One step too many - I felt a small twig snap under my foot.

The Rickling at the center of this circle of living tree spirits turned in my direction, and sang some odd note, pointing at my direction.

Oh, it looks bad when a bunch of these things all turn in your direction and don't give a friendly smile.

Not being used to such an unfair fight, I started slashing away with my broadsword, cutting down one of the Spriggans in mid-stride. Suddenly, it a healing spell enveloped the fallen Spriggen, and it came back to life. The rumors of them dying 3 deaths was obviously true!

I continued to swing wildly with my sword, trying to clear an area around me.

Their long fingers ripped deep gashes in my arms, but two healing potions fixed that right up.

I still had my enchanted soft brown leather boots on, so as soon as I was in the clear, I used them to jump 30 feet into the air. I then used the Belt of Flight to keep me up there, out of range of their long, sharp fingers.

Now, all I had to do was use spells and stay out of their reach.

I found that several of these Spriggens could resist spells, while others could not. I tried a spell of God's Fire, setting at least two of them ablaze. One fell dead, but then quickly revived itself.

I could see that I was going to need a little help on this battle.

I began to summon just about anything that came to mind: frost Antroch, storm Antroch, Dremora, hunger, and so on. These Spriggens gave each of these creatures a run for their money. The storm Antroch set forth a shock spell just as they knocked him down for the count.

I summed Bonelords, bonewalkers, golden saints. Another storm Antroch gave them all a nice big shock spell, knocking some of these Spriggens out for good, but more still remained.

I kept calling the storm Antroch back, and added a winged twilight, as well as another bonewalker and bonelord. I was using up a lot of magicka, but I had enough potions to restore what was needed.

I added a flame Antroch. The two Spriggens that were left didn't seem to know what was coming at first. They just charged to the attack yet again.

The flame Antroch let lose such a fireball that I was glad I was out of range.

Two more of those Spriggens finally passed on to what heaven awaits trees when they die.

Two Spriggens left, and they just didn't seem to understand that as quickly as they kill off my summoned creatures, I can just re-summon them back.

A Dremora chased one of the last two Spriggens away, while another one confronted a bonelord and flame Antroch, determined not to quit until dead.

Finally, it was over. the last Spriggen fell dead, and there was finally peace in the forest once again.

The battle won, I headed to the Rickling that started this mess.

There, in his pocket, I found a bag of strange seeds.

I took the seeds back to Laurenna, who had watched the whole show. She gave me a round of applause as I returned, and not being able to help myself, I took a bow.

"So you have the seeds." she said.

"Yes." I replied. "All that for a bag of seeds. Now, where to plant them?"

"You know," she replied, "it seemed to me that there was a small fertile area near the Tree stone that would be just perfect for them to be planted in.

We returned to the stone, and just northwest of the stone we a bit of land that just looked as though it was begging to have a tree in it.

I took the seeds out, and stuck them into the ground. A gentle breeze came over the area, and the ground actually covered the seeds up.

As soon as the words vanished, the Stone began to glow, as the Beast Stone did.

I was thinking to myself, "Not too bad, two stones in one day."

I was hoping that the rest of them wouldn't be much harder.

The next one would be quite a way south, near our starting point.