WindingWood

Went with a flowering moss blob route, probably could've pushed the flowering route more but I was feeling lazy drawing the flowers. I can imagine it just chilling on rotten logs and consuming any flies that stopped to rest on it's soft surface. It could eventually grow to such a size that it can swallow adventurers whole.

Winding Wood takes his book and his quill and waves to the moth as he departs. First stop is the side of the road to find a good forked stick. Second stop is at the first creature his Shade Dowsing Rod takes him to.

Shadow Facts: The Shade is everywhere, therefore the Shadowbinder is everywhere. The Shadowbinder is made of goo, and can get into anywhere by sliding through any crack in liquid form. The Shadowbinder is purple. The Shadowbinder is in your shadow and knows all your secrets. Mushrooms glow in the dark. Is this about the Shadowbinder? One time the Shadowbinder appeared to an Primrose Mith in the form of a great dark cloud, and told them where to find their lost basket. The Shadowbinder can forsee the future. I ate 5 Dusky Apples and got a stomache ache. The Shadowbinder likes apples and didn't want to share.

---

Winding Wood has read the list, remembered what he learnt the previous day, and come to the only obvious conclusion. Its time. Time for the best dessert ever.



If this perfect concoction can't tempt the Shadowbinder to show herself, surely nothing can.

---

WW looks at the chalk he's been given. He looks at the other dragons, and what they've started drawing. He looks at Leucetius. He thinks about the Shadowbinder and considers his chalk again. Then, making his decision, he takes a strong grip on the stick of chalk in his fist and begins.

He grinds out the shape as firmly as he can, making sure as much chalk as possible fills the textures of the floor. Obviously this is why it had to be so clean, to make sure the chalk could fill every crack. Once his outline is complete he vigorously scrapes the rapidly shrinking chalk back and forth to fill it in. At last he is out of chalk, and sits back satisfied to survey his work.

A wonderfully purple dusky apple, with the traditional sparkle mark, and only slightly smudged! He would certainly be pleased to eat this apple, he thinks, and absentmindedly licks chalk from his claws.

---

Wow what a mess! Winding Wood has seen a lot of messes and this one is pretty good. He pokes around in the ashes a bit to make sure no shadow goop is hiding underneath, and then starts to pick up some books. He stacks them up in tall straight piles, organized by the type of tree the paper is made from.

Once that's done he goes around gathering stunned and confused moths up with his lantern and leads them off in search of the promised lunch. Lunch! He hopes there will be apples.

---

"Ok so it all started when I was winding down the path in the woods, and I met a really big frog. The frog asked where I was going and I said.. I forget what I said. Then I saw a rainbow, and a million different kinds of mushrooms.

Leucetius invited me to the Shadowbinder's Unbirthday Party, so I had to help get all the stuff ready. You gotta have the best presents for an Unbirthday, so I asked all the smartest beings what to get her, and then we made a big big shopping list.

I got the best stuff for making the cake. It was super purple and goopy and it glowed! Leucetius got us all to help decorate for the party, and we put out all the presents, and then Leucetius sang a birthday song! But like, an UNbirthday song. It was really good! And then there were fireworks!

I didn't actually see the Shadowbinder but all the presents are gone now so I think she liked them."

---

Moths! Winding Wood is very informed about moths. Back home a lot of dragons eat bugs, except for Fraudir's Leafy Moth friends, those are off limits. He wonders what moths taste like... they look quite dry. Probably like eating a powdered doughnut, he thinks. Good in the middle but dusty all up in your nose.

Well, he has his lantern, and that's always been good for finding moth friends, so he's off to the woods to see who he can see. He bops along winding his way along the paths until he's started to attract attention, and then slowly makes his way back, stopping now and then to let the crowd catch up. Occasionally he forgets and has to turn back and go around getting their attention again before continuing.

Eventually a little parade arrives at the library, and WW starts introducing new moths to old moths. "You guys can all get along right, cause there's lots of books here to eat, nobody will go hungry!"

---

Winding Wood has read the note, but he knows the Shadowbinder was here! How else could it get so dark? He thinks she is very funny, to make such jokes. This was truly the best Unbirthday ever, with the guest of honor pretending it didn't even happen. An Unbirthday Unevent full of Unlight for an Unbirthday dragon! He's pretty sure he even felt her next to him, and gazes fondly down at his shadow. This has been a great week that he will always remember, everytime he eats a nice purple apple. He'll even leave some out for the Shadowbinder whenever he gets a big basket full.

A pair of sticks have wandered in to visit with the ghosties.

"Hi! That's a nice box you have there, looks like one I had once for picking apples. Do you like apples? I think they're great, really juicy and crisp if you get a good one. Can you eat apples if you don't have teeth?" Looking around the igloo, WindingWood spots Hedgie and the cookies, having somehow missed them on the way in. "Ooo cookies!"

While munching on his own cookie, he wanders back and pops one under the box. "Try this, its pretty good! Not as good as apple cake but still pretty good!"

"Where'd you get that box anyway? Lotsa boxes where you come from? Or did you have to order it special? I could use a good box, the moths ate all mine last season... Still got a few good crates though. Crates are very useful, back in the lair everyone's got something they wanna keep in a crate. There's a porcupine sleeping in one for the winter."

Winding Wood looks at the coatl and the knife. He looks at the vegetables. He looks at his claws. He looks at Twiggy, his familiar and bosom buddy. There's only one thing for it.

"Ground apples!" he cries, latching onto the sack of potatoes and shoving a fist in to rummage in search of the largest, the roundest, the most russet of taters. He cradles his prize and smiles lovingly as he uses his claws to inscribe questionable runes across its surface. The exposed white flesh slowly turns murky as it is exposed to oxygen, but WW keeps turning the tuber as he goes, unaware.

Finally he jams a twig in the top and presents it proudly. "The apple of my eye! This will definitely be the one that summons the Shadowbinder!"

Hockey! Its about sticks! Sticks and round things! Winding Wood is a stick, and he knows about round things, or at least some round things. He's pretty sure he's going to be good at this. Nobody tell the rest of the team that their ringer is full of tree rings and not winnings.

Shhff shhhf shff tap. The sound of yarn being strung out and pinned to a board. Dust motes drift in the still air, lit by the sepia rays of a low hanging sun cutting through the old windows. A rustle of paper as notepads and file folders are shuffled and sorted, stacked and rearranged. The crackle of a match, quickly stifled with a shake and a grunt as the rolled leaves fail to catch. The chair creaks and the floorboards groan.

Shhff shhhf shff thump. The yarn is abandoned to unravel, fall and then roll across the floor, marring carefully chalked outlines. Footsteps cross to a cabinet, glasses clink and liquid pours. More steps, the chair creaks again, and then a sigh.

"I just don't know, Twiggy. We should have found her by now." W.Wood stares up at the cracked ceiling as he speaks. His brittle and twisted companion watches silently.

Another sigh and then, "I really thought this time would be the one. The time we'd finally get to meet the Shadowbinder face to face."

---

Winding Wood is engaged in a years long struggle to finally summon the Shadowbinder. Will he ever meet his maker?

He's not in a cult yet, but that's more lack of opportunity than anything else. Superstitious and gullible, he'd fall right in. Does subscribing to conspiracy theories count as a cult? Winding Wood loves Shadowbinder lore, the more absurd and unlikely it is, the more he believes in it. Maybe he's a one dragon cult all of his own.