🎬 Episode 6 – Heartwood’s Curse

Runtime: ~40 minutes

Read the summary of these series here: Witcher Fans, Prepare Yourselves, Cavill’s New Fantasy Project Goes Even Darker

🌿 Prologue – Blightroot Awakens (3 min)

Deep within the Heartwood, an ancient forest once guarded by druids, twisted roots pulse with a sickly crimson glow. A stag stumbles through the glade, its eyes black, antlers withered, flesh half-rotted yet alive. From the roots, a whisper rises:

“Blood for root. Flame for bloom. The fire-child must die.”

In the shadows, Morghal, a fallen druid with bark for skin and thorns woven through his beard, chants to a towering, petrified tree known as the Heart of the Wild. “Let her soul awaken you, ancient one.”

🌲 Act I – Into the Blight (5 min)

Alaric and Lysara reach the edge of the Heartwood. The air is thick with rot and buzzing spores. The trees bleed sap when touched. Leaves fall in slow motion, unnaturally heavy.

“This place should sing,” Lysara whispers, glancing up. “Instead it weeps.”

Alaric, blade drawn, nods. “Then we burn the tears dry.”

They follow ancient druidic carvings through the woods, circles within circles, each older than the last. Ravens do not fly here. Wolves howl but never approach. And all paths turn back unless guided by will.

🕳️ Act II – Thorn and Memory (6 min)

As they camp near a broken tree altar, Lysara dreams: a young version of herself is carried by her mother, fleeing the flames. Behind them, wardens in silver hunt through the forest. Her mother turns and casts a final spell, one that cloaks Lysara in ash.

She awakens gasping. “She died here,” she tells Alaric. “My mother. In this forest. Protecting me.”

Alaric says nothing but tightens the straps on his armor. “Then this land owes you a debt.”

They press on, roots begin moving behind them. Watching. Listening.

🌳 Act III – Morghal’s Warning (6 min)

They reach an ancient grove where the trees form a natural amphitheater. There stands Morghal, cloaked in vines, his staff topped with a beating heart of bark.

“You come to steal from the forest,” he rasps. “But it was you who abandoned it.”

Lysara steps forward. “I came for truth.”

Morghal laughs, a sound like roots tearing through flesh. “Then die with it.”

He slams his staff. The ground splits. Alaric and Lysara fall into the Hollow Root, a maze beneath the forest.

🌌 Act IV – The Hollow Root (7 min)

Beneath the soil, tangled roots form tunnels choked with spores. Visions attack them, ghosts of the forest’s past: druids torn apart by beasts, children strangled by vines, sacred oaths broken by greed.

Alaric sees himself back at the Temple of Judgment. The High Council demands a second oath. In this illusion, he obeys. The villagers burn. The flame lights his face. He screams.

Lysara sees herself atop a throne of flame, her hands soaked in blood. The people bow, but all wear her mother’s face.

With sheer will, they push through the illusions. At the center of the maze, they find an old druid stone pulsing faintly. Alaric drives his sword into it. The roots recoil.

🔥 Act V – Battle for the Heart (7 min)

Emerging into the Heartwood's core, they find Morghal chanting before the Heart of the Wild, now cracked and oozing a dark ichor.

Lysara confronts him. “This forest was sacred. You defiled it.”

Morghal roars, his body growing taller, bark spreading across his limbs. “It was dying! I gave it strength. With your death, it shall live forever.”

A ferocious battle erupts, vines lash, roots pierce, trees scream. Alaric duels Morghal with blade and fury, while Lysara channels focused flame to protect the Heart.

At the climax, Lysara is pinned, roots crushing her lungs. Alaric tosses her his blade. She channels fire through it, pure, searing, and pierces Morghal’s heart.

The corrupted tree explodes into glowing embers. The forest exhales.

🌸 Act VI – The Forest Breathes Again (4 min)

Silence. And then, songbirds return. Real ones. Wind stirs the branches naturally. Where the Heart stood, a sapling rises, gold-leafed, radiant.

Alaric kneels beside Lysara. “You burned him,” he says. “And cleansed this land.”

She looks at the sapling. “I think... it forgives us.”

They walk out of the forest under a sky free of blight, their path lit by moonlight and memory.

🎵 Final Montage (3 min)

• A surviving druid far away opens his eyes. “The Heart stirs. The Flame walks,” he whispers.
• In a dark chamber, the Dominion burns a parchment map, one that bore Heartwood’s name.
• Alaric and Lysara camp near a waterfall, laughing for the first time in many episodes.
• A flower made of living fire blooms in the ashes where Morghal died. It pulses... once.

📜 End Credits – Episode 6: Heartwood’s Curse

The wilds are cleansed, but the curse lingers in the hearts of men. Alaric now carries more than legend. Lysara, more than flame. Together, they walk a realm no longer wholly asleep... and not yet fully awake.

The Shadow of Eldros grows roots in fire and rebirth.