The rumbling of the cart wheels on the gravel breaks the silence just as much as the last two years of ‘adventure' has broken your spirits. For 158 years, a Demon Lord known simply as the Beast of Bone and Oblivion has ruled over the land of Yaratal, after he stole the throne long before your time. At the centre of the realm, the Spire of Darkness stands, a titanic ebony black palace fashioned from the remains of what used to be the Tree of Life, which once spread vitality and growth throughout the land via its roots. Now it’s all but dead, and with the Beast of Bone and Oblivion occupying its hollow trunk, its roots simply bleed out misery and despair, leeching the colour from everything around.

Despite the constant pain and suffering hanging over Yaratal, you once had a hope for better days. Maybe you came from another realm, seeking to better yourself and others. Maybe you were raised under the shining promise that you would be the one to lift the land from darkness. Maybe you just held that spark for adventure since childhood, and that’s what lead you to go and chase your dreams. But that dream is slowly dying, as although you’ve found each other’s company as a party, plundered dungeons, found treasure and slain beasts, you’ve found the only constant semblance of a ‘quest’ is the destruction of Shadow Knots, and you despise it. In places where tensions wear thin and hatred boils over, the roots from the Spire of Darkness can end up knotting themselves into pulsating balls of shadow and gloom. The mere presence of these knots kills plants nearby, bleaches objects black and white, and can twist living beings into spitefully evil forms. None of it is fun. There is no joy to be found entering a broken home, slaying the prior owner now twisted into a meazel or  sorrowsworn, and then destroying the blackened root, only to repeat the process again and again, with no hope of reward or recognition. Yet that’s all you think you can do. The Beast of Bone and Oblivion holds a strength that cannot be rivalled. And so you find yourself in the back of this cart, trundling along the grey and bleak countryside towards a lonely and forgotten windmill, after hearing a report of strange activity, likely another Shadow Knots to be destroyed, just as you have done for months and months before…

((New link worked— interesting foes ))

Daewen shifts her weight, the subtle clink of her armor a familiar sound lost in the groan of the cart's wheels.  The description of the land resonates with a deep, ancestral ache she can't explain.  The Shadowfell -- her home -- was a place of gray and gloom, but it possessed a strange, ethereal beauty.  This land was just…dead.  A blight born of a twisted thing.

Her gaze drifts to the horizon, where the distant, oppressive shape of the Spire of Darkness dominates the landscape.  The very sight of it makes her feel a cold that has nothing to do with the wind.  The despair and misery described by others is a weight she feels acutely, a familiar poison.

This latest ‘quest’ is no better than the last.  She has no words (OOC: pun intended; she’s a mute…) to express the weariness she feels.  She doesn't have to; her face is a mask of stoic resolve, but her eyes, deep and intense, betray the profound disappointment.  She thinks of the poor souls twisted by the roots of the Spire, and her grip tightens on the hilt of her rapier at her side, her knuckles turning white.

She glances over at the others in the cart, her expression unreadable.  She draws the small slate from her pack and pulls the chalk from her pocket.  With a few quick, precise motions, she scrawls a message and holds it up for the others to see: How many more of these?

"More than we have left in us," I am sure, says Mun aloud. "But that is the task, the duty, the only way forward. Colour is leeched and returns. Sorrow is sown, and reaped and burned after its seeds are spread. But does the farmer cease his work for the persistence of weeds amongst his crops. Does he starve, rather than swallow his exasperation alone?"

Even to Mun, he words lack the fire and commitment of when their band first assembled. Still, she was well and long taught, and the words come easily, without thought nowadays. 

Nemmonis Xarkris looks out over the surrounding countryside, but notices none of it as he is lost in thought. He knew that his life was destined for adventure and glory, but the adventure was wearing on him and he certainly did not experience any glory. The only thing that keeps him going is duty in honor. Giving up is not an option. He will keep fighting until his mangled corpse lies on the ground. 

Daewen listens to her companions, her face a familiar mask of quiet stoicism.  Mun's words, though laced with a flowery language she finds alien, resonate with a bleak truth.  The farmer analogy is accurate in its despairing persistence.

She gives a single, sharp nod of her head, a silent acknowledgment of the Sorcerer's words.  Her eyes, however, remain fixed on Xarkris.  She understands his grim conviction far more than any metaphor.  His grim resolve is a mirror of her own—a stark, unyielding duty in the face of overwhelming odds.

She meets the Dragonborn's gaze, and for a long moment, there is a wordless exchange of understanding.  No gesture, no scribble on a slate is needed.  Just a shared, silent recognition of the deep weariness and the terrible, unshakeable will to go on.  As the cart continues to rumble towards the forgotten windmill, she simply returns her focus to the gray, dying landscape, her hand tightening once more on her rapier hilt, ready for the inevitable.