A Skull Full of Souls

The twins float high in the night sky. Both the ruddy Aris and purple Bjorgan are huge and beautiful in their fullness. Having both moons full at the same time is very rare. It only happens once every five years. The bright moons bathe the woods with magenta-stained light. A small fire burns in a clearing. Laughter and chuckles come from the strange assortment of figures sitting around it. “…And that’s when I said to the Halfling: ‘Lady, if you think that’s the best you’ve ever had, just wait till I finish getting my pants off!’” Roaring with laughter, several figures fall from their seats. “And then, if you’ll believe it, from under the table, the Tiefling Lady says: ‘It’s always such a shame to waste a good goat!’” Howling with laughter another figure falls from their perch. His head, still booming with laughter, rolls from his body and out of the light of the fire. This causes the rest of the group a renewal of breathless laughter and clutching of sides. The speaker, now completely unable to continue, lets out an involuntary fart, and then snorts, surprised by both. The now-headless figure clutches it’s ribcage, still indicating deep uncontrollable mirth. Another stoic figure attempts valiantly to hide any sign of laughter as they breathe and twitch with barely surpressed laughter. They stand and go after their companions head. Scooping up the laughing skull, they wordlessly hand it back to the fallen body. Finally, the fallen figure reattaches his head as the rest of the group slowly winds down.

Everyone settles down and catches their breath. Wiping tears and fanning their faces while sending indignant glares at the chuckle-tooter. The now reattached head says: “I don’t get it.” Everyone bursts back into cackling laughter as the freshly replaced face grins. Of course, it’s always grinning, skulls don’t have that much expressive range. The storyteller is still a little breathless as he answers. “Don’t worry about it Julius. Explaining it degrades the joke. Why don’t you tell us a story. How about the one of how you became a sentient, spooky, skeleton?” Several others made small groans and one cried “No, no! Don’t get him started!” but it was too late. Julius beamed.

“Oh, hey! You’re intereshted in me! Juliush Willowbloom Shkullreaver. That’sh aweshome! I love talking about me! Andendor loved to capture true recordingsh from shpiritsh, and kept a memory cryshtal. I love thish shtory! It’s obvioushly all about me!” Several others groaned loudly at Julius’ words. He—well he tried—to eyeball those hecklers already commenting on his story. It’s hard to “eyeball” when your eye sockets are empty apart from the ring of transparent light in each socket. His right halo was red, his left green. In the center of each a purple star gleamed. He sniffed through the pit that was his nose and continued.

“I wash born in the deathlesh laboratoriesh of the Defiled Chitadel in the Blackwell Mountainsh by Andendor the Boneshaper. It firsht shtarted ash the holy crypt for a community of dwarvesh and elvesh. It wash a trading and reshupply posht deshigned to foshter goodwill and unity between the two ash they battled an incurshion of cultishts sheeking to shummon Callif the Chaosh hound. Now, I don’t know how much you know of Callif, but let’sh jusht shay that profane and undeath are hish favorite chew toysh.”

It turns out Julius isn’t half-bad as a raconteur. Soon, they even managed to tune out his lisp as they settled in to hear his story. A story that, one must admit, was complete and utter madness. Really, they would have accused him of lying; if he wasn’t a skeleton, and utterly baffled by the concept of deception.

“Well, one time, a Dwarf got hammered, as dwarves are want to do, and got lost. He ended up on the surface and relieved himself on an ancestor tree. Now, Ancestor trees are what you get when you take a fallen elven warrior and give them Burial rites. The corpse is consumed blood, bone and soul into the tree. It retains all of the memories of the fallen, can communicate freely with the other trees, and has a weak ability to speak to nearby elves. Needless to say, this tree was pissed-Hah! I can’t tell whether it was pissed off, or pissed on…I guess it was pissed off that it was pissed on? Anyway, this desecration started the chain of events that would end this settlement.

The trees retaliated. They convinced a few elven youths to smuggle cuttings of themselves into the dwarven crypts. These saplings rooted themselves into the interred dwarves partially consuming them before their growth was stunted by the lack of light, water, and soil. This desecrated the dead and thus, ruined their ability to return to the stone’s embrace, as was dwarven custom.

Naturally, the dwarves were pissed too! And when the dwarven priests demanded restitution and an explanation for such a betrayal from the confused elves, the elves were, of course, disturbed. They promised a thorough investigation. The dwarves insisted on a representative in the investigation. The elves resisted at first, pointing out that it would largely involve speaking to trees. They eventually relented as the dwarves became increasingly angry about their treatment.

Now, the unfortunate truth about ancestor trees is that they can’t easily hold to a mortal perspective. Their ability to differentiate individuals, in both themselves and more mobile organisms, is largely disabled by the different perspective of time and a lack of sensory organs. All of which is compounded by their extreme difficulty in conversing with non-trees. When freshly planted, they struggle to communicate more than a few words or impressions. As they age, they become more skilled, but fresh groves like this one, sound more like incoherent toddlers.

The elven children who snuck the cuttings in were of little help, they said the trees suggested a game and it seemed so fun. They’d no idea what they were doing or the harm it would cause. One particularly selfish child objected to this interrogation, claiming they’d done no harm they’d only planted some trees on some stone boxes. One of the dwarven investigators lost his temper. “No harm?” he growled. “NO HARM?” he strode forward and backhanded the child so hard the child’s jaw broke and teeth were lost. “MY FATHER’S SOUL IS LOST FOREVER THANKS TO WHAT YOU DID! YOU'VE CAUSED ETERNAL HARM WITH YOUR 'GAME!'" The others, elf and dwarf alike, tackled the bereaved dwarf and dragged him back.

He was largely forgiven for his lack of control, but was still forced to leave the investigation. With his heart still burning with rage, he forged a plan and sent a runner to his brother. Then, he followed the team from a distance and listened to their conversation with the Grove of Ancestors. For two days the group tried to interview the grove. One elf speaking to the trees, one elf translating for the dwarves, and one elf adding possible interpretations as the childlike words of the grove seldom translated into common accurately. Mostly, they got single word answers and emotions of anger, satisfaction, and vengeance. A few cryptic statements like “Dwarves defile,” “We punish,” and “They start it.” The dwarves angrily claim that they’ve done nothing of the sort. Even the one responsible, had they found him, would have no memory of the incident for he’d been far too deep in his cups.

The dwarves were not satisfied with these answers and began calling for punishment for the crimes of the trees. They claim that no matter what crime, if any, had been committed the trees had confirmed that no tree had permanent harm. Therefore punishment and justice must be met out for this egregious over-retaliation to a hypothetical crime.

At that moment, the banished dwarf’s brother returned and handed him two items: a wooden stake and a scroll. The stake was enchanted with a lure spell for pests that eat trees. The elves used these lures in tandem with an area denial trap that kills all creatures of a certain size to keep their crops protected. The dwarf jammed it into the ground and it lit up. Luring wood-boring magical pests to the area. He then took the other item, a scroll, with him as he strode up to the group. “I’ve heard enough.” He growled “Here is the judgement of the dwarves.” He cast the scroll. It was a major wardbreaker. A special siege tool designed to break all defensive enchantments in a radius of over 20 miles. He took in a breath, preparing to shout, as many different reactions came from the nearby townsfolk. Many drew weapons, some even began lightning fast attacks.

In this exact moment, at the war front between the cult and dwarf/elf army around 25 miles away. The cultists’ final defenses were breached. They realized they’d failed their patron. As a final act of desperate service, to alleviate the terrible punishment that would be visited upon them, they sacrificed all of the power they’d gathered and all of their lives in one mass desecration spell. Normally, such an attack would kill the wildlife in an area raising undead abominations in their place. Most plants would die or corrupt as well, but the encampments wards should have been able to shrug off the blightwave. Then, they'd have begun a decades long process of containing the monsters, slowly returning life and balance to the sullied lands.

This was different, as the wards had fallen…Well, let’s just say that what should have been an act of petty vengeance resulted in one of the largest, unclaimed, death-attuned strongholds on the continent. Not even the dwarves could tunnel in. The desecration combined with the sacrilege of the ancestor saplings growing out of dwarf corpses. It created a sentient, undead ancestral vine. It remembered the dwarven ways, it remembered the elven magics. It could control itself with the ease of those sylvan savants. Hardened stone obeyed its orders like a loyal gargoyal hound. It’s lucky that the cultists had died too, or our world would have been eldritch puppy chow by now.

Now, after about a century, nobody had managed to do anything much to the corrupted zone. There has been some border changes, some reclaimed areas and some blighted expansions, but the outpost had seen no visitor’s since its transformation. until one day a withered elven figure strode into the village’s carcass. His clothes and items radiated with powerful magic. The mindless undead townsfolk seemed unaware of his presence as he strode calmly up to the abomination that had absorbed the elven Ancestor Grove. These hideous monstrosities had grown large, towering at least 150 feet tall. Each one twisted into the silhouette of an elf, screaming as it tried to escape the ground. Each trunk seemed to have some kind of mottled purple and slate vine tangled through every vine and wrapping around the trunk before penetrating inside it’s bark.

The withered undead elf bowed before the trees and spoke in a dry, rattling rasp. “My name is Andendor, powerful one. I would like to discuss how I can grow your strength and power.” The great vine had very quickly grown up to the grove after its conception. It had invaded and suborned the corrupted grove, turning them into little more than an early warning and nutrient harvesting system. But it could see through them. It had never spoken before, and it didn’t really feel the need to now. A tendril shot from the nearest tree and attempted to impale the interloper. It intended to devour his mind and just take what was offered rather than bargain. An amulet flashed and broke around the lich’s neck and every tendril of the vine froze at once.

The lich glared reproachfully down and to the left. And the Vine realized he was staring directly at its heartroot and the Dwarven mausoleum it resided in. “That was rather rude! I came and announced my good intentions. I offered no violence. Well, so long as I don’t attack you you’re frozen like that for another hour. So how about we talk to each-other and then decide if battle is necessary.”

The Vine was wary. It couldn’t twitch a single tendril among its endless mass. It sent its will into the grove and each tree’s silently screaming maw and spoke in a single voice that sounded like bending wood, crackling bark, and rustling leaves. “We listen.”