(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

drops sprayed over the creature, and where they landed they sank into its
wooden skin as if it were thirsty for blood. Screw this.
One hand outstretched a missile of force erupted from my palm, shattering
the one that had been crippled by Dak'kon into a rain of splinters. I turned
to the one now looming over me, and pale while light bloomed against its
body. The shock wave of the blast rattled me from my teeth to my boots.
When the world came into focus again I stood up unsteadily, head still
spinning from the concussive explosion. Morte was already spitting out bits
of wood, teeth smudged with sap.
The plant-creatures fell one by one, and we wound our way through Ravel's
maze.
We crept past muddy plains, fought through lush green lands hauntingly
silent of insects or birds, inhabited only by bloodthirsty flora. Brambles tore
at our skin, our clothes became sticky with sap and sweat and blood. Our
boots grew slick with the juices of crushed moss.
And there, at the heart of it, was Ravel Puzzlewell.
She didn't look much like a myth, this plump, hook-nosed crone; outfitted as
she was in a simple (if dirty) brown shirt and leggings, with a number of
pouches hanging from her frayed belt. She seemed oblivious to our
presence, more concerned with the tangled black roots woven together to
form the floor of the maze than anything transpiring around her.
A tangle of jagged gray hair jutted from beneath the crone's hood, spreading
down her shoulders like a mass of twisted gray roots. Sickly blue-gray flesh
hung in loose folds from her face; her narrow chin, long and sharp, jutted
forward in an extreme under-bite, and two filthy yellow canines protruded
from her lower jaw, like small tusks.
"Ravel...?"
"Ah... visitors." The crone's voice was thick and scratchy, as if trying to force
its way past layers of dust. Her eyes were a dull, bloody red, with black veins
running through them like tree branches. As she gazed at me, a strange
crawling sensation drew up my body, like snakes burrowing beneath my
skin.
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