The next day
Night deepens and the storm starts to ease. Only lights belong to the harbourlantern and Yselle's cottage. In the night the wind drops, unnaturalyy.
There is a pulse of blue light deep within the forest, the lams dim and the dogs bark incessantly
Sound - low and distant long and mournful, not quite a horn, no quit tthe winfd. The harbour bell rings once, then silence returns.
In the morning somehting feels uneasy, dogs bark incessantly by the docks. A heavy urgent knock happens at the door. We see Bran one of the Palisades watchmen - he looks scared, but trying to remain composed. Elder Saelin needs us now, something has happened in the night. He describes the blue light out in the tress at night. Under the snow something seems to be moving.
We head throught the town and see people talking in hused voices, many homes have their eastern shuttrs closed. Seb notices that many of the fishing ships are still docked. In spite of it being cold, there is a lot of smoke rising from chimneys. Ravens have gathered sitting quietly on the roof tops. Frost rhym resembles branching veins. One of the locals points at us and says, this all started after you bought something back from the forest. We head to the LOng House which is busier than norma;. The are villagers, gurads ,ad hunters. Maps are over all the tables and lanters burn bright. All look fearful. Elder S is trying to hold everone together, but sh lokks exhausted. The eastern side os devoid of any one - folk are avaoiding it. We see hunters agruing. Elder S says the eastern watch reported pale lights between the trees in the forest, beofre dawn came, one of the llumber families realise their daughter is missing she's 11 yr old Tala Venn, who live near the eastern palisades. The hunter found tracks outside her home. but are not sure what to make of it. On eo fthe guards swears he saw something black moving under the snow in the night.
Seb asks if we need to rescure her . Elder S says yes please, most of the town are too fearful to leave the village. They live in the NE of town not far from the fence.
A wants to see Yselle befoer we set off, Yselle should be arriving at the LOng House soon. She rushes up to the tabel and says the pulse made the sample activate. The jar itself tried to move to the heat of living things - Yselle thinks it can sense them. Elder S says "the oldeste records of our land spoke of winter slike this, where roots beneath the snow woke hungry. "Be honest how bad do you think this is? A looks to Yselle who says something strange is happening and it frightens her. A asks Elder S what the records say about how the roots were dealt with, "ELDer S says the records a repatchy. Another person runs in shouting "the root are by the eastern sheds, coming up through the ground. you are the best we have, please investigate and try to bring TAla home".
We will do our best as these are our people. A is unsure about the best way to do this but suggests taking fire brands as the roots reacted to it. 3 hunters go to grab torches and will meet us by the eastern pallisades.
We head to the Pallisades where we see the earth is shredded with thick balck roots. Salus wonders what void demage can do, we agree to see what might happen. She casts voidwarp. The moment the energy touches it, the tendrils freeze unnaturally and the blue light flashes sharply benath the surface. Salus senses the void damage think the darkness is drinking the corruption into it and seems to quite like it. A wonders if the roots are coming for the sap and root that Yselle found. We think the vitality energy damages it, blood seems to daw it, fire harms it. Aeths cast vitality at it, again it reacts violently and it recoils. Aeth wonders about casting benediction ( 10 ft) radius which is divine protection. Guru cast live wire to see if leccy does anything to it.The blue light arcs though the roots seemingly causing a chain reactionthe light gets brighter and brighter, the the tendrill seem to sieze vioulettny. More root erupt throght the soil, thrashing. Eventually the light dies down and the roots stop thrashingg. Didn't seem to damage it, but it seems to have woken up. We feels the roots acrry the charge through the system. We feel the root system is all connected underground. Salus casts Divine Lance (spirit damage) cause pulse, spasms and a slight retreat. Feels like we've struck the corruption itself. With the divine lance the blue light looks like it recoilde in pain and we haer cracking under ground like ice breaking. As the hunters burn it we can drive back the roots that have come under that wall.
We head to Tala's home quite quickly. Her mother greets us, but is very frightened. She says the storm woke the family in the night, Tala was there, but when the harbour bell rang she was gone. Her brother Harlan went to try and find her, neither have been seen since. There is no blood or signs of stuggle, just small barfoot tracks heading east. Guru notices strange shallow furrows in the snow alonside the tracks, like something was keeping pace with her. A checks for violet resideue, but can see none. There are a separate set of tracks for Harlan, shod and larger. Furrows don't seem to follow him either. A asks if Tala had injured herself, her mother says nothin untoward about her at all. A asks if they saw the light, but she says it was the harbour bell that woke them.
The dogs are still barking in a spooked way. No more sightings of the ship. We follow the tracks towards the lumber paths, they groan open against the snow. There a re a number of villager son the Pallisade, but noone volunteers. As we start to depart we hear Yselle, she brings a resin fire bundle each and tells us to leave if the light pulses faster.
We follow the trail, and see old ax marks on the trees, the further we go the quieter the forest becomes, like its lisstening to us. We can still see the footprints faintly. every now and then it looks like she was running and stumbling. the furrows still follow her, sometime dipping undergroud. We see the roots and furrows avoided patches of sunlight and Tala seems to have hidden in a clear spot