Serpent's Root

Alir's throat burned, each rasping breath filled with sand and grit grinding against raw, dried flesh. Days ago, the caravan had abandoned him, deemed him too weak to continue. Now, crawling on hands and knees, the unrelenting sun’s burning glare at his blistered back, he saw it: a lone tree in the distance, its silhouette promising water and salvation. Pools of liquid shimmered around it, reflecting the cruel golden hues of the desert sky. Hope, a treacherous whisper, filled his ears, drawing him ever closer.

His tongue, thick and swollen, scraped against the roof of his mouth. Each step was an agony, his body screaming for moisture. He reached the first of the stagnant, clear pools, his cracked lips parting in a parched, desperate laugh of relief. Bowing down, the first sip was cool, liquid fire, a deceptive balm that finally quenched his torturous thirst. For a precious, fleeting second, he allowed himself hope.
  Then, searing agony ripped through him, a molten fire that clawed at his throat and twisted in his stomach, leaving him writhing, trying to scream with a throat that could form no more than a whimper. He tried to scramble away, desperately clawing at his throat, when gnarled, dark brown roots burst from the sand, lashing out and wrapping around his limbs, a grip of iron like the tendrils of a desert kraken. They tightened with relentless pull, dragging his writhing form slowly towards the pool. He fought with desperate strength, his fingernails breaking on the parched, cracked earth as he tried to resist, but the roots held him in a deadly grasp, inexorably pulling him into a caustic lover’s embrace.

Alir’s screams dissolved into a choked gurgle as he was slowly dragged beneath the viscous surface, the waters that were supposed to be his salvation embraced him in a suffocating shroud that filled his lungs with corrosive fire and finally, darkness.

  The desert offers many dangers, but none so insidious as the Serpent's Root- it offers a cruel mirage of hope before turning it to bitter dust. It stands alone at the desert's fringe, a seemingly frail tree adorned with a few shriveled fruits, its base ringed by deceptively inviting pools. But this is all a clever ruse, designed to lure in unsuspecting victims.  

Appearance and Habitat

  This twisted, broken tree rises about five meters high, with a gnarled trunk, its bark a patchwork the colour of dried blood and jaundiced ochre. It’s wrapped with rough and flaky bark that sheds off in large chunks and patches, revealing dry and brittle wood underneath. Only a handful of skeletal branches jut out from the top of the trunk, dry, clawing hands grasping for the heavens. No green adorns its form, no sign that it is anything like another plant that struggles to survive in the scorching sun- except for some tiny, crimson, and shriveled fruits that dangle from it.

But this is not where the real danger lies - or even the real tree. The trunk is actually just another part of the illusion. Its main body lies hidden beneath the surface - a spreading web of thick roots that branches out from the base and burrows into the soft desert ground. They burrow deeply into the soft desert earth, creating numerous holes of varying sizes and shapes, and slowly fill them with a clear and enticing liquid that shimmers in the scorching sun.

These inviting pools are, in truth, insidious snares. The plant waits patiently, days, even weeks for a creature desperate or thirsty enough to drink from the holes. But there is no hope or water in these holes - only a cruel illusion. In truth, the "water" is a viscous, corrosive fluid that sticks to everything and burns flesh and bone alike. Unfortunately for most, after the first sip of burning agony sets in, the real struggle begins.
Small, snakelike roots writhe from the ground, wrapping themselves tightly around everything they can catch on. They drag the struggling creature towards the pool, a relentless force that even a kasharian lion is unable to break free of. Once within the caustic embrace of the pool, the victim is slowly consumed, flesh, blood, and bone dissolving into nothingness.

For those who follow one of these unfortunate souls, their demise might be a saving grace - the plant hunger feasts on almost everything organic, but coins, jewelry, and weapons are beyond its abilities. More than one astute, desperate wanderer stared into the cool waters, saw a glint of metal and stepped away from a caustic embrace of death.
 

Importance to the people

  Despite the lethal threat it poses, the Serpent's Root is not entirely without significance to the people that inhabit the sands - though even its uses are not without inherent dangers.

The small, crimson fruits of the tree are edible, but their taste leaves much to be desired - a rubbery resistance followed by a burst of something slick and almost... alive that most people find deeply unpleasant. For those few who can stomach the texture of the raw fruit, it has a sweet-sourly aroma with a hint of bitterness. Some say the bitterness is more intense the more recent the Serpent’s root has drunk. Fermented and distilled, the fruit becomes the base of a drink called "Dhar'sa" - roughly translated to "Corpse Waker" - a grimly accurate outlook on its flavor.

Alchemically, the plant has much more to offer - the digestive fluid, filtered and cleared forms the base of potent draughts and elixirs designed to accelerate the healing of bone fractures, its unique properties prized by cautious alchemists. Undiluted, the very same fluid applied to stone or metal, acts as a formidable adhesive, however, one would be wise not to touch it while it's still wet. The fluids will burn through skin and flesh relentlessly, dissolving everything organic they touch until naught remains.

It is little wonder that a plant with such lethal capabilities has given rise to many tales- after all, nobody knows for sure where they came from, but all agree getting caught in their snares is one of the worst fates one can endure. Some say they are the desert’s wrath given form. Others say its thirst can never be quenched, and it lures travelers to share its eternal torment. And ancient bone carvings, centuries old, narrated by theBar'kashyr depict the tree as a monstrous deity, demanding sacrifice, its caustic waters never sated, its gnarled branches reaching out for more.