The Night Forest
From Zok
Contents |
The Night Forest
Ringing the Undersea is the most massive and tangled forest in creation. Its inner edge lies along the shore, in some places standing like a black wall behind the silver sands, in some places invading the ocean with four-hundred foot tall mangroves, their roots turning the sea into a slow-moving maze. Which parts of the shore are which is determined largely by how long it's been since The Big One raged across that particular section of coastline.
The Night Forest is located near the outer edge of existence, where the sun and moon are far away and the stars gleam brightly overhead. The trees in the deeper parts of the forest can grow as tall as mountains, and their roots lead down through eons of rotting forest floor to the very deepest of the Voidcaves. Their perceptible growth is fueled by starlight and rainwater, and it explodes into a cacaphony of frenzied foliage when presented with a strong local light source. Bounded as it is by the River of Fire, the outer edge of the Night Forest is prone to chaotic wildfires, which can rage for years as the forest grows towards the light and warmth as fast as the inferno can burn it.
The upper regions of the Night Forest's canopy are kept above freezing by close proximity to the fire of the stars, and the forest floor resembles a steaming jungle due to the warmth produced by the constant rotting of dead plant matter. In between, in the dark spaces where white trunks the size of cities vanish into the mist below and the branches above, it can grow truly cold indeed. Here steam rising from below hardens into thick frost, and heavily furred creatures burrow into the trees to avoid the cold. Wars are waged upwards and downwards over trees the size of countries in the Night Forest, and civilizations rise and fall without ever being discovered by the outside world.
