We’re backtracking to the stone circle, where we had dreams again.
Dreamed we went back through the well portal to the tree. The tree was towering over us. All around us, surrounding the edge of the clearing a circle of grey shadow figures stood murmuring, and we thought of the dead in the stone circle. We look down into the pool, it looks like the sky and we would fall into the sky if we stepped into it. We sense various things. We’re watching the roots dig into the ground. We feel as though the tree has spread its tendrils and filaments out through the world’s surface, and it’s holding everything together. The roots are binding all of it. We see the roots wrapping and feeling their way down the well. The tree is drinking from the well. We can feel that there are living things down in the roots of the tree. Silas can sense that there is a giant, ancient, moss covered bear in the roots.
We all feel the tree has bound itself up with the spirit of a young woman that somehow has been encased in the tree (associated with it); there’s a sort of dichotomy. A split personality of being the oldest thing we ever encountered but has a young spirit, somehow sacrificial. Not sure how she’s “contained”…
Individually:
Silas could talk about this mossy slumbering bear.
Krambler is feeling the roots spreading out and holding things and feeling the strain. It reaches deep into the earth, drinks deeply from the well, while the branches stretch upward into the sky.
Storr dreams feeling this split of old and young, ancient and young spirit contained in the tree. Someone has bound their life to the tree, making a sacrifice. Perhaps this has happened again and again.
Balthazar’s senses lead him down into the ground, following roots, where a hollow exists. A mass of stone, and water and moss resembles a dragon, he thinks, and sees a watery eye. The dragon feels like it’s enclosing something, strangling or hiding or protecting, he cannot tell.
Cricket senses deep within the roots of the tree a pile of snow, clothed in darkness. Perhaps it’s shaped like a woman? Then he sees a pair of violet, smirking eyes.
B reads the story of Geshwa:
We travel.
We find an interesting spot where there is a lot of animal activity. Silas finds a spot where they could hide. Silas and Cricket (with the longbow) hide, waiting for game, while others hang back. Cricket is trying to verify if the water level is rising. He’s hearing rocks grinding together. The rock rises out of the water, shaking itself off and lets out a bellow, like a rock bellowing.
He keeps targeting Silas, furiously.