The root-throne heaves free of the earth and rolls forward on jagged limbs, crushing fern and brush beneath Rozah the Goblin. Ahead, the forest path pales and withers where her seat passes, feeding the corruption that carries her.
Kraz stumbles after it, one hand out for balance, while the Hooded Rider keeps pace only by cutting through hanging vines. Both of them stare at the dead strip opening ahead like a wound.
Kraz
If it keeps drinking like this, there will be nothing left of the woods, or us.
Hooded Rider
Rozah, the roots are steering toward the camp's stores. If you do not leash them, they will strip us bare.
The throne lurches again, sensing the sap-knot beneath Rozah. Violet veins spread through the ground, branching toward the tribe's hidden path like hungry fingers.
Rozah the Goblin
The roots are not just moving me. They are choosing targets.
For a breath, the jagged platform slows at a fork in the undergrowth, where the next pulse could send it toward the tribe's shelter or drag it deeper into the dying woods.
✓ Quest Accepted
Keep the roots from stripping the tribe bare
“I blow the pale horn to command the roots to turn toward the dying woods instead.”
FAILURE (Legendary Willpower, rolled -3)
Rozah jams the pale horn to her lips and blasts. The note comes out bright, thin, and sharp, but the throne only shudders and keeps choosing its own path.
Violet veins race under the soil instead of turning away. They thicken toward the tribe’s stores, then twitch back toward the dying wood, as if the roots are tasting both directions and liking neither.
Rozah the Goblin
It hears the horn, but not the order.
Kraz
No, wait. It is pulling through the ground now.
Hooded Rider
Rozah, the path is waking up against us.
The throne jerks hard at the fork. A seam in the wood gapes wider, flashing the knot of luminous sap inside, and the dead strip ahead splits into thorn-shadow and root-shadow.
Then the first hostile shape moves in the brush, low and wrong, and the clearing answers with a rustle of teeth.
“I steer the throne toward the thorn-shadow”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Rozah twists the throne left, and the whole root-mass obeys with a groan of splintering wood. It bites into the thorn-shadow path, dragging its hungry seam away from the tribe's stores.
The choice costs her. Violet splinters snap from the base and spray her legs, and the luminous sap inside the throne leaks in a bright smear across the bark.
Kraz
There, it has the dark side now.
Hooded Rider
Keep it there, Rozah. Something is moving to meet it.
The brush ahead buckles. A thorn-crowned beast lurches out low to the ground, all antlers and teeth, and the roots in the path answer with a hungry rattle.
Behind it, more shapes shift in the tangle, circling toward the throne as if the forest has finally noticed what Rozah is steering into it.
Quest Complete
Keep the roots from stripping the tribe bare
New Gift: Root-Bound Guardian