Two weeks later, Lyra crosses the threshold into Silverleaf cloister. The living halls should hum with sap-song, but now the air hangs heavy and sour, threaded with grief. Dark resin slicks the pale wood like old blood.
At the heart of the grove, Maerwyn Silverleaf stands with both hands braced against a trembling trunk. The tree shudders under her palms, as if something inside it is trying to wake and cannot.
Lyra
The sap is wrong here. It has gone black with corruption.
Maerwyn Silverleaf
Lyra. Good, you are here. Feel this, the grove is hurting.
The three Wound-Saints move in a guarded ring around the trunk, their veiled robes catching the dim green light. Each one watches the others, then the sap-stained bark, ready to defend the grove or themselves.
The Second Wound-Saint
It is not merely wounded. Something is nested inside the roots.
The Third Wound-Saint
Then we cut it free, or the whole cloister falls silent.
From deeper in the corridor, Eris Thornwake appears with her cloak damp from the mist, one hand lifted to shield her eyes from the sickly light. She stops at the edge of the grove, taking in the blackened wood and the shivering trunk.
✓ Quest Accepted
Cleanse the corruption from Silverleaf cloister
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the source nested in the roots
“I press my palms against the trembling bark to sense what is nested in the roots.”
SUCCESS (Superb Medicine, rolled -2)
Lyra plants both palms against the trembling bark. The wood bucks beneath their touch, but their healing sense follows the corrupted sap downward.
Pain answers from below, not as one wound but as thousands of roots crying through the living wood. The resin thins beneath Lyra's hands, revealing a knot buried around the central root.
The knot forces itself into view through the bark's translucent grain: a black, thorned growth wrapped around the root, stamped with the Ashen Covenant's binding sigil. The source is exposed.
Maerwyn Silverleaf
There. I can see the mark now. The corruption was planted, not born here.
The knot recoils from Lyra's touch and draws a sharp pulse through the trunk. A silver healing flare spills from their palms, leaving both hands numb and a bright trace burning across the resin.
The Second Wound-Saint
That flare will be seen beyond these halls. The Covenant can follow healing traces. We must act before they reach the sanctuary.
Maerwyn Silverleaf
Lyra has found the heart of it, but the roots are still bound. Do we sever the graft, or try to cleanse it in place?
Quest Complete
Expose the source nested in the roots
The Ashen Covenant gains a tracking lead on Lyra's current location.