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. We 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 trees at night and says that something seems to be moving under the snow.

As we head throught the town we see people talking in hushed voices and that many homes have their eastern shutters closed. Sebastian notices that many of the fishing ships are still docked instead of being out to sea as normal. Even though it is cold there is an abnormal amount of smoke rising from chimneys. Ravens have gathered, sitting quietly on the roof tops. Frost rime on the windows 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 normal. The are villagers, guards and hunters. There are maps are over all the table and lanterns burn bright. All the people within look fearful. Elder Saelin is trying to hold everone together, but she looks exhausted. The eastern side of the Long House is empty and we notice the people are avoiding it. The Hunters are arguing amonst themselves Elder Saelin says the eastern watch reported pale lights pulsing between the trees in the forest, and before dawn came, one of the lumber families who live near the eastern pallisades realised their daughter was missing. Her name is Tala Venn and she is eleven years old. The hunters found tracks outside her home but are not sure what to make of them. One of the guards is sure he saw something black moving under the snow in the night.

Sebastian asks if we need to rescure Tala. Elder Saelin says yes but most of the town are too fearful to leave the village. 

Aethlwyn asks to see Yselle before we set off but Elder Saelin tells her to wait as Yselle should be at the Long House soon. When Yselle arrives she rushes up to the table and says the pulses of light  made the sample of sap activate. The jar itself tried to move to the warmth of living things and Yselle thinks it can sense them. Elder Saelin says "the oldest records of our land spoke of winters like this, where roots beneath the snow woke hungry. "Be honest how bad do you think this is?" AAethlwynn looks to Yselle who says something strange is happening and it frightens her. AAethlwynn asks Elder SSaelin what the records say about how the roots were dealt with, "ELDerbut Sthe saysElder replies that the records are patchy. As we talk a repatchy. Another persontownsperson runs in shouting "the rootThere are roots by the eastern sheds, coming up through the ground.ground!". you Elder Saelin turns to us and says "You are the best we have, please investigate and try to bring TAla home".

We will do our best  as these are our people. AAethlwynn is unsure about the best way to do this but suggests taking fire brands as the roots reacted to it. 3Sebastian takes charge and sends three hunters go to grabget torches and will meet us by the easternEastern pallisades.Pallisades. 

We head to the Pallisades where we see the earth is shredded with thick balckblack roots. Salus wonders what void demage can do, we agree to see what might happen. She casts voidwarp.Voidwarp. The moment the energy touches it,it the tendrils freeze unnaturally  and the blue light flashes sharply benath the surface. Salus senses the void damage thinkthinks the darkness is drinking the corruptionvoid damage into it and seems to quite like it. AAethlwynn wonders if the roots are coming for the sap and root that Yselle found. We now think thethat vitality energy damages it, blood seems to dawdraw it, fire harms it. AethsAethswold castcasts vitalityVitality Lash at it,the roots which again it reactsreact violently and itrecoil. recoils. AethAethswold wonders about casting benediction ( 10 ft) radius which is divine protection.protection but agrees to wait. Guru castcasts liveLive wireWire to see if leccyelectricity doeshas anythingan toeffect. it.TheAs the spell hits blue light  arcs though the roots seemingly causing a chain reactionthereaction . The light gets brighter and brighter,brighter and the the tendrilltendrils seem to sieze vioulettny.violently. More rootroots erupt throght the soil,soil thrashing.thrashing wildly. Eventually the light dies down and the roots stopquieten. thrashingg.The Didn'electricity didn't seem to damage it,the butroots itrather seemsthey seem to have woken up. We feelsfeel the roots acrrycarry the charge  through the system. We feel the rootwhole system which we think is all connected underground. Salus casts Divine Lance (spirit damage) causewhich pulse,causes acpulse, spasms and a slight retreat.retreat Feelsand it feels like we've struck the corruption itself. WithWhen the divineDivine lanceLance struck, the blue light looks like it recoilderecoiled in pain and we haerhear cracking under ground likeas though ice is breaking. As theThe hunters burnarrive itwith wetorches canand 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,night and  Tala was there, but when the harbour bell rang and awoke the family again 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,struggle, just small barfootbare foot tracks heading east. Guru notices strange shallow furrows in the snow alonside the tracks, likeas though something was keeping pace with her. AAethlwynn checks for violet resideue,residue, but can see none. ThereWe aresee a separate set of tracks for Harlan, shod and larger.larger Furrowsand the furrows don't seem to follow himhim. either. AAethlwynn asks if Tala had injured herself,herself wondering if blood had attracted the roots but her mother says nothinnothing untoward abouthad herhappened atto all.her. AAethlwynn asks if they saw the blue light, but sheTala's Mother says no, it was the harbour bell that woke them.

The dogs arecontinue stillto barkingbark in a spooked way.way, Nobut there have been no more sightings of the starnge ship. We follow theTala's tracks towards the lumber paths,path, theythe groanTown opengates opening against the snow. There a reare a number of villagertown sonfolk on the Pallisade, but noone volunteers.volunteers to joint the search. As we start to depart we hear Yselle,Yselle calling, she brings a resin fire bundle for each of us and tellswarns us to leave if the blue light pulses faster.

We follow the trail, and seeseeing old axaxe marks on the trees,trees. theThe further we go the quieter the forest becomes, likean itsunnatural lissteningcalm toas though it is watching us. We can still see theTala's footprints faintly. everyEvery now and then it looks like she was running and stumbling. theThe furrows still seem to follow her,her sometimeeven dippingthough they sometimes dip undergroud. We see the roots  and furrows avoided patches of sunlight andIn one place Tala seems to have hidden in an old log pilepile.

We notice that the roots seem to be generating aheat bit of heat, weand feel the corruption is spreading through a shared system andwhich may have infected the forestwhole may be infected.forest. The pulses travel through the roots and seem to coorinatecoordinate what itthe whole does. KillingWe've noticed that killing surface roots doesn;doesn't seem to kill thewhat's underground. SheHigh in the tress we see a groupConspiracy odof silentRavens ravenssilently justwatching watching,us. Suddenly they then erupt upwardsskywards from the treestrees.

Salus and GururGuru hear movement beneath the snow. Salus feels the movement is in parrallparrallel to us likeas itthough following us. There is no sign of HarlanHarlan. atmAs Wewe continue with the temperature gettingdrops 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. WeAa carrywe oncontinue followingto follow the paths. Suddenltpaths thick black roots erupt from the snow and attack us.

Root Tendrils

Tendril lash attack. They

Aethswold casts Benediction. The roots take no damage from being within the benedictionBenediction aura, but doesn;tappear liketo it!be unhappy in the aura.

TakesThe roots take all the piercing damage from SebSebastian and all the bludgeoning damage as well.

AcidAethlwynn damagecasts fromCaustic A-Blast and the acid causes the roots start to hiss and crack violentlyviolently. -The sap and root start to thrsahthrash and the pale blue veins satrtstart to pulse. It is weak 5 to acidacid.

Blood sense abilityability. =The roots have +1 attack to a bleeding individual

Beneath the snow ability to hide undergrownindividual.

Guru hitscasts itFire. withIt fire -is weak +5 to firefire.

Hide - the roots can retreat back underground.

As sebSebastian takes damage a change has comecomes over him - and his eyes light up. 

As we beat the roots the earth collapses and we see a pit filled with black roots and animal bones. We see the roots are extracting nutrients from the animal bones AethAethswold sesnotices that the crruption is feeding more on fresh meat meat.than on the older bones.

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.

 

To Be Continued ....