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A Short Expedition into Traitor's Wood
OtherworldlyArtefact
Category Story Event
Type Story
Data ID 300689

A Short Expedition into Traitor's Wood is a Sunless Skies Story Event.

Story description[ | ]

"Progress through the Wood(Hard)"

Trigger conditions[ | ]

Traitorswood icon Embarked Upon ≥ 1


Interactions[ | ]

Actions Requirements Effects Notes
Enter the ruin
Toppled stonework, wrought by ancient hands.
Trophies won from the wood
The stone is rough cut, almost hewn, as if it was worked more like wood than rock. Tunnels have been bored through it, permitting entry and exploration. Inside are cells – arranged as in a monastery, but colossal in size. You wander vast, featureless hallways. Most are entirely empty. Occasionally you find what seems to have been storage, of outlandish tools and tableware. You gather up the most obviously valuable items before departing.
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Enter the Steward's Font
Below the thundering white water, a cave is visible, just under the lip of the rock.
A scythe of starlight
You scale down the wet rock face, and into the cave. It is several moments before your eyes adjust to the light.

The cavern is not natural. The walls are covered with bronzewood, and studded with navaratine gemstones – driven in too deep to remove. Distant starlight from the cave mouth reflects off the stones, filling the cave with radiance.

Towards the back of the cave, you find a silver seal the size of a crown and a curved crescent blade. Correspondence is scored on the blade's battered metal. It is too large to move, but you record the sigils. Perhaps one of the scholars will be able to translate. You take the seal.
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Enter the Giggling Place
A shaded dell below a steep and cruel hill. Bright laughter emanates from within the shaded dell before you.
The unquiet grave
Within the dell, the laughter becomes cacophonous. Your crew must cover their ears as you press forward through the dripping undergrowth. White ferns whisper as they brush against your heads, your hands. Ahead, you can hear the lowing of beasts. The air is cold as the grave.
Cross the whispering bog
You have strength on your side.
Failed event
Called below
Some rope and a firm pair of arms ought to do it. Unfortunately, your burliest stoker, though extremely sound in body, has a propensity to let her mind wander. She plunges into the bog halfway across, whispering in time with the bubbling chorus below. Was that her name she heard as she fell? You have no way of knowing. The rope will not hold your weight long enough to pull her out. You press on.
Successful event
Safe crossing
A rope, strong arms, and the threat of rain hurry proceedings along. You soon have a makeshift bridge across the bog. You shouldn't have to touch the foul grey water at all. You and your crew make it across without incident. They seem amazed that nobody died. They almost certainly don't mean it as a slight on your abilities.
Partial success event (5%)
The voices of the dead
A rope, strong arms, and the threat of rain hurry proceedings along. You soon have a makeshift bridge across the bog. You shouldn't have to touch the foul grey water at all. You go first. Such is the captain's prerogative and duty. Halfway across, you hear the marsh whispers grow louder. Are they calling you down?
Go faster
Before you hear a word more!
You drag yourself along the rope as fast as you can; your crew's breath is loud and ragged as they pull themselves after you. There are a couple of dull splashes. That does, at least, quiet the whispering a little – the rest of you reach the far side unharmed.
Hold your course
You won't be spooked by the murmurings of a talking bog.
The voices whisper just on the edge of hearing, like the voice of a lost loved one long, only heard in a dream. Your eyes close, just for an instant. The ice of the Discordance chills your throat. You are repeating the whispers. You must urge yourself forwards to the other side.
Listen to the voices
What harm can they do?
You cling to the rope, suspended over the grey and churning marsh. The voices rise and fall like a tide. They speak of loss. They whisper of treason, of impossible tasks and shattered servants. They claim a tithe for your crossing, in days or bodies or perhaps both. How long did you hang above the bog?
Search for another route
There must be a better, less noisome, way.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Lost in a forest
The wood extends for miles, but so too does the bog. It is hours before you find a passable clearing. A glade of emerald hue, nestled between a copse of silver trees that shiver and sigh like consumptives.

Your crew follow your lead, hanging close by your torchlight. You keep up a count, checking the numbers of your crew as you go.

Not everyone leaves the silvered wood.
Successful event
The whispering trees
The wood extends for miles, but so too does the bog, as though it were once a river or a moat. It is hours before you find a passable clearing. A glade of emerald hue, nestled between a copse of silver trees that shiver and sigh like consumptives. The trees whisper as you pass. They lie in a dozen languages, only half known to you and your crew. The Discordance shivers beneath the boughs. Correspondence ignites wood that shrieks, as though not meant to speak it. Wood burns and breaks. The passing is treacherous and slow. Eventually, however, you emerge.
Draw the beasts out
You won't run.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Death in the wood
Beasts leap from the shadows. Your guns barely slow them. In the dark, you can only see snatches of the creatures ripping into your crew. It is probably for the best. Claws like meat hooks. Splintered teeth like rocks off a shore. Their howls of Discordance are equalled by the screams of your crew. You are forced into a retreat, your fallen acting as a meaty distraction from your flight.
Successful event
A rout
You exhort your crew to stand their ground. Grotesque beasts, mockeries of earthly animals, emerge from the treeline. Their pelts are ragged and mangled with exposed inner organs, their tusks curve cruelly – it is impossible to avoid thoughts of disembowelment. Each stares as if famished. You do not give an inch. You sound the first barrage. Then the second. And the third. The trees trap the smoke; your crew coughs and chokes. But the beasts' blood flows freely. The beasts' howls are Discordance; you stop your ears and bring them down, one by miserable one.
Hide from the beasts
Better safe than sorry.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


The beasts that weep as they rend
You slip off the path into the depths of the wood, where the great trees bend their boughs to conceal you. But in the Traitor's Wood, you are betrayed. A wind whips through the forest, brushing the canopy aside. You live to see your crew slaughtered. You do not stay to watch them be devoured. Their deaths have bought you a chance to flee.
Successful event
In the shadow of the valley
You slip under the eaves of a copse of white trees, pale as a corpse's flesh. Slowly, silently, you creep under the canopy. You hear the occasional crunch of bone or branch, as your pursuers enter the wood after you. Eventually, the pursuit tails off. You find your crew again on a hill overlooking a bog.
Partial success event (5%)
Flight halted
You break from your path and slip into a copse of trees, white as bone. You creep under the canopy. Perhaps the dense wood and utter darkness might throw off pursuit. You hear the occasional crunch – surely only a branch underfoot – as your pursuers enter the wood after you. There is a scream from somewhere behind you. One of your crew has been caught.
Go back
You won't abandon your crew.
You turn back, running through the wood, heart pounding with your feet. A stoker lies below a beast that resembles a stag, had it mated with wolves for generations. It bares its teeth, then lowers its head. It charges. Your pistol is quick, but the beast is stubborn. Your shoulder is gouged before it falls. Brain and blood spatter your clothes. Your stoker is, however, extremely grateful.
Leave them
It is already too late.
You remain hidden. There is another scream – drawn out, and agonised. A sharp crunching sound, then a great deal of satisfied tearing. When all is silent, you move on.
Send out a search party
You have lost crew. Perhaps they can be found.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Game note: You may gain crew back, but you risk the ones that remain.

Neither hide nor hair
An experienced navigator goes out with a team of your most capable scouts. The rest of you make camp in a cave. Your sleep is cold and restless. When morning comes, there is no sign of your search party.
Successful event
Through the night
A navigator leads a small team back along the broken pathways of the wood, retracing your path. The rest of you wait where you can be easily located – beneath a colossal tree hung with swollen, white fruit. When your navigator returns, her group's numbers are greater. The once-lost smile sheepishly and relate what they've seen – until you are forced to intervene for the sake of morale.
Partial success event (5%)
Woodwose
An experienced navigator leads a small team back along the broken pathways of the wood, retracing your course. The rest of you wait in the shadows of a colossal red tree hung with bulbous white fruit, like swollen silkworms. She returns the next morning, bringing two of the lost. One looks shaken; the other is smiling serenely. When they open their mouth to greet you, they speak in the verdant languages of the wood. The rest of your crew look deeply alarmed.
Reject the returned crew
The wood has claimed them. They are not yours to command anymore.
The navigator who found them looks annoyed at having her evening wasted, but you sense relief from your crew. The one who speaks English protests, of course, but the drawing of your guns dissuades him from following you. The other merely smiles, and wanders away to commune with a nearby brook.
Accept the unafflicted crewman alone
There's no guarantee, of course, he won't start speaking in floral tongues later.
The crewman babbles in belief; his noise almost matching that of his peer, who merely smiles as you drive him away with your guns. As you begin to make your way through the wood again, you look behind to see him communing with a copse of grey trees.
Accept both
You are still their captain.
Your crew look dubious. Even the returned crewman still capable of English speech looks dubious. But no one protests your order, and the afflicted crewman is content to follow along, speaking to the wind as he goes.
Rest
Recover your strength.
Failed event

Game note: A less risky option.

Disturbed slumbers
The shadows are long; the air still as the grave. A tree that was a sapling when you fell asleep is dead when you wake. Your campsite is scattered with its branches, brittle as dried bones. One of your crew has departed in the night. Or, at least, they are no longer here.
Successful event
A night to forget
A navigator discovers a hollow way running through a vast copse of blackwood. You can set a watch at both ends, and light a fire without being seen from elsewhere in the wood. Your crew stay up late, swapping stories of old rulers and their various ends. Your sleep is dreamless as death.
Listen to the voices
What do they know? Maybe you can learn.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


The chorus swells
You lead your crew through the fields of whispering flowers.

Undertows pull you this way and that as voices beg for attention – demure floral voices and the harsher clamour of weeds. They speak words of treachery and overreach; tragedy and vengeance.

The flowers claim their tithe. More voices go join their chorus; your numbers dwindle.
Successful event
The Traitor's choristers
The scent of the flowers is sweet but sour, like that of rotten raspberries. The smell overpowers your nostrils as the voices overwhelm your ears, filling them with a constant babble. Your crew join you in the long grass, wandering through the cacophony of flowers. Petals open tiny mouths. They whisper directions, only half in a language you speak. They tell you of groves and graves, the treacheries which happened, the defiance, the kingdom overthrown. Eventually, they even tell you the way to leave.
Stopper your ears
Plug your ears somehow; shut out the sound.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Game note: Rally your crew to stop them listening.

The violet chorus
There's always one. One fool who unplugs their ears halfway across the field of whispering flowers, that mutter in Latin and Sanskrit and Welsh. The last you see of him, he's racing across the fields, stripping his skysuit as he goes. A search party turns up no trace of him. The flowers whisper on, unperturbed.
Successful event
A haze of purple
You find your booziest stoker and demand she open her napsack. Inside, as expected, a veritable cellar of wine. Her protests are stifled when she realises you intend to drink the wine now. Better everyone's drunk than hearing the voices. An hour or so later, you stagger through the field, holding each other upright. If the flowers whisper to you, you do not hear them.
Brave the storm
Press onward!
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Game note: You might make more progress but at a risk.

Lost
You push on despite the howling wind and clashing thunder. Lightning scythes the sky. Your crew trudge on behind you, up hill and through valley, sliding on sodden ground, cowering from thunder roaring like dragons. Eventually, the sky clear clears and you emerge into a dell. Not everyone has made it.
Successful event
A harsh captain
Brandy is passed about in little flasks – until you have to remind people not to get rotten drunk in the middle of a thunderstorm. The going is quieter after that, but swifter. Eventually, the storm passes.
Take shelter
Send scouts to find a safe refuge.
Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Game note: A safer but slower option.

The heart of the storm
Lightning strikes a hill nearby, shocking the sky silver. Rain batters down like an invader. Your scouts do not return. You trudge on, ignoring the complaints of your crew. The storm will pass soon. It must.
Successful event
Beneath the roots
While you wait, you shelter beneath a vast tree. It is the pale gold of a candlelit manuscript page. The cover is inadequate. The flask of brandy does not last long enough. Then, torchlight nearby. Your scouts return – there is a hollow under an ancient tree where you can make camp. There's even a cache there – someone has come through here before you.
You are alone
How will you get out of the forest?
Failed event

Game note: You can go no further without crew. Leaving the forest will not be easy, however.

The broken pathways
You walk in circles. Rain comes, falls, goes again. The sky wheels overhead. You hear the voices of your crew in the woods. For a time, you follow them.

They lead you through bog and bramble, through glade and grove and grave. Do you see them in the wood? Do they speak to you? Do they sing to you/ Do you remember their names?

Yes. Of course you do. You wouldn't have carved them onto the hull of your locomotive otherwise. You look down, your fingers raw and bloody. You have escaped the wood.
Successful event
A narrow escape
You walk in circles. Rain comes, falls, goes again. The sky wheels overheard, as though you were pinned to an executioner's rack, watching . You hear the voices of your crew in the woods. For a time, you follow them. Later, when you come to, back at the camp, you wonder if they led you out of the wood. Or did they try to draw you deeper in? Are they there still, waiting – to ward you away or else embrace you one last time and then forevermore.
Leave
You have travelled far enough.
Always returning
You chart your way back through the trees, inch by careful inch.
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Game note: You will lose all progress, but will suffer no further consequences.


Links[ | ]

Links In[ | ]

Traitorswood ambience Expeditions into the Wood's Deep

Links Out[ | ]

Traitorswood ambience The Parting Glade, Traitorswood ambience The Summerset Camp, Traitorswood ambience The Giggling Place


Template:Navbox story events

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