Sacred Sites
Skin Walkers have two, sacred places. The Life Tree and the Grave's Breach. Both are accessible from multiple places on the earth, but are sort of each a parallel space, like a tiny pocket dimension. Both appear infinite, but aren't. If you walk in one line forever, you'll merely end up right back where you started, as if you'd walked the world. At any of the access points to these places, a Skin Walker may merely will themselves to pass through into the sacred site. Any other creature may enter either with the aid of a Walker or by fulfilling some requirement that is specific to that access point.
The Life Tree is a peaceful, serene place. It features a still pond of clear, reflective water brimming with floating white flowers on the surface. Grassy, soft islands poke up here and there out of the water, one larger island at the center. All around, a soft fog cloaks everything, obscuring the horizon but letting in gentle sunlight filter in from some, unseen sky. At the heart is the tree itself. An enormous, pale weeping willow with roots entangling into the water and covering the island stands at the very center of the space. The tree is so enormous that its trunk's width is comparable to a large sequoia of the Red Woods. Just being there energizes you and relaxes you at the same time. You never hunger and you never thirst. You don't have to sleep, but you may if you'd like.
The Life Tree is a place of healing and restoration. The waters are pure, the scene is relaxing, and the energy there is healing. Drinking the water can treat symptoms of the sick or, if soaked on a wound, can quicken healing and prevent infection. However, you can't take anything out and you can't stay without permission. In order to stay, you must ask the progenitor (Kyrrö) there for permission and be willing to accept the cost. If you ask, you must accept any price he places on you, regardless of if you want to or not. Asking automatically accepts his terms. If you don't ask, you will be ejected from that place as soon a you decide not to and the healing properties of the Life Tree that have already effected you will be revoked. The progenitor there doesn't often ask for much except time. Time passes within the Life Tree's realm differently than it does on the outside, sometimes much faster and sometimes much slower. This makes it a gamble when you ask, because only the one staying for healing or restoration may stay. The rest must leave while the one left behind must stay for as long inside that realm as the progenitor dictates. He will often insist that the person stay as long as he thinks it will take to be completely healed, but sometimes longer. The worse the problem they're coming to ask help for, the longer the stay will be. Time is the price. Staying there and being patient is required of the injured, being willing to be separated for an uncertain amount of time is the payment of the others. The progenitor can also judge a person’s heart and intentions, making payment steeper for those he judges harshly or that he personally just really doesn’t like, frankly. It pays to be on good terms with him. The Life Tree, however, cannot work instantaneously. So the progenitor will turn away those who are so badly off that they will die before they can heal. He cannot raise the dead and refuses to waste a person’s sacrifice just to let them die anyway --
Grave's Breach is a dark, tense place, and dry. Its reddish, dusty, earth is dark and cracked. The ground is craggy and there are jagged stones all along the periphery, making a maze-like mess against the horizon, which is obscured by blackish, dusty fog like smoke. At the heart of this place, clinging just barely in front of a bottomless chasm that splits Grave's Breach in two, stands a huge, dead tree, the size of the Life Tree. Instead of leaves, little scraps of faded cloth and paper are tired to its withered branches. Just being there is draining, sapping you of energy, tiring your muscles, making you grow hungry, and causing you to thirst. Even breathing makes you feel like you need to stop and catch your breath.
The Grave' Breach is where you go to dodge death or try to bargain your way out if it. The progenitor (Konec) there can and will protect those who are near death from dying or raise the dead themselves. But the price is steep. First off, you must bring the injured or the dead's body, as much if it as you can. And he doesn't want your time. It's no sacrifice compared to what you are trying to gain, even though time is distorted there just the same as the Life Tree. No, he wants a real price. Often, to dodge death, he'll ask for items that are difficult to part with or to obtain so that it's a true sacrifice. He can even ask or your health or for you to take on some sort of price, like losing the function of some body part or sense. He can also ask for service, making people run a set number of tasks for him. He can even ask for a life sacrifice. One or more, depending, which could be the life of the one asking to raise the dead or for the asker to go and kill a set number of people to replace the life being restored. It is a dangerous game to play, bartering with this progenitor. He's a tough haggler and stingy about messing with the balance of life and death. But, you can make him offers. Just expect him to barter. Like his brother, he can judge your heart and intentions, making your price much steeper if he judges you harshly or doesn’t personally like you. So don’t get on his bad side.
Oh, and don't give in the Breach's exhausting, draining essence. Losing consciousness there is a bad plan. He may decide to wake you to help you, may eject you, might just leave you there to die as your life is drained by the Breach, or he may ask you for a toll fee before you can leave. Mostly, his reaction will depend on how he judges your heart...and whether or not he likes you.
Subject: Sacred sites 
Thu Mar 09, 2017 12:12 am
