The wind carried the scent of ash and a cold, damp decay that clung to the very fabric of the world beyond Dolmenwood. For months, the Grey Blight had been an insidious stain, spreading from village to town, leaving behind a trail of pockmarked faces, withered limbs, and the silent, unblinking eyes of the dead. Homes stood empty, fields lay fallow, and the once-bustling roads were now routes for desperate, coughing refugees, or worse, for no one at all.
Gwendolyne Weavilman, a carpenter by trade but a cleric by the unyielding strength of her faith in the Pluritine Church, walked those desolate roads. Her own village had suffered, though mercifully, her own plague-scars were less severe than many she’d seen. It was her duty, she believed, to bring what solace she could, to perform the rites for the fallen, and to seek answers from a silent, seemingly indifferent heaven. Rumours, desperate whispers rather than firm facts, had pointed to a remote, crumbling tower nestled in the blighted hills known only as Greyhill. A recluse, a scholar named Master Elsbeth, was said to dwell there, her mind long lost to dark obsession.
Gwendolyne had followed the trail of an ill-fated crusade – a band of champions, brave souls who, like her, sought to root out the source of the blight. She found them, not in triumph, but in stillness. The tower, a jagged tooth against the bruised sky, seemed to exhale the very cold of death. Inside, the air was thick with the metallic tang of dried blood and the acrid stench of volatile magic.
The champions lay scattered, their forms stiff, some still grasping their rusted weapons. Each bore the unmistakable pockmarks of the blight, a final, ironic victory for the very evil they had sought to vanquish. They had won the battle, it seemed, but lost the war within their own flesh. Her heart heavy, Gwendolyne knelt, offering a silent prayer, her plain wooden holy symbol clutched tight. She knew the faces of some, their stories of courage and sacrifice etched into the grim reality of the moment.
Then, she saw her. Master Elsbeth. The sorceress was slumped against a shattered plinth, her face a mask of final, furious despair, her fingers still clawing at something clutched to her chest. It was a stack of leather-bound volumes, her journals.
Driven by a terrible premonition, and ignoring the lingering corruption that seemed to seep from the very stones, Gwendolyne carefully prised them from Elsbeth's lifeless grip. The script within was erratic, at first academic and precise, then descending into a scrawl of madness. She skimmed the pages, her eyes widening with each chilling revelation:
Elsbeth had sought power, yes, but not for its own sake. She yearned to command nature, to prevent the very diseases that now consumed the land. But in her hubris, she had answered a whisper from beyond the Veil, a cold, alien presence that hailed from the deepest, most ancient parts of Dolmenwood. A pact had been made, not with a daemon, but with something far older, something that promised control over the threads of life and death.
The Grey Blight, the journals revealed with terrifying clarity, was not the purpose of the pact, but merely its corrupt effluvium. It was the residue, the chaotic spill-over from a far grander, more sinister ritual that the entity within Dolmenwood was attempting to enact. Elsbeth had been a mere conduit, a foolish instrument. The final, near-unintelligible entries spoke of Dolmenwood itself as a focal point, a place where the entity’s power resonated, and where, most chillingly, the blight could not take root. Its vibrant, fey-infused essence seemingly repelled the corruption that flowed from its own borders.
Obscure references, cryptic maps of ancient, forgotten sites within the Wood—places of strange power, old fey crossings, and forgotten druidic circles—were scrawled amongst the mad ramblings. These were the channels, the gateways through which the blight had been inadvertently unleashed upon the outside world.
Gwendolyne emerged from the tower, the journals clutched tightly, the weight of their revelation heavier than any lumber she had ever hewn. The Grey Blight was not a random curse; it was a consequence, a symptom of a deeper, alien working within the heart of Dolmenwood. The unblighted Wood, once merely a distant, mythical place, now stood as a horrifying enigma, the source of their world’s suffering.
She knew then what she must do. The champions had defeated the puppet, but the master remained. The plague would continue to rage outside, perhaps forever, unless the source within Dolmenwood was confronted. Her duty to the Pluritine Church, to her stricken people, and to the memory of the fallen demanded it. But she couldn't go alone. She would need others touched by the blight, or by its consequences, others desperate enough to brave the dark heart of the Fungal Wood. For only there, it seemed, could they find the answers, and perhaps, the desperate hope for a cure.
No comments:
Post a Comment