Back Into The Woods
The night deepens and the storm starts to ease. The only lights showing belong to the harbour lantern and to Yselle's cottage. In the night the wind drops but the ait is unnaturally still.
Deep within the forest a blue light pulses, the lights in Moonrest Haven dim in time with the pulse and the dogs begin to bark incessantly.
A strange sound rings out low and distant, long and mournful, not quite a horn, not quite the wind. The Harbour Bell rings out once, then silence returns.
In the morning Moonrest is uneasy, Down by the docks the dogs continue to bark. The partyWe are summoned by heavy, urgent knocking at the door and we see Bran one of the Palisades watchmen looking scared, but trying to remain composed. He says that Elder Saelin needs us now, something has happened in the night. He describes the blue light out in the tresstrees at night.night Underand thesays snowthat something seems to be moving.moving under the snow.
Wewe head throught the town andwe see people talking in husedhushed voices,voices and that many homes have their eastern shuttrsshutters closed. SebSebastian notices that many of the fishing ships are still docked.docked In spiteinstead of being out to sea as normal. Even though it beingis cold,cold there is aan lotabnormal amount of smoke rising from chimneys. Ravens have gatheredgathered, sitting quietly on the roof tops. Frost rhymrime on the windows resembles branching veins. One of the locals points at us and says, this"This all started after you bought something back from the forest.forest". We head to the LOngLong House which is busier than norma;.normal. The are villagers, guradsguards ,adand hunters. MapsThere are maps are over all the tablestable and lanterslanterns burn bright. All the people within look fearful. Elder SSaelin is trying to hold everone together, but shshe lokkslooks exhausted. The eastern side os devoid of anythe oneLong -House folkis empty and we notice the people are avaoidingavoiding it. WeThe seeHunters huntersare agruing.arguing amonst themselves Elder SSaelin says the eastern watch reported pale lights pulsing between the trees in the forest, beofreand before dawn came, one of the llumberlumber families realise their daughter is missing she's 11 yr old Tala Venn, who live near the eastern palisades.pallisades realised their daughter was missing. Her name is Tala Venn and she is eleven years old. The hunterhunters found tracks outside her home.home but are not sure what to make of it.them. OnOne eoof fthethe guards swearsis sure he saw something black moving under the snow in the night.
SebSebastian asks if we need to rescure her .Tala. Elder SSaelin says yes please,but most of the town are too fearful to leave the village. They live in the NE of town not far from the fence.
AAethlwyn wantsasks to see Yselle befoerbefore we set off,off but Elder Saelin tells her to wait as Yselle should be arriving at the LOngLong House soon. SheWhen Yselle arrives she rushes up to the tabeltable and says the pulsepulses of light made the sample of sap activate. The jar itself tried to move to the heatwarmth of living things -and Yselle thinks it can sense them. Elder SSaelin says "the oldesteoldest records of our land spoke of winterwinters slikelike 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 an old log pile
We notice that the roots seem to be generating a bit of heat, we feel the corruption is spreading through a shared system and the forest may be infected. The pulses travel through the roots and seem to coorinate what it does. Killing surface roots doesn;t seem to kill the underground. She a group od silent ravens just watching, they then erupt upwards from the trees
Salus and Gurur hear movement beneath the snow. Salus feels the movement is in parrall to us like it following us. no sign of Harlan atm We continue with the temperature getting colder. We suddenly feel the vibrations which causes snow to fall from the trees and we see the blue light pulsing like a heat beat. We don't belive it's spell, more like a biological thing. We carry on following the paths. Suddenlt thick black roots erupt from the snow and attack us.
Root Tendrils
Tendril lash attack. They take no damage from being within the benediction aura, but doesn;t like it!
Takes all the piercing damage from Seb and all the bludgeoning damage
Acid damage from A- the roots start to hiss and crack violently - sap and root start to thrsah the pale blue veins satrt to pulse. It is weak 5 to acid
Blood sense ability = +1 attack to bleeding individual
Beneath the snow ability to hide undergrown
Guru hits it with fire - weak +5 to fire
As seb takes damage a change has come over him - and his eyes light up.
As we beat the roots the earth collapses and we see a pit filled with roots and animal bones. We see the roots are extracting nutrients from the animal bones Aeth ses that the crruption is feeding more on fresh meat.
We move about 100 meters before we find a shattered lumber sled leaning against a pine tree. One runner is shattered, supplies are spread about. A blue light is in the background.