Quest for the Lyre of Orphaeo

[Breaker]

Darkness consumed Breaker's world, and he knew nothing but the gritty taste of sand beneath his tongue. He rolled over and spat and found himself prone on a woodland floor unlike any forest he had seen before.

The loam and roots writhed with maggots and worms, as if the ground were covered in rotting flesh rather than leaves. The trees had a positively unhealthy pallor, some twisted crimson, others bloated purple, but all with the blood-colored leaves that gave Lindequalmë its name. Strange cries and hoots, some hauntingly human, emanated from the shadowy depths. The sun permeated the leaves with a reddish glow in some places, while others remained in perpetual shadow.

Breaker rose slowly onto all fours and then stood, listening to the Red Forest breathe all around him. To his right, a waxy orange flower lulled insects to a poisonous demise. To his left atop a burst purple tree, a thorny vine snatched up a squirrel-like creature and sapped its blood. Thirty paces ahead, a large tree swayed against the wind. It was a young rowan, the type that would make a fine foremast for a mid-sized ship. If it were actually a tree. Josh unsheathed the black diamond dagger from his boot and threw it with an upward flicking motion.

Thwesh! The sound of blade striking bark was decidedly un-treelike, and the illusion of the rowan dissolved into a small pack of wolves. The dead one with the knife buried between its eyes must have been the alpha, for two of the remaining wolves bolted for the underbrush with forlorn howls and tails between their legs. The other two growled and advanced, separating instinctively before stalking and pouncing at Breaker simultaneously.

The demigod rolled beneath their fangs and kicked both Dur'Taigen in the skull without apparent effort. The shape-shifting wolves crashed to the ground, soundly unconscious.

Breaker had gone easy on them; his boots were made of a black metal harder than mythril and bore lethal enchantments. Josh recovered his blade and left the beasts where they lay and wandered through the forest, avoiding contact with plant and animal life as much as possible. Even so reddish moss rubbed off like chalk against the black clothing Suravani had been gracious enough to return to him. Before long Breaker found a pleasant clearing near the forest's eastern fringe, where actual sunlight filtered in. He stopped on the edge of the meadow, realizing not even the bugs ventured there.

Amongst the loam and long grass blossomed a patch of lush blue and purple flowers. Long, full petals surrounded a central fruit that varied in size from that of a plum pit to a small peach. And hidden within the folds of those leaves the venomous thorns lay waiting. For the Fealotë would always be hungry, and as their name suggested, the beautiful flowers did not sup on flesh. Soul Blossoms were amongst the most feared of all the Red Forest's dangers, for they could trap a being's soul for eternity.

Breaker hesitated only a moment, and then strode into the clearing. He sat down amongst the flowers and let his callused hands fall to the ground where thorns pricked his fingertips. He felt the poison seep slowly into his veins and let the plants pull at the fabric of his being. And then he summoned a single powerful thought.

No.

The plants did not understand resistance at first. Their venom had entered a body with a spirit; soon it would be drawn inside and devoured over six long days. As the spirit failed to arrive, the plants channeled more venom into the being's veins, emptying their reservoirs. And then they began to change.

Back, cursed creatures! Go back to what you were, what you ought to be! A dim white glow emanated from the pricks in Joshua's fingertips. It grew like the sun peaking over the horizon at dawn, glowed brighter until it consumed Breaker and the plants and the clearing, and then it vanished. The thorns retreated into the leaves as a few drops of Breaker's blood baptized them anew.

Josh sat in the clearing and meditated on lives long past, and on the life he had yet to live among the gods of Althanas. He had touched the Red Forest and let it flow through his veins, and he had healed this one small clearing. Never again would this patch of Fealotë steal the souls of the unwary... instead they would lift the spirits of any who came close enough.

"Here," Breaker declared, "is where the Fealotë bare their souls to the sky." He looked up through the hole in the crimson canopy and realized that the reddish glow was not only from the trees. Night would soon fall over Lindequalme. He decided to stay until the stars forgot their shyness... to see his Suravani.