The Corpse Orchards of Barrensmith Valley

Just a few miles south of Veldonia lies the Barrensmith Valley, where the soil is too grey and sour for wheat or corn, forcing the locals to cultivate a far more macabre crop. These are the Corpse Orchards, sprawling groves of twisted, pale-barked trees known as Ossuary Willows. An Ossuary Willow doesn’t grow from a seed; instead, it is grafted directly into the chest cavity of the recently dead. The farmers of this grim region bury the bodies of the deceased in shallow, nutrient-rich mulch, planting a sapling so that its roots may entangle the skeleton and pierce the skull. As the tree matures, it draws sustenance both from the decaying flesh and the lingering psychic resonance of the soul that once inhabited it.

The fruit born of these trees—pale, bulbous pears with a skin that feels uncomfortably like cold flesh—is highly sought after in the black markets of the capital. They are colloquially known as “confession fruit”, and when eaten they cause a rush of sensory memory. The consumer experiences the final, often terrified, thoughts of the deceased at the moment of their death.

This trade has birthed a dark industry. Magistrates and inquisitors pay handsome sums for the fruit grown from murder victims, hoping to taste the identity of the killer in the victim’s dying panic. Conversely, the wealthy, decadent nobility of the kingdom pay fortunes for the fruit of those who died in ecstasy or drug-induced bliss, seeking a fleeting, borrowed high. However, the cost of consumption is high; it is said that those who eat too often of the dead begin to lose the ability to distinguish their own memories from the harvested rot, their minds slowly becoming a graveyard of other people’s final moments.