Chapter 8.4

“This is… what even is this?” Syr avoided touching the tree, but her fingers hovered just close enough to the darkened bark to nearly brush it. “The aether flowing up through the trunk is… whatever this substance is, while it isn’t rotting the tree it’s… almost as if it’s corrupting it! Not killing it but… changing it somehow.”

“Then I take this sludge here isn’t coming from the tree,” Soren held up his filled container, swirling it around as he viewed the contents through the glass. “That’s… definitely concerning. Can’t imagine what this’d do to something with a brain… like say… a pack of Plains Raptors that hunt the local herbivores that’d be eating the nearby plants…”