Adventure of Arya

The warning bell is still tolling when the packed eastern road heaves into a long, shallow ridge. Frightened settlers cluster behind the gate as black roots split the stones.

The settlement gatekeeper plants himself before the settlers, spear leveled. Edric remains beside Arya, pointing toward a knot of black roots writhing through the eastern stones.

The pressure-route pulses beneath Arya’s boots. Between the stones, a small root-limbed creature, a young genderless rootling with a knotted, twig-thin frame and one amber eye forces upward, its bark-dark body hunched beneath a crown of pale, twitching fibers.

The settlers cry out as another root punches through the road. The settlement gatekeeper shouts for the gate to hold, while Edric watches Arya, waiting for her next move.

Arya steps between the rootling and the gate, planting her boots across the torn stones. Her feared reputation makes the settlers recoil behind her, leaving the creature no clear path around her.

Keen Senses catch the rootling’s shifting weight before its pale fibers twitch. Arya braces at the precise instant it surges, driving her shoulder and both hands against its knotted frame.

The rootling strains forward, but Arya holds it outside the gate. Its bark-dark limbs scrape over her cloak, and the effort wrenches her shoulder with a sharp, numbing pain.

Behind Arya, the settlement gatekeeper steadies his spear as the settlers press together. Edric stays near the gate, watching the roots pulse beneath the stones.

Arya’s boots grind deeper into the road. The rootling cannot pass her, and the settlement gate remains barred behind her despite the throbbing strain in her shoulder.