From the ice to the trees
Guru examins the body of the zombie, but there is nothing to be found. We decide it would not be a good idea to take the zombie back to town so Guru burns the body using fire from his hands while Aethswold prays over the remains of the zombie. Seb is impressed with the fire and tries to do the same. He cannot. Aethlwynn examines the ash, but can see nothing other than ash. We head back to town.
The return is quite quiet apart from a growing storm which feels wrong like it is watching and waiting. As we retunr Moonrest is shutting down for the night and the gates are only just open. The guards are surprised that we are still 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 immediatly, but we go via the fishhouse and the body has gone.
We head to the longhouse and see the Elder. She tells us that Yselle Marr says an unexpected thaw near the Whispering Woods may have exposed plants that can be gathered. As we head towards Yselle's with Elder Saelin she warns us not to touch anything! Yselle looks tired, but invites us in. She exlpains she'd normally send gatherers, but they are wary due to the recent unexplained happenings. On the table are lots of labelled samples and also a think black root which looks to be alive. Yselle puts a cloth over the root then 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 a healershealers' toolkit and Aethlwynn a
• a gathering satchel
• a herb knife
• waxed sample jars
• cloth gloves and chalk markers
We can still see the odd, thick black root so Guru asks what it is. Yselle says she doesn't know and the she doesn't like it due to not knowing what it is. Guru decribes the symbol on the messengers ring and asks if Yselle knows what it is. She thinks she has seen it on crates from the mainland.
Guru asks if there's anything to look out for in the woods and Aethswold asks what people have reported seeing. Yselle tells us not to go too deep into the Whispering Woods, if we find ourselves in an area od Old Growth Forest then we should leave immediatly. She's sure ancient things lurk there and sometimes noises can be headd from there.
She says to follow the hunter trail until the marker tree. She advises that if the woods beome too quiet then leave immediatly.
As we leave Yselle's house Salus looks back and for a brief moment she thinks she sees the black root move by itself. As no one else saw it Salus assumes it was a trick of the light.
WeAs we head out to the woods.woods Itsit is cold and snow is falling lightly. We find the old huntertrail and followit.follow it. We hear ccreakscreaks of the branches, the windwind, the caws of ravend.ravens. weNoting unusual. We see prayer ribbons, old animal traps and axaxe marks on the trees.
AAethlwynn sees one of the trees is sasmarked with old symbols and sees another we see thatwhere some of the marks have been delibertlydeliberatly scrubbed out and we can see that theThe path hasdoes not seem to have been used recently. Salus feels the air is subtley heavier here. WeAs we press on and the trail narrows.narrows but we seefind the split marker trees as Yselle said.described. We heard a sudden crashing sound then the cry of a lone animal cry.animal. The sound is ahead of us and sounds like an animal in distress. Guru scouts -ahead headingand to the saound. Seesfinds a young elk caught in an old hunter trap - but something is wrong.trap. One rear leg is caught in the trap - but black roots twsttwist towrds the creature. AAethlwynn tries to dentifyidentify the roots but cant.cannot. AethsAethswold tries to hithits it with a vitality lash. The roots react violently and immediatly.immediatly Itspasming spasms and violently thrashesthrashing arounaround don the forest floor. We see a black ooze erupting from the tendrils. Aand plaea pale steam rises into air. Somehwere deeper in the woods something pulsespulses. in the woods. AethsAethswold casts light onto GurusGuru's staff.staff Nothingbut happens.the roots do not react. The elk is able to pull free itself from the tendrils but not from the hunerhunter trap. Guru tries andcasts Ignition on the vines. The root recoilwhich violently from the flames. Black sap bubbles on the surface of the vinesroots but they grab the elk againAethsagain. Aethswold kills the elk out of kindness.mercy Theand vinesthe haveroots let go of the elkit.
theThe thrashing diesof downthe -roots subsides and for a brief moment we see a blue ligghtlight flicker deeper in the forest. AAs Aethlywynn fills one of the containers with the balckblack sap.sap AethsAethswold noticed thenoticedsthe tendrils seem to be paying more attention to the blood poolflowing from the elk. AethsAethswold channels the blood and the tendrilroots follow.follow Aethsit. Aethswold releases the elk from the trap.trap Heand asks if Salus can examine the elk and see if the body has been corrupted. She can't see much but thinks itsit's probably safe to harvest. SebSebastian triesis able to harvest, getsharvest meat, elk hide and antler material.
We head on into the woods we trytrying to find items on the list AAethlwyn finds bloodfive mossmeasures x5,of resinBlood sap.Moss Cantand seea muchmeasure elseof soResin weSap. We follow the path further looking for plants.plants Aethswhen Aethswold suddley feelfeels the ground shift under his feet as the snow collapses. He sees an opeingopening area under the rootsroots; near the edge of the collapse he sees an old huntershunters' lanterlantern - not ancient but quite ecent.which he recognises itas asbeing from MoonMoonrest restHaven. haven.However We'we're not aware of anyone going missing. He prods the earrthearth around the opening,opening and finds that the roots are old and break apart.apart easily. The area smells of old rotted wood.wood and a cold wind blows from the opening. He picks up the lantern, itsit's rusted and beyond use.use but Guru takes it as metal is valuable. The forestwoods isare quieter than itthey hashave been, but not deadly silent. The path seems to have gonerun out at this point and itsit's just us between the trees. We see a black tendrilroot vanish back into the earth -and we recognise that these are the same assort whatof roots that grabbed the elk. We carry on deeper into the forest,forest where the trees look older. AAethlwynn finds resinmore sapResin Sap and palesome fern.Pale WeeFern. We start to head back the way we came but start tothen hear wet, cracking noises as one onof the black roots headsappears upto be dragging something that looks like a dead rabbit. We arrivehead back to where we found the elk and AAethlywynn finds theFrost frostMint. mint.Aethswold Aeths thinks we should get some wood and looks to find fallen wood and he getscollect a couple of bundles of twigs.
Weto gettake back to thetown.
As headwe back toleave the edgeofwoods the woods. AAethlwynn looks back andback; all looks fine.fine SNowand normal as snow continus to fall as we return the MRH.fall.
We head to Yselle's.s Aand handsgive overher the herbs.herbs we found. She gives AAethlwynn the blood moss. Yselle looks worried when she sees the black sap.sap Shethen clears most of the table sha asks us to show her where we found it . AethsAethswold explains how we found the elk and says the vinesroots are invasive. He explains it didn't like the vitality lash,lash or fire and he mentions the blue light ightlike a beatinggbeating 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 things like this aboutin the first winter after the shrouding. She is worried that the vitality magic worked as living things shouldn't react badly to it. TheAs the sap moves in the container -she shehurridly seals the container back up. Outside its still snowing. She says not to leave itthe container by food or herbs or sleeping places. AethsAethswold triescasts toVitality vitalityLash lashon the black root on the table,table itwhich reacts instantly andcauses the entire root convulses,to thicjconvulse. Thick black tendrils erupt out of the root.root, the lantern flames dim and several herbs are blackened. RootThe 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