No, the forest is really badly designed. I am used to no handholding, but the game just flat out gives you wrong information (mushrooms/scroll) or literally NONE.
And I played through the forest the wrong way, I killed goblins first, then spiders, then the priests, I was in the ghost forest before I ever figured out how to get in the barrier without killing the shrooms.
I finished the game at this point, but the forest was a really weird experience. Sacred Stone has literally no quests (which is odd to say the least, I just made my own quest and killed them all/freed the prisoners and called it a day)
The mine expects you to sneak through undead enemies that can walk faster than you can sneak, so it's a luck challenge. Especially since you can't know where the temple door is (or that there is a temple in the mines...) and the logs you find tell you everything, except the most vital information!
Then we have the spiders, which were imo super easy once you understood the system behind these fights, but anyway.. you kill the queen, and caravan guard remains enchanted... so yay? No quest, no update, nothing for killing a GIANT MANEATING SPIDER? ^^
Goblins... to get the bloodstone there you have pacify them with giant explosions even if you made the speech check against the shaman. There is literally no (obvious) peaceful solution to this (seems like Larian intended there to be one though)
So sorry to say, but to me the forest was one of the weakest areas of the game. It was super pretty and challenging, but it was really really flawed as a RPG map. Well, that's my 2 cents
