Wanderer’s Fire

Wanderer's Fire is a bush with bright orange flowers and small icy green leaves which gives it a very fluffy look. The name comes from the fact that it tends to "wander" around, and it has flowers the color of fire. It can easily grow as large as a Grifix, but it very rarely manages to do so. Usually, it just reaches until a Grifix's chest gems. It has fairly large flowers and grows ice blue berries. It is thriving during the night.

This bush can only be found in the subpolar areas south of the Frozen North and it is accustomed to the cold. They are rather common in the tundra around the Crystal Empire, but rarely reach up to the Frozen Empire as they can't wander as easily in the eternal snow, and seeds rarely get there.

The flower looks rather beautiful. It has four or five bigger, heart-shaped red petals which change to an orange gradient towards the center with an even lighter orange highlight in the center.
Additionally, there are four or five thinner and smaller petals behind the bigger ones which are in a darker shade of red than the main leaves. In its early stages, the flower grows very thin, but sturdy "grabbers" as the Grifix call them. It bears some similarities with whiskers. The center is in a dull, pastel yellow and the flower can and will release a very strong sleep-inducing gas.

The fruit is an ice blue round berry with lots of spikes growing around it. These spikes are actually more like bulges of the fruit, think of them like pimples. They have the same texture as the fruit itself.

Hunters often bring fruits to the Empire if they find any during their expeditions. They are then given to the foodgivers which will share them to each guild. Because they are rather common, they are considered a cheap food and most upper class grifix don't consume them, but in fact they are rather rare and grifix always celebrate when they get some from the foodgivers.
The spikes are also edible and are especially enjoyed by cubs as they are responsible for the bubbly taste of the fruit and are usually cut off for the elders.
It fits comfortably into the paw of a Grifix. The spikes also don't hurt, but they do look hurtful.
Only half of the flowers actually turn into a berry.
Grifix usually call the fruit "Prickly Fruit".

The leaves are colored in an icy green and are oval. The edges are very jagged and it is only half the size of the berry.

As mentioned before, thiss is a nocturnal plant. The bush's life cycle revolves around the day/night cycle, growing flowers every night, which bloom until midnight, then turn into berries. Because of the northic day cycle, during the spring and autumn it will produce fruits every 24 hours, during the polar day of the summer is will remain in a dormant state, and during the polar night of the winter it will very slowly bloom and the fruits will only appear by the end of the winter. Because of that, the fruits are associated with spring and autumn time, as they are most common then.
The berries can be harvested at dawn and will fall down once the sun has risen. On cloudy days, the berries will last longer.

One of its unique features are definitely the whiskers, or grabbers, which grow from under the flowers. Despite the grabbers looking so fragile, they are ridiculously strong and sturdy. They are called like that for a reason: they sometimes grab animals in order to be dragged around and spread their seeds. Legend however says that the grabbers will drain magic from grifix if they were to ever grab one, but that is unverified as the plant is rarely walked across in its "active" state.

The biggest mystery to grifix is the fact that the bush is never where it was the evening before. Finding the Prickly Fruit is an adventure in itself everyday. The only thing Grifix know is that it must move somehow during the night, but there is no pattern to where it appears the next morning. It could be anywhere and there's no reliable way of telling where it will be. In reality, the plant is only "active" at night where it uses its grabbers to grab onto animals and move around.

The flowers produce a gas, which grifix believe to be an additional defense mechanism to put any threats to sleep. It acts as a sleep drug, and it is sometimes used in cases of sever insomnia.

If they manage - and don't fall asleep beforehand - Grifix will try to pluck the flowers for their sleep gas. It has to be diluted countless times, but it works wonders for Grifix with sleep problems. If used a stronger dose, it acts similar to a narcosis.The berry is just for food as usual and doesn't have any medical or even magical properties.
The leaf can be used as a herb to add a slight acerbic taste to the meal, although it is much more enjoyed as a tea. A pure Wanderer's Fire leaf tea is very rare, but it blends well with literally anything else. The leaf is a very versatile ingredient for when it comes to tea. And in addition to that, the leaf even has medical properties like curing a lot of different aches or increasing your awareness and making you much more awake. A pure Wanderer's Fire leaf tea would be what Grifix drink if they needed an energy drink. A bitter energy drink.

The flower has several names. Some simply call it "the Wandering Flower", others call it a "Grabber Flower" or one of the variants - "Grabbing Flower" or "Grabs You Flowers" - and again others call it a "Whisker Flower". The last two names (plus the two variants) all stem from the little thin like fingers the flower grows.

Some Grifix have noticed that only flowers who just release their gas at the end become berries, so they theorize that flowers who had to release their gas early are not able to grow into berries, but they haven't found what the reason is.

The fact that so far, they didn't get behind the Wandering Bush's secret frustrates them a huge ton. There have been countless Herbalists trying to find out what makes the bush moves, where it moves and whether there maybe are some hidden patterns after all. This has gone up to a point where it's become a common dare and trial of courage under the young Grifix. But so far, every single Grifix always fell asleep before they could see the bush move. They even tried it with the purest Wandering Bush leaf tea, but not even that was strong enough against the gas.

Another mystery that surrounds this bush is the fact that there are also Blizbeaks often found around them. That in itself is not unusual as those birds are omnivores, but they often pretend that the bush is prey, which the Grifix find very weird.

Creator: MidnightStar