The Dreamlands

Locales abroad of the city centers, from out of doors to the outer planes.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir lowers his axe and narrows his eyes, entering a martial stance he calls (or rather, his old master called it that, long ago) Lion Wades through the Whirlwind. It's one of his core techniques, to be used when outnumbered - but being assailed by a thicket of brambles also qualifies. He backs away and moves forward in a confusing rhythm, staying out of reach. Then, when the pumpkin flies above him, he suddenly leaps upwards and hits it with the blunt end of his axe, trying to sent it hurtling towards the monster's legs.

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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Adir bounds nimbly away from the flying guts, swift as a prancing deer despite his considerable bulk, but it doesn't leave him a lot of room to counter attack for the moment. His eyes flash about. Whatever those things in the ring around them were doing, it couldn't be good. "Get out of the circle!" he bellows, bending at the knees for a moment. He draws Winter into himself and reaches for the power coursing through bone and sinew. Then he leaps, trailing whirling leaves, a twenty foot vertical arc leaving him landing outside the circle of monsters in a crouch.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir clubs the pumpkin, shattering it and clipping the legs of the elemental out from under it. With its second head shattering on impact its form loses all cohesion and collapses into a heap of dry brambles and sticks. That's one threat down.

Adir WOOSHES away, catching up the swarms of spiders in a little gyre of wind before dashing them on the ground. The poisonous effect of the cold iron he had blasted one of the elementals with seems to be doing its work and at last the thing expires, sagging like a jack-o-lantern that's been left on the porch a few weeks too long.

Lapis feels the Light in her heart move within reach once again and she grasps it tightly.

"The Law of Perfect Steps."

To know the Law of Perfect Steps is to know this; the motions of the universe turn back upon themselves. Wheels within wheels, ever whirling, echoed forever in the steady tick of the world, curled inward until the whole of the cosmos is contained within a single mote of dust. Grasp this understanding and all things are but a single Perfect Step from the point of your sword.

Lapis takes a step and there comes a sound.

Like crystalline chimes tinkling in the breeze.
Like rain falling on hot glass.
Like water flowing from a split stone.
Like a promise whispered into the trees.

And now she stands outside the circle, one of the elementals bifurcated. Sadly that doesn't do a great deal to arrest its frantic dancing. The gyrating elementals are rapidly growing more fervent!
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir follows Adir's advice. When he lands after his maneuver, he bends his legs and pushes himself off the ground, building up enough energy for a soaring leap that carries him out of the circle. When he lands, he sends a cold iron knife at two monsters, aiming for their knees. Let's see if they can be tripped up.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Adir will whirl and start to try to take apart the circle with his shotgun. He'll aim for heads, the joints of knobby-weird mutant limbs, and anything else that looks like it will disable them quickly. He gets a few shots in when he's forced to stop and reload, backpedaling from the circle as he does so.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

A hail of steel proves to be sufficient to stop whatever ritual the elementals were conjuring. Limbs ruined and rent, they're largely unable to move with the sort of fluidity they needed to accomplish...

Whatever it was that they were doing.

By this time only three of the elementals remain and they yank their own pumpkin heads off and HURL THEM at our heroes!

There is absolutely nothing special about this pumpkin toss. No weird magic. No exploding pumpkins. No conjured spiders. Just some pretty heavy squashes thrown at some people. Lapis braces with her shield and it just sort of... bounces off her and thumps to the ground.

She looks... surprised?

Kind of straightens up and looks around like she was expecting something else to happen.

Our heroes are left in the middle of the strange pumpkin patch surrounded by discarded sticks and broken squash and some stray corn husks as if nothing bizarre hard just transpired.

"Is that it?" Lapis asks aloud, looking puzzled.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"I don't like this." Wenomir grips the Answer's haft tightly but doesn't move from his spot. "It was too easy."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Close it up!" Adir bellows, ducking the flying pumpkin before gesturing for the two of them to move in closer. Not quite clustered together such that a single attack could take them all out, but close enough they can watch each other's backs - facing out in a triangle formation. He doesn't have to nod or agree out loud for Wenomir to know he agrees. "Anybody see anything?" He asks, his keen eyes and ears straining.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Lapis backs together, shield raised defensively as her eyes scan the surroundings. "Lots of things but I don't think any of the things are any good," Lapis perhaps not helpfully observes. There is definitely quite a bit bad about this place. The smeared, surreal unreality of it all for sure.

Also the pumpkin seeds!

It feels like one's attention is drawn to it, as if they were suddenly the subject of dolly zoom. Like the whole world around the seeds blurs as they loom large.

Then all at once they hatch like shattering chicken eggs.

A mass of dead brown leaves and vines surge around each other, winding and congealing and showing no sense of sanity with respect to how LIVING newly grown pumpkin plants should be. Jack o lanterns bulge where eyes ought to be above a wide leering squash of a mouth with nothing but jagged teeth carved into it. Arms sprout haphazardly from its rotten form, clutching even more burning pumpkins.

It doesn't wait.

The floating behemoth of a horror begins hurling squash at our heroes that explode in sprays of flame and burning pumpkin guts on whatever they strike.

To make matters even worse the world around them twists and warps and smears, as if the attention paid to the pumpkin titan is leaving the rest of the landscape poorly defined and indistinct.

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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

It does feel nice to be vindicated sometimes. Makes Wenomir worry less that he's paranoid. He moves immediately, sending throwing knives at two of the squashes, to detonate them close to the monster and give them some space. Then he takes a deep breath.

Lapis may have heard him call it Stepping Between Lightning, a focusing technique taught to him by his old master. Breathe in, focus, picture all angles of attack and defence. At least, that's what it was back then. Now Wenomir seems able to utilize this technique to move like lightning himself.

To him, the battlefield blurs as he surges forward, even his own movements seeming slow, predictable and mapped out in advance. To everyone else he becomes a streak of steel and muscle, advancing on their enemy. Lapis will see that this is nothing like Wenomir during training - this is his killing art unbound and unleashed.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Adir watches Wenomir take off with a blink. His own hands are already going through the rapid movements of switching weaponry, but nothing quite so rapid as that.

Adir doesn't have an art, as such. He doesn't have names for his motions, martial breathing techniques, or special attacks like Lapis. That would be neat, but it's not his lot. The way of the Gun is an ugly, iron-cast, bullheaded thing, and it has no defensive applications. It protects nothing. It dispenses ruin without mercy, pity or distinction, and only the steady hand keeps the lead-toothed iron monster from devouring everything. It has no use for names - such things are for creatures of honor, distinction, and wisdom. All of these are drowned in the howl of the Gun.

Ironically enough, the first thing the stag would reach for was not a new gun. He would rather try blowing this thing up, actually, but his close-combatant-companions preclude such methods for the time being. Just the sight of the monstrosity and its reality-wrenching presence renders Adir's knees a bit watery. The moment he touches the haft of his other weapon, his resolve hardens again. He's been getting ready for this. He's had quite a bit of time. It was time to go to work.

The stag has stowed his enormous scattergun and draws forth something new: a huge four-pronged flechette launcher. It resembles a bulky, boxy rifle with a quartet of metal appendages protruding from the tip. These thin blade-like fingers of steel, along with a large portion of the barrel, begin to spin. Cracks of static electricity arc back along the length of the weapon. Adir pulls the trigger, and with an insidious electric whine the weapon erupts with a barrage of barbed caseless flechettes, each one no larger than a fingernail, an actual hose of steel projected at a speed sufficient to disintegrate concrete. It doesn't look so much like a stream of rounds as a continuous crackling lance of supercharged metal.

Adir unleashes this deadly hail in long bursts, pausing only to leap away from the pumpking's insidious projectiles. He's a little too focused on putting out damage, however, and one of the squashes catches him, sending him stumbling to one side partly coated in burning pumpkin innards.

It doesn't stop him from going right back to firing, however.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir unleashes violence, bursting the squash as they're hurled with his daggers before cleaving into the monstrosity with the Answer. The weapon cleaves into the flesh of the nightmare, if it can even be called such a thing. It's papery and brittle, like chopping through old corn husks and musty rags. There's none of the subtle resilience of flesh and bone here, just fear swaddled in primordial magic.

The roar of Adir's weapon sees chunks blasted out of the horror, pulses of violence unleashed between Wenomir's darting motions. Thankfully the nightmare is an enormous amalgamation of awful thoughts and feelings so it proves to be a relatively simple task to simply shoot at limbs and parts of its face that Wenomir isn't hacking it.

Seeing Wenomir moving into the fray, Lapis calls upon a bulwark to protect him, weaving around the man a shell of raw energy that only accentuates the appearance of lightning given direction and intent. The bulwark coils and snaps like a serpent ready to strike, daring the mare to attack him so that it might at once blunt the assault and repay it in kind with searing retribution.

That done, Lapis hauls back with her spear that was a sword, focusing her intent into its blazing point, and hurls it into the pumpkin monster. She's back-peddling even as she throws the javlin, shield raised to swat aside a hurled pumpkin that was a little too close to Adir. He might not have much in the way of defense for himself, but that's something she can provide.

As for their foe, it seems to absorb the punishment with all the expressiveness of a bale of hay getting blasted with a shotgun. Bits fly and burn as pumpkins are hacked open. Seeds and flame whip around it like a whirlwind of teeth, trying to gouge and burn at Wenomir. The top of its head hinges open and begins belching blobs of burning guts in high, arcing paths toward Lapis and Adir. And finally, one of its limbs begins to slowly rise toward the bleak fog-filled sky, papery fingers clutching as wisps of green and orange light begin dancing around the limb.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir backs away, dodging and blocking the hail of seeds. Their attacks aren't doing a lot to this creature... a new tactics will be required. And there's not much time to formulate it - but then, is there ever?

The warrior leaps upwards in a sudden burst of motion, aiming a straight cut at the outstretching limb, seeking to cut it down before it can go too far and do whatever it's planning to.

"Adir, Lapis, cover me!" he shouts as he lands. "I'll try something."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Alright!" Adir hollers back, rolling and tumbling to evade, small bits at the fringes of him catching fire even as he finishes putting others out. He fires as many quick hailstorm bursts as he can between movements, but even his considerable agility is being pressed. "But you better hurry!" The stag grits his teeth as he dodges through another burst. If Wenomir didn't hurry, he was going to have to try his own way of ending things, and that was bound to be a lot more dangerous. He might already have taken a solid hit or two without Lapis's intervention.

When he can fire, the stag switches to trying to shoot down the projectiles rather than attacking the monster itself. Even trying to cut down the whirlwind of debris that covers the creature and threatens Wenomir. The supercharged flechettes he fires prove shockingly effective at such: each one creates a storm of superheated air and a pulse of lethal pressure as it passes, disintegrating smaller objects or creatures within a few inches without effort. It would probably be very effective against large groups.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Okay!" Lapis calls back, well acquainted with keeping a foe occupied while another moves in for a killing blow. The only problem is that this ugly thing is doing so MANY things at once! She's doing her best to protect both men but there's only so much she can do at a time.

Adir's well placed shots obliterate the incoming goop bombs while Lapis' lightning bulwark lashes out with ferocious energy at the roiling storm of seeds battering at Wenomir as he moves in for a decisive strike. The limb is severed from the body with a ground-shaking blast of eerie green eldritch power that goes off like a huge oily fireball that somehow smells overwhelmingly of rotting pumpkin and feels like gripping a prickly stem rather than fire. The force of the explosion leaves the monster temporarily staggered, the top of its empty head lolling open and revealing deep within the fears and insecurities of a small child.

A mote of equal parts hope and horror around which this nightmare has grown swollen and fat like a canker bursting out of the bark of a tree.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Good, this gives him some time. Even with his skill having reached the heights it has, this is a risky technique. Wenomir makes a number of swings at the pumpkin, with a strangely rhythmic, almost dance-like cadence. They become gradually faster until he finally and suddenly stops, then makes one final, overhead swing.

In this swing, the momentum of the previous strikes seems to be combined. Wenomir has called this attack "Path's End" and that's what it indeed seems to be. A finishing blow. It appears to occur in a flash, almost imperceptibly. The axe head comes down on the pumpkin, almost with an audible thunderclap, seeking to cut everything in its path and in front of it. If it succeeds, the entire gourd-beast may well be split in two.

Wenomir's skill, his willpower and the Answer's strength all combine into an inexorable act of cutting, parting flesh, bone, soul and dream. Anything behind the pumpkin might well get caught in the cut.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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The Way of Autumn

Adir lets out a whooping cry of bloodthirsty cheer just before... well, diving for cover. Whether from further attacks, flying pumpkin goop, or the collateral damage from Wenomir's attack. If something's still standing when the supreme technique ends, he can deal with it then.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

To say bits of pumpkin go flying would be an understatement of monumental proportions.

Through the pumpkin monster, through its whole rotting bulk, and through the forest behind it. A tear is rent in the fabric of the world and the pumpkins that choke the path begin flowing into the breach like water sliding down a drain. It isn't long before the pumpkin patch is completely gone, leaving just our heroes, a road winding its way through the enchanted forest, and the long lost name of someone who had been for ages already forgotten by the Waking World.

There isn't much left. A murmur. A faint whisper of fears and anxieties, of hopes and dreams. But no one has told this name's story for countless years and there's little left. Enough of a kernel for a nightmare to grow around, but nothing more.

As our heroes are left to ponder the fate of the dead for a bare few moments they'll soon be greeted by the sound of music and laughter as a small group of satyrs and fauns round the bend. One pair dancing with timbrel and pipes and the other pair carrying casks of cider. These are likely the missing revelers our heroes had been told to keep an eye out for.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir is breathing heavily as the pumpkin monster... and the pumpkin patch. This technique is risky and leaves him winded. But it performed above expectations. Maybe in this dream-world such focused killing intent cuts more deeply than in the physical world. He'll need to be careful...

"Are those... the people we were told about? I'm not sure if helping them out would be to our advantage."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Adir stares at the dissolution and is just about to ask Lapis what the hell that was when the newcomers appear. "Should we just keep moving?" Adir asks either of them, watching the bunch approach. Surely it wouldn't be harmful to give these folks some safe directions back to the other camp? They might even be owed a favor. The stag continues slapping out small fires - about half his body is pasted lightly with pumpkin gunk and tiny seeds.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Beliefs are an important thing in the Dreamlands. The very foundation of the world. The stones and bones upon which it is founded. Belief, potential, what could be. A person with great belief can do even greater things here. But one had best be leery of the power the Dreamlands offer for power is never given without a price.

"Favors can be good things to have," Lapis offers, watching the approaching fae with distrust. "Debts mean things, here. The stories about faeries repaying their debts are strong, deep stories. We can trust the faeries to behave like faeries."

But they shouldn't be trusted much deeper than that.

"Hail, friends!" calls out one of the small troop to our heroes.

Time to make a choice.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Well met." Wenomir nods curtly, deciding to risk it but choosing his words carefully. "It would appear you are expected at a party that we've passed by. Your friends await you and hope you brought wine."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Hail, there," Adir says, nodding along with Wenomir's explanation. Glancing at Lapis, he says, "Was the way barred for you, there? It seems quite a dangerous road."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Truly? We had lost our way along the road on account of the vines, but they have withered," one of the satyrs says.
"You should come with us back to the festival! You'll surely have the Queen of Autumn's blessing for your good deed," a faun adds.
"But no, could they do such a thing?" the second faun says. "If they already passed by the festival they must be on a journey of great importance since they had no time to terry."
"We should thank you for opening the way for us, friends. Please, accept a little food and drink from our provisions for the long road," the second satyr says, offering a bundle of cakes and a skin of wine.

Lapis here makes a subtle gesture to the others. Remember the rules. Accepting an offering of food and drink can be hazardous.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

"Your offer is generous but our quest is urgent." Wenomir once more avoids thanking the fey. "And our provisions sufficient. We only hope your make your way to your friends safely."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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The Way of Autumn

"Well, hold on now, there," Adir interrupts, crossing his arms, looking rather scorched and ominous. "I know another way you can repay us. Since we've cleared the path for you and all. You've come from the same road we're traveling toward. Tell us the way to Nana Roga, if you know it. That would satisfy your debt."

Adir explicitly avoids asking for help, or in in any way implying that these creatures could get one over on them. He's also very deliberate invoking the hag's name, putting emphasis on 'debt' and 'repay'. Sure, he thinks, saying the hag's name could get her metaphysical attention, but she'd have to be an idiot if she doesn't already believe he's coming.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

The travelers look disappointed at Wenomir's answer, but when Adir speaks up their reaction is quite a bit different.

They suddenly look concerned. Possibly fearful.

"You're seeking the night hag?" one of the fauns whispers, eyes darting around on the off chance that the terrible being overhead Adir speaking her name. "What dark reason could you have for that?"

"We've our own reasons," Lapis pipes up, her expression stern and certain.

The fae exchange a look with each other, apparently trying to decide what to do. Finally one of the satyrs speaks up. "Down the King's Road. There will be a hanging tree on your left. Walk off the road there and hold a noose in your hand as you travel. Don't let go and don't look back."

The faun who spoke before takes an ivory comb out of her hair and offers it to Adir. "You'll hear pursuers behind you. When you do, cast this token over your shoulder."
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Adir grimaces. A hanging tree, hm? The stag will accept the token. He doesn't supply them with thanks, not giving this place or these creatures an inch, but he does incline his head to signal the dissolution of their debt. "Safe travels," says he.

And then on they go. The comb goes securely into one of the pouches at Adir's belt.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

The fae wave to our heroes as they depart, continuing on down the road playing their music.

That went...

Alright?

"Good job," Lapis says, offering Adir an encouraging smile. He managed to navigate that encounter without being offensive AND got a boon out of it. Wins all around!

And now it's time for our heroes to be off as well. True to the word of the fae, it isn't long before they reach what must be the hanging tree. It's... a sight. Two massive trees of inestimable height flank it, like twin pillars at a threshold with a raised mound of earth between them. And growing from that mound is a deeply unwholesome thing. Like an altar with great sweeping horns rising on either side, horns that split into an incomprehensible tangle of branches from which dangle ropes swaying in the breeze. Ropes ending in baubles. In bones. In strips of crimson cloth(?). In twigs lashed together into disconcerting shapes. In empty nooses.

Something about this tree is deeply disquieting.

Deeply wrong.

It gnaws at some primal, childish fear that is never truly quelled.

Of something sinister, crouching in the dark.
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Re: The Dreamlands

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[The Way of Autumn]

Wenomir regards the hanging tree with grim resolve.

"Walk off the road and hold a noose as you travel," he repeats. "Are we to cut off one of the nooses hanging from this tree?"
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