The Bleeding Forest

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> The Bleeding Forest
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> Art from FL.
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> On a cliff to your left, stony faces writhe into view.
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> ### Location
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> The Elder Continent
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> *"The Wakers speak of the Bleeding Forest's temptations and dangers. They name the chert, the flinty principle which stifles the heart; the Huz whose stings bring weeping death; the Accidental Men; the Road-of-Seven. They name other things besides, but their words sink beneath your memory like stones into water. They cackle as they name them. 'You may end in the Forest,' one advises you, 'but now it will not be our fault.'"*
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**The Bleeding Forest** is an extremely dangerous forest that lies beyond the safety of Caution, filled to the brim with flora made of organs, flesh, and gore. As it is deep within the Elder Continent, the Bleeding Forest is often plagued by strange sights and dangers that blur the line between reality and imagination: Londonesque mirages made of plants and refuse, the Conjunction of Fancies, cliff-faces... *with faces.*

The **Road-of-Seven** leads through this forest, paved with seven-sided tiles, which do not tessellate in real life. Since it's made of impossible stones, the Road-of-Seven often warps and twists when one is not attentive, and may even disappear entirely. Beneath this road, counsel-trees keep their stories, such as tales of the old Kings and Queens of the Elder Continent.

Further along the road is a vale where the trees are made of flesh and stone, blurring the line between animate and inanimate. Like the cliffs, these trees also have faces, sometimes those of the travelers they see. As if it couldn't get stranger, someone's left painted markings on the trees; that someone appears to be a young and fantastically beautiful human, but they might not be what they seem. They might ask a traveller to weep into a chalice, in exchange for their protection. Refusing them will cause them to age rapidly... assuming they're even real at all.

Further on lies **the Horned Maze**, a labyrinthine plant which lures trespassers into its gaping maw. And beware the **Tigers of War**; these feral cousins of the more civilized tigers live within a large flooding pool in the Bleeding Forest, and often engage in destructive battles with their salamander foes.

Civilization in the Bleeding Forest is rare, as one would expect considering all of the above. **The Village-Fruit** is an enormous fruit that, well, houses a village, inhabited by the, you guessed it, **Fruit-Dwellers**. These individuals notably do not speak Presbyterian; rather, they communicate in a mixture of English, Latin, and the Presbyterate languages. The **House of the Map** is a run-down shack near a stream filled to the brim with paintings of the Elder Continent; the airs of this place provide a comfortable, homely feeling. Best not to stay too long, though, else one will end up like the painter of these maps: a shriveled coal of a man.

## References

1. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London*
2. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"Eyes swivel to watch you. Hand-fronds reach languorously to caress you."*
3. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"Dresser with cloisonné knick-knacks; bookshelves; dining table and chairs; armchair and sofa; a neatly made-up double bed. Not unexpected for a London townhouse, but unusual for a forest clearing. Leaves, flowers, droppings, blood festoon everything."*
4. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"In a cliff to your left, faces writhe into view."*
5. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The seven-sided flagstones of the road, impossibly, fit together with nary a crack or gap, [...]"*
6. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"It runs straight, but its direction seems to change each time your attention wavers."*
7. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The Road-of-Seven is the path the counsel-trees built to keep their stories."*
8. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"There are fewer hybrids of plant and flesh, and more that seem hybrids of stone, [...] faces writhe into view. One calls your name."*
9. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The tree-trunks here bear complex patterns [...] all the patterns line up neatly, resolving into a clear scene. Men and women of luminous beauty beckon you down a dimly-lit space of columns and divans. [...] In her left hand is the chalice; in her right, a dulcimer. “Weep,” you distinctly hear her whisper."*
10. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"Your tears flow easily. [...] But you feel the strength of the sword."*
11. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The youth and the maiden step back. Their faces look suddenly drawn and old. [...] the scene dissolves back into splotches of paint on the trunks of stony trees."*
12. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The Maze is a single plant of vast extent. Its leafy convolutions form an elaborate labyrinth, adorned with sights and scents to draw foolish travellers into a core like the heart of a thorned cabbage."*
13. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The surface of a mirror-dark pool trembles. [...] Salamanders slink hissing from the grass. Tiger-heads break the pool's surface. "War," a voice cries. "War!""*
14. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"The Village-Fruit: [...] Villagers in woven gall-fibre watch you warily from the fruit's hollows."*
15. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"It tells you what you need to know, [...] to turn aside the spears of the Fruit-Dwellers."*
16. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"She speaks to you courteously, though, in a peculiar melange of English, Latin, and the Presbyterate languages."*
17. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"You circle the room, considering the paintings, one by one. [...] You could stay here, you realise. [...] You find the painter slumped on a mattress in a corner. [...] He has become coal in the shape of a man... [...] "Time to go," says your Deputy, tugging at your arm. [...] 'light consumes'."*