Chapter 35

Clawing Roots

Together they stood in a guarded stance around the dim light of the door at their backs, their torches illuminating the contorted faces of the blights as they shambled forth from their slumber. The first to reach them were repelled by Fabian's shield as Dyson furiously set about configuring his construct companion. Pieron glanced far down the cellar to their left, through a small vine shrouded archway that seemed to open into another cellar, equal in size. The archway filled then with the looming forms of thorny blights come to overwhelm them before the skirmish had truly begun, and Pieron knew she had but a moment to turn the tide. She raised a pointed finger and with an arcane word a silent mote of flame sprung from her hand and shot across the room. As it passed through the archway it illuminated in brief candlelight the lumbering shapes of a dozen blights crowding together, before it fell on the cold stone an sputtered out. Pieron grabbed hold of her friends and shielded her face in the single breath of silence before a roaring explosion enveloped the room, flames engulfed the blights whose shrieks dissolved into each other as their forms reduced to ash and swirled in the brilliant fireball that spewed cackling through the archway. It's heat lapped at the adventurers standing only just at a safe distance, and though initially subsiding the flames fueled by wood and vine blazed on, extinguishing all life in an instant. Short-lived was her triumph however as the blights surrounding them took no notice of their halving in number and mindlessly closed in around them. Erros lunged at one with his sword, Fabian another. A half dozen twig blights rushed past her defenses and swarmed Erros, gnashing at his clothes as they clawed their way up his torso. Dyson ignited his maul aflame once more and with hair-splitting precision brought the white hot maul down across Erros' chest, singing his wisp of a beard but catching a pair of blights and casting them to the floor. Another blow across Erros' back and he was free to slip through the attackers and dash for the forest folk enveloped in a tree, heavily armored with plates of conjured bark and already preparing another spell. A blight wrought of writhing vines snaked long fingers through the living plant-growth at it's feet and seemed to propagate the vine's rapid growth around the adventurers, wrapping tight their arms and legs. Fabian and Dyson ripped the vines away as fast as they grew back, but Pieron was quickly overwhelmed, and seemed to draw the attention of the rest of the blights. They moved in for their entangled prey, slashing her with sharpened fingers and piercing her with thick wooden darts, before Fabian could cover her with shield in hand and help free her movement.

Erros charged across the room and thrust his silvered sword into the forest-folk's chest, but the hardened bark-like flesh easily deflected the blow. For a brief moment, the full weight of his body behind his sword arm now flying uncontrolled through the air, a deep-set panic gripped him as he saw himself falling into the sword's edge and the burning pain that was sure to follow. He gripped the sword tight and lowered it to his side, afraid now of what damage it could render, and looked up to the forest-folk's grinning face. She clapped her hand against her chest and a thunderous force blew Erros back across the room to slump against the stone wall. Dyson charged in after him and with his flaming maul struck her chest where his friend's blow had glanced, so heavy was the force that the bark she'd cast to protect herself shed in brittle fragments, revealing broken rips and punctured lung. Her breath labored but she clapped once more and threw Dyson back just the same. Erros, already to his feet, caught the sailing dwarf and haphazardly righted him, before running again at what used to be the woman, he pierced his sword through her exposed flesh. Had she been alive in the human sense this would have stopped her heart instantly, but being half-consumed by the alien flora about the room she'd merely groaned and dropped her eyes. Erros stepped aside, Dyson approached, and caved in her skull. It might have been mercy.

Fabian's metal armor proved nigh impenetrable, and safe behind her Pieron's flaming spells incinerated what blights remained just as the flames from beyond the archway dwindled to embers and the room went dark once more. Fabian fetched her torch from the floor and waved her armored hand through the smoke filled air as she and Erros advanced to the second room to ensure no threats remained. Nothing moved amidst the soot and charcoal and they breathed relief that the winery was then fully reclaimed, but surprisingly they saw, where Pieron's hellfire had burned away the vines choking the stone of the archway, a strange seam ran down the length of the wall. Deep ruts in the tiled floor confirmed this was a hinged passageway, an expensive and unnecessary way to fashion a door save for one not meant to be found. With a bit of effort they pried it open to peer down a long hallway the width of the cellar's dividing wall, enshrouded with thicker plant-growth than they had yet seen. Whatever the unnatural cause of the subterranean forest they stood in was undoubted rooted in what lied beyond this hallway. With their swords they hacked a path through the thicket and walked the full length of the cellar before the hallway opened to a roughly carved spherical room. The tile beneath their feet ended in packed earth and on the fall wall nestled in the rock were three alcoves, chest high, in which was wrought a trio of wooden hands, clasped but empty handed. Wooden roots and spindly vines seemed to have exploded out from the left and center hands, but the right stood dry, withered, and brown. The group made to investigate the room more closely but immediately noticed another forest folk high on the stone wall behind them, held in place by vines that pressed tight over all but a portion of his face. He let out a soft moan but could hardly move, the plants having burrowed deep into his body, he lie trapped somewhere between life and death. Without a word Erros pulled himself to eye level and pressed his blade through the poor souls forehead and his moaning ceased.

Investigating the hidden chamber, the group found even more inexplicable details. The two lush hands were covered in shallow cuts, easy enough to replicate with a knife, but the shrunken hand had none. This spurred the theory that this was the source of some liquid, an ingredient in the wine-making process perhaps, but further cuts to the hands did not seem to tap it. Fabian retrieved a small vial of liquid from the alchemy table above them and poured it's contents onto the dry hand, hoping for some positive effect, but nothing appeared to happen. Erros then tried holding hands with it, though it was slick from whatever oily substance had been in the vial he only managed to snap off one of the brittle fingers. It appeared that the hands had attacked the forest-folk, so were they not here to save whatever natural magics were at work? Judging by the construction of this hollow it's existence had to have been known of by the Martikov's, so what other secrets had they not had the inclination to share? Though ever one of their questions they answered with a speculation, it soon became quite obvious that more information was needed, and they decided to search the house for any writings that could fill in the gaps. But then a silent word from Omar reached Fabian's mind, a message that the steed had brought their wagon, and that the human's had followed as well, and with that they agreed to simply confront the source.

As they emerged from the basement a pounding drew their attention to the fermentation hall and the great sliding doors they had previously barred. Another few thuds from the door and it swung open on it's track to reveal Adrian and Davian Martikov. Omar and Patches were harnessed in the yard, and the rest of the family peered nervously from beneath the tarp of their covered wagon, as Davian, his son, and another of the Martikov's, his brown hair and small button nose indicating by marriage alone, approached with arms outstretched. Davian spoke in his graveled voice "To tell you the truth, I doubted my son's judgement, but ye have my thanks…except for you," he pointed to Erros. "Yer a fuckin' werewolf."