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[ Back to essays and letters | Back to Insula Maledictus ] Forest of FearBy Nathair ex Bonisagus In this tale, I shall tell you how me and my companions traveled to a village haunted by nightly stalkers, near a cursed forest, and what terrible things we discovered. It is not long since I settled here in my new home, Insula Maledictus. My life so far had consisted of research and studying, so I was glad when I got this chance to prove my usefulness to my doubting sodales here. Soon they would no more consider me a young errand-boy, but the master of magic that I am. Maybe with this, I could even get a vote in the council of Insula Maledictus! In the end of summer 1196 I was taking care of some trivial matters in Port Erin, and allowed myself and our loyal grogs a moment of peace in "The Broken Gnome". I rather enjoy the atmosphere in that local tavern, partly because all the respect we get by the local people. There we were approached by two men, who introduced themselves as Angus and Oscar. They showed us the proper respect we deserve, and I granted them an audience. They were traders from village of Breasal, in the northern part of Man. The elder of their village had told them to deliver a request of help to us, Wizards of Calf. The problem seemed to be a stalker in the night, whom the villagers assumed to originate from a nearby cursed forest. Here it must be pointed out that my sodales here seem to have some sort of silent acceptance of the peasants of Man, so that might be the reason for them to ask help from us, not covenant of Stratus Intimus which lies closer to their village. I promised my help for the reasons I mentioned in the beginning of this tale, but as I did not have a vote at the council, I would have to talk to other magi as well. After discussing the matter, most magi seemed uninterested in such a trivial mission, so I asked some people of our loyal covenfolk to join me. Nelly was the only other magus who had the spare time to join me. I was glad that a more experienced maga would be there to give me support. She took with her Nora, her loyal servant. I'm not sure if I was so happy about the rest of the group; Hector was an searched-after outlaw; Duncan was a grumpy, bloodlusty knight; Belisarios and his friend were mercenaries from Byzantium, but did not seem civilized at all. Along came also Seumas, a simple- and singleminded grog, as well as the always-helpful Emmett, whom I at first hoped would just shut up. As my own shield grog I assigned the brutal fellow called Madog. So with this rowdy group I traveled to the village of Breasal. At least I was surrounded with able warriors. At arrival to the village, we noticed the buildings to be in quite a good repair, and the people seemed to be smiling and happy. Emmett went to the tavern beforehand, and arranged us places to spend our night. As the innkeeper, Clancy, heard that we are the "Witches of Calf", he sent his son, Malvin to tell the elder of the village about our arrival. That stupid oaf, Emmett, got it all wrong and thought that we get to sleep in the elder's quarters! He sometimes is just too enthusiastic. Soon, after dinner of course, we were invited to the elder's home. The old man, Coyle, lived with his daughter Assa, and seemed like the years had taken their toll on him. There we talked about the nightly stalker and the cursed forest nearby. The nightly stalker had been seen by few, but it's footprints were found easily in the morning. The nightly visitor was said to be so quick that no one had caught it. No real harm was yet done by it, but of course the peasants get scared of the smallest of things. Coyle believed that the stalker originated from the nearby cursed forest, where the locals do not dare to go. He told us that the forest was quite normal, until it gradually but quickly changed to a terrible, dark, haunted forest. This happened about half a decade ago. I was assuming that he exaggerated, but how wrong was I! Not much useful information could we get out of the old man, so we decided to go to sleep. Coyle promised us a free stay in the tavern. We decided to observe the village through the hours of the night, in case the stalker would be seen. Some of our group, namely the drunkards from Byzantine, decided to stay up for "social duty", meaning that they emptied as many ale barrels as possible. I almost felt sorry for the innkeeper, Clancy. But this was not his darkest hour, it was yet to come. In the morning I went to speak to the local priest, Father Severus. With me I took Hector, who was raised in a monastery. I thought that he could be of some help when dealig with clergy, even though his behaviour is not exactly pious. Nora also came along. But my precautions were unnecessary, for the priest turned out to be an educated man with pleasant nature. In fact, I suspect that he had been dealing with our kind before. He told me that he had seen the stalker in the night, and mistaken it for a child because it was so small. The footprints the stalker left behind were , however, of adult size. Meanwhile, some of my loyal companions had been examining the village and its surroundings, while others had been idle and lazy, taking advantage of the innkeepers hospitality. They got to know that the haunted forest lay to the northeast, couple of miles away. Also they overheard that the younger son of Clancy and the daughter of the local smith, Goban, were missing since yesterday evening. I did not pay much heed to that, because I wanted to go and inspect the cursed forest. How I regret that now! The trip to the forest was nothing as I expected. We took the innkeeper's son, Malvin, to guide us to the cursed forest. On the way there, quite near to the village, some of the more sharp-eared of us heard some noise nearby. Hector and Duncan started sneaking to the dircetion of the sound, and they surprised the local hunter, Ardal, hunting game. But at that point, we hadn't met him yet. So, the hot-headed Hector thought he was hostile and made the poor hunter drop his bow and pressed his face into mud. It all went quite quickly, with the hunter's dogs barking and Hector shouting in fury. So I had to calm the situation down. Sometimes I do not understand the wild tempers of my mundane companions. Perhaps it is the magical gift we magi possess that makes us think more clearly? A mundane is a mundane, even if you fry him in butter. Finally we got to the point where Malvin said that he will guide us no further. Emmett stayed with him to keep him company, though the real reason was obvious: Fear. We started walking deeper in to the forest, and step by step it became clear to me why the locals avoided the place; with every yard deeper in to the wood it was darker, the air fouler, trees more twisted. The trees seemed to move and reach out to touch us. Nelly lit phantasmal fires to mark the path we had walked, so we would not get lost. The thing that made me really lose my nerve was the birds. Birds, now there is a thing that I really hate. But these were not ordinary disgusting type, but these were large as dogs, pitch black and made really eerie sounds. They flew by couple of times, trying to snatch my eyeballs of my sockets, open my stomach and eat my guts, and drink my blood. I dived into the ground and finally, I do not know why, they left me in peace. The others did not seemed as disturbed about the birds, so I agreed to continue. Why are the birds always after me? I really need to invent a good perdo animal spell for those buggers. We came to a clearing, or at least an area with less trees. We found a path and were about follow it, as we heard some noise from ahead. The noise was rapidly closing, a drumming sound which shook the earth. Some of us took cover, some backed up. But none of us was ready for this: a dark wild boar, size of a pony, mouth foaming charging towards us. It's eyes were flaming as it charged towards Belisarios and Hector. Duncan tried to hit it, his bloodthirsty sword hitting nothing but air. Belisarios managed to duck the boar and wound it a little. My crystal darts were totally useless against the beast's tough hide, as were Hector's arrows. Madog charged at the beast, and managed to hit it with his hammer. The beast charged next at Seumas, who happened to be on his way, hitting him in the ribs. Luckily he was not badly hurt. The beast continued running, away from us in to the deep, dark forest. After this short encounter, we decided to go back because we did not actually know what we were looking for. Just roaming randomly in that evil wood would be suicidal. So we headed back, and when we arrived to the village, something turned out to be terribly wrong; the son of Clancy the innkeeper and daughter of Goban the smith, Hagan and Keelin, had been found dead nearby. In that hectic moment I did not have the time to notice that Duncan had disappeared. We went to the site of death, where we found two children stabbed to death. Clancy was struck by grief. Nelly found out with magical means that the corpses had been dead since yesterday evening. The stabbing had been done with the children's own knives. It seemed unlikely that they would have stabbed each other, as we were told that these youngsters had been lovers. The grieving villagers took the bodies away to the village. Nelly started preparing for the ritual "Eyes of the Past", as I quickly went to the village to find out when the children were last seen. With that information, Nelly started the ritual from yesterday's dusk. The ritual took a lot of time, and the concentration of Nelly was almost broken by that benevolent idiot, Emmett. He came running from the village, to report us that the corpse of the girl was in fact not the daughter of Goban, even though quite similar looking. In addition, by sundown the corpse had crumbled to dust. In her ritual, nelly had seen the boy and the girl meeting on this spot, holding hands. Suddenly the girl had taken her knife and started stabbing the boy. The boy had tried to crawl away, but the girl had changed to a evil-looking man and stabbed the bou to death. After that, the man had returned by his own tracks and made the scene look like a fight between the boy and the girl. Finally, wings grew out of the man's back and he flew away. There was some true evil here, I could tell. Opto nos domi mansisse! Duncan had been missing for some time, and when he returned, he had been even grumpier than normally and bleeding from a deep wound. When asked what had happened, he replied "nothing". Later I heard about his curse; every time he draws his sword, it has to be fed with blood. As he did not manage to hit the boar, he had to wound himself. Poor bastard. He was so drunk that he had trashed almost the whole tavern, so Clancy, who had just lost his son, threw him out and forbade him from ever setting foot there again. The night went by peacefully, and the nightly visitor was not seen. In the morning was the time for the wake of dead boy Hagan. The villagers were obviously struck with grief and fear, but I did not have time for such useless emotions. Because the girl's corpse had obviously been fake, there was a chance that Keelin would still be alive. I sent Emmett to ask for a personal object of hers, and myself took a seven league stride to our covenant to get the book for "The Inexorable Search" and a map of the island. I met James in the library, and asked him to come and help me, because Nelly was not much of help, after all. I "strided" myself back to the village, James promised to come later that day. I cast the spell and found out two important facts: the girl was alive and propably in the cursed forest. Meanwhile, all were not idle like my shield grog Madog. Hector had found another personal item from Hagan's room, a scarf of Keelin. Nelly used it to cast "Summoning the Distant Image" and found out that Keelin was imprisoned in a stone prison with iron bars. If we could save the daughter, we could propably get a hunch what was going on in the village. Nelly lost interest towards this trip or she couldn't handle the fact that I was solving all the puzzles here, so she headed home taking Nora with her. Fortunately also Sir Duncan headed home, propably having the worst hangover and shame in his life, or at least I hope so. We started to prepare ourselves again for a trip to the forest, I scouted the forest with the Necklace of Winds carrying me in the sky, and found some cliffs with caves. That was the only possibility where the girl could be held prisoner. As soon as James arrived at the village, I briefed him about the facts and we headed to the Cursed Forest. The god-forsaken place did not seem any friendlier this time. The devil's birds were heard all the time, surely hungry for our flesh. The trees seemed to have moved since the last time, and we did not find our previous traces. Even though the trees were as dead as Madog's brains, they reached out towards us, making the shadows in the forest terribly life-like. Again we encountered wild boars, this time two of them, approaching from different directions! The combat was not long, for our brave grogs fought well. The only setback was, that the mentally ill fool, Belisarios, pushed Emmett in front of one of the charging boars. Poor sod almost died. I think James later punished Belisarios for his stupid actions. Otherwise we survived with minor wounds and Madog's numb arm. Finally we arrived at the cliffs, after James had made few "Rise of the Feathery Bodies" to scout the right direction. There were a lot of caves, and we picked the middle one. Madog stayed out guarding the wounded Emmett, everybody else entered. After a few bends the cave split into two, and my instinct told me that to the left would be the right way. Nobody wanted to listen to me and James decided that we shall go right. There we found a dead end. We then went to the left, but soon the roof of the cave collapsed almost on us. We went back outside, checked the other caves, but they were short dead ends. So we decided to go back and see if we could remove the boulders. A spontaneous terram spell by me had no effect, so James pointed out that they might be illusions. He had it right, so we were able to walk through the rubble. So my instinct was right to begin with, this was the right direction... We came into a room, hacked in the shape of a rectangle. In the middle of the room, carved into the floor was a sign of sanctum, spanning almost over the entire room. We tried to call the owner of the sanctum to come out, but got no answer. After a short debate we decided to enter, risking breaking the code. James said that it was allright to enter, for this place was far too suspicious. So we entered, finding more rooms hacked in the deep hills. Soon we heard a voice telling us to leave his sanctum or face the consequences. We tried to get to talk to him, but got not the replies we hoped for, so we started climbing upstairs where the voice could be heard from. Some of us could see a strange magus in a dark cloak with a red hem. Quite an evil-looking fellow as I could later see. Accompanying him were two unhuman creatures, the other one with wings. Wings later appeared in the back of the other creature as well, same time as it grew taller at least a head's length. But as soon as the foremost grog appeared on the upper floor, the other demon, Imp of the Air, cast a infernal spell similar to "Charge of the Angry Winds" and people fell down the stairs, some of us being hurt quite badly. He laughed at us, saying that we are not match for him, and we decided that we go outside to plot a strategy how to invade his sanctum. Breaking the code or not, this humiliation would not be tolerated by us! Next morning we went back inside better prepared, and me with a healthy Madog aside me. Stupid as he may be, he knows how to keep immediate threats away from me. Loaded with self-confidence, I lead the attack inside the sanctum, and a battle ensued. The magus, whom we later learned was called Corwinus, had quite a few tricks in his pocket, but we were initially victorious, thanks to my "Curse of the Serpent", James' good wits and our valiant grogs and companions. We defeated the two inhuman creatures, demons who were guarding the place. But suddenly all the light was cast out. Small spontaneous fire didn't work. In the dark, I tried if I could sense anything in serpent form. Everybody else started also searching around, to find Corwinus. We could not find him, instead I accidentally jumped on Hector as he was sneaking in a place that I thought I was alone in. Those damn mundanes just keep on popping up in the wrong places! After some searching, we found a room with light in it; it was the prison block that nelly had seen in her vision earlier. And the girl, Keelin, was still in the cell, unharmed. I started freeing the girl with my spells, making the bars of the door flexible. The girl, like most mundanes, was quite frightened, but I got her to calm down and come out of the cell. That is when Corwinus tried to stop us from freeing the girl. Luckily I was not alone, but James was there also, as well as couple of fighters. They immediately attacked the evil magus, and he fell to the ground, struggling. Then James cast a Perdo Corpus spell and something went quite wrong; Corwinus' body turned to some kind of repulsive goo! We were quite happy with the result. We looted the sanctum and the bodies of the demons, finding some vis, all kinds of thing one might need in the lab, nice books and most importantly, proof of Corwinus having devoted himself to diabolism! A pentagram was carved in the laboratory floor. We thought that everything was over and convinced the village that the enemy cursed forest would no longer bother them. But during the next night, another murder occured. Quite disappointed, we stayed in the village one more night to catch the nightly murderer. Grogs were hiding in different sites, waiting for him to come out looking for more prey. Madog saw him, shot him with his bow, and started running after the stalker. Somebody else caught him, and finished him with a mighty blow. It turned out to be Corwinus, risen from the dead! But James has some experience in the field of the occult, and could tell us that we were dealing in fact with a vampire! Propably an evil pact had been made between him and the netherworld, to grant him unlife forever, but he needed living prey to keep up his power. James knew what to do; we had to spread the the remains of his corpse widely in the ocean, so he would not have the power to pull himself together and rise again. So it was done, and I think we got rid of him forever. The trip to Breasal had, after many setbacks, been a success with no casualties except Emmett being badly wounded. For me it was a good opportunity to test my spells in the field! Maybe we can someday even lift the "curse" from the forest, making our victory perfect! Nathair ex Bonisagus |
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