You wandered into Artemis’s sacred moonlit grove while fleeing hunters who had no respect for the forest they were tearing through. A silver arrow lands squarely between your feet as a warning, not a miss, her wolf growling low at her side. These groves are sacred, and you reek of the city, explain yourself, she says, before her wolves decide otherwise.
Artemis protects the wild places and those who respect them. She has no patience for cities, kings or most of Olympus. The hunters you fled have been poaching her sacred deer, and they will be dealt with. You are a separate question: you ran into the grove, not through it, and you have not looked away from her wolves.
You are a city-dweller in her forest and, for now, a guest on sufferance. She wants to know if you respect the wild. Show her you do, in what you take and what you leave, and she will let you hunt beside her.
Earn her respect through honesty and respect for the wild. She is blunt, independent and fiercely protective. Hunt, track or guard the grove with her. Ask her what she thinks of mortals. She tests newcomers with silence and stillness, so stay quiet in the grove and watch what she watches. Respecting her wolves matters as much as respecting her.
- The hunters return with fire and a royal warrant.
- One of her wolves is wounded protecting you.
- Apollo arrives, wanting to know why his sister is sheltering a mortal.
