<strong>The Wilds of Dra Sirdu - Tranquility and Taint</strong><br/><br/>For the morning's journey, the island was a vision of paradise. The glade of the matriarch (or matriarchs, plural) bustled with life, big and small. Oddly, none of it seemed to fear the passing humanoids, with a few braver individuals even moseying up to to investigating or, in the case of a large, blocky, elk-ish beast, simply blocking their path as it gnawed persistently at a low brush. Special dietary requirements, it looked like, as much like the rest of the island, there was little lack of food or greenery. More than one clump of trees showed the same signs of cultivation that they had encountered on the first leg of their journey.<br/><br/>Gradually, however, the scenery changed. While no less vibrant or lively, the greenery became ... twisted as they neared the area that Commandant Vin had marked on their map. It looked even more garden-like than either Rhiss's stomping grounds or the isolated forest-plot had been, but in the fashion that a centuries-abandoned garden constructed specifically for the cultivation (or imprisonment) of vile and maddened plants might. Most simply stank or oozed foul liquids or menaced with immense brambles and thorns, but others seemed to twitch after the passersby. None of them actually uprooted themselves to give chase (or even snapped at an elf or human brave or inquisitive enough to get close), but the<em>impression</em>that some vile intelligence guided them was impossible to shake.<br/><br/>More impressive still, though, was the wall. Or, to be more precise: wall fragment. It loomed up out of the increasingly dense (and increasingly suspect) flora like some bleak giant hunched against the waves of a abominably verdant sea. One half looked as though it had been smashed by a giant, molten hammer, the brickwork half collapsed and half melted. The other looked much more normal: simply crumbling and dilapidated, as the sands of time were wont to inflict on unprotected, unmaintained stone.<br/><br/>And stone it was, thank all the gods. No unknowable alloy or odd construct of brass and stained ivory or whatever wonder might expect for such an odd place. It was a mixture of stones: fieldstone and flagstone and granite and others, all cunningly interworked in a dry stone setting. No doubt it merited inspection, but who knew what things lurked out here. Though maybe the answer was "nothing at all." The place certainly looked inhospitable enough, if you weren't an eight-and-a-half foot tall cactus with barbed, glistening spines. And they hadn't encountered much movement, aside from the plants themselves, since arriving.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Approaching the Garden</div><div class="spoiler_body">This area has a fairly strong <em>Sense of Foreboding</em> to it, as I hope I communicated! The wall can be analyzed with Investigation, and beating a Fair/2+ will reveal some sort of ... script, perhaps, along the bottom of one side. However, if it doesn't spoil too much, you can make a choice between Notice and Investigation rolls, here. They'll both likely be useful.</div></div>