The morning was cold, the frost clinging stubbornly to the edges of the windows in Nim’s hut. The hearth had burned low during the night, leaving the room barely warmed. She wrapped herself in a threadbare cloak, its faded fabric doing little to stave off the chill. The silence was thick, broken only by the occasional crack of frost expanding outside.

At her worktable, Nim carefully arranged her findings from the day before. The Glowspores sat in a shallow dish, their faint luminescence dimmer than expected. The other herbs—Silverleaf, a few intact Skybuds—were laid out in neat rows. She began grinding the Glowspores into a paste, her delicate hands precise despite their chilled stiffness.

The salve she prepared was thin, its restorative potency less than ideal. Nim frowned at the mixture, tapping her fingers lightly against the mortar. 'This shouldn’t be happening. Even the Glowspores are weaker.' The thought nagged at her as she cleaned her tools.

The faint hum she had heard in the clearing lingered in her mind. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t the forest.

The forest greeted her with an unsettling stillness when she stepped outside. The light filtering through the canopy seemed dimmer, the usual morning birdsong conspicuously absent. Nim clutched her gathering basket tightly as she made her way deeper into the woods.

She focused on the path ahead, her boots crunching softly against the frost-coated undergrowth. Signs of decay appeared gradually, subtle but undeniable. Bark curled away from trees, revealing a grayish core beneath. The ground beneath her feet grew uneven, spongy in places, as if the earth itself were rotting.

'This isn’t just winter,' she thought, pausing to examine a tree with unusually pale leaves. 'Something’s leeching the life out of this place.'

Her destination was an area known to produce Duskwither Petals, a rare herb that thrived in shaded groves. She needed the petals to bolster her dwindling supplies, especially if the Glowspores continued to fail her.

As she moved, the hum returned—soft, rhythmic, and just at the edge of hearing. It felt like a pulse, faint but insistent, as though the forest were trying to speak.

The grove she found was unfamiliar. Mist hung low to the ground, obscuring her view of the forest floor. The trees here were blackened and twisted, their branches clawing at the pale sky. The air carried an unearthly chill, sharper and colder than the morning frost.

Nim hesitated, her instincts warning her to turn back. But her eyes caught the faint glow of something on the ground—a cluster of fungi, their caps pulsing faintly with light. She crouched to examine them, her fingers hovering just above their surface.

The glow was unlike anything she had seen before. It wasn’t the soft luminescence of Glowspores but something harsher, almost angry in its intensity. Carefully, she used a small blade to collect a sample, placing it in a glass jar.

A low growl broke the silence.

Nim froze, her heart pounding as the growl came again, closer this time. She straightened slowly, her eyes scanning the grove. From the shadows emerged an Etherling—small and hunched but no less threatening. Its translucent skin glowed faintly, veins of dark energy pulsing beneath the surface.

Her breath hitched as the Etherling’s glowing eyes locked onto hers. She took a cautious step back, her fingers fumbling for the small talisman at her belt. The creature snarled, advancing slowly.

'Not now,' she thought, panic rising. 'I’m not ready for this.'

She reached for her magic, summoning the spell Astram’s Embrace. Her hands moved instinctively, tracing patterns in the air as she whispered the incantation.

(Roll: 12)

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The spell manifested quickly, a shimmering barrier forming between her and the Etherling. It wasn’t as strong as she had hoped—its edges flickered unsteadily—but it was enough. The creature struck the barrier, snarling as it clawed at the glowing surface.

Nim took the chance to retreat, her steps hurried but careful. The Etherling howled in frustration, the sound echoing through the grove as she disappeared into the mist.

By the time Nim reached her hut, her hands were trembling. She set the jar containing the glowing fungi on her worktable, staring at it with a mix of awe and unease. The Etherling’s presence in the grove was troubling enough, but the fungi’s strange glow unsettled her even more.

She slumped into a chair by the hearth, her thoughts heavy. The forest was deteriorating faster than she had realized, its balance unraveling in ways she couldn’t fully understand. And she was alone—cut off from the village, left to face this growing threat without help.

'They’ll never believe me if I try to explain,' she thought bitterly, staring into the low flames. 'But I have to fix this. I have to prove that I can.'

Resolving to push forward, Nim retrieved Yeva’s old journal and began sketching the grove and the Etherling she had encountered. Her hands moved with quiet determination, each line on the page a small step toward understanding.

The morning light filtered weakly through the frost-covered window of Nim’s hut, painting the room in a muted gray. Despite the fire she had stoked late into the night, the hearth’s embers barely held their warmth, leaving the air cold enough to see her breath. She huddled in her chair, a threadbare blanket draped over her shoulders, staring at the jar on her worktable.

The glowing fungi pulsed faintly, its rhythm uneven, like a dying heartbeat. It had sat there overnight, untouched, yet the glow hadn’t diminished. Nim leaned closer, her fingers trailing over the cold glass. 'It’s connected to the hum in the grove,' she thought, her unease growing. 'But why does it linger here?'

Setting the jar aside, she pulled Yeva’s journal from the shelf and flipped through its worn pages. Notes about corrupted areas and unstable Etherlings dotted the margins, but there was no mention of glowing fungi or the rhythmic pulse. 'Yeva would have known what to do,' she thought bitterly, snapping the journal shut. 'I’m barely holding this together.'

Still, she couldn’t afford to sit idle. The forest was deteriorating faster than she’d expected, and her supplies of healing remedies were dangerously low. With a heavy sigh, Nim wrapped herself in her cloak, grabbed her gathering basket, and stepped into the frosty morning.

The forest greeted her with an unsettling stillness. The usual chatter of birds was absent, leaving only the crunch of frost beneath her boots. As she walked, she kept her eyes sharp, scanning for any signs of usable plants.

It didn’t take long for the signs of decay to appear. A cluster of trees bore deep gouges in their bark, exposing cores that were dry and gray, almost ashy. Further along, patches of moss crumbled to dust under her touch, and the air carried a faint, acrid tang that made her throat tighten.

Nim knelt by a brittle fern, her gloved fingers brushing its curled edges. The plant was withered, its leaves warped and discolored. 'This isn’t just winter’s touch,' she thought. 'Something is leeching the life out of everything here.'

The faint hum she had heard in the grove yesterday returned, barely audible, but persistent. It seemed to resonate through her bones, growing stronger the closer she moved toward areas of decay.

Determined to avoid Etherling activity, Nim ventured toward an area of the forest she rarely visited. The path was overgrown, tangled with thorny vines and underbrush, but her persistence paid off. She stumbled upon a hidden glade, its canopy thick enough to shield it from the frost.

Duskwither Petals grew in delicate clusters along the edges, their deep purple hues muted but still vibrant compared to the surrounding decay. Nim carefully harvested the petals, placing them in her basket with practiced precision. Nearby, a patch of Astram Ivy clung weakly to the base of a tree, its once-bright leaves dulled to a sickly green.

She paused, frowning at the Ivy’s condition. 'Even the magical plants are suffering,' she realized. The thought filled her with a mix of frustration and urgency. If the forest’s strongest flora couldn’t withstand the corruption, how long could it hold on?

Her work was interrupted by the distant murmur of voices. Nim froze, her ears straining to catch the sound. Slowly, she crept to the edge of the glade, careful to stay hidden among the shadows.

At the forest’s edge, a small group of villagers stood huddled together, their voices carrying faintly through the trees.

“We’ll mark these ones for clearing,” one of them said, gesturing toward a line of trees. “Better to cut them down before they spread whatever’s wrong to the rest.”

“It’s the forest’s fault,” another muttered. “It’s turning on us, just like that witch’s creation warned it would.”

Nim’s stomach twisted. She recognized the man’s voice—Garrin, the farmer who had once begged her for a salve to heal his son’s fever. Now he stood among the others, speaking of her with venom.

She remained hidden, watching as the villagers moved methodically, their axes marking trees with rough slashes. They worked quickly, their unease evident in the way they glanced nervously toward the deeper forest.

By the time Nim returned to her hut, her basket was heavy with herbs, but her heart felt heavier still. She placed the Duskwither Petals and Astram Ivy on the table alongside the glowing fungi, her mind racing with the implications of what she had seen and heard.

The villagers’ words echoed in her ears. 'They’ll never trust me,' she thought bitterly. 'No matter what I do, they’ll always see me as a threat.'

She busied herself with preparing tinctures, grinding the petals into a fine powder and mixing them with extracts she had prepared earlier. The repetitive work steadied her hands, but not her thoughts.

As she worked, she noticed something curious. The jar containing the glowing fungi pulsed faintly when placed near the Astram Ivy. She moved the two closer together, and the glow intensified, its rhythm syncing with the faint hum she had heard in the grove.

Nim sat back, her mind turning over the possibilities. 'The corruption is spreading through the plants somehow. But why is it reacting like this? Are they trying to connect? Or is something else at work?'

Late into the night, Nim sat by her worktable, sketching the glowing fungi and Astram Ivy in Yeva’s journal. Her notes were meticulous, filled with observations and questions she couldn’t yet answer.

She paused, staring at the page before writing a single line at the bottom: "Small steps lead to greater truths. I can fix this—alone, if I must."

As the fire crackled softly behind her, Nim felt the weight of her isolation pressing down on her. Yet beneath it all, a spark of determination burned. The forest needed her, even if the villagers didn’t.