Arboris
Floor 2
The first great bough, where the leaves never stop turning
The first great bough above the roots, caught in its world's last autumn. The leaves turn red and gold and fall all day, and grow back by morning. Duskhollow, a village of houses on stilts in a hollow of the bark, keeps its lanterns lit; after dark, the Hearth is its sun.
Ember moths gather at the lanterns, leafweavers spin in the Weaving Hollow, and Cinder Rise still smoulders. At the foot of the Heartwood Knot a door leads into the bough itself, and on top of the Knot, on a pyre of leaves, Ashenleaf, the Autumn King, is burning still.
Emberleaf, the first great bough above the roots. Our world ended in its last autumn, and the Tree caught it there, between one falling leaf and the next. This hollow in the bark is Duskhollow. The Hearth is our sun after dark.
DuskhollowLanternfall GladeThe LeafdriftsThe AmberpoolsThe Russet WealdThe Weaving HollowThe SapfallThe Heartwood KnotCinder RiseCloudrestThe wilds grow stronger the further you go from the Hearth.
Mother Weaver
The Weaving Hollow, Level 13
The great spider at the middle of the Weaving Hollow, among dead grey trees hung with webs like sails and cocoons the size of a man. When she wakes, silk shivers across the hollow. She webs the ground, whips silk in a line and bites with venom; her brood comes at her shriek.
It wakes on its own about every half hour, and the whole floor hears it: Silk shivers across the Weaving Hollow: the Mother Weaver has woken!
For a party of up to six, from level 12. Every party walks its own copy.
Inside the bough, through the door at the foot of the Heartwood Knot, opened once the ember wisps are put out. Halls of hollow heartwood run past sap channels, a grub nest and galleries the spiders crept into; the Hollow Matron keeps her chamber midway, and at the heart waits the Heartrot, the rot that took the Autumn King.
Ashenleaf, the Autumn King
Level 16
Emberleaf's guardian: the Autumn King, who kept the leaves turning, climbed the Heartwood Knot to burn the rot out of himself, and burns still on the Pyre of Leaves. A towering tree with a crown of fire, he sweeps burning boughs, rains embers and tears up the roots; wisps and fallen leaves rise to fight for him.
Waits in the Pyre of Leaves. Everyone who climbs fights it together, and it grows with them. The first time it falls, Glimmerdeep opens for everyone; then it returns, to be fought again for what it leaves.
Duskhollow
