What follows is a brief summary of recent events.
Xj.
Godday, Disorder Week, Fire Season 1627
We set out from Alone, skirting along the edges of the Woods of the Dead via the twisting and rocky Dawn Road. We were looking for the where the a path diverged from the road at a stone wall with a three-horned skull, or so we had been told.
We soon became aware that our perception of time altered significantly as we entered the gloomy, foggy domain of the greater woods. Every step felt precarious, as if the woods were deliberately trying to mislead us, and the day seemed to stretch and shorten, so that the day seemed to pass too fast and the night seemed to pass far too slowly.
On the first night out from Alone, we were set upon by creatures of the wood. A murder of ravens attacked us from all sides, followed up by even more terrible beasts: giant dragonflies, as large as a man and strong enough to carry one off. We fought them off, with only some minor wounds that skill and spirits could heal, and it seemed to us that this was just a feint by whatever malevolent hand controlled the beasts.
ol.
Freezeday, Harmony Week, Fire Season 1627
The next day, we came across an ancient cottage near the road. Ancient in both design and age, it reminded the scholar of the style of cottage the Vingkotlings built in God Time: stacks of flat stone walls held together with mud and a low sod roof. Inside, an old crone - she only called herself Nurse - sat by an empty wooden cradle, singing about the little prince who had run away:
My little prince has run away,
Run away, away today,
He ran with spear and shield he made,
Though truth be told, he’s but a babe.
His mother and father, he seeks in vain,
Murdered they are by Osboropo Termain.
The seemingly half-mad Nurse told us that “the little prince” had been captured somewhere in Snakepipe Hollow and needed our help (not much we could do about that now). She gave us a ruby, her ruby heart she said, to aid us and we continued on.
As night fell, we heard a great chorus of howling voices arise from woods. The cacophony moved away from us.
wl.
Waterday, Harmony Week, Fire Season 1627
We found the low stone wall and the three-horned skull. The skull was a man’s skull with three goat horns crudely tied to it with twine and set on a stout wooden pole in the end of the wall. A footpath left the southbound Dawn Road here and plunged westward into the Woods of the Dead.
Night fell, and the cacophony of female voices rose again and came towards us. The forest itself lit up with ghostly light, and the Finger Women found us. We negotiated with them and they left us in peace, warning us of other dangers in the woods as they moved off.
el.
Clayday, Harmony Week, Fire Season 1627
Another attack came. Moss-covered toad-things, reminiscent of newtlings but hunched and more frog-like (and covered with moss) swarmed out of the trees and set upon us. These hurt us more than the birds and bugs earlier, but we drove them off again. The malevolent presence was still there, we could feel it watching us, though no amount of our magic could detect the source of the presence. The gloom deepened, and we were almost reduced to groping from tree to tree to remain on the path.
As the day fled by too quickly, we found our goal that the elders of Alone had told us about: a great dead tree, as massive as a temple and towering over the nearby trees, erupted from a rocky crater before us. Climbing a giant branch that ran from the ground up to a carved, or grown, toothy wooden maw, we entered the haunted tree. This was the presence we had felt. We knew this.
We were immediately beset upon by more toad-things, which stabbed at us through murder holes and then erupted from their hiding place. The battle was more desperate now, and the toad-things struck at us without mercy, but we pushed them back and survived.
Our victory was short-lived, for we were beset upon again from all sides by far too many toad-things. The presence struck Andrinor from the air with powerful magic, wounding the spear-spirit gravely. We detected absolutely no weakening of the presence’s magic. Red Killi murmured under his breath that we were in a divine presence - indeed, we could almost see the divine presence filling the toad-things with murderous intent. Our defenses failed, and the toad-things captured us. The ancient presence gloated silently and invisibly all around us as we were tossed into small wooden cages. The presence of dolls and small clothes in our otherwise empty cages told us a story: there had been children here, but they were gone now, replaced by us.
What fate had befallen them? What fate would befall us?
Somewhere in the darkness of that wooden donjon, we could hear the whimpers and tears of still-living children nearby.
And the ever-present malevolence lurked in the silent gaps between the whimpers, filling the void with its gleeful satisfaction at things going exactly as planned.
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