The roar of the cursed fireplace filled the cavernous hall, a hungry sound that consumed the last vestiges of warmth. Varnok’s gaze remained fixed on the emerald glow, the grotesque branch of Torvak’s flesh hissing as it bled sap and smoke into the air. He saw it now, not just as toxic fumes, but as a living miasma, a continuous sowing of agony. “Stop it,” Varnok rasped, his voice cutting through the thrum of the flames. The two remaining thugs flinched, their faces pale beneath streaks of grime. Jorik stood motionless, his monstrous arm still poised, dripping dark ichor onto the polished floorboards. None of them moved, caught in the sudden, terrible stillness. Varnok didn't wait. He stalked forward, his movements economical, the iron spud a familiar balance in his grip. Reaching the masonry grate, he didn't bother with an axe or water. Instead, with a grunt of effort, he swung his heavy boot, sending a cascade of compacted snow, scraped from the outside, tumbling into the blaze. A violent hiss erupted, a shriek of tortured steam as the superheated embers met the brutal cold. The emerald glow sputtered, choked, and died, replaced by a thick, acrid cloud that billowed into the room. The oppressive heat that had clung to the manor’s core withered in an instant, leaving behind a vacuum of arctic air. Ice crystals bloomed on the cold stone, spiderwebbing outwards with astonishing speed. The two thugs, still clutching their axes, stiffened. Their breath plumed white, then hardened into rind, crystalline mists clinging to their lips. Their eyes, wide with disbelief and terror, glazed over. A low groan escaped one man’s throat, turning into a brittle snap as his vocal cords seized. They became statues, their forms rigid, their skin tightening over their bones. In less than a minute, they were pillars of rime-locked flesh, their axes fused to their hands by the sudden, absolute cold. Jorik gasped, a ragged cough tearing from his chest. He pulled his monstrous arm back, tucking it against his body, shivering violently despite his heavy clothes. “Varnok,” he choked, his teeth chattering. “What have you done?” “Extinguished the fire,” Varnok replied, his voice flat. He turned from the petrified thugs, stepping towards the center of the hall where Torvak's massive, rooted form groaned with sickening regularity. The Baron, a grotesque amalgamation of man and wood, seemed to shudder under the renewed assault of the cold. His gnarled, branching torso, previously dripping with sap and sweat from the heat, now began to crystallize, fine layers of hoarfrost blooming on his bark-like skin. The raw, exposed heartwood pulsed sluggishly. “Torvak,” Varnok addressed the living tree, his voice devoid of mercy. “You spoke of the Yul-Gorek. The slaughter. How did this… reach so far?” He gestured around the hall, to the frozen men, to Jorik's blighted arm, to the dying, rooted Baron himself. Torvak let out a wet, rattling sigh, a sound like wind sifting through dry branches. His eyes, now almost fully encased in hardened bark, struggled to focus. “The… the antlers,” he wheezed, his voice a low scrape of wood against stone. “I sold them. To the Frost-Galleons. Gold. Much gold.” A spasm wracked his monstrous frame, a tremor that sent a shower of icy splinters cascading from his upper limbs. “The antlers,” Varnok repeated, his gaze sharp. “What else?” A deeper groan escaped Torvak. “The… the meat. So much meat. The beast was vast. We… we couldn't waste it. Distributed it. All of it. To the entire settlement. Through the winter-stores. Everyone… ate.” His voice trailed off into a pained gurgle, a mixture of agony and the slow, inevitable tightening of his wooden throat. “My… my grand feast. A reward for their… diligence.” A dark, viscous sap, turning to slush, wept from the crevices in his bark-face. Varnok’s mind raced, connecting the fragmented pieces. The Deep-Frost Pacts, shattered. The Yul-Gorek, slaughtered and eaten. The meat, infected with the very essence of the forest spirit’s dying curse. Then, the burning of the infected, as Syla was doing, as Torvak's thugs had just done. The smoke. A seed. Not just a symptom, but an active vector. He felt a sudden, profound revulsion, deeper than any he’d felt before. The poisoned feast. The desperate fires. The curse wasn’t merely passive; it was cunning. It used their hunger, their need for warmth, to spread its blight. Every lung that drew in the green smoke wasn't just breathing in poison; it was breathing in the very agony of the Yul-Gorek, taking root. “This isn’t just about the guilty,” Varnok murmured, the truth sharpening into venom. “This is about everyone.” He turned abruptly, striding past the still-shivering Jorik, past the dead sentries, and out of the manor’s main entrance. The door groaned on its heavy hinges, letting in a blast of the outside's brutal, untainted cold. The air was still, heavy with mist and the unyielding grip of the Osk-Vallen winter. Moonlight, pale and diffuse, struggled through the lingering, unnatural shroud. Varnok looked across the snow-choked streets of the settlement. From dozens of chimneys, plumes of sickly green smoke snaked upwards, twisting like spectral vines against the pale sky. The realization struck with the brute impact of a falling log. These were not just the fires of desperate survival. These were stoves burning the cursed, spreading the blight, ensuring that every soul, guilty or innocent, would become part of the new forest. His gaze swept towards the town square, drawn by a particularly dense column of green. Syla’s cabin. Smoke billowed from her single chimney, a thick, emerald-tinged cloud that seemed to pulse with a malevolent light. More smoke than any single grate should produce. Far, far more. Syla, the keeper of embers. Burning her husband’s blighted limbs to keep her children warm. The terrible irony of it, her desperate love twisted into a weapon against her own. Varnok remembered the small, uninfected faces of Syla’s children, huddled beside her woodbox, their lungs drawing in the tainted air. They were still inside. Uninfected. Trapped. And breathing it all in.

Breath of the Blight