Note location: Trenchwood, Feed, Ache; Illarion's yurt and the Salt Lake; Achelliac and Saphora Number available: Lots Conditions to receive from Iskierka: None
If you can survive Trench, you can survive Shroudwood.
It is the first thought to mind on returning to my home, after months in the Waking World. Trench is a trial and horror to most Sleepers, the worse to the solitary. Survival requires constant vigilance and exacting performances. Trust in friends, family, and flock are necessary, but the threat of corruption and wilding stretches all those ties to their limits. Trench, at least, still has sun and moon and stars overhead. We lost them, when we sacrificed our Starwood to the pillar and were given Shroudwood in return. (A thought for logistics: We'd need torches. Shrike eyes are made for the gloom. The abominations now haunting it can't need more light than we did.)
Yet, Shroudwood--even here, even in hell--is still more alive than Trench. Pillar corruption is not blood pollution; it doesn't sterilize the soil. (Though Locusts will in time.) There are still stargroves. There are still places the dusk-deer crush the bracken-fern to bed down in it, and reaper-hawks come to hunt them. The apricots are in bud; the sap is rising in the laurels, and by and by they will open their eyes but for now they are demure and lovely.
I wish I could see it. Even knowing I will see the scars of blade and mattock, the gas burns and the torn tracks of tanks. Starflower will grow through them in time. Cyclamens will reclaim it. They always have.
As with Trench, you will survive longest by keeping simple rules in mind: Don't walk alone. Beware of eyes in the dark and never meet them. If you are in a place you don't recognize, speak softly amongst yourselves; if you can't understand each other, retrace your path immediately. If you can see your shadow, retrace your path immediately.
If you see the sun rise above the top of the trees, be still, do not move, close your eyes, wait for rescue.
LOCATION | Shroudwood - 1A
Number available: Lots
Conditions to receive from Iskierka: None
If you can survive Trench, you can survive Shroudwood.
It is the first thought to mind on returning to my home, after months in the Waking World. Trench is a trial and horror to most Sleepers, the worse to the solitary. Survival requires constant vigilance and exacting performances. Trust in friends, family, and flock are necessary, but the threat of corruption and wilding stretches all those ties to their limits. Trench, at least, still has sun and moon and stars overhead. We lost them, when we sacrificed our Starwood to the pillar and were given Shroudwood in return. (A thought for logistics: We'd need torches. Shrike eyes are made for the gloom. The abominations now haunting it can't need more light than we did.)
Yet, Shroudwood--even here, even in hell--is still more alive than Trench. Pillar corruption is not blood pollution; it doesn't sterilize the soil. (Though Locusts will in time.) There are still stargroves. There are still places the dusk-deer crush the bracken-fern to bed down in it, and reaper-hawks come to hunt them. The apricots are in bud; the sap is rising in the laurels, and by and by they will open their
eyesbut for now they are demure and lovely.I wish I could see it. Even knowing I will see the scars of blade and mattock, the gas burns and the torn tracks of tanks. Starflower will grow through them in time. Cyclamens will reclaim it. They always have.
As with Trench, you will survive longest by keeping simple rules in mind: Don't walk alone. Beware of eyes in the dark and never meet them. If you are in a place you don't recognize, speak softly amongst yourselves; if you can't understand each other, retrace your path immediately. If you can see your shadow, retrace your path immediately.
If you see the sun rise above the top of the trees, be still, do not move, close your eyes, wait for rescue.