Motivation
This is what I'm having the most trouble with. What is making this man want to go deeper into /uuu/ when he (supposedly?) knows its dangerous? Possible points:
- Science
- Materialistic need
- Delirium/Illusions?
That last point is... idk, sort of weird. There is some /uuu/ lore for our Dryad variations to possibly play tricks and try to lure people into the forest, but since this guy is going to end up dying, I'm not sure if I want to set precedent for evolved saplings to be needlessly homicidal, if its second-hand.
Settings
What does the forest look like. Coming from the /nasa/ border, he'll most likely be coming into the Sleeping Giants Ridge forest. As north as that is, he'll be used to the cold, but our forests keep their own biome and climate, so he'll start to feel warmer and warmer as he moves in. This is also a neat angle to write. As he starts shedding some clothes, he would start noticing slight green discolorations in his skin.
Moving farther into the woods, the mists start to become thicker. Though most of our forests have a little bit of mists at night on the forest floors, these would become more and more present the deeper you go. Light also becomes more and more scarce. At a certain point it would become a perpetual twilight, making it hard to tell what time of day it is, let along where the sun is.
Creatures
Typical woodland fauna (heh) and flora to start with. Possibly the odd creature with maybe one too many limbs, or feathers instead of fur and vice versa. If he starts making too much noise, or makes his fires too big, Guardians might start watching from a distance to watch for ill-intentions.
They tend to just lurk around and watch unless something very obviously against the forest is happening.
If he comes across a small pond or creek looking for water, there would more than likely also be other creatures there drinking so he might run into a Nurturer.
These are not hostile at all, and would tend to shy away since they don't know him. But they are powerful chuubanite channelers and if he got too close it would accelerate his transformation.
Maybe a story beat here could be he goes to drink from a pond and there's an underwater one watching him from under the surface.
Natives
It sort of depends on the angle he takes as he moves, but there's almost no way he won't be getting close to an Elder Tree. Assuming he knows he's closing in on sacred ground, he would be avoiding saplings at all costs. Story-wise this could kind of make sense as to why he doesn't seek help.
If you think about introducing another char, most saplings would be willing to help him get out of the forest early on. Later, if he gets too close to the Elder Tree, or his saplification is too advanced, they'd just let "nature" take its course. Or maybe call a Guardian to come take care of him.
Timeline
This one might take some calculations. Looking at rough numbers using the interactive map, he needs to cover about 100 miles (200km ish? sorry, amerimut units are more natural for me) to get into the real crazy shit near Fauna's cradle. In my experience 10 miles a day is very doable with packed gear so this whole thing can go down in the course of about 10 days. 10 miles a day being an average since he would be moving at a better clip in the start as the climate is a lot nicer and the forest is much more clear, and his speed getting much slower later on as the saplification sets in.