Deep in the southwest of King’s Valley lies the Kingswood, the dark forest that connects the grassy plains to the murky swamps on Charon’s southern side. It’s a place wrought with ancient trees and superstitions. Few people enter the Kingswood for even fewer return. This is true especially recently.

No stranger to spooky forests or the creatures that dwell within them, Astrid takes the request for help from the Knights of Duros with great enthusiasm. She even presents it to Blue Raspberry since they’re interested in becoming an actually-real knight. Together, the two of them set off into the darkness of the Kingswood. Astrid can see perfectly well in the darkness of the forest that encroaches as the light from the day fades into night. If these creatures ambush people at night, then that’s the best time to hunt them, right?

These Murkwood Spawn don’t scare her. She and Blue have faced far scarier foes that pose real threats to them. Like Ceena. Wherever she’s gone off to since they got rid of their mob problem… Astrid would absolutely say that Ceena is scarier than the two gods she has fought.

“How are ya holdin’ up, Blue?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at her best friend. “If yer hungry, I’ve got snacks. I s’pose there’s lots a’ dead trees an’ whatnot ta eat in here too. Hopefully we won’t be out here fer too long, but I s’pose the wood’s real big.”

---

Night Vision

Murkwood spawn: talesofcharon.proboards.com/post/36046/thread
Quest details:

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: What Lurks in the Murk
Participants: Two or more
Location: King's Valley (Kingswood)
Post Requirements: 8 posts per person, 250 words per post
Reward: +1 Mystical Archive Ticket, Choice of 1 Rare crafting material
Description: A pair of Murkwood Spawn have been terrorizing travelers as they move through the forest connecting King’s Valley to the Marsh Flats. Instead of using sheer force to assault their prey, they stalk, using the forest to their advantage. Working together, they have managed to attack and evade many local authorities, with the Knights of Duros asking for help in the matter. Anyone brave enough to enter the forest and dispatch these two beasts will earn favor with both regions.
Special Requirements: At least one member of the group (PC only, no NPC's) must be knocked unconscious during this fight.)

"Great!" Blue replied cheerily, walking behind Astrid.

One of the armored ooze's arms was filled to the brim with whatever they found on the forest floor as they walked along. Dead partially decayed leaves, fallen branches, some interesting looking mushrooms and the occasional pretty rock. There was even one fruit of some kind that neither of them could identify. Blue took it and idly shoved it into the open underside of their helmet, casually snacking on all the random debris and detritus as if it was a tasty trail mix.

 Blue was excited for this adventure. It felt like it'd been way too long since Blue and Astrid had just gone out and fought something! They'd been stuck dealing with noble duties, a mob coming after them, repairing buildings after earthquakes and finding homes for refugees. They even had to fight a reborn dragon god alongside a bunch of other adventurers! Well, okay, that was actually pretty fun. But, they were happy to be finally going out just the two of them and getting into a good fight with some scary, and hopefully tasty, monster!

This being a mission from the Knights of Duros was an added bonus. Blue was looking to become a real knight rather than just masquerading as one, and they weren't very picky on what order they were accepted into. Mostly because they didn't actually know there's a difference between them and their duties, or that knights even had duties, really. They'd made a connection with someone in the Knights of Tegrid, but it didn't hurt to do a favor for other knight orders. Maybe they could get into both orders and become a double knight! Did those exist? Well, most people probably thought sentient (kind of) intelligent oozes didn't exist either, so who knows?

"If we don't find these monsters soon, maybe I will eat a whole tree. They do look kinda tasty. I think the murky wood spoons will taste better though. Mmmm, spoons..." Blue replied, remembering how much they liked to eat the silverware back home. Though, Cantio and Astrid always made them spit it back out once they realized all the forks and spoons were gone.

With Blue along for the ride, Astrid is pretty happy to be out on an adventure again. It really takes her back to the beginning of her adventuring days when she and the ooze knight braved the world together, always ready for a fight or a good monster hunt. Today is another one of those days, and she’s really excited despite the presumed danger that the–

Wait, what did they call it? Astrid looks over her shoulder with a confused expression. “Murky wood spoons… Oh!” She laughs, realizing the misunderstanding. “No, no, we’re not lookin’ fer spoons, we’re lookin’ fer Murkwood Spawn. They’re like… some kinda undead or somethin’, I think.”

“Still got spoons on yer mind, huh?” Astrid teases. Maybe for Winter’s Crown, she’ll get Blue a set of silverware and cutlery just to eat as a snack since that seems to be their favorite houseware snack.

It occurs to her that she’s not so sure how things will go if Blue tries to eat one of them considering they’re not made of flesh and somehow the ooze procures solid objects from within them without much issue. “I don’t think ya should try ta eat one of ‘em,” she says. “Don’t know if they’ll get dissolved or just stay alive pokin’ around in ya. Er… Unalive? I don’t really know how ta describe it. Best not ta eat ‘em unless we’ve made them stay dead.”

"Ohhh, spawn..." Blue repeated with a hint of disappointment, but then shrugged. Well, maybe they weren't spoons, but they'd probably still taste good. Well, if they were actually solid enough to be eaten.

"Aww, you think?" Blue asked sadly, now with definite disappointment instead of just a hint. Them not being spoons was one thing, but now they couldn't eat these monsters at all? Blue kept walking along, but with much less pep in their step and a sag in their shoulders. They were so excited, and now all that excitement was gone. Well, at least they were still going to go get into a good fight. Even if they couldn't eat it afterward, that should still be fun. And there were still other things to snack on. They fed a stick into the bottom of their helmet, the length of the stick far longer than their helmet was tall, but the whole thing disappearing slowly into it anyways, like a rabbit slowly devouring a piece of grass.

Meanwhile, inside the ooze...

"Yeah, no, I don't want whatever a Murkwood Spawn is to be in here with us. We already got enough bad company."

"I dunno, the demons aren't that bad."

"Thanks."

"I'm not talking about the demons, I'm talking about those things."

In the distance, a tree and a sphere were fighting, the branches and vines of the tree wrapped around and restraining the sphere that was floating around and bashing into it like a sentient wrecking ball. When it had been absorbed, the Origin Matter had had powerful space magic and anything that passed through it was simply stuck inside it, but now, in the ooze's insides, it had become nothing but a solid sphere. All it's abilities seemed to have been stolen by the ooze itself.

"Oh, yeah, we don't need another one of those."

The three Gnomes and the two demons went back to their card game, trying to ignore the battle behind them while absentmindedly watching what Blue Raspberry was doing from the ooze's own eye view.

“Aye, it probably ain’t a great idea,” Astrid says regretfully. “Maybe we can try bits of ‘em an’ see how that goes before ya shove a whole thin’ in yer gullet.”

With every step farther into the forest, the environment grows darker. Astrid’s eyes flicker golden in the low light, and she focuses more on their surroundings. Unlike with the hydra, she can’t simply call Big Frizole down to just come eat the Murkwood Spawn or even really search for them from above. Supposedly, they’re identical to trees, and the canopy of the forest is too thick to see through from above. It wouldn’t do much good.

Still, this place is surprisingly spooky, but in a different way than the bog waters of the Marsh Flats. It’s oddly quiet here save for the crunching of her and Blue’s boots on the underbrush and dead limbs. Ghosts obviously don’t do much to spook Astrid considering her ability to call on Melodia, who is admittedly not all that terrifying. Zombies and other undead? Well, those are less desirable. At least they can be hit. But now there are undead who are like mimics??

“Stay on yer guard,” she says. “We’re gettin’ into the time a’ day– er, night, that they’re likely ta try ta snatch us up.” The last thing Astrid wants to be is snatched up and made a snack unexpectedly. Plenty of things have tried to eat her and failed. She is unfortunately rather bite-sized to some things in Charon.

"Okay..." Blue said, still a bit disappointed, but at least eating the monster bit by bit might still be alright. That cheered them up a little. That, and a nice tree branch that still had some leaves and even an acorn still attached that added some variety as they shoved it up into the bottom of their helmet.

"Ha! Let them try!" Blue announced, their voice deeper and their tone confident, as if they were mimicking someone else's way of speaking. They pointed a tree branch into the air as if it was a knight's sword. They really (other than the tree branch) looked and sounded like an actual knight for a moment. Until they broke character and giggled to themself.

"How was that? Did that sound like a knight?" Blue asked Astrid expectantly.

Blue wanted to be a real knight, and in their mind, that also meant they needed to talk like one. Lucky for them, they met a knight in their travels they could copy. Unlucky for everyone else, that knight was Leandros, the most stereotypical chivalrous, outgoing knight anyone could ever imagine. Gallant and confident to the point they might be seen as arrogant and overconfident. Riding a horse into a cave full of nightcaller trolls to lure them out and calling out their king in too many fancy words. And now, that was Blue's new knightly role model. What could possibly go wrong?

Blue was having fun, but they did at least take Astrid's warning seriously. They put their guard up, looking around more to make sure nothing was trying to get the drop on them. Their head swiveled around farther than a human head should have been able, keeping a lookout like an owl. It didn't actually help much considering they hadn't been paying attention when Murkwood Spawn were described for them, so they didn't realize the monsters could disguise themselves as tree. Pretty crucial information to remember when in a forest, surrounded by trees.

Blue’s sudden shift to the confidence and authority of a knight catches Astrid off guard, but once they start laughing, so does she. “Aye, ya sounded real in charge! Ya’ll be a real knight in no time if ya keep that up! Reminded me a’ Leandros. I dunno if ya ever met him. He fought Vulcadreaus with us. Come ta think of it, he’d be a good person ta take some lessons from on bein’ a proper knight. If ya ain’t met him yet, I’ll introduce ya sometime!” Leandros may not be a part of the main knighthood orders in Charon, but he certainly exudes exactly the kind of energy that any good and noble knight should. It’s something Astrid quite admires about him.

In her joking around, Astrid doesn’t take her own advice. Too busy laughing, her guard falls, which is exactly the kind of distraction a creature disguised as a tree might need. While Blue has their head turned completely around, a dark and spindly branch reaches down from above, and in a flash, Astrid gets snatched into the air by twiggy fingers hooked under the edge of her cuirass. The sudden movement flares her cape out wildly.

“Ack!” she yelps, surprised. Her arms flail about, slapping at the branch that’s grabbed her, but she can’t quite get the leverage she needs to get a hold of it or smack it away. “Ah, Blue, a little help?!” she cries.

"Oh! You know Leandros too? I met him in the WEF. We went and got some fire mages and fought some big trolls together." Blue replied, a little surprised Astrid already knew the knight. Well, maybe they shouldn't have been surprised. It always seemed liked Astrid already knew everyone Blue met. She really got around a lot. Maybe Blue needed to starts travelling alone more often.

Blue quickly looked over to Astrid to see her dangling from a tree branch by her cuirass. They looked away from her for just a second! How the heck did she end up like that? Did she try to climb a tree to get a better look around for those monsters?

"Woah!" Blue didn't need to wonder for long as they suddenly felt themself get pulled into the air by their own cuirass. Or, they felt it try to, really. The tree branch groaned under the weight of the dense ooze in heavy metal armor and after lifting them about a foot into the air, it dropped them back to the ground. Blue landed on their feet with a loud thud.

Seeing its partner's ambush failed to get the other one, the tree holding Astrid started to try to run off with its prey.

"Hey! Bad trees!" Blue shouted. They reeled an arm back and punched their arm forward, and their arm stretched out, exposing the blue goo between the metal plates of their armor as it shot forward. Their hand grabbed Astrid by the leg and stuck to her like glue.

The tree running away didn't realize its prize had just been snagged. It kept running, and then fell on its back as their legs went a lot farther forward than their arm. Looking back, it saw Blue holding Astrid with one stretch out arm, their feet glued to the ground.

"Give her back!"

---

Soft Body
Slimy Hands
Bull's Strength

“Aye, Lee an’ I met when–” Astrid stops her sentence for a moment. She and Lee met when they had to deal with Vikram. Despite her voice catching in her throat, she takes a deep breath and continues. “When Mister Vikram needed some help. We’ve run into each other a few times. Fought some dragons together. He and I and Ulric did some cool combo move on Vulcadreaus!” The energy returns to her voice as she remembers the excitement of the fight with the god of rebirth.

Then she gets yoinked into the air, and before she knows it, Astrid is being pulled through the woods by a fast-running creature of wood and leaves. Luckily, Blue is quick to react and snatches her leg. She feels her boot slip and her joints pull as the resistance between the Murkwood Spawn and Blue’s tug-o-war game begins. Her cuirass clocks her in the chin.

“Ouch!” she yelps. Her arms are pulled halfway through the holes for them, and her ability to actually make any moves is challenged quickly. This isn’t working. “Disappearin’ fer a minute, Blue! Be right back!”

Then Astrid phases out of reality.^[1]

The Murkwood Spawn feels its prize disappear and scrambles to its feet, looking around desperately for its prey. It only sees Blue Raspberry, and behind Blue it sees its partner. The Spawn charges Blue at the front while the one behind tries to use the distraction as another attempt to ambush. If this attack fails, then they’ll likely make a retreat.

---

1. Peel From Reality

"Huh?" Blue just managed to reply before Astrid suddenly vanished from their grasp. Without her, Blue toppled backward as their arm slingshotted back toward them as the stretchy slime was no longer held in place by anything. With the feet still glued to the ground, they couldn't step backward to try to right themself. They flailed their normal-lengthed arm for a moment and then fell with their back flat on the ground and their legs bent so their feet could still be firmly planted.

The Murkwood Spawn trying to ambush Blue from behind let out a confused grunt just before their face was suddenly smashed in by a gauntleted, accidental backhand. It stumbled backward, clutching its face in pain.

Blue reeled their arm back in, the metal clanking back together as the gaps in the armor closed back up, their arm back to its normal length. They lifted their head and looked forward to see the Spawn that had been trying to run off with Astrid charging right toward them.

The ooze gluing their feet to the ground retracted back into the metal boots and Blue rolled to the side as a wooden arm came down and left a dent in the ground where they'd just been. Scrambling back onto their feet, lightning started to arc between the metal bits of their armor and their hands transformed into a pair of sharp, wolf-like claws, blue slime emerging from the openings in their gauntlets and absorbing them.

While Blue was facing the one in front of them, the other one recovered from its blow to the face and charged as well. Blue looked to the side at the sound and was caught off guard as another wooden arm slammed into them and sent them flying into a tree. They fell to the ground, their cuirass dented on one side.

"Okay, these trees are a little stronger than I thought they were." Blue mumbled to themself as they stood up. The one that had hit them looked like it had received a nasty shock as it had hit them, a bit of the wood on its hand charred in pattern that looked like lightning.

---

Lightning Armor
Eldritch Claws
Hit Prevention- Cuirass

After spending a moment floating in a sea of pitch blackness (this time it’s on purpose and not because of panic), Astrid reappears in the spot she disappeared from. Once held aloft but no longer, she crashes to the ground. “Ow, okay,” she grunts, quickly swinging back to her feet. Astrid summons her hammer to her hand^[1] and takes stock of the situation. Both of the Murkwood Spawn seem interested only in Blue at the moment, and they’re kind of backed against a tree.

Not that Astrid is worried about them. They’re great at fighting!

One of the Spawn has a limp hand, and seeing Blue electrified, Astrid immediately figures out what happened, or at least an idea of what happened. Since the lanky wooden creatures are so close together, Astrid shouts to them, “Heads up, ya ugly arses!” As they look her way, Astrid lets loose her hammer, flying through the air towards them. It strikes the first at an angle that lets it bounce off and strike the other.^[2] The strike point frosts over slightly and little sparks of electricity bounce off the surface of their wooden skin. Fire would probably be more effective here.

Astrid’s hammer flies back to her hand, and she charges the Spawn. “Come on, Blue! Let’s smack ‘em together!” Hammer poised in the air to strike from above, Astrid aims directly overhead of the Spawn,^[3] but their long arms strike out at her and shift her trajectory slightly. Uh oh.

---

1. Spellblade - Always There
2. Resounding Rebound
3. Anvil Smash

Blue had their back against a tree and their opponents were putting up a bit more of a fight than they'd been expecting, but thankfully, Astrid reappeared and immediately came to their aid, throwing her hammer at them and taking some of their attention off of Blue.

"Okay!" Blue called back to Astrid. They ran forward, swinging their claws at the first trees side at the same time as she charged in, aiming a heavy overhead swing straight down at it, and then-

"Uh-oh." Blue said as they saw the hammer blow get deflected slightly to the side, making it line up perfectly with the ooze.

CLANG SHLURP

Astrid's hammer rang Blue's helmet like a bell and pushed it straight down into the ooze's torso, making it disappear into the opening in the top of their cuirass. The knight stood there for a moment, looking like a headless suit of armor. Blue had taken blows to their head before and been fine, the ooze not actually having anything in there to damage, but this time was different. The blow sent an impact through their whole body and rattled the core in the center of their torso.

"Urgrgrg..." Blue made a sound halfway between a groan and a gurgle and stumbled backward before they fell flat on their back, their consciousness suddenly going dark. The lightning arcing across them died out and the blue, wolfish claws making their hands liquified into a blob of blue ooze. Inside their armor, their whole body lost its solidity and melted back into ooze that was thankfully just viscous enough to not leak out through all the seems and openings in their armor.

It’s incredible how a small amount of force in just the right place can make things go so horribly wrong so quickly. Rather than bringing her hammer down on the Murkwood Spawn and shattering them into a million pieces, Astrid’s hammer smashes Blue on the head. The impact is so solid that the ooze knight stumbles back and then… Oh gods.

“B-Blue?! Are ya okay?!” Astrid asks in a panic. She’s never known Blue to sleep or be whatever the ooze equivalent of unconscious is. Besides being easily distracted, they make a good lookout at night when they’re camping.

With Astrid distracted, both Murkwood Spawn attack her. One claws at her back, narrowly missing one attack because of the effect of her armor, and the next two connect.^[1] The other leaps forward and makes an attempt to sink its teeth into her leg to drink her blood, but gets temporarily stopped by her greaves.^[2] They hiss and croak irritably, and Astrid tries to swing at them to get them off, but her right arm feels oddly limp after striking Blue. This won’t do.

Astrid draws on the primordial energy of Charon and lets lightning envelop her body.^[3] Both Murkwood Spawn get shocked by the powerful electricity that makes up her form and scurry away to recollect themselves or find a place to hide and ambush their prey later. Finally free to move, Astrid rushes over to Blue and drops the electricity making up her hands and checks Blue over. They’re… soup. Or maybe, they're closer to jelly, and their armor is the bowl.

Welp, time to put this new spell into practice! Astrid gathers electricity in her hands and presses them to Blue’s armor, sending a spark of electricity through them in an attempt to wake them up.^[4]

---

1. Phantasmal Diplopic Plate -2/3 hit preventions
2. Greaves -1 hit prevention
3. Full elemental manifestation - lightning
4. Jumpstart

Blue's mind wandered in unconsciousness, seeing a blue expanse all around them with countless random objects floating around, like they were in some ocean that had had treasure, trinkets, and straight up garbage thrown into it for who knew how long.

Ah, wait a minute. They knew what this was. This was inside them. This was the ooze's insides with all the things they'd eaten on their adventures and at home. They looked to their side and saw their helmet and gauntlets, waiting to be brought back out to complete their suit of armor. To their other side, the grumpy talking shield shouting to be let out. Looking down, they saw...

"Huh?" Blue thought as they were looking down on a game of cards being played by a group of three Gnomes and two.. demons? They didn't have long to look at that as they suddenly found themselves brought back to consciousness by a surge of electricity jump starting their core.

"Ah! Gnomes!" Blue shouted as they shot up into a sitting position. They looked around and realized they couldn't see. It was nothing but darkness around them. Where were they? What happened?

"Astrid? Where are you? I can't see!" Blue called out in fear and confusion, the headless torso of the knight turning this way and that, trying to see what was going on around them. They tried to stand up and realized their limbs were too soft, their slime nearly liquid. They pulled themself ack together, the puddles where their hands had been reforming into two slimy mitts. The headless ooze regained its more solid state and then unsteadily got to their feet, their arms held out and fumbling around blindly to feel what was around them.

One hand landed on top of Astrid's head and felt around, feeling the horns and the goggles Astrid always wore.

"Astrid, is that you?"

When Blue suddenly sits up, Astrid stumbles back and watches them for a second. “Gnomes…?” she asks, confused by the mention of something that isn’t anywhere near where they are. Did Blue dream in that short time? “I’m right here, Blue!” she says. With their arms flailing around, she halts the electricity taking over her form before they shock themselves.

Splat! One gooey hand finds itself on her head. “Aye, that’s me! Ya can’t see??” She looks up and sees they’re missing their head and helmet still. Like a gremlin, Astrid climbs up on Blue and looks into the opening of the top of their cuirass. “I think yer helmet’s down inside a’ ya. Make yerself a head again, buddy!” Then she hops off of them and collects her hammer. 

"I didn't mean ta smack ya, but I'm glad yer alright. Sorry about that. The Spawn ran off ta hide again. We better stay on guard. I bet they’re gonna try ta jump us again,” she warns while digging in her bag. “They’re made a’ wood, so I think it’ll be helpful if one of us does somethin’ a bit… spicy.” She produces a piece of chocolate and offers it to Blue.^[1] “If ya eat this, it’ll make ya hot, same as when Morrigan gave ya the spicy chocolate!”

Then Astrid picks up a handful of rocks and pumps magic into them.^[2,3] They would normally explode with lightning when activated, but with some skills picked up in the Mage’s Guild, Astrid twists the Formulae into something fiery.

---

1. Dragon Chocolate
2. Thunder Bomb
3. Energy Transformation - lightning to fire