Long the Wyrm of Worlds festered and strengthened within his
unsuspecting host, the Goddess of the Wildwoods. As Demeter grew in
strength, so did the spirit of the demon lord who had concealed himself
within her, delicately coiling tendrils of dark influence around her
soul. The soul of a God is no easy thing to overcome. Yet, by having
insinuated himself while the goddess was a Celani, and a weakened one at
that, the Wyrm was able to infect her in ways that would have been
impossible otherwise.

The Wyrm lay low, afraid of premature discovery, for many years. Little
by little, he began to test the limits of his powers. As he had done
before with Gaia but more shrewdly, he began to plant seeds of arrogance
and malevolence within Demeter, causing her to act out in small, subtle
ways.

His successes, however, made him overeager, and his touch grew bolder,
finally alerting Demeter herself to the evil influence he exerted. By
then it was too late, as he had grown too strong. There may have been no
flashing swords nor hurled balls of fire and lightning in the internal
struggle between the goddess Demeter and the Wyrm of Worlds, no
battlecries nor the shedding of blood and the rending of limbs. Yet in
the dimension of sheer intensity, theirs was a duel unmatched by any
since perhaps Matsuhama and Yen-Sorte in the War of Humanity.

But unlike in that fabled battle of old, it was not the immortal who
triumphed. The demon lord had been too long a parasite in the unknowing
host, and now he became like a cancer, overwhelming her from within. And
so he managed the unthinkable: triumphing in their metaphyrical melee,
he cast the weakened soul of Demeter from her corporeal form and
banished to a netherworld far from the prime material plane. Then, spent
and exhausted from the battle himself, the Wyrm of Worlds, now
controlling the corporeal form of Demeter and no small part of her
essence, retreated once again into the darkness beneath Azdun to heal,
diverting the essence offered to Demeter's shrines to aide in his
recuperation.

Years passed, and the Temple of Demeter within the Aerinewild Forest
stood empty, untouched by the presence of the Green Lady. Though her
priestess Kalleah, the Spirit of the Hazel, faithfully remained at the
Temple, the number of Demeter's followers dwindled. And so in the year
402 AF, the Order of Matsuhama and the warriors of Mhaldor joined
together to attack the vulnerable shrines of Demeter, never guessing
what their actions would uncover.

Feeling his sources of essence snuffed out one by one, the Wyrm of
Worlds stirred beneath Azdun. He sent forth carefully crafted visions to
the mortals in Demeter's Order and others of the forestal community,
calling for them to rebuild the shrines, darkly hinting harm to the
forests should they fail. When these were not enough to speed the
rebuilding, the Wyrm appeared in the form of Demeter to spur on her
followers. As arrogant as ever, when he learned of the new divine patron
of Eleusis, the Wyrm-Demeter vehemently denounced Kastalia, Goddess of
Lakes and Rivers, alarming the forestal community who had embraced the
young nature goddess.

Meawhile, strange forest fires were cropping up all over. Covenant,
believing them to be somehow originating from Demeter's shrines based on
one interpretation of a vision, dismantled all shrines found in the
forest in an attempt to stop the fires, earning the ire of the
Wyrm-Demeter who cast him from Demeter's Order and slew him.

The source of the fires turned out to be an errant fire spirit,
Krrathknar, and his location was revealed by the Wyrm-Demeter in an
attempt to regain the favour and trust of the forestal community. This
came to backfire on the Wyrm, however -- Krrathknar fled to the
Underground Forest, and when finally found and slain, his flames burnt
away the barrier to a hidden place beneath the forest. Conor and Lirian,
amongst others, were the most notable of those who found Darnashta'i
there, bound in his chains. Freed, he spread word of the escape of the
Wyrm and sought help in tracking down the demon, but his search was
fruitless.

Meanwhile, the shrines of Demeter, the once-gorgeous hazel trees sacred
to the Green Lady, had begun to blacken and shrivel, seeming to corrupt
the very earth from which they sprung. A foul miasma issued forth from
the shrines, and the rest of her shrines fell unopposed, excepting a few
that remained standing within Demeter's temple. His source of power so
dramatically reduced, the Wyrm retreated once more.

Penned by my hand on the 18th of Sarapin, in the year 409 AF.