…Jagged Stone That Breaks the River’s Flow was, previously, in the North-East, and not particularly far from the Threshold. This is… the South-East, maybe? Or perhaps just worryingly far into the Pole of Wood? She’s never actually been there, so she’s not sure. In any case, this is quite bad, and very confusing.

What’s around but plants? Is there anything that seems responsible for this?

This area seems to be unusually devoid of responsibility!

It is kind of poisonous, though. The air is full of insidious spores and little specks of plant that are attempting to set up home in the nice warm embrace of her lungs.

Also a giant fly perched over there definitely seems to be watching her.

…Are the spores a Shaping effect?

Nah, these are a mix of perfectly ordinary insidious plant and fungal diseases / reproductive mechanisms, not even particularly magical any more! Shaping is more a Night magic kind of thing, probably.

Well, fuck.

She really, really, really doesn’t like the South.

Giant fly. That seems like something she can talk to and/or kill!

”Are you sapient?” she tries.

The giant fly rubs its forelegs together. It doesn't look all that sapient. It mostly looks like it's waiting for her to keel over so it can suck out her delicious vital fluids.

Well, if it's not sapient, and not attacking, she'll ignore it. She doesn't need food right now; her rations will be enough for some time.

She'll check the position of the sun, and start walking west. 

Being on the move is definitely encouraging the local plants to redouble their efforts at making the air a deeply unpleasant green fog that makes every breath burn, and generally doesn't feel too healthy, although it's not imminently fatal.

It's increasingly difficult to see the sun through the toxic miasma, and not trivial to keep a straight line amongst all the riotous vegetation. Large thorny brambles just happen to be in the way and attempting to snag on her more than one might expect from chance, although they aren't visibly moving with purpose.

There are quite a few oversized insects around, but mostly they are just going about their business.

Is the air clearer at the tree tops?

She doesn't need to see the sun to know where it is. She's a Solar.

It is a bit clearer at the tree tops!

She also gets a lovely view of this tree sized monstrosity which is closing on her position, followed by a number of smaller, more person sized monstrosities which look like people that plants have extensively grown in and around.

Some of the plant infested people have some unusual features, like scales and antlers.

…ah.

Well, they look people-shaped. That’s promising.

”Greetings! I apologize for my trespass!” 

If that doesn’t get a response, she’ll try a few more languages.

Excellent, they weren't quite sure of her exact position and now they're much more confident and coming faster!

They don't appear to be interested in vocalising.

This big guy down here definitely perked up at the words in the first language, though!

It seems like it's going to watch and wait how the fight goes for now, but it does chitter back in what might be something language adjacent.

They look similar to plants. That indicates that setting them on fire might well work.

In that case, she's now throwing a glass bottle of a very volatile substance at the large one, which mostly consists of quicklime, pine pitch, various refined salts, and whale oil. She bought this from a reliable Haslanti alchemist, and unless it dodges, it's now on fire. Bonfire level, probably.

Money is its own kind of magic.

You know that old saying about zombies and fire? How setting zombies on fire mostly gets you flaming zombies?

Yeah, that seems to be happening. It definitely makes an upset kind of horrible groaning roar, and now a giant bonfire is charging the tree she's in at full speed.

The little ones really don't like the fire and some of them are horrifically burnt by proximity to the big one, though, so it's not all bad news!

The jungle in general, rather than becoming on fire - it's a bit damp for that anyway - is mending itself enthusiastically in the giant's burnt footsteps.

The giant spider doesn't like things being on fire either, it hisses in disapproval and retreats under some especially damp leaf cover.

Oblivion take it all.

“Apologies, madame spider!” she shouts hurriedly.

Then she makes the executive decision to not be on this tree, and indeed be several trees away.

The flaming monstrosity lumbers along, but is about as fast as you'd expect something that size to jog, rather than extremely fast.

From this vantage point it is pretty clear that the jungle gets thicker and... weirder... as one heads to the west. More bizarre fruits, giant brambles that rival the trees, that kind of thing. And the treetop level gets steadily higher.

If it’s slower than her running, it’s ignorable. 

Which leaves time for the next issue:

That’s not how directions should work.

If she's in the East, and going west, that should make the trees thin out. This seems to indicate she's going the wrong direction.

But she can measure the sun in the sky as if it was her own body - she's going west, she's checked. So. She's not in the East, or something else weird is happening.

This definitely seems like the Pole of Wood. All the descriptions she's heard match it. It's definitely not the ocean, anyway. And this isn't the Blessed Isle, desert, coasts, or ice. That limits the possibilities. Which leaves The Underworld, Hell, Heaven, The Wyld, or something even weirder.

It's not Hell or the The Wyld. The Sun's here. It might be the underworld, she doesn't actually know how that works, but her essence is regenerating as normal, and this place feels very alive. It could technically be Heaven, but she doesn't remember know of any rainforests there.

...She'll split the difference and go north. Staying here isn't going to be useful, and the treetops aren't nearly as inhospitable. 

She might also not be seeing as far away as she expected - this world's not flat.

Like, it's huge enough to be locally flat, but a sharp eyed observer up on the canopy here, which definitely continues getting shorter to the East, would be pretty clear that there's a curved horizon effect going on.

The Sun is appropriately huge - possibly inappropriately huge, actually - and very far away, and this globe orbits it.

Visibility's still not great, and probably all a curve means is that she's on a mountain. Or her eyesight's getting worse. Exalting didn't actually fix her vision, so plausibly it wouldn't stop it from degrading? It could be, however, a clue that she's in Hell. Eyewitness accounts vary, but some claim it's curved. 

She can't see the Imperial Mountain either, but she wouldn't actually expect to, depending on how far from the Pole of Earth she is.

She does not, actually, have an intuitive sense of the size of the sun. 

Various things scuttle around, and a couple of times there are close calls with tree climbing critters, but all the action seems like it stays under the canopy for the most part.

An ominous buzzing resolves into a small flock of giant flies which are gradually gaining on her.

Ahead, there is some variation - a narrow corridor, no bigger than a footpath, clearly cutting through the vegetation.

Will the giant flies be deterred if she whacks them with a stick, with enough strength behind it to break a pine door to splinters?

The lead giant fly practically explodes into a cloud of unpleasant ichor! This initially just increases the determination of the rest, but not in any way that is capable of standing up to that kind of blow, and they rather get in each other's way and each one pops in a single hit.

Dodge the mess, spin out of the way, throw that one into the other, grab a new stick- if this gets in her hair she’ll be so annoyed, do they not have a survival instinct-

Well. She’ll poke at the less-destroyed corpses to see if anything there looks useful, but she’s not particularly hopeful.

They absolutely do not have a survival instinct, they have a mobbing instinct instead.

The remains mostly look acidic, poisonous, and generally unpleasant. She could wield a giant fly leg if she really wanted to, but there is no shortage of branches and saplings that would do better.

…Are they acidic enough to do unpleasant things to a stick she pokes it with?

It's not bubbling and melting but the the end gets a bit weakened and frayed, and the undergrowth isn't looking too happy about it either.

Worthwhile taking a sample, then! She has ages glass bottles empty for such situations.

And then Northward once again.

The deep jungle starts to thin out a little as she makes progress. Nothing else comes to personally challenge her, although if she gets close to any giant insects, poison-dripping vines etc they will have a go.

Then she encounters a visible path, abruptly carved out of the dense vegetation. It is growing thick, pleasant grass and the sides show signs of being maintained - overhanging branches have been hacked back with blades. It's barely wide enough for an ox cart, but it's distinctly there.

She’ll simply avoid anything that isn’t looking for a fight, although if anything is demonstrated to be especially poisonous (animals dead on contact, etc) she’ll collect some.

And- that’s promising! She’ll follow it, and look for signs of civilization other than the cut-back greenery. Speaking off that, are the branches cut cleanly, or roughly sawed?

Not much is dead here; the animals she sees are grown through with vines, in a kind of unnerving puppeted fashion.

The cut back growth mostly looks like it was hacked off with a machete, or a similar blade on a stick for the tall bits.

Following the path... feeds an energy into her. The energy is trying to help - bolstering stamina, making it easier to keep going, removing fatigue, even doing some minor healing - but it's definitely quite insistent she take it.

…She can probably argue her way out of a debt, since she hasn’t accepted any contract. She’ll keep walking. She doesn’t need the stamina, but it won’t hurt.

There are a group of people a little way down the path. If she's exceptionally good at spotting people first, she might spot them first. There are half a dozen of them, moving very quietly for unaugmented humans, but carrying a fair amount of stuff. They are not quite all normal humans - for instance, the one in front has a striking line of green scales starting from a feathered patch near her ear, and a few on her forehead.

She is, if anything, worse at spotting people than average. They’ll almost certainly see her first.

And when they do, they’ll see a women walking on the path, holding herself with absolute confidence. Her hair is dark green, and braided through with gold. Her clothes are an odd combination of fine furs and colorful silks, but are very well crafted. She looks distracted.

A lady in a quite practical green half-cloak over brown leathers steps out of the trees ahead of her, while two gentlemen in full brown with spears appear behind her, having walked round the side in the jungle to surround her.

"It's never a good idea to be distracted on the Trods of Broceliande," says the lady, in a mostly friendly tone, although with an edge of suspicion. "So, what brings you to my stomping grounds?"

She stills when the lady steps out, and then nods her head in acknowledgement.

”I apologize for any intrusion, madam, but I’m afraid that I do not know the answer to you question myself! Last I recall, I was in my homeland, and then I found myself here, with no continuity, and no indication from my own state or that of my belongings that any time had passed.”

Her eyes flicker to the men, but she doesn’t give them any other acknowledgement.

"Oh dear, have you just stepped out of a regio? No wonder you're disoriented!

Okay everyone, it looks like we've got ourselves an escort mission back to Greenstead."

Three other people emerge from the jungle behind her, seemingly relieved to not have to stay off the path any longer; they have cloth scarves covering their faces, which they take off to breathe the clean air on the path. The youngest has metallic patterns on his face.

“A… regio?” She says the word carefully. “Are you familiar with this phenomena, then?”

She’s clearly paying some attention to the people around her, but it’s not to their movements or location, except insofar as they pay attention to that. Her eyes instead linger on their clothes, and formation, and how they interact with each other. 

"Yeah, you'll mostly get Spring ones here, I think, but goodness knows what's hiding out there in the deep Vallorn. Did you go in on purpose, then?"

These people are a close knit group, almost like a family, although none of them are blood relations. They're very used to each other's company and mostly very unused to anyone else's, or at least rather suspicious and can't work out exactly what to make of her. The woman talking is not actually in charge, that's the older lady with the burn scar on her cheek, who everyone's kind of watching for cues. Also, they all have face tattoos, and some also have hand tattoos - the front lady's is a quite subtle little line of thorny branch on her forehead, half-hidden by her hair, but several have more obvious ones on their cheeks and chins; the thorned branch design is a common theme, but there are a variety of symbols.

Their clothes are practical and rugged, in greens and browns; they probably don't change them much, a lot of soft leather is involved, some hardened leather pieces on the two that came round behind her. They each have a reasonably sized backpack, they've probably got several days travelling supplies between them at least. And belts with many pouches, and some kind of weapon, either a spear or a machete like blade, one of them has a hunting bow... and on second glance, they are festooned with partly hidden knives - belt knives, boot knives, thigh holster knives, knives up their sleeves...

“I’m not familiar with the term, we might call it another name where I come from? I did not send myself into the - Vallorn, you said? - on purpose.”

"Oh, I meant the regio. I'm guessing you've been stuck there for a very long time if you don't know what the Vallorn is, though! Do you recognise the name Terunael?"

The kid with the metal face patterns is listening intently. Everyone else seems to have relaxed slightly, although they're clearly put out by having to reverse their course.

“I do not. It sounds vaguely Eastern to my ear?”

"...regios don't normally move you in space as well as time. Maybe they really did start in the Sarangrave instead of here.

The historians are going to be so excited!" 

She catches a look from the old lady who is clearly in charge.

"Oh no, where are my manners? I don't need them much out here. I'm Caryn Splitroot, welcome to the Splitroot Striding. Are you happy to follow us back to Greenstead? It's got useful things like walls and beds and other people."

“Wait, time? Did I - what - what in Oblivion happened?”

Her work, her life, her resources, her family, her people, gone-

No. Breath. Refocus. She would find that which was left, and mourn that which was lost. 

"Uh, sorry, yeah. That's... Yeah.

Look, we haven't got a Guide but there'll be more than one in Greenstead, they'll help you find your place in the Dance again.

If we make good time we might get there tonight."

Jagged Stone Breaks the River’s Flow nods, pauses, shifts to the side of the trail, and kneels.

She places a few stones on top of each other, and sings a few lines, before standing back up, brushing off her trousers, and continues down the path.

That's a nice little memorial practice she's got there. Caryn declines to inform her at this time that the stones will not, in fact, last very long at all there. It doesn't seem to be the right kind of thing to say right now.

The group are not slow at walking, bolstered by the path's strange energy field, but they are not obviously inclined to break into a jog or anything.

"So, where do you come from, then?" the younger lad with metallic markings will ask, after a little while of respectful silence.

She can keep up easily, walking with an even pace.

"The city of Icehome, of the Haslanti League. I doubt the name means much to you, though."

"Well, it suggests it's in the north! We don't actually know what's north of Wintermark, there's a giant ice storm in the way, maybe some of them are still hiding out there."

This startles a laugh out of her!

"Yes, it is. We did not know of any farther north than us, although I suppose that a small tribe could be missed. And... 'giant ice storms' would... not be an uncommon feature of the area, I could say. Wintermark... I don't recognize the name. Do you know what peoples settle it?"

"Well, the Wintermarkers! It's part of the Empire. I guess they also call themselves the Steinr, Kallivesi and Suaq? The Steinr fell from the sky, the Kallivesi are probably an offshoot of the Uskhans, and the Suaq have just, like, always been there, I think.

If you stepped into a regio here long enough to not know what a Vallorn is, I guess only the Suaq would have been around there? And maybe whoever it was that became the Jotun. ...and maybe the Hyjelie... no, Hylje - I can never get that one quite right."

“I’m not familiar, although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Wait, fell from the sky? Literally?”

"As far as we know! Some people think it might have been portal magic from the early Jarmish having a prototype of something like the Sentinel Gate, but the stories all say fell from the sky."

“Huh. I suppose that’d be one way for a portal to go wrong. How long are you expecting to the journey to take?”

"Few hours, if we can keep this pace we should beat the sunset."

She nods, continues on at an even speed. She can keep this up for several hours, easily.