Arboris
Thornreach

Floor 4

Thornreach

A bough burned by a sun that stopped at noon, where the roses grow as tall as houses

Levels 16–20
Town
Briarwatch
The wilds
The Reach
Guardian
Kaelthorn the Unbowed

Thornreach's world ended at the height of its last summer, and its sun stopped at noon. The rain never came again; the grass went gold, then grey, and the thorns its people grew for walls and roads went looking for water. Briarwatch, a walled town with a garden round its Hearth, holds out among roses as tall as houses.

Under the hill to the north runs the bloodroot, the bough's own root, whose sap is red and makes whatever drinks it grow. Every thorn on the Reach drinks from it now, and so does Kaelthorn the Unbowed, on Bloodroot Hill.

Thornreach, a bough the sun has burned for longer than anyone can count. Our world ended at the height of its last summer, and the Tree caught it there, at noon. This walled town is Briarwatch. The garden round the Hearth is mine to keep, as it was my mother's.

Ysolde, Keeper of the Garden

Map

Map of Thornreach seen from above, north at the topBriarwatchThe Rose ArchesBriarfieldSunscorch FlatsThorn TunnelsThe Hedge WardBloodroot Hill

Places

The wilds grow stronger the further you go from the Hearth.

  1. The Rose ArchesLevels 17–19
  2. BriarfieldLevels 17–19
  3. Sunscorch FlatsLevels 18–20
  4. Thorn TunnelsLevels 18–20
  5. The Hedge WardLevels 19–20
  6. Bloodroot HillLevel 20
  • Hearth
  • Field boss
  • Dungeon door
  • Guardian

Who lives here

Pollen WispLevels 16–17ThornbackLevels 16–18Rose WaspLevels 17–18ScorchtailLevels 18–19Briar MantisLevels 18–20Bramble SerpentLevels 18–20ThornwalkerLevels 19–20

Field boss

The Briar QueenLevel 19

The Briar Queen

Sunscorch Flats, Level 19

A rose grown into a tree in the middle of the Sunscorch Flats, all that is left of the rose-fields: when the rain stopped, she drank what the others could not reach. When she wakes and opens, her wasps pour out like red smoke; she rains thorns, binds every foot with briars, and at the last breathes a red poison.

It wakes on its own about every half hour, and the whole floor hears it: Dust rises over the Sunscorch Flats: the Briar Queen has woken, and her roses are opening!

Dungeon

The Rosethorn Maze

For a party of up to six, from level 18. Every party walks its own copy.

The hedge-lords' old garden in the Hedge Ward, open to the sky, entered once the mantises are cleared from its gate. Gravel walks wind between hedges taller than a man into blind turns; the Pruner keeps the sundial court, and at the heart the Thorncoil lies wrapped round the Rosethorn, the first rose of the Reach.

Bosses

The PrunerLevel 20The ThorncoilLevel 21

Its keepers

Rose ChaferLevels 19–20RosewingLevels 19–20

Guardian

Kaelthorn the UnbowedLevel 22

Kaelthorn the Unbowed

Level 22

Thornreach's guardian, grown by the first hedge-lords from the oldest bramble on Bloodroot Hill, and called the Unbowed in praise. The Withering found him on the summit, where he has stood inside his ring of thorns since the Silence. He hurls thorns like spears, and for a few breaths blows glance off him like rain off bark.

Waits in Kaelthorn's Stand. Everyone who climbs fights it together, and it grows with them. The first time it falls, Highbark opens for everyone; then it returns, to be fought again for what it leaves.

Townsfolk

Briarwatch

Briarwatch
  • YsoldeKeeper of the Garden
  • AurelCastellan of Briarwatch
  • VarroSmith
  • SabineDistiller
  • PellHedgecutter
  • IlkaLookout of the East Tower

Their tasks

  1. The Long NoonYsolde, Level 16
  2. Sparks in the BriarfieldAurel, Level 16
  3. Spines for the GlassVarro, Level 16
  4. The Rose RoadAurel, Level 17
  5. Venom for the StillSabine, Level 17
  6. Glare on the FlatsIlka, Level 18
  7. Blades for the HedgePell, Level 18
  8. Under the ThornPell, Level 19
  9. The Garden GateYsolde, Level 19
  10. The UnbowedAurel, Level 20