The WytchWood Saga, Book I: Echoes of the WytchWood

Chapter 1: The Wood That Watches

The sun died slowly behind the jagged shoulders of the Mountains, bleeding amber and crimson into the sky like a wound refusing to clot. Far below, nestled between sloping hills and moss-furred rock faces, the woodland stirred. Not with wind or birdsong, those had abandoned this place long ago but with an old, slow breath that no one living should have heard.

They called it WytchWood. Not because of any official charter, nor for the benefit of maps - no cartographer dared draw these trees. The name was a warning, a whisper passed between traders, rangers, and old women with no teeth and better sense than most men in armor. WytchWood was what came before roads. It was a memory in the land. And it was patient.

The forest stood like a cathedral of maple trees, impossibly tall and unnaturally dense. Their bark bore veins of silver. Their leaves, crimson even in spring, never truly died. When they did fall, they floated upward. Dozens at a time. Sometimes hundreds. As if the forest didn’t know which way was down.

Four travelers moved among those impossible trees, lost.

Once, there had been a leader. A human fighter named Kellen, broad of shoulder, steady in voice, and the one who always walked first into darkness. He’d led them from the outer hamlets, through the crags, and into the first twisted glens of WytchWood. But Kellen had vanished two days ago, devoured by a tree that opened like a jaw as he leaned upon it to adjust his boot. There had been no scream, only the wet sound of something being unmade inside it's bulbous trunk. Since then, the five that remained had been aimless. No one spoke of filling Kellen’s role. The silence said it all.

Next came Silas Varric, a thin, weathered man with a tall pointed hat and long robe that once bore scholarly crests but now looked more like a shroud, both were brown. His satchel bulged with books. Scrolls poked from every fold. His hands shook when he moved them. He mumbled when he wasn’t mumbling, and when he wasn’t mumbling, he was staring too long at things that shouldn’t hold attention while leaning on his crystal tipped staff.

Aeren Solwyn walked behind him, half-humming, half-sighing. His cloak and clothing were hues of purple, though dirt-stained; and his silver-blond hair had begun to mat. A lute was strapped to his back, strings broken and body cracked. The bard had stopped singing three days ago, and when Aeren stopped singing, the silence was more noticeable. He watched the trees like a man watching an audience waiting to boo.

Sister Eliza Thane, a human cleric draped in travel-worn robes and a scarf the color of dusk, walked with quiet purpose beside Aeren. Her face bore the soft edges of someone accustomed to comfort, now hardened by long travel and grief. The polished stone symbol she wore around her neck shimmered faintly in the half-light, pulsing with calm energy. She murmured prayers to herself, not to be heard, but to be remembered. There was an earthbound weight to her presence, a stillness that contrasted the subtle chaos of the group.

Nim Underwillow, the gnome rogue, trailed quietly. She was usually the first to speak, to joke, to whistle or complain. But since the second day in WytchWood, Nim had not said much. Not after the roots took Kerron. The mercenary had vanished without sound. One moment there, the next - gone, pulled into the mossy bark opening with a wet snapping sound and not even a scream. Nim had been closest. She hadn’t blinked since, nor leaned upon a trunk.

The group moved cautiously through the trees. There was no path. Only a direction: south, vaguely, toward the spine of the mountains. Their guide had been Kerron, and now they had only instinct and dread. Above them, the leaves rustled without wind.

They made camp as the red sun dipped below the ridges.

It wasn’t a proper camp. Just a circle of stones, some unnervingly round, like they’d been placed with purpose long ago and a meager fire of cold-burning moss. Sister Thane sat on her pack, hands folded over her knees. Silas crouched near the edge, whispering equations under his breath, scribbling with a charcoal nub on the underside of a torn book cover.

Aeren tried to tune his lute, failed, and tossed it aside. He rubbed his eyes with calloused fingers.

“It’s too quiet.”

Sister Thane grunted.

“No birds,” he said. “No frogs. No owls. Just...”

“Watching,” Nim finished softly.

The others turned. It was the first thing she’d said all day.

She didn’t look at them. Just stared off into the trees.

Silas muttered, “You feel it, too?”

Nim nodded.

“Then we’re not imagining it.”

Sister Thane leaned forward, her tone steady. “The map’s useless. I knew it two days ago. This place shifts. Moves around us. I think... we’re already off the map. And it likes that.”

“Maybe it’s just old,” Aeren offered, though he didn’t believe it. “Old places feel strange.”

“This one feels hungry,” Nim whispered.

In the second hour of darkness, as the fire dulled and the shadows grew teeth, Nim rose to relieve herself. She moved fifty paces from camp, careful not to snap a twig or disturb a root. The trees here were close. Too close. But the moment she turned to return, she saw it. A gate.

Woven of maple branches and roots, shaped like an arch, growing from two massive trees. It shimmered - not visually, but emotionally. It shimmered in the gut, in the mind. A wrongness made beautiful.

She backed away, breath caught, then ran for camp.

They followed her without question.

Even Silas, though he muttered all the way.

The gate stood where Nim said. Impossible. Magnificent. And now that they saw it, they could not look away.

Silas reached out and hissed. “It’s warded. Old magic. Older than runes.”

“Do we walk through?” Aeren asked.

“We came this far,” Sister Thane said gruffly.

And as if the gate was air, Nim decided bravely to pass through without consent. The illusion shattered.

On the other side was light. Not sunlight, but amberlight, warm and glowing. The air smelled of maple, of moss, of distant spring rain.

After traversing the illusion of the gate, they were in a clearing ringed with silver-barked maples, all older than history. The ground sloped downward in slow spirals. Pathways of stone led deeper.

Below, nestled into the heart of the land, lights flickered. Homes. Balconies. Pools of glowing water. And a sound, music made by roots.

They had found something old. Something hidden. Something beautiful.

But!, before any could speak, the ground shifted. Roots rose up from the earth, quickly rapping around wrists and ankles, with mouths muffled before a cry could rise.

Hooded figures stepped from the shadows, one of them with red hair and gold eyes stepped forward.

“If you have found your way to Maple Grove,” she said eyeing them curiously.

“That means you are not meant to leave.”

Chapter 2: The Grove Beneath

The bindings were not ropes, not vines, not anything so simple. They were living things, root fibers that twitched at the breath, coiled at the pulse. They didn’t just restrain, they listened.

The more Silas struggled, the more tightly the tendrils hugged his wrists.

“Stop fidgeting,” Sister Thane hissed through clenched teeth.

“I’m not - fidgeting,” Silas spat. “I’m evaluating.”

“Evaluate quietly,” Nim muttered.

They had been brought into what looked like a circular hall nestled within a bowl of stone and soil. Maple roots coiled down from the ceiling like chandeliers, casting amber glow from their tips. Moss carpeted the floor. The walls were alive with carved glyphs that pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of the forest itself.

Aeren’s voice was the only one that sounded mildly impressed. “Well, it’s certainly more welcoming than being eaten alive by a tree. I’ll give them that.”

The figures that had captured them remained along the edge of the chamber, faces obscured, some masked with bark, others shadowed by moss-hoods. They carried no weapons. They didn’t need them.

The red-haired woman with gold eyes stepped forward again. Up close, her skin bore the faint pattern of leaf-veins beneath the surface.

“You crossed the veil. Few do.”

Nim narrowed her eyes. “We didn’t cross it. Your forest dragged us.”

The woman tilted her head. “If the WytchWood wanted you dead, you would be.”

Sister Thane shifted. “So why bring us in?”

Another voice, a male one this time, spoke from the back. It was deep, gravelly, edged with a smile that never reached the mouth. “Because the Grove is curious.”

A new figure stepped forward: antlers crowning his head, his torso bare but traced with green ink and golden sap veins. A satyr. His hooves tapped gently as he approached. “And because it’s been a long time since outsiders made it this far without becoming mulch.”

“You speak like you’re part of the forest,” Aeren said.

The satyr grinned. “Oh, I am. We all are. But we are also its hands. Its voice. And occasionally... its teeth.”

“Enough games, Fenwyn,” said the red-haired woman. She turned back to the outsiders. “I am Ember Nylo, Watcher of the Grove. You are in Maple Grove, and its secrets are not for the world to know. You will not leave.”

Silas frowned. “So you mean to imprison us?”

“No,” Ember said. “We mean to offer you purpose.”

The bindings fell away. Not cut. Not undone. They retracted as if in response to her voice, sliding back into the stone like worms finding soil. The sudden freedom left the group slightly stunned. Silas rubbed his wrists, glaring. Nim looked at her ankles with suspicion.

“You’ll find we rarely need locks,” Ember added. “The forest remembers. It binds what it does not trust.”

Sister Thane stood slowly. “So trust us. Or don’t. But speak plainly.”

Ember nodded once. “Come.”

They followed.

Out of the chamber and down a long hall veined with glowing moss and tiny golden lights that blinked like fireflies in slow motion. The walls curved inward, then outward again, always changing. It felt organic, grown, not built. The deeper they went, the more warmth pressed in from the roots around them.

“This is the Upper Grove,” Fenwyn explained over his shoulder. “Above us are the trees you saw. Below us... well, that’s where the Grove truly begins.”

“Is this where you make your prisoners comfortable?” Aeren asked dryly.

Fenwyn smiled. “Only the lucky ones.”

They passed through an arch of bone-white wood into a new chamber - this one larger, circular, its ceiling a dome of root-glass that let in a soft amber light from above. The walls bore shelves of scrolls, glass vials of colored liquids, and cages of softly chirping beetles.

A woman with hair the color of new leaves stood waiting, flanked by a broad-shouldered wood elf and a cloaked figure that shimmered at the edges like heat above a fire.

“These are the Elders,” Ember said. “Mosshen, Rika, and... well, we don’t name the third aloud.”

The cloaked figure nodded faintly. No face showed. No hands. Just a presence.

“We have kept this Grove secret for centuries,” Mosshen said, his voice like bark cracking in fire. “It is not hidden for pride, but for protection. From the world. And from itself.”

Silas raised an eyebrow. “Cryptic. I like it.”

Mosshen ignored him. “You are not the first to stumble near our roots. Most perish. You did not. That means something. The forest allowed you entry. That... means more.”

“And now?” Sister Thane asked.

“Now, you stay. Learn. Serve, if you will. Or rot if you won’t,” said Rika, her tone flat.

“Charming,” Aeren muttered.

Ember stepped forward again. “This is not a prison. You may walk the Grove. You may find shelter. There is work to be done—always. In the depths, in the glens, and beyond. The Grove connects to many places. Some of them need cleansing. Others... need watching.”

“The world outside,” Nim said carefully. “Can we ever return?”

Ember studied her. “No. Not unless the forest decides it.”

Silence settled like dust. The roots overhead swayed slightly, though no wind passed through.

“You will be watched,” Fenwyn said. “But you will be alive. And perhaps, if you listen closely, you’ll understand why the WytchWood brought you here.”

Aeren exhaled slowly. “Better than mulch.”

Mosshen smiled. “That depends how you serve.”

They were given quarters carved into a shelf of stone overlooking an underground lake. The light there came from orbs of golden root-sap hanging like lanterns. Water trickled through veins in the rock, humming a lullaby none of them knew.

Sister Thane stood guard at the door until dawn-glow. Nim did not sleep. Aeren sat cross-legged near the ledge, watching the ripples. Silas sketched a glyph from memory - one he saw on the cloaked figure’s sleeve.

It meant “seed.” Or “death.”

Maybe both.

Silas Varric, the Human Wizard, pens a magic scroll

Chapter 3: Roots and Reckoning

Morning, or what passed for it in the Grove, arrived not with sunlight but with the soft stirring of light through amber moss. The root-orbs had dimmed during their rest, now pulsing with golden warmth again. Somewhere deep in the caverns, a low bell-like hum rang out; musical, wordless, and insistent.

Nim was already awake, perched on the edge of the chamber with knees pulled tight to her chest. Her eyes, rimmed with fatigue, stared into the depths below, watching the soft glow from distant chambers twist like underwater fire.

“That bell,” she murmured, “it’s not made by hands.”

“It’s not made by anything that sleeps,” Silas agreed. He had barely blinked through the night, sketching glyphs and notes furiously, fingers stained with charcoal and red ink. “It’s more like the Grove is calling itself awake.”

Sister Thane stretched with an audible clank of armor. She rubbed her neck and checked her gear with mechanical calm.

“We should be ready. Just in case the invitation turns out to be another trap.”

“Or breakfast,” Aeren added, brushing dirt from his lap. “I’d settle for either.”

A knock—not quite a knock, more a thrum of something tapping the root wall. A section of moss receded like water, revealing Fenwyn, smiling as always. “You’re summoned.”

“To a council or a hanging?” Aeren asked.

“Depends on how you dress,” Fenwyn quipped and gave a wink. “Come. There’s much to show you.”

The Grove proper was even larger than they'd imagined. The tunnels widened and curved as they moved, sloping gradually downward. Great chambers opened like lungs, filled with warm light and damp earth. Creatures passed them silently—satyrs, elves, half-elves, humans, a pair of horned children chasing a glowing beetle. A beast of moss and bark snored peacefully in a corner, half-covered in vines. No one seemed afraid.

“This place is alive,” Nim whispered.

Fenwyn heard her. “You’re thinking too small. You’re alive. This place... it remembers.”

They passed what looked like a marketplace, but no coins changed hands. Goods were bartered, exchanged with song or gesture. Bottles of syrup, bundles of herbs, carved bone tools, glowing stones. People nodded as the outsiders passed, but no one smiled.

Eventually, they came to another chamber—one different from the others. The floor here was cracked stone inlaid with glowing silver threads. A massive maple root as thick as a tree trunk ran through the center, encased in crystal.

“The Heartroot,” Fenwyn said reverently. “The Grove listens through this. It also speaks.”

A figure waited there ...Dahlia Avalon.

She stood with arms crossed, her cloak blending into the bark around her. Her blonde hair was braided back, eyes the green of spring leaves after rain. She regarded them like a falcon regards a rustle in the grass.

“You’re the outsiders?” she said with an authorative questioning gaze.

“And you’re a local,” Aeren replied sarcastically.

“She’s more than that,” Fenwyn interjected. “Dahlia Avalon is Warden of the Lower Glen. She walks the veil between here and what lies... deeper.”

“Not a title I sought,” she muttered. “But the forest chooses who it wants.”

“You’ve been summoned to observe,” Mosshen’s voice rang from behind. The elder had entered without sound. “Each of you is now tied to the fate of this Grove. You’ve seen what lies beyond the gate. You’ve survived. That’s more than most.”

“What happens now?” Thane asked.

“You train,” Ember answered. “You learn. And when the time comes, you serve. The Waygates are stirring. One has already opened where it should not. We need hands. Eyes. Courage.”

“And swords,” Rika added.

“And songs,” Fenwyn smiled.

Aeren tilted his head. “Waygates?”

“There are doors,” Mosshen said slowly. “Old ones. To other lands, other worlds and even other planes of existence. The Grove is a hub. A tangle of paths through the Weave. Some gates we locked. Some... refused.”

“And now something’s forcing them open,” Dahlia finished. “Something hungry.”

Nim looked around. “So what... you want us to be errand runners?”

“You’ll go where the roots point,” Ember said.

“And if we say no?” Aeren asked.

Mosshen’s smile was sad. “Then the forest will decide for you.”

That evening, Dahlia met them in a low-roofed glade deep beneath the Heartroot, the ground soft with moss and carpeted in luminous mushrooms. Training, she explained, was not merely about the sword or spell. It began with stillness.

They were made to sit. Not just sit, listen. For hours, they sat in silence. Only the sound of breath, the occasional pop of a glowing cap shedding spores. Dahlia circled them like a quiet predator, measuring their endurance.

Nim twitched. “Is this... part of the combat training?”

“It’s the first lesson,” Dahlia said. “The Grove is not just a place. It’s a voice. If you can’t hear it, you’ll die when the trees change direction.”

They sat until their legs ached and their minds screamed. The next morning, they hunted. Dahlia led them into the tunnels without speaking. The Grove darkened the deeper they went, the light thinning to threads. She handed each of them a small woven talisman, root-and-leaf glyphs, warm to the touch.

“These mark you,” she said. “The creatures below won’t see you as prey. Probably.”

“Probably?” Aeren echoed with a frown.

She smirked. “Depends how much you talk.”

They encountered their first creature by the river that ran cold and clear beneath the Glimmerroot bridges, a thing that looked like bark and shadow, eyes like holes burned through leaves. Dahlia motioned for stillness.

The thing sniffed, paused, then vanished into the gloom.

“Some things here are ancient,” she said once it passed. “Older than us. Older than stories. They keep balance. But lately, some have gone... wrong.”

They found one such thing on the fourth day. A twisted deer with branching antlers sprouting fungal spores, its eyes weeping sap. It charged without warning. Thane held it back with shield and prayer, Silas scorched it with burning glyphs, and Nim slipped behind it with blades drawn.

When it fell, the ground sighed. The Grove, it seemed, approved.

Later, they burned its body under a canopy of silver leaves. Dahlia whispered a rite in a language they didn’t know. Fenwyn appeared at dusk, clapping softly.

“Well done,” he said. “You’ve survived your first trial. The forest notices.”

“Does it reward?” Aeren asked cheekily.

Fenwyn’s grin widened. “It remembers.”

That night, they all dreamed of roots wrapping around stars, of gates made of teeth, and of a forest speaking in their mother’s voice. They awoke with sweat on their brows and the taste of bark on their tongues. Morning came again, soft and gold through moss-filtered glow. None of them spoke of their dreams.

Later that day, Dahlia led them into a chamber where roots hung low and twisted with meaning. An altar stood in the center, carved of petrified wood and inlaid with glowing amber stones. There were no priests. No words of blessing. Just the presence of age, thick in the air.

“This is the Listening Hollow,” Dahlia explained. “Those who come here without questions never leave disappointed. Those who seek answers usually regret them.”

Thane stepped forward first, placing a hand upon the altar. Her lips moved silently. When she opened her eyes, she looked older—not in years, but in weight.

Aeren was next. He touched the wood, closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath. Then his fingers reached instinctively for his lute, though he did not play it. He stared into the empty space where a melody once lived.

Nim stood for a long time before approaching. Her hand hovered inches above the altar, but never touched. She shook her head and turned away. Dahlia said nothing.

Silas muttered something arcane before placing both palms on the altar. The amber light flared, then dimmed. When he pulled back, his pupils were ringed with pale gold.

“The forest shares,” he said, voice hoarse. “But it doesn’t forget.”

They walked in silence back to their quarters.

By the time they reached their alcove, a gift had been left for each of them - wooden tokens carved with their likenesses in miniature. A message. A warning. Or perhaps an invitation.

The forest had begun to see them.

They sat with their carved tokens long after returning to the dim, warm quiet of their chamber. Each figure had its own unique expression: Nim’s was cunning, her eyebrows arched in a perpetual smirk; Aeren’s looked mournful, as though caught mid-ballad; Thane’s was stern, her wooden lips pressed into a line; Silas’s figure stared upward, mouth slightly open, eyes round with wonder, or fear.

“It’s more than just craft,” Nim said quietly. “This is insight. Someone—or something—watched us closely.”

“They're warnings,” Silas murmured. “Effigies, maybe. These could be tools for sympathetic magic. Or observation totems.”

“They’re not cursed,” Sister Thane replied, flipping hers in her hand. “I’d know.”

“Not everything is a trap,” Dahlia said from the doorway. She hadn’t knocked, nor entered with sound. The Grove didn’t require doors. “Sometimes the Grove just wants you to see yourself.”

She walked inside, her boots barely disturbing the mossy floor. She carried a length of darkroot wood, carved into the shape of a bow in progress.

“Rest is over,” she said, dropping the wood into Aeren’s lap. “You’re all building your own tools now. No more borrowed blades. What you carry from here forward will be grown, carved, or claimed. The Grove gives - but only once.”

Aeren ran his hands over the bow. The wood was warm.

Over the next three days, they learned more than they had in a month on the road. They trained in root-ring arenas, beneath weeping trees, along ledges overlooking glowing wells. They worked with the barkshapers to craft weapons from enchanted lumber and learned to speak in brief, quiet signs when walking between breathless groves.

Silas took to the lore like a starved man at a feast. He traded questions for fragments of bark etched in a cipher of symbols the druids called “Verdetongue.”

Sister Thane found herself meditating longer, even when she meant to pray. She didn’t stop carrying her mace and shield, but she began wearing a vine-threaded cord around her wrist—the first gift she accepted without suspicion.

Nim grew quiet, but not withdrawn. Instead, she listened—truly listened—to the echoes in the roots. She found herself waking before the rest, walking paths that shifted when she returned. The Grove liked her.

Aeren began to sing again. Softly at first, then with intent. His voice resonated in certain halls.

One night, a trio of firefly-winged creatures danced to his lullaby until he fell asleep mid-verse.

They were becoming something new. Not quite druids, not quite guests. Something between.

On the fifth night, Ember called them to the Heartroot again.

“There is work,” she said. “The first gate trembles. The Weave is thin beyond its roots. A scouting party vanished three days past.”

“Where?” Sister Thane asked.

“Not far. But far enough,” Ember said. “You’ll go with Dahlia. What waits on the other side is not yours to fight. Not yet. But you’ll bear witness. And bring back truth.”

“What if there’s no truth to bring back?” Aeren asked in his usual jovial fashion.

Ember smiled. “Then you’ll know how the last song ends.”

Chapter 4: Bonds Forged in Flame

The Waygate hummed behind them, still glowing with faint golden sigils, but quiet now. It had taken them through and sealed behind them with a whisper of shifting bark. The air beyond was different. Warmer, dryer, touched with the scent of woodsmoke and moss.

They stood together, seven now. No longer just the outsiders and the Grove’s shepherds.

Kaelen Thornebound stepped forward, sniffing the air with feral instinct. His copper-brown hair was tied back in a warrior’s braid, and his bare arms bore painted runes of bark and blood. “No wind. No birds. But something’s watching.”

“It always is,” Nim Underwillow muttered, tightening the straps of her gear. “I don’t like it when I can’t hear my own heartbeat.”

Aeren Solwyn’s laugh was soft, melodic. “That’s because your heartbeat’s louder than most. It echoes in your eyes.”

Nim gave him a sidelong smirk. “You trying poetry again, songbird?”

“I’m always trying poetry. Doesn’t mean it’s working.”

Dahlia Avalon crouched near the forest floor, brushing her fingers across the moss. “This isn’t WytchWood. The trees are... twisted. But not hostile. Not yet.”

Fenwyn Briarlick flicked his tail and twirled his staff between both palms. “We’re in a forgotten glade, between echoes of two forests. Places like this grow strange things. And stranger moods.”

Silas Varric was already murmuring to himself, scratching symbols into a floating chalkboard of light. He paused, pushed up his sleeves, and glanced at the others. “There’s a leyline just under our feet. Not strong. Frayed. But magical.”

Sister Thane tapped the butt of her mace against the earth, her shield on her back. “Then we keep together. No scouts. No wandering.”

Kaelen grunted. “Even your prayers are orders.”

“They’re guidelines.”

He cracked a grin. “I like guidelines. I just prefer breaking them.”

For hours, they walked, not lost, not quite searching. The trail was not a line but a circle, winding them back to a clearing they could swear they’d already passed. Three times.

“Right,” Nim finally said, dropping her pack. “We’re cursed.”

“We’re being tested,” Fenwyn said. “This is how these glades work. They watch how you react. Only when the forest believes in you, does it open.”

“What does it want?” Aeren asked.

“Trust,” Dahlia said, rising from the moss. “It wants to see if we’re a pack. Or prey.”

That night, they made camp beneath a hill tree whose trunk split into three like antlers. The sky above was the dark red of distant stormlight, filtered through leaves that glimmered like stained glass. Kaelen lit the fire with flint and blade. Silas set tiny runes to watch the perimeter. Nim unpacked dried fruit and strange jerky made from barkbeast meat.

“Don’t ask what part,” she said cheerfully as she handed it out.

Sister Thane blessed the ground. Dahlia climbed the tree for lookout. Aeren worked on fixing his lute.

Then they eased into talking, not about the mission, not about the Grove but about other things.

Silas told the tale of how he once opened a portal into a plane of mirrors and nearly lost himself to his reflection.

Thane shared a soft story about a younger sibling who used to follow her like a shadow before the plague.

Kaelen described a spirit-bonding ritual in the depths of the Ashen Glade that involved dancing naked beneath a red moon. Nim insisted on details.

Dahlia revealed she used to collect pressed leaves and name them after dead relatives.

Aeren sang a quiet song, without magic, about a high tower, a falling star, and a promise made at the edge of the world.

Fenwyn told no story, but played a reed flute carved from bone and sapwood. It sounded like mourning. It sounded like home.

Their silences became less hollow. The space between them was not absence, but room.

The next morning brought fog. Not just mist, but a dense curtain of silver that warped shapes and bent light. They could barely see one another as they packed. But still, they moved in rhythm.

The path remained. It shimmered faintly, beckoning them forward. As they walked, the fog shifted around them in spirals, whispering with voices they didn’t recognize. Names were spoken. Regrets. Memories long buried.

“Don’t answer them,” Dahlia warned. “The mist wants pieces of you. Give it a word, it will take a story.”

For an hour they walked in silence. Then two.

Eventually, Kaelen broke it.

“I keep hearing my father’s voice. He died in a thunderstorm. Left the firewood uncut. I was five.”

Thane responded. “I saw my sister’s face in the fog. I was holding her hand when the fever took her.”

One by one, the others shared fragments—not to release them, but to reclaim them.

“I dreamed of a stage, once,” Aeren said. “The applause never stopped. Until it did. And then I woke up screaming.”

Silas offered a rare admission. “The fire at the university? I didn’t accidentally set it. I wanted to know if the wards could hold.”

Nim shook her head. “I don’t remember my mother’s face. Just the smell of smoke and salted bread.”

Fenwyn hummed, then said softly, “The forest watches. But sometimes, it listens too.”

And then, just like that, the fog lifted, the glade opened - the path that hadn’t been there now was. Lined in rootlight. Leading somewhere new. They stepped forward. No orders. No speeches. Just a rhythm in their gait. It wasn’t unity born of triumph. It was the beginning of understanding.

They didn't get far.

The scream came from behind a veil of trees—a shrill, shuddering cry, not quite human, not quite beast. It was followed by the heavy thud of something crashing through the underbrush.

“Form on me,” Thane barked, shield already up.

Kaelen drew his axe in a swift, fluid motion, stepping to her right. Dahlia vanished into shadow, bow drawn. Nim climbed a nearby tree. Aeren slung his lute behind him and drew his rapier, the silvered blade still elegant despite scratches. Fenwyn whispered to his staff, vines already stirring at his feet. Silas’s hands ignited with runes.

From the dark emerged a creature, it looked like a bear once - but it had been hollowed. Bark crusted over fur. Antlers grew from its back like jagged branches, and its jaw hung open, black sap dripping like blood. Its eyes were pits of darkness, wide and unblinking.

“Corrupted,” Fenwyn hissed. “Something twisted it.”

The beast lunged.

Kaelen roared and rushed to meet it, slamming shoulder-first into its bulk, axe carving across its ribs. It bellowed and backhanded him with terrifying force. Kaelen crashed into a tree, bark exploding around him, breath torn from his lungs. He rolled to his feet, bleeding from a deep gouge on his shoulder.

Thane stepped into the path of the beast’s second charge, shield raised. The impact nearly buckled her knees, but she held. Her mace swung up and crashed into the creature’s lower jaw with a sickening crunch. The beast reeled, roaring.

Nim dropped from her perch and landed on its back with barely a whisper. Her blades plunged into gaps between bark-plates, but the creature twisted violently, slamming her into the trunk of a tree. She hit the ground hard, coughing blood.

“Aeren!” Thane cried.

The bard sprang into motion. “Invenire corda!” he sang, and the ground beneath the creature's feet erupted in glowing, thorned vines that latched onto its limbs. It struggled against the restraint, thrashing. Aeren dashed forward, rapier glinting, and stabbed low, piercing between bark plates near the haunch. The blade stuck, forcing him to twist away. A heavy claw swept his thigh. He cried out and fell back, leg bleeding.

Silas stepped up, chanting. The runes on his hands brightened, his voice rising with urgency.

“Fulmen veritas!” A bolt of white fire burst from his staff and exploded into the creature’s side. The beast screamed, a sound layered with echoes, like multiple mouths shrieking at once. It turned on Silas, limping, body smoldering but Dahlia’s arrow flew, piercing its shoulder. Another thudded into its side. A third buried deep near the neck—but the beast didn’t fall.

Kaelen, bloodied and limping, returned with fury in his eyes. He swung his axe in a wide arc, cleaving into the creature’s back leg.

“Get away from them!” he yelled.

The beast buckled. Still, it writhed. Still, it fought. Fenwyn stepped forward, eyes glowing green. “Enough.”

He thrust his staff into the ground, and a wave of emerald energy surged forward. Roots surged from the soil, wrapping the beast’s limbs, pulling it down.

It howled one last time, a mournful, cracking sound ,before Dahlia fired her final arrow. This one struck between the eyes.

The creature collapsed. Still. Motionless.

Silence fell, the team stood in a ragged ring, gasping, bloodied.

Aeren limped toward Thane, hand pressed to his leg. “I think I’ll name this one ‘The Beast and the Ballad.’”

“You’re bleeding,” Thane said, kneeling beside him to cure to his wounds.

“I bleed with flair,” he smiled weakly.

Kaelen slumped beside a rock, groaning. Nim sat with her back to a tree, holding her ribs. Silas knelt beside her, checking the bruise spreading across her side. Dahlia retrieved her arrows silently, eyes scanning the woods. Fenwyn pressed a hand to the creature’s bark and whispered a short prayer.

The Grove watched.

The glade, once quiet, seemed to exhale.

They didn’t speak of victory. They didn’t cheer.

But something passed between them - a breath, a bond, not forged in silence.

Forged in flame.

Forged in blood.

Forged in battle.

Nim Underwillow, the Gnome Rogue, strikes from the shadows

Chapter 5: The Gate That Hungered

The chamber beneath the Heartroot pulsed with a sound no ear could hear, a deep rhythmic thrum that vibrated in the blood - not the bones. It was the third time the Waygate had stirred without consent, and this time, it didn’t stop. A steady amber light blinked across the living root-arch, like the heartbeat of something about to wake. Or feed.

“They’ve been watching it all night,” Dahlia said, arms crossed, voice low.

“Watching doesn’t stop it opening,” Silas muttered. His hands trembled as he adjusted the strap of his satchel. The bags under his eyes had deepened, and there was a damp, herbal smell about him. He noticed Dahlia’s glance. “I haven’t slept.”

“Clearly,” she said.

Fenwyn stood nearby, eyes half-lidded in thought, staff pressed to the mossy floor. “This is not natural magic,” he whispered. “The gate opened on its own… and the land it connects to hasn’t been recorded in any druidic map for three centuries.”

“Could be a misfire,” Kaelen said, sharpening the edge of his axe with a riverstone. “Or it could be bait.”

The air shimmered. The Waygate vibrated. And then the amber light inside the arch solidified into mist.

“It's ready,” Mosshen said, stepping into the room. He looked older than the day before, skin tight as bark, lips thinned with worry. “You seven will go. Scout only. Record everything. Engage nothing.”

“Sure,” Aeren said, strapping his cracked lute to his back, “because we’re famously good at avoiding fights.”

Mosshen’s golden eyes lingered on each of them in turn. “You’ll take two days’ provisions, enough for four. The gate remains open for twenty-four hours. After that—it decides.”

“Wait—what do you mean it decides?” Nim asked, squinting.

But Mosshen had already turned away.

Fenwyn stepped forward, placing a hand to the arch. “There’s a forest on the other side. Cold. Scarred. And something old is walking it.”

“Lovely,” Thane said. “Let’s go make friends.”

They stepped through one by one.

Crossing a Waygate felt like being swallowed slowly. First came the cold—like being dipped in the breath of an ancient cave. Then the pressure, like someone pressing their forehead to yours and whispering a name you didn’t know in a language you shouldn’t understand. Finally, the release. A sudden rush forward - weightless, breathless, soundless.

And then air. Damp, still, and wrong.

*****

They arrived in a clearing at dusk. The sky above was a dull bruise of purples and ochres, with no visible sun. Trees rose around them like petrified bones - thin, blackened trunks with no leaves, only lengths of webbed bark and lichen. The ground was soft with ash and snow. A wind blew, but it didn’t rustle anything.

It moaned.

“Okay,” Aeren said. “New plan. We leave.”

“Too late,” Kaelen muttered grabbing Aaeren by the collar ask he about faced.

Thane checked her gear. “Everyone in pairs. Eyes out. No stragglers.”

“I’ll take Aeren,” Nim said quickly.

Aeren raised an eyebrow. “I feel like this is a trick.”

She winked. “You’ll know if it is.”

Dahlia moved to Silas, who was scribbling into his journal with frantic, jittering hands. “You good?”

“Of course,” he said, not looking up. “Perfectly fine. Absolutely not shaking. Just very excited. This place is practically screaming arcane resonance.”

“That’s not the only thing screaming,” she muttered.

The pairings moved into the trees, forming a slow outward spiral. At the center, Fenwyn placed his staff into the soil and whispered to it. The wood resisted. The roots below were brittle. Dead. Or something worse.

Aeren and Nim walked toward a break in the treeline, where skeletal branches formed an arch overhead. Nim’s boots crunched something that wasn’t twigs - closer to chitin.

“Did you hear about the last group that went through a gate without knowing what was on the other side?” she asked.

“Please tell me it ends with wine and orgies,” Aeren replied.

“Nope. Ends with teeth. Teeth and mushrooms.”

“Sounds like my last tour.”

She chuckled, low and warm, then stopped. “Do you hear that?”

He paused. The lute on his back gave a soft vibration.

It was music. Barely. But there. A thrum, like a heartbeat set to song. Off-key and ragged. It came from underground.

Silas knelt beside a pale white sprout emerging from the snow. He wore gloves, but his fingers trembled as he pinched the stem.

Dahlia approached behind him. “Is that for one of your spells?”

“Yes,” he said too quickly. “Rare catalyst. Very particular. No one else uses it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No one?”

“Old school,” he lied. “Forgotten tradition.”

He slipped the sprout into a leather pouch. He didn’t mention that the plant was called Vesshroot, and that when ground into a fine powder and dissolved over heat, it became Elutherane, a liquid light only visible to the mind’s eye. That it allowed him to see magic. Feel it. Hear it. Even when he couldn’t remember his own thoughts.

“Keep your head clear,” she warned.

“Always,” he said, and hated himself for how easily it came out.

They regrouped as night fell. Thane had found a pile of animal carcasses. Each one hollowed. No blood. No bones.

“Drained,” she said. “But not eaten.”

“The trees here don’t grow,” Fenwyn whispered. “They remember dying.”

That night, they built a fire of root husks. It burned blue and quiet. No crackle. No warmth

The group sat in a rough circle, gear in their laps. Even Kaelen seemed rattled.

“So what’s the plan tomorrow?” Nim asked.

“Go deeper,” Dahlia said. “Find the source of the breach. Look for druid markers, symbols, anything.”

“And if we find something that wants to eat our faces?” Aeren asked.

Kaelen smiled grimly. “Then we feed it axe first.”

Silas stared into the flames fo the campfire, the pouch of Vesshroot warm against his chest.

And far in the forest, something moved. Something that walked like a man, but didn’t breathe like one.

*****

Sleep did not come easy, or at all.

Silas pretended to rest, back propped against a dead log, hood pulled low. His eyes flickered with unseen glyphs, his mind half-lost in calculations. He had taken only a pinch - just enough of the ground Vesshroot to dull the buzzing ache behind his eyes. Not enough to vanish. Just enough to cope.

He could feel magic here. It slithered beneath the surface like worms under ice. There was too much - wild, untethered, bleeding through the soil from whatever was broken here. And it whispered. It had begun whispering before they arrived. It used his own voice. Called him Professor. Asked if he remembered what it felt like to be brilliant.

He hadn’t told the others.

He wouldn’t.

Not until he knew what this place was.

Not until he knew what he still was.

Kaelen didn’t sleep either. He sat with his back to a dead tree, axe across his knees, jaw clenched. The cold didn’t bother him. The silence did.

He hated places that smelled like fear. And this place reeked.

He watched Dahlia move through the camp, quiet and deliberate. She checked their perimeter, her bow unknocked but arrows close at hand, her other hand always brushing the dagger strapped to her thigh. She moved like a shadow that had learned discipline.

He liked that about her.

He liked a lot of things about her.

But not now. Now he focused. Now he watched.

The second watch belonged to Nim and Thane.

Nim perched on a jagged stump with her cloak wrapped tight, eyes narrowed at the firelight. “This place has too many angles,” she whispered. “Too many corners without walls.”

Thane nodded, polishing her shield in slow, measured circles. “There’s no rhythm. Not even from the earth. I pray and get nothing back.”

“That ever happen before?”

“Only when the gods go quiet.”

Nim glanced toward the darkness. “Or when something makes them turn away.”

A branch snapped.

Both women turned sharply, weapons out.

But it was only Fenwyn, returning from the tree line.

“Nothing,” he said. “Still.”

“Still’s worse than noise,” Nim muttered.

He offered her a tight smile. “You’re starting to sound like Silas.”

“Gods help me.”

*****

They broke camp early.

The sun - or whatever stood in for it - never rose. The sky remained a sickly gray-brown, the kind of light that never told you what hour it was. Their breath misted. The ground steamed where they stepped. The snow had become more granular, like ash mixed with glass dust.

A faint trail of sigils appeared as they moved, burned into bark, carved into stone. Druidic markings, though none of them matched Fenwyn’s recollection.

“They’re old,” he said, brushing his fingers along one. “Pre-Reckoning style. Possibly even... pre-Grove.”

Kaelen raised a brow. “How long have you people been building root circles and singing to trees?”

Fenwyn grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Longer than anyone remembers. That’s the point.”

The trail curved down into a natural sinkhole choked with tangled roots and shattered bones. At the center, a monolith stood. Six feet tall. Jet black. Slick as oil. No moss grew on it.

Aeren stopped at the edge. “Please tell me that’s not what it looks like.”

Silas didn’t answer.

He stepped forward, nearly tripping on a fractured femur, and placed his hand against the stone.

It was cold. Not temperature cold - conceptually cold. Like time had stopped touching it. Like even rot refused it.

The stone pulsed.

And Silas saw something.

The sky wasn’t real.

It was a dome. Stars burned inside it.

The Grove was gone. The roots were chains. The Heartroot screamed as it was peeled open like fruit.

Seven figures stood beneath the dome, each holding a torch of violet flame.

They chanted a name he didn’t know.

A name that wasn’t a word.

He felt it burn through him—erasing everything: his past, his name, his voice. It took everything.

Then he was falling. Falling back into himself.

Hands pulled him away.

It was Dahlia. Her face pale, eyes sharp.

“Silas! Snap out of it!”

He gasped and blinked, clutching his temples. “I... I saw... I don’t know. Something wrong.”

Aeren crouched beside him, worried. “You were mumbling. Then screaming. You okay, mate?”

Silas didn’t answer.

Nim looked at the stone. “Is it cursed?”

“No,” Fenwyn said softly. “It’s worse.”

They left the sinkhole quickly.

No one spoke for a while.

The trail led them into a dead glen where the trees bent backward as if from an explosion. At its center was a Waygate - old, cracked, bleeding light from within its seams. Runes crawled across it like insects. Magic leaked out in thin vaporous tendrils, coiling toward the group as if tasting them.

“This is the breach,” Thane said.

“No shit,” Kaelen muttered.

The gate was open. On the other side: dark water. Stars flickering in the depths.

Nim took a step forward, blades out.

Then something came through.

Not walking, it bled through the portal.

The figure, once a man, maybe. Now wrapped in bark and ruin, mouth split into a permanent scream, eyes pitch-black and dripping sap. His limbs were too long. His voice was made of insects.

“You shouldn’t have come,” it hissed.

And then it leapt!

*****

The creature landed in the middle of them with a wet, boneless sound, as if it had poured from the gate rather than stepped through. It didn’t walk - it slithered inside its own skin, limbs moving as if borrowed. The stench hit them first, cloying and thick, like rotting wet wood soaked in blood and mildew.

Bark had split and warped across its torso in jagged, unnatural plates, curling back in places to expose writhing roots and tendons that pulsed like parasitic worms. Its limbs were too long, jointed the wrong way, and its spine arched like a bow pulled too tight.

Its face might have once been human, but it had been hollowed, eyeless, the sockets instead aglow with starless, oil-black hunger. A maw split its jawline like an old log broken open, full of teeth made from splinters and thorn. It was as if a dryad had died screaming and been reborn in rot.

There was something about its gait, its crooked posture and twitching fluidity, that reminded Silas faintly of a twisted blight, but smarter, hungrier, wrong. Like something the forest regretted making.

Kaelen reacted first. His axe was already mid-swing when the creature lunged. Steel bit into twisted hide, slicing deep, but instead of blood, the wound wept black sap that hissed when it hit the ground. The thing didn’t scream, it laughed. A sound like rotted lungs trying to laugh though coated in oil.

“Back!” Thane roared, stepping in with shield raised.

The creature struck her with unnatural speed, claws raking her armor. Sparks flew. The blow knocked her back a full pace, but she held her footing. Her counterstrike landed a dented mace-head directly into the beast’s collarbone. Something cracked. It barely flinched.

From above, Dahlia’s first arrow found the thing’s thigh. A second followed - a perfect shot to the throat. It embedded, but the creature didn’t even stumble. It turned to her with a twitch of interest… and smiled.

“Fuck,” she hissed under her breath and ducked behind a dead log.

“Flanking!” Nim shouted from a tree branch. She hurled one dagger at its shoulder, then leapt from above, plunging her second blade into the creature’s back.

It screamed this time, a sound that didn’t stop. It just kept going—an endless, piercing shriek like glass shattering in a cave. Nim tumbled off and rolled to safety, hands clamped over her ears.

“Cover her!” Aeren shouted.

He unslung his hastily repaired lute mid-run, strumming a discordant chord with fingers now wrapped in glowing sigils. His voice boomed: “Devolare!”

A shockwave of sound pulsed outward from the strings. The creature staggered back, black sap trailing from its wounds. Its scream hiccupped. It turned toward the bard.

“That’s right, come to me, you hollow-barked bastard,” Aeren said, drawing his silvered rapier and stepping in.

The creature surged forward.

Aeren met it with a thrust, rapier sliding beneath the ribs, twisting. He smiled - until the creature grabbed him by the throat.

“Aeren!” Nim shrieked.

The thing lifted him into the air. Its barked fingers splintered, digging into his flesh. Aeren kicked, choked, swung with his free hand—nothing. Its grip was iron.

Then the air screamed again, this time with heat.

“Ignis Aspera!” Silas roared from the ridge, runes spiraling up his arms in blinding spirals.

A lance of fire erupted from his staff, searing into the creature’s flank. Its body spasmed, wood and root igniting with blue flame. It shrieked, tossing Aeren aside.

He landed hard, coughing, blood smearing his lips.

Thane dove in, shield first. Her slam knocked the burning creature off-balance, and Kaelen followed - screaming, howling, his axe descending in brutal arcs. He cut through one arm. Then another. Black ichor sprayed.

The creature flailed wildly, mouth tearing open wider than any jaw should. It reached toward the Waygate behind it - and another shape began to stir beyond the veil.

“No,” Fenwyn whispered, horror blooming in his face. “We can’t let it call them through.”

He stabbed his staff into the earth. “Verdantis ruuk'thal!”

The ground erupted with green light, and the roots responded. Vines and tendrils tore upward, wrapping around the Waygate’s perimeter, latching, binding. The second figure shrieked on the other side, but the portal’s light dimmed—fading, strangling under Fenwyn’s grasp.

The corrupted creature screeched. One final, desperate burst.

And then Kaelen’s axe split its skull.

The scream died.

The body collapsed.

Silence, again.

Only the wheeze of breath. The drip of sap. The distant crackle of burning rot.

“Is everyone alive?” Dahlia asked after several seconds.

“Mostly,” Aeren rasped, holding his throat. “Might need a new voice box, though. Good thing I talk with my hips.”

Thane helped him to sit, already beginning a healing incantation. “Hold still.”

“Always do, Sister.”

Kaelen knelt beside the corpse, panting. “That was no natural spirit. That thing... it was wearing a man’s face like a glove.”

“It came through the gate,” Silas said flatly. “Which means something sent it.”

“Or something’s testing us,” Nim added, still catching her breath. “Seeing how much we can bleed.”

Fenwyn slumped to the base of a tree, shaking. “It was calling another. A larger one. I felt it.”

“Did we stop the summoning?” Dahlia asked.

He shook his head. “We delayed it. The gate will open again. Stronger.”

Aeren grunted. “Next time, maybe I’ll bring armor.”

“No time to joke,” Thane said. “We need to return. Report this.”

Silas stood slowly. “Not yet.”

Everyone turned.

He pointed to the black monolith beyond the portal. It still stood, unburned, unbroken. Faint symbols pulsed along its surface, moving like worms beneath skin.

“There’s something there,” he said. “Something calling to me.”

“Is that the Vesshroot talking?” Nim asked, eyebrow raised.

He froze. Just for a moment.

“No,” he said too carefully.

But it was.

*****

The silence after the fight was not peaceful—it was wrong. Too quiet. Even the wind had stopped.

Silas’s eyes were locked on the black monolith beyond the portal, where the runes still slithered like maggots beneath glass. It pulsed faintly, once every few seconds, in time with something that was not a heartbeat.

“I need to study it,” he said, stepping forward, voice too calm.

“You need to sit down,” Thane snapped. “You nearly collapsed when it screamed. Your nose bled. Your eyes went gold again.”

“I’m fine,” he lied, again.

Dahlia placed a hand on his chest - not roughly, but firm. “You’re shaking, Varric.”

He looked down. His fingers were trembling uncontrollably. The pouch of Vesshroot inside his cloak throbbed like it had its own pulse.

“Just... let me take a closer look. Five minutes. It’s not like we’ll get another chance.”

“No,” Fenwyn said sharply. His voice carried a strange tension, an undercurrent of fear. “That thing isn’t a relic. It’s a warning.”

Kaelen, kneeling beside the corpse of the creature, pulled his axe free with a grunt. Black sap clung to the blade in clots. “Then we should burn it.”

“No,” Silas said. “We can’t. We don’t know what it’s linked to. If it’s part of a gate system, destroying it could open something worse.”

“Or it could close something we needed closed,” Dahlia said. “Like that abomination’s doorway.”

Aeren, voice hoarse but steady, spoke up. “I vote we piss on it and go home.”

Nim smirked. “For once, I second the bard.”

Silas turned toward the group, visibly struggling to steady himself. “This might be the only clue we’ve found about what’s breaking the Waygates. We don’t have to poke it, but I’m marking the runes. Just the runes.”

Dahlia looked to Fenwyn.

The satyr was pale, brow furrowed, ears twitching. “...Draw fast. And don’t look into the runes. Let your hand work. Not your eyes.”

Silas gave a grateful nod and crouched. He pulled a strip of parchment from his bag, fingers already smudged with red ink. As he worked, he murmured to himself in arcane shorthand, marking each symbol with care.

He didn’t notice the first time his pen started to write words he didn’t recognize.

Meanwhile, Kaelen and Thane examined the creature’s remains.

It had already started to decompose, but not naturally. Its body was breaking down into clumps of fungus and dry, curling roots. No bone. No organs. Just matter returning to rot.

Kaelen scraped a patch of its 'skin' into a pouch. “You think this was once a man?”

Thane glanced at the warped face, now sloughing off like wet bark. “Maybe. Or maybe something wore a man like a coat.”

“You’ve seen worse?”

She hesitated. “I’ve survived worse.”

Kaelen nodded and didn’t push. But he watched her longer than necessary.

*****

They decided to return to the Grove.

The Waygate had dimmed but not closed. Fenwyn reinforced it with binding root spells, layered with sigils from Verdetongue - old, near-forgotten. Aeren added his own touch: a bardic mark designed to resonate in case the gate tried to reopen without them.

“Worst-case, it sings a warning scream and fries a few eyebrows,” he said, voice dry.

“I like the sound of that,” Nim replied. “Loud. Bloody. Useful.”

They formed up and stepped back through the gate, one at a time.

Crossing back felt different.

Colder. Slower. As if the portal hesitated before letting them pass.

Silas emerged last, breathing hard, the scroll clutched in his fist. His eyes were wide and distant, lips twitching with words no one heard.

Dahlia put a hand on his shoulder. “You with us?”

He nodded slowly. “For now.”

That wasn’t the answer she wanted.

*****

Back in the Heartroot chamber, the elders listened in silence as the group relayed what they had seen.

Mosshen said nothing for a long time.

When he finally spoke, his voice was grave.

“This confirms what we feared,” he said. “The Waygates are not simply being disturbed, they are being fed. Corruption is coming through, not from within.”

“What does that mean?” Thane asked.

Ember stepped forward, her eyes shadowed. “It means something is forcing the gates open from the other side. And not every gate leads to another forest anymore.”

“Some lead to rot,” Fenwyn said.

“Some lead to ruin,” Rika added.

Dahlia looked around the chamber. “So what now?”

“Now,” Mosshen said, “you prepare. The gates are waking. And so is what sleeps beneath them.”

That night, Silas sat alone in his quarters.

He stared at the copied runes on the parchment. They moved. They whispered.

He opened his pouch. The Vesshroot was very dry now, and brittle. He crushed a stem between his fingers, ground it into powder, mixed it into a clay bowl with a thin trickle of wine and a pinch of phosphor ash.

When it hissed, it was ready.

He lit the mixture with a shaking hand, inhaled deeply, and fell back against the wall, trembling.

The glyphs on the parchment lit up in gold, then blue, then void-black.

And he smiled.

Because now... he could see.

He could see everything.

*****

Dahlia couldn't sleep. She never really did after stepping through a gate.

She paced the moss-ringed balcony outside her quarters, high in one of the living hollows of Maple Grove. The amber glow from root-lanterns cast flickering patterns across her skin, like firelight through stained glass. Below, the Grove breathed quietly, but not calmly. The leaves rustled in patterns that made no wind.

She stopped, peering down into the distance.

There were whispers in the trees.

Not voices.

Not words.

But intention.

The forest wasn’t resting.

It was waiting.

*****

Across the Grove, Nim sat at the edge of a shallow water pool, one boot off, cleaning sap from her blades. She hummed quietly, an old tune, one her father used to whistle before disappearing forever into a barrow-hollow. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but sometimes, places like this made her reconsider.

She glanced over her shoulder toward Silas’s chamber.

No light.

No movement.

He’d been off since the monolith. Hell, he’d been off since the first gate.

Nim didn’t like secrets. She especially didn’t like secrets held by twitchy, muttering wizards with hollow eyes and ink-stained teeth.

She slipped the boot back on.

She had time for a little spying.

*****

Thane was in the Grove’s temple, kneeling before the altar of roots and stone, lit by a single pulseglow crystal. Her mace rested beside her. Her shield was upright, bearing a new scratch from the corrupted creature’s claws.

She didn’t pray. Not anymore.

Not really.

The gods had stopped answering her somewhere between her sister’s death and the day she'd burned a village to stop a plague that never existed. Now she only knelt to remember who she used to be.

Fenwyn stood behind her, silent, watching.

“You don’t believe anymore,” he said, not accusing, just stating.

Thane opened her eyes. “I believe in the silence.”

“Silence can be an answer.”

“Silence can also mean they stopped listening.”

Fenwyn stepped beside her, placing a small offering bowl filled with glowing spores. “Then maybe it's time you listened back.”

She didn’t answer.

But she didn’t leave either.

*****

Kaelen was in the training grove, shirtless, bruised, and bleeding where bark had lashed him in drills. He welcomed it. Pain made sense. It reminded him where his edges were. His rage had slipped again during the fight. He could feel it, how the world blurred when he swung, how the sound of bone cracking made him smile.

He wiped sweat from his jaw.

Behind him, someone approached.

Dahlia.

She didn’t speak. Just stood there, arms crossed, watching him breathe.

“Did I go too far?” he asked without turning.

“You didn’t go far enough,” she replied.

He turned to her. “You’re not like them. You understand it. The blood.”

“I understand control,” she said. “And I know you’re losing it.”

He stepped closer. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

For a moment, the tension between them crackled. A beat too long. A breath held.

Then she looked away. “Clean yourself up.”

He smiled to himself as she walked away.

*****

In the upper archives of the Heartroot, Aeren wandered alone.

He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He never was.

But that’s when the good things usually found him.

He traced his fingers along books older than most countries. He sang softly, wordlessly, letting the tones bounce off the wood and stone. Some tones opened doors. Others made them lock.

One made a shelf slide open.

Behind it: a hidden scroll case, carved in bone and wrapped in purple-threaded twine.

It hummed.

He reached for it—

—and stopped.

From the shadows, a voice said, “That’s not meant for you.”

Aeren turned.

A hooded figure stepped out. Not a druid. Not anyone he’d seen before. Their face was obscured, voice like dry leaves caught in wind.

“Who are you?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“A reminder,” the figure said. “The song you carry doesn’t belong to you.”

And then they vanished.

Aeren stared at the empty space.

And the scroll still hummed.

*****

Elsewhere, in the deepest part of the Grove - beyond the wells, behind the sealed doors, below the Glimmerroots, a chamber throbbed with light.

But it was not the Grove’s light.

It was older.

In the center stood a throne of root and bone, long abandoned.

Until now.

The runes on the chamber walls flickered into life, one by one, casting silhouettes across the floor.

A figure stepped from the shadows. Cloaked in barksteel, face veiled by threads of starlight and ash. His eyes glowed like two burning coals drowned in water.

He knelt before the throne.

And whispered, “They opened the Gate.”

From the stone, a second voice answered—layered, echoing, slow.

“Then it begins again.”

*****

Back in his chamber, Silas woke with a gasp.

He couldn’t remember his own name.

He couldn’t remember why his hand was bleeding.

The runes were gone from the parchment.

But the feeling remained.

The power.

The clarity.

He reached for more Vesshroot with shaking fingers.

And told himself it was just to make it through the night.

Chapter 6: Gifts of the Heartroot

The bell of the Heartroot tolled with a sound that echoed not through air, but through marrow. It was not a clangor, nor a chime, but a resonance—a deep, gentle pulse that slid down the bones like warm sap. The seven stood in the open chamber where silver-threaded stone spiraled inward to the crystalline root at the Grove’s center.

They had returned bloodied but alive, carrying news of the Blight-creature they had vanquished. Their wounds had been healed, their exhaustion tended to with glowing baths and herbal teas. And now, the Grove had called them here again.

Elder Ember stood at the center, her robes brushed with leaf-dust, her dark hair wound with tiny acorns. Beside her stood Elder Mosshen, and to her other side, Rika, the Grove’s armorer, whose braids jangled with bone and brass.

"You were not meant to succeed," Ember said, without judgment. "But you did. You returned not only with breath in your lungs, but with truth."

"The Blight that came through the gate was a herald," Mosshen added. "A wound in the Weave. Not an accident."

"You will be asked to fight again," Ember continued. "Further, deeper, and against things not born of this world. The Grove cannot follow you into every shadow. But it can arm you."

She extended a hand, and from the Heartroot’s crystalline surface rose seven smooth pedestals, each topped with a piece of equipment—some subtle, some strange, all humming faintly with enchantment.

"These are not Druid relics," said Rika. "They are items acquired, traded, and bartered from the world beyond. Some are old. Some were once lost. All were chosen by the Grove for you."

The silence that followed felt ceremonial.

Ember gestured to the first.

Kaelen Thornebound stepped forward. On his pedestal rested a wide, double-headed axe, forged of cold iron with veins of dark green ore. The haft, leaning beside it, was made from something older than any tree. It smelled of storm.

"This is Bloodhowl Reforged," Rika said. "It amplifies rage and will. On the third strike, it echoes the first. It remembers violence. Its wounds bleed deeper—struck foes lose strength with every heartbeat."

Kaelen took it in both hands. The haft pulsed against his palms, like the heart of a predator.

"We are understood," he murmured.

Dahlia Avalon approached next. Her pedestal held a set of bracers shaped like curling leaves, and a longbow of grey ashwood carved with a winding vine motif. The string shimmered faintly, as if braided from moonlight.

"Whisperbough," Rika named it. "Silent as fog. It bends its arc to strike where the heart intends. The bracers ward your limbs from cursed touch and slow poison."

Dahlia ran her fingers along the bow’s curve. Her green eyes flicked up, and for the briefest moment, she smiled.

"I won’t miss."

Fenwyn Briarlick pranced up next, his hooves tapping gently on the stone. On his pedestal was a twisted staff of blackroot, thicker than his usual walking stick. Its top was crowned with a cluster of crystal buds, each softly glowing.

"The Blooming Thorn," said Mosshen. "It draws power from ley lines and can seed life or unravel it. It obeys rhythm more than will."

Fenwyn took it reverently, his expression uncharacteristically solemn.

"A wild dance it is, then."

Now the Outsiders stepped forward.

Silas Varric was the first among them.

He hesitated at the pedestal. Resting atop it was not a weapon, but a ring: dark iron, inset with a fleck of obsidian. An ancient sigil writhed on its surface, shifting shape.

"The Memory Band," said Rika. "Stores three spells in perfect clarity. Anchors the mind against chaos, but not without cost."

Silas touched it with trembling fingers. For a moment, the glow of the ring pushed back the ever-present fog in his eyes.

"It will suffice."

Ember watched him, saying nothing.

Nim Underwillow reached her pedestal, bouncing on the balls of her feet. What sat there was a belt of black leather studded with onyx clasps and three small vials in silver holders. Alongside it lay two daggers: one curved like a smile, and the other narrow and jagged like a lightning strike.

"Whisperbelt, Night's Fang, and Echo," Rika said. "The belt masks all sound within your shadow. Night's Fang, once it tastes blood, can strike the same spot again. Echo will return to your hand if thrown—it always finds its master."

Nim picked up both blades, spun them with precise grace, then tucked them away with barely a movement. Her smile was sly, but pleased.

"They’re perfect."

Aeren Solwyn approached next, still nursing the faintest limp. Upon his pedestal rested two instruments: a flute carved of pale bone, and a lute of ancient wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl shaped like falling leaves. Its strings gleamed, each a different color.

"The flute is called Breath of the Grove," Mosshen said. "Crafted by Fenwyn himself. It carries a healing melody—mending wounds, easing pain, slowing sickness. The lute is Heartstring, an old relic, responsive to spellcraft. It amplifies enchantments, illusions, and charms."

Aeren ran his hands across the lute’s strings. Music stirred, faint, yearning.

"These are voices worth singing with," he whispered.

Sister Eliza Thane was last.

On her pedestal lay a flanged mace of platinum and steel, its head crafted with expert human artistry - elegant, weighty, and holy. A round shield of silverwood bordered with coiled vines of platinum and steel rested beside it, its interior lined with soft blue silk.

"Judicator’s Wrath and the Angel's Shield," Rika intoned. "The mace once belonged to a human cleric who worshipped a deity that once was a Platinum Dragon - a god of Law, Wisdom, and Justice. It strikes harder against chaotic and necrotic forces, such as but not limited to the demonic and the undead. The shield, when raised in full defense, creates a 20-foot sphere of divine force to shelter those within."

Eliza took them both without fanfare, testing their weight.

"Fitting."

*****

The circle closed. Each of the seven now stood armed by the Grove. Not all bore smiles. Not all showed wonder. But they stood taller. Straighter.

Mosshen's voice was quiet but hard. "What you carry now will not only strike for you. It will mark you. These items remember their wielders. Use them well."

The bell rang again. Not a summons. A recognition, they were no longer merely survivors.

They were defenders of the grove. The resonance of the Heartroot faded slowly as the seven stood in silence, cradling their new weapons and artifacts. It was a moment too fragile to disturb—reverence draped the chamber like mist. But the stillness was broken by Fenwyn, who gave a little twirl of his staff and cleared his throat.

"Well, then. Now that we’re all dangerously over-armed, who’s ready for something stronger than tea?"

Nim snorted. "I thought you were the one advocating herbal clarity."

"Herbs come in many varieties," Fenwyn grinned. "Some open the mind, some open the heart. And a few... open the gates to more interesting problems."

"We’re not done yet," said Ember, stepping down from the platform. "Now that the Grove has accepted you fully, there is one more rite. One not of gift, but of responsibility."

Mosshen extended a hand, and a scroll unfurled into the air, its text glowing with Druidic runes and Common script. It floated before them like a tapestry of living bark.

"You have faced the Blight. You have been marked. There is no returning to ignorance. From this moment, you are bound to the Grove’s fate—and it to yours."

A moment passed. Then, one by one, each of them reached out and touched the scroll.

The air shifted. The chamber pulsed. A low hum rose from the crystalline root and coiled around each of them - an energy not unlike being seen from within.

When the light faded, nothing physical had changed, but all of them felt it: something deeper than spell, stronger than oath. A bond.

*****

The celebration, if it could be called that, took place that evening in a luminous cavern above the Heartroot. Braziers lit with scented oil flickered beneath a canopy of leaves grown upside-down, their veins glowing softly in amber and gold. Food was set out on stone tables shaped like roots, and lanterns of floating mycelium bobbed above the gathering.

There was drink, too—fermented sap that hit the head like drumming thunder, and a mead that tasted of rosewood and fire.

Kaelen stayed near the edge, hunched over a slab of roasted beast, tearing into it with the appetite of a man who hunted his hunger just to stay ahead of it. Dahlia sat nearby, picking slowly at smoked fish wrapped in vine leaves, her eyes never still.

Aeren tuned Heartstring, each pluck now chiming with a clear, melodic resonance. The old songs were sharper, the harmonics deeper. Even idle notes echoed with magic.

"You’re smiling again," Eliza said, seated across from him.

"I’m always smiling," he replied. "I just rarely mean it. Tonight, I think I might."

Nim flicked one of her new daggers up into the air and caught it without looking. "Echo really does come back. Every time."

Fenwyn sat at the center, legs crossed, holding court among three children who were begging for stories. He told them of the time he met a sentient patch of moss that taught him how to dance—but only in moonlight.

Silas didn’t eat. He sat on the outer ring of the gathering, the Memory Band dull on his finger. His eyes twitched to movement others didn’t notice. He was clutching his satchel as if afraid someone might steal it—even here. Thane eventually broke from the group and sat beside him.

"It’s hard to believe in peace after blood," she said. "But tonight, I’m trying."

He didn’t answer immediately. Then, softly: "I don’t trust moments like this. They slip."

"That doesn’t mean they’re not real."

He glanced at her, and for once, didn’t argue.

*****

Later, as the cavern emptied and laughter grew distant, Mosshen called them again. This time, to a darker place.

Below the Grove proper, beneath even the Listening Hollow, there was a hall carved not by hand but by the slow, patient growth of roots and time. The ceiling hung low with pale fungal blooms, and the walls pulsed faintly with the heartbeat of the Heartroot above.

A pool shimmered in the center. Not water, but a mirror-like liquid, silver and motionless.

Ember gestured for them to gather.

"This is the Scrying Hollow," she said. "It is where we see what must be seen. The Weave stretches thin in certain places. One such place has torn entirely."

She stepped aside, and the liquid began to ripple.

Images formed. Not clear visions, but glimpses. Fire. A cracked stone gate. A figure wrapped in thorns. A screaming sky.

"Another Waygate has been breached," Mosshen said. "But not by us. Something came through. It has begun to corrupt what lies beyond."

"Where is it?" Kaelen asked.

"A place once known as Shardvale," Ember said. "Now... it may be better known as nothing at all."

Rika entered from the side, dragging behind her a massive leather-wrapped bundle. She set it down and unrolled it: maps, etched bones, blackened scrolls.

"These are what remains of the last scouting party. No bodies. Just these. We believe they were unmade."

The weight of that silence could have broken stone.

"You won’t go alone," Ember said. "You’ll take one of our path-guides. You’ll chart a route back. And if you find survivors..."

"We bring them home," Eliza finished.

"If they remain who they were."

The implication sat between them like iron.

Then Fenwyn stood. His flute in one hand, staff in the other.

"Well," he said. "I suppose if doom is inevitable, we’d better meet it on our own two feet."

Aeren Solwyn, the Half-Elf Bard, plays his new lute

to be continued...