Thalana Merebloom - Noctua Witch of the Inner Saltus
Thalana Merebloom - Noctua Witch of the Inner Saltus
The Inner Saltus is a woodland where the canopy stands high above the forest floor, close-knit yet never so dense that daylight is lost. Light slips between the leaves in slow, drifting bands, painting the undergrowth in an ever-changing, dreamlike hue. The air hums with old viridis magic. Here, the roots remember every footstep and, as with all of Deepwood, the forest itself chooses who may linger.
Thalana Merebloom was one of the chosen. Before she held any title, she roamed the fringe-paths of the Verdant Loom, one of the few places in Deepwood that feels alive rather than hostile. It's branches weave together like ancient tapestries, filtering soft shafts of light onto the forest floor. It was there she walked as a quiet gatherer of herbs, more listener than speaker.
Owls in Deepwood are natural watchers, yet Thalana possessed something rarer still: the ability to hear the forest not as noise, but as meaning.
Moss spoke in low murmurs. Spores drifted towards her hands like moths drawn to moonlight. Vines shifted, not dramatically, but with subtle intent, opening narrow passageways that seemed to exist only for her.
While the Lepus Custos sharpened their blades and memorised the shifting routes of the Forgotten Paths, Thalana followed the pulsing threads of viridis magic deeper and deeper into the wild. What she found was not danger, but a calling.
In a clearing where dusk-thin fog glows faintly viridis, she discovered the remnants of an old grove: a ring of time-worn stones, half-swallowed by mossbloom and lantern-fungus. Here, the Inner Saltus revealed its long-hidden secrets, remedies lost to time, spells woven from roots and thorns, and the quiet, delicate art of stitching frayed memories back into place.
Thalana became a healer not through instruction, but through instinct, a witch whose craft rose from the soil itself.
Her gift became known to all on the night a lone Custos knight emerged from one of the ever-changing paths, his mind fraying at the edges from the horrors that stalk every fold of the Deepwood. No blade nor oath could save him. But Thalana’s viridis craft could.
With moon-soaked petals, thornbrew sap, and incantations whispered in an ancient tongue, she drew him back from the brink of total unravelling.
Word spread, and the Order listened.
Though she carries no sword, the Lepus Custos granted her a rank that no member of the order had ever held before: Noctua Witch of the Inner Saltus
A title marking her as the forest’s chosen healer, one who walks the oldest groves and binds living magic into remedies no ordinary healer could hope to craft.
To the lost wanderer, she is a gentle guide back to safety. To the injured, she is a quiet and steady hand. To the wounded Custos, she is salvation. To the forest itself, she is kin.
She travels with a satchel of mossbound tinctures, potion-bottles glowing faintly with Viridis light, and spell books inked in resin drawn from the Murkenroot, a sentient deepwood tree whose vast roots braid through the Inner Saltus like veins of ancient memory. She seeks no battle, yet she mends all those who survive it.
The Lepus Custos may hold back the horrors of Deepwood, but their lives, memories, and fragile sanity often rest in the hands of one quiet owl:
Thalana Merebloom, the Noctua Witch who walks where the forest is oldest,
and listens where the forest still speaks.