A Song of Roots and Ash

Part 1

                The rangers ran as quickly as they could as they took off through the forests. They wore dark green cloaks over their leather armor, armed with bow, daggers and swords. Their faces sported dark green, and light green paint, and their ranks varied between human and elf.

"Keep going...!" one of them shouted.

"Keep your voice down...!" someone shouted back. The only 'response' was someone's blood curdling cries from behind them.

"Why are they so deep in the woods?" someone asked out loud.

"Who cares, keep going!" someone replied.

They kept running, as the shadows kept picking them off, one by one. Despite this they kept going, flying past the trees with strange markings on them. Until it was down to the three of them.

Daniel tripped, on a root. He would've called it a rookie mistake, but he was too concerned with his life about to end. He turned over in time to see 'it' coming down at him. She was vampiric, with pale skin, pointed ears, pronounced fangs, but she also sported bat wings, a long whip like tail, and legs covered in dark fur to match her hair, ending in hooves. Upon her forehead were horns pointing backwards slightly. She sported crude plate armor about her person, and radiated primal savagery and sadism as her unearthly grin showed off her teeth. Then lightning bolts fired from the trees leaving her charred black.

Daniel rolled out of the way, as her corpse fell where he was, and the other two stopped in their tracks to look back.

"What just happened...?" the girl asked, Savi. She pulled down her hood revealing a chocolate brown skin tone, a short afro held down by a headband, brown eyes, and a scar on the left side of her cheek.

"I don't know..." Daniel said getting up. He lowered his hood. He had a clear complexion with short black hair, and blue eyes. "Lightning just...came from the trees..." Daniel looked around, finally noticing the various markings on the trees, a swirl like rune. "I think we're in the territory of the Shell Clan." He said with awe.

"Yeah..." said Derrick. He had black hair, grey eyes, and a paler complexion than Daniel's "well that's not proof we're safe yet. We need to move...!"

The ground trembled, and they turned towards the large wide tree behind them. It was a massive thing wide, both in its trunk and vast with its branches, unlike the simple tall and slender trees around it. Swirl patterns glowed with blue light upon its bark as its shape changed, and moved, revealing a door.

Savi trained her bow, as did Derrick. Daniel took his out on principal. The door suddenly opened, and...there was no one. The group released the tension on their bows. Then she appeared. Her skin was green, a lighter shade that the dress of bark, leaves and vines she wore. Vines covered all of her visible left arm, and she walked...on hooves, and sported large, long green horns that swept back, and sported a thin flexible tail.

Savi's first thought was a green demon, and on that thought she fired her arrow. The stranger, who came out with a barrel in her hands, Suddenly her wooden arm moved without warning, without her permission, given her surprise, and moved to in front of her chest as she dropped the barrel and the arrow plunged itself into her wooden palm.

"What the hells?!" she exclaimed. Savi readied another arrow, but there was the sound of wood creaking and cracking, as the trees disassembled and reassembled into bruiting hulks of wood, leaves, amber joins and glowing green light.

"What the hells?!" Derrick exclaimed as they approached them.

"Stop...!" said the green woman. The wood golems obeyed and halted. She walked over to them pouting, upset, and stopped on heavy stomps.