New Shamans train under Varilis Thornvine of the Preservers at the Balanced Branch lodge, cleansing restless spirits from the Weald’s wildlife and investigating a fae-cursed toadstool tied to a spreading madness before being sent to uncover the naiads’ growing influence over the river.
A new Faelindral Shaman begins with a folded leafscroll inviting them to the Balanced Branch lodge on Keepers Terrace, reached by following the ramp up from Traders Terrace to the bridge shared with the Ranger enclave. There, the elderly Varilis Thornvine receives the scroll as though he already sensed your arrival, and hands over a mortar and pestle for your first task: the Weald's balance is fraying, spirits of the dead are stirring, and he wants proof you can help set things right. He sends you to the nearby newbie grounds to harvest bone chips and skulls from the rotting skeletons there, which you grind down into bone dust and return to him.
Varilis rewards the dust with your Novice Hoop of the Listener and a scroll of invisibility versus beasts, then sets you on a stranger task. He's been hearing the mournful howls of a wolf pack in the western cliffs and suspects something unnatural is tormenting them. Using dust he's specially treated, you scatter it at the mouth of the wolves' den (reached down the fungal lift, past the druid and fungal rings and the old ruins) to reveal the true source: a mischievous faerie masquerading as a small drake. Defeating it and looting a strange toadstool, then returning both the toadstool and your hoop to Varilis, earns an upgrade to the Apprentice Hoop of the Listener — now attuned enough that Varilis can listen to the hoop itself and hear echoes of your journey so far.
Suspecting fae involvement, Varilis packs the toadstool into a box and sends you beneath Faelindral to the Spore Caves, home to the reclusive Circle of Spores, to find someone who can identify it. Tracking down Sporeweaver Underviel requires care, as sporelings patrol the tunnels aggressively at night and invisibility or stealth is well worth having ready. Underviel takes an interest in the sample but wants a favor first: five green drakeling scales and five wasp worker wax, which you combine into the same box before handing it back. In exchange he identifies the toadstool as hexed, its spores capable of driving anyone who inhales them toward madness — and notes that whatever moisture carries the hex feels unsettlingly familiar to him.
Bringing the resealed box back to Varilis confirms his suspicion that moisture itself is the vector, which points toward only one likely culprit: the naiads of the Whispering Pools, fae bound by an old pact who chafe against their confinement. Before trusting you with that confrontation, Varilis tests your progress twice more, first asking to examine your Apprentice Hoop again (which requires reaching around level 4), then asking you to demonstrate the ability to dispel harmful magic before he'll hand over the next assignment (around level 8). Once you've proven ready, he directs you to Laenyth Windharp of the bard enclave, the Lambent Wanderers, who is well versed in naiad lore. Showing her your hoop marks you as a Preserver, and she shares notes theorizing that naiad song can be smuggled downriver by hiding it inside bubbles or foam.
Varilis sends you to the far end of the river, at the crest of the waterfall spilling into Keeper's Blight, to check for magical enchantment using a sensing spell. Confirming the naiads' influence has spread that far, you fill a flask with the tainted water and return it to Varilis, who is disturbed enough to declare that the enchantment must be purged before more minds are lost to it. He hands over a Sigil of Purging and a recipe for a cleansing totem — four cut timber and four serpent skins from Keeper's Blight, plus two strands of river kelp gathered from Evershade's riverbed, all assembled at a carpentry table on Traders Terrace alongside the sigil. Returning with the completed totem sets the stage for a direct confrontation with the naiads of the Whispering Pools, closing out this stage of the Shaman's initiation into the Preservers.