Story 1096: Dreadroot Awakens

Deep beneath the rotting fields and shattered temples, older than the Ghoul King, older even than the Eldritch Choir itself, something vast and dreaming stirred.

It had slumbered through eons of silence, its hunger buried under mountains, its mind seeping into the roots of the world.

The survivors whispered its name in terror: Dreadroot.

When the Ghoul King’s kingdom began to collapse under its own monstrous weight, the ancient soil cracked—and from those fissures, Dreadroot’s children were birthed anew.

Massive vines, black as coal and veined with greenish fire, tore through the mausoleums and corpse-fields. They strangled the dead and the living alike, dragging their writhing bodies down into unseen depths. Where these roots touched, rot accelerated, and life withered into ash within seconds.

The Ghoul King, arrogant and ravenous, dared to command Dreadroot’s tendrils. He thrust his scepter into the ground and called upon his dark authority.

But Dreadroot did not bow.