The Greywood

A stretch of Greatwood forest where an echo-beast lay too long and the land turned grey and wrong — ashen grass, pale bark, a faint wrongness in the air the Cullers mark and the Rootbound guard.

The grass went grey here first, then the bark, then the bird-sound stopped. An echo-beast bedded in this hollow for a season too many and whatever failed making it carries soaked into the soil. The Cullers mark its edge with split pegs. The Rootbound sit at its boundary on quiet days, betting the wood will take the rot back if left alone long enough. So far the grey is holding steady, which is the Rootbound's argument and the Cullers' nightmare.