Kvaasik - The Trouble With Taproot

1 - The Rise of Thras
2 - The Cold Front
3 - Change in Wardrobe
4 - The Unsinkable City
5 - An Unlikely Patron
6 - The Purring Liar
7 - The Dismantling Dilemma
8 - The Shade in Sunlight
9 - Varen's Folly
10 - The Soul Siphon
11 - The Astral Escapade
12 - His Master's Student
13 - The Graveyard in the Closet
14 - The Blue Ambush
15 - The Red Redemption
16 - The Liar's End

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17 - The Field Work
18 - The Trouble With Taproot
19 - Lessons from Coldharbour

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The trip from Meridia’s Temple to Evergreen Grove was longer than I would have liked, but it ended when I discovered a camp with an extinguished campfire in front of it. Someone must have been here a long time ago; the campfire was as cold as the air around it, and most of the charcoal had been scattered by wind.

I noticed a note, tucked into a tattered bedroll. It must have been kept safe from the elements by the bedroll’s fur; I unfolded the parchment and began to read.

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It was apparently a journal page of an alchemist. It ranted on about personal experiences that had no purpose to me, but the tail end of the message was most intriguing. It said something about the nirnroot, though it was rather vague about its properties. The nirnroot here must indeed be special, if a professional alchemist took note of it.

The campsite was situated near a pond so that, while standing next to the campfire, one could peer through the trees and overlook Evergreen Grove. There was nothing special about it from this distance; I must get closer to get an accurate observation of the nirnroot.

I found my way towards the grove using a scraggly dirt path. The pond was a silver disk in the silt, only disturbed by a stream that fed it with fresh water. As I got closer, I could detect more magicka in the atmosphere than usual, and the high-pitched drone of nirnroot became audible. I also sensed the magical resonance of the nirnroot, an eerie feeling that is difficult to describe in words. It was only when I was at the grove’s edge when I saw a Nordic altar submerged in the mirrored surface, a black-robed figure lying still atop the slab. I believe I just found the alchemist.

Suddenly, the rustling of underbrush stirred in the distance, and the trees in my peripheral vision seemed to shift. Their branches twisted and came to life with an awful creaking sound, revealing female-looking figures made entirely of wood. Spriggans.

Two spriggans advanced towards me, green particles shaking from their bodies as they ran. Spriggans are constructs naturally grown, like any tree, then given animation by the forest itself. There are many rumors as to why the forest creates spriggans—as guardians, perhaps, or as byproducts of the act of living. Their hearts, called taproots, are what fuels the wooden creatures with pure arboreal energy, and that is what I will use to my advantage.

A sputter of dark energy launched from my fingertips, homing in on the spriggans’ taproot. One of the creatures fell to the ground as an empty wooden husk, but the other rushed forward, unimpeded by my assault. A spray of chaotic green energy flew from its palms, but a lesser ward countered its attack and stupefied the spriggan for a mere moment. With a quick flick of my wrist, a blast of dark energy transformed the creature into nothing more than a hunk of dead wood.

With the threat dealt with, I thought it best to investigate the alchemist’s corpse at the center of the pond. I waded through the cool waters towards the altar and found a soaked parchment floating in the water. Using a controlled flame spell, I dried the paper and attempted to read its scribbles, but half of the message was still too waterlogged to read.

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There must be a way to read the rest of that message. While I did not like using lesser magics as alteration, it is my only option. I took the thought of the ink on this page, the message it once contained, and channeled that thought to form a spell, albeit weak. The ink began to return to its state, blots of octopus-shaped black began turning into scorpion letters on the page. But the spell was not powerful enough; only the next few sentences were revealed.

“I have noticed that the nirnroot here is different from the other specimens I have collected. It seems to have properties that allow it to rapidly change its source of nutrients, and appears to be in tune with the nearby wildlife. When I attempted to take a sample of it, the other plants reacted by—“

Despite the rest of the message still being illegible, this would explain the change in magical resonance. The alchemist was right; nirnroot is a metamorphic plant, slowly able to change its source of nutrients over time. This nirnroot, which appears to have a greater ability to alter its arcane respiration processes, must have changed its resonance to absorb aetherial nutrients from the nearby spriggans. For some reason, there is a sizable amount of aetherial energy emanating from this spot, which could explain the fairy rings at the base of the trees and the spriggans that congregated here.

While these weeds may be useful to an alchemist, they are useless to a Sload necromancer. I was about to turn away and return to my sanctuary, when a thought struck me. If this nirnroot could change its magical resonance so easily, perhaps it truly could be useful to me…

Quickly, I snatched up the white-green herbs from the soil. Then, before the wood could decompose, I searched the spriggan’s corpses (although they were more like husks) for their heart, the taproot that animates them with natural forces. Of course, I would not commit such a vile act of blasphemy to use the nirnroot and taproot for aetherial energy. I have something much better in store for it.