The roots fold over the hollow and seal with a damp wooden creak. Then they thrust a dark, sap-stained fragment into the mud between Bryn and the waiting blacksmith.
The Village Blacksmith
That was not there before. Is it bark, or something the roots pulled from whatever followed him?
The boy's breath catches against Bryn's vestments. His eyelids flutter, and sap glistens along his lashes as his small hand tightens weakly in the cloth.
The Bark Bundle
Vael tharan... mori en roots.
His eyes close again. Beyond the sealed roots, something answers in the same old tongue, its voice low enough to tremble through the stones rather than the air.
The Voice Beyond the Roots
Vael tharan. The door remembers.
The blacksmith goes rigid at the shrine entrance, still holding the split horseshoe. The fragment in the mud gives one slow pulse, and a thread of black sap creeps toward Bryn's boot.
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover what the voice beyond the roots wants