@faultedcrime visited the grove.
The Consolidation of Iron's garden feels cold and dead. Metal floors, rows of make-shift planters with barely enough soil to grow anything, let alone the tree they expect Morel to summon, seemingly, from thin air. They've been providing them with clippings of the Last Tree, stolen from their brothers who have been sent to a bloody grave. One has been used --- nothing has grown from it yet. Morel keeps the rest of them tied around their waist, and refuses to use them until they know something can grow from them.
They tend to their garden all the same. Every so often something intriguing comes up from the ocean; roots, they'd heard. Springing from the blood itself. A sample has been given for them to study. How exciting! This is where they sit now, in their make-shift lab/office, turning the little vial of blood around in their hands.
They look up as the door opens; and there stands the Butcher. Morel smiles.
"--- I'd heard a brother of Eden had come up from the depths, this time around. I'm not surprised it was you, Simon."
