From the ice
Guru examins the body of the zombie, but there is nothing to be found. Guru burns the body using fire from his hands. Aeths says a little prayer. Seb is impressed and tries to do the same. A examines the ash, but can see nothing other than ash. We head back to town.
The return is quite quiet apart from the growing storm - it feels wrong like its watching and waiting. We hear the sound of crashing waves behind us, Moonrest is shutting down for the night and the gates are only just open. The guards are surprised we are alive.
In the night there is a the cry of a great horn, which could have been mistaken for the storm.
The town is quiet in the morning, but rumours of what happened on the ice are circulating. Elder Saelin wants to see us asap, but we go via the fishhouse and the body has gone.
We head to the longhouse and see the elder. She tells us that a Ysellle MArr says athaw has exposed (possibly) items to be gathered in the western woods. We head with elder S to see Yselle. Elder S tells us not to touch anything! The house is full of lovely herbs. Yselle looks tired, but invites us in. She exlplians she'd normally send gaterers, but they are wary. On the table are lots of labelled samples - also a think black root which looks to be alive, She unrolls a map - and shows us where to go. She gives us a list of things she wants and tells us to bring back a sample of anything growing where it shouldn't.
Yselle gives Salus the healers toolkit and A the • gathering satchel
• herb knife
• waxed sample jars
• cloth gloves chalk markers
We can still see the odd tick black root- Guru asks what it is, Yselle says she doesn't know and doesn't like it as she doesn't know what it is. Guru decribes the symbol on the messengers ring. Yselle things she has seen it on crates from the mainland.
Guru asks if there's anything to look out for - Aeth asks what people have reported seeing. Yselle says don't go too deep into thewhispering woods, if you fin syour self in ares on the old grouwth then get out. She's sure ancien things lurk there and sometimes you can here noises from there.
She says to follow the hunter trail until the marker. She advises if the woods beome too quiet then leave.
Salus looks back as leave and for a brief moment she thinks she sees the black root move by itself. No one else saw it. Salus assumes it was a trick of the light.
We head out to the woods. Its cold and snow is falling lightly. We find the old huntertrail and followit. We hear ccreaks of the branches, the wind the caws of ravend. we see prayer ribbons, old animal traps and ax marks on the trees.
A sees one of the trees is sas old symbols and another we see that some of the marks have been delibertly scrubbed out and we can see that the path has not been used recently. Salus feels the air is subtley heavier here. We press on and the trail narrows. we see the split marker trees as Yselle said. We heard a sudden crashing sound then a lone animal cry. The sound is ahead of us and sounds like an animal in distress. Guru scouts - heading to the saound. Sees a young elk caught in an old hunter trap - but something is wrong. One rear leg is caught in the trap - but black roots twst towrds the creature. A tries to dentify the roots but cant. Aeths tries to hit it with a vitality lash. The roots react violently and immediatly. It spasms and violently thrashes aroun d the forest floor. We see a black ooze erupting from the tendrils. A plae steam rises into air. Somehwere deeper in the woods something pulses in the woods. Aeths casts light onto Gurus staff. Nothing happens. The elk is able to pull free itself from the tendrils but not from the huner trap. Guru tries and Ignition on the vines. The root recoil violently from the flames. Black sap bubbles on the surface the vines grab the elk againAeths kills the elk out of kindness. The vines have let go of the elk
the thrashing dies down - for a brief moment we see a blue ligght flicker deeper in the forest. A fills one of the containers with the balck sap. Aeths noticed the tendrils seem to be paying more attention to the blood pool from the elk. Aeths channels the blood and the tendril follow. Aeths releases the elk from the trap. He asks if Salus can examine the elk and see if the body has been corrupted. She can't see much but thinks its probably safe to harvest. Seb tries to harvest, gets meat, elk hide and antler material.
We head on into the woods we try to find items on the list A finds blood moss x5, resin sap. Cant see much else so we follow the path further looking for plants. Aeths suddley feel the ground shift as the snow collapses. He sees an opeing area under the roots near the edge of the collapse he sees an old hunters lanter - not ancient but quite ecent. he recognises it as from Moon rest haven. We're not aware of anyone going missing. He prods the earrth around the opening, the roots are old and break apart. The area smells of old rotted wood. He picks up the lantern, its rusted and beyond use. The forest is quieter than it has been, but not deadly silent. The path seems to have gone and its just us between the trees. We see black tendril vanish back into the earth - we recognise that these are the same as what grabbed the elk. We carry on deeper into the forest, the trees look older. A finds resin sap and pale fern. Wee start to head back the way we came but start to hear wet, cracking noises as one on the black roots heads up dragging something that looks like a dead rabbit. We arrive back where we found the elk and A finds the frost mint. Aeths thinks we should get some wood and looks to find fallen wood and he gets a couple of bundles of twigs.
We get back to the markers and head back to the edgeof the woods. A looks back and all looks fine. SNow continus to fall as we return the MRH.
We head to Yselle's. A hands over the herbs. She gives A the blood moss. Yselle looks worried when she sees the black sap. She clears most of the table sha asks us to show her where we found it . Aeths explains how we found the elk and says the vines are invasive. explains it didn't like the vitality lash, he mentions the blue light ight a beatingg heart. Yselle puts on leather gloves before opening the glass container. We see thin dark veins shifting beneath the surface. Yselle says old stories spoke of this about the first winter after the shrouding. She is worried that the vitality magic worked as living things shouldn't react badly to it. The sap moves in the container - she seals the container back up. Outside its still snowing. She says not to leave it by food or herbs or sleeping places. Aeths tries to vitality lash the black root on the table, it reacts instantly and the entire root convulses, thicj black tendrils erupt out of the root. the lantern flames dim and several herbs are blackened. Root is now beating like a heart, she shows back and grabs a heavy iron tool. Thin rootlets head out of it and shrivel. The black sap bubble and the room smells of wet rot and blood. The severedroot drags itself towards a bunch of fresh herbs before collapsing again. Yselle is now in a panic.
A asks Yselle where she got the root - first Y shoves a large metal bowl over the root. She found it near the out perimiter of the pine forest a few days ago. That's where she first noticed thr thaw in the snow, at first she thought it was rot, then it moved. She starts to compare the samples. Her's is smaller and less active that the one we had from the elk but both are both spreading the same way. She things whatever we brought back is growing stonger. The tendril spred rom teh root starts to wither, the root looks like it has died. The lanterns flicker blue for a second then return to normal. The sap in the jar did not react.
A asks Y if the metal killed it or the vitality lash? Y says the bowl only contains it, maybe the vitality did really hurt it. She asks is we tried any thing else? Guru says it didn't like fire - it blistered, burned, boiled with black oil and got quite agressive. It was more interested in the blood than the rest of the elk. Guru suggests trying a drop of blood in the jar. Y suggests somewhere safer.
As night falls a pale blue light pulses in the darkness, faster than before