As the expedition went through a massive gate, the metallic tang of the first floor's blood was replaced by the overwhelming scent of wet moss, ancient pine, and a sharp, biting ozone that made the hair on the players' arms stand upright.
They reached the base and stepped out onto a floor that was no longer stone.
It was a vast, sprawling bed of thick, glowing roots that glowed with a sapphire light.
In the center of this subterranean grove stood a behemoth.
A tree, easily fifty meters tall, reached toward the dark ceiling of the sinkhole.
Its bark was white as bleached bone, but its leaves were the color of a deep, twilight ocean.
Entwined within the very trunk of the tree was a figure.
A woman, her body seamlessly integrated into the white wood, appeared trapped from the neck down.
Her skin was the color of moonlight, and her long, sapphire hair cascaded down the trunk like a frozen waterfall.
Her eyes were closed, her expression one of serene, eternal sleep.
