Leafchange had clothed the Glade in brilliant reds, golds, and oranges, and as the leaves fell they made more space for rays of late afternoon sunshine to pierce through the canopy. They shone like spotlights upon the last of the season's flowers and pale glowstones below. Crickets chirped and bees hummed with the frantic energy of knowing their time was short, seeking mates and food and dodging birds who were doing the same, their brilliant songs echoed throughout the idyllic area and its last joyous celebration of life before Deepfrost's slumber fell over it.
It made the Void Tangleweed huddled in the shadow of an ancient oak even more unsettlingly blasphemous, its tendril-wreathed branches writhing gently as it digested its latest meal. Around it there was a circle of silence that no insect or animal dared to break, but the rustle of its branches as it occasionally shifted and constricted seemed to carry across the short distance between it and the man who crouched nearby atop a glowstone, scowling at it.
Tal was wearing a heavy leather coat and gauntlets; not against the nip in the air - which was pronounced this afternoon - but against the task ahead of him. He gripped a small, glittering star currently suspended from a thin, tough chain in one gloved hand. The other rested on his knee as he measured the distance between him and the Void-shrouded plant and then measured it again, shifting uneasily. A pale dragon, burly and large for a companion, perched in the branches of the oak tree, looking down at the Tangleweed with pupils contracted to mere slits of dislike. A constant, quiet rumble emerged from her chest as two thin trails of smoke emerged from her nostrils, evidence of the internal fires that were only barely leashed for the moment.
Open!
It made the Void Tangleweed huddled in the shadow of an ancient oak even more unsettlingly blasphemous, its tendril-wreathed branches writhing gently as it digested its latest meal. Around it there was a circle of silence that no insect or animal dared to break, but the rustle of its branches as it occasionally shifted and constricted seemed to carry across the short distance between it and the man who crouched nearby atop a glowstone, scowling at it.
Tal was wearing a heavy leather coat and gauntlets; not against the nip in the air - which was pronounced this afternoon - but against the task ahead of him. He gripped a small, glittering star currently suspended from a thin, tough chain in one gloved hand. The other rested on his knee as he measured the distance between him and the Void-shrouded plant and then measured it again, shifting uneasily. A pale dragon, burly and large for a companion, perched in the branches of the oak tree, looking down at the Tangleweed with pupils contracted to mere slits of dislike. A constant, quiet rumble emerged from her chest as two thin trails of smoke emerged from her nostrils, evidence of the internal fires that were only barely leashed for the moment.
Open!
