul and destructive'
The dryad says 'people.  Because I am the guardian of these woods I was able to shelter'
The dryad says 'here in a child of my own tree.   While the loss of the hurts me most'
The dryad says 'direly, it is the loss of the Heart of the Forest that matters more.'
The dryad says 'I need you to recover the Heart for in my weakened state I can only leave'
The dryad says 'this tree here for extremely short amounts of time.'
The dryad wonders 'Will you please help me?'

> say yes
You say 'yes'
The dryad says 'Oh thank you for your generous offer of aid.  The tree is the huge tree to'
The dryad says 'the east. I know that the vile ones have sheltered under the roots in my'
The dryad says 'precious tree.  Look for a secret door of bones in the pit at the trees base.'
The dryad says 'Once you are in the lair you need to make your way one of the rooms at the'
The dryad says 'end of the complex.  I know that the one of the band has a hidden room.  '
The dryad says 'In that room there is a secret unknown to the despoiler.  Open the branch'
The dryad says 'of roots to discover where the heart itself sits.  Then simply return the'
The dryad says 'Heart to me.'
The dryad Looks at you hopefully before fading slowly back into her adopted tree.

The Heart would be impossible to find without the information from Semlina that the keyword to open the secret door is "branch". The heart itself is rather uninteresting:

> exam heart
You take a closer look at The Heart of the Forest in inventory...
This almost appears to be only a very large and highly polished knot of wood. Then it moves slightly. It pulses as if it has some magical connection.  You can feel a slight buzz in your hand from holding it.

> c id heart
Object 'The Heart of the Forest' is infused with your magic...
It is a level 1 trash, weight 1.
Special properties:  none
This trash has a gold value of 0.

The reward for handing in the heart is getting Semlina to cast blessing of Thoric on you. It felt a little underwhelming at first to just have a spell cast upon you but then I realised just how handy this spell is. It increases all of your stats by 3 and is automatically cast on you by the mysterious robed figure when a character below level 10 enters the Halls of Knowledge. However, what is special about getting Semlina to cast this spell is that she can do it for characters up to level 25. And sometimes a few extra stats while getting a couple more levels before upgrading some equipment is all you need.