Region: The Gloaming (the Demonwood), west and south of Marin’s Hold
Status: Walked as far as the Blood Falls (Session 5)
Leads to: The Schola in the Woods, by the folk tale in Mathilda’s cottage
Overview
A line of ancient tiles, laid hundreds of years ago and now mostly swallowed by earth, running west from the river into the forest. In Marin’s Hold it shows as a row of large smooth stones at the edge of town. The folk tale Mathilda left open gives the route: Follow the forest path into the wood. West to the Hangman’s Tree. South to the Giant’s Playground. West to the Blood Falls. Then follow the laughing stream to the place of learning.
Old tales hold that village girls would hear a voice urging them onto the path. Some were never seen again; others came back years later as healers and herbalists, telling of lessons learned at the school in the woods. The path was dangerous, and not everyone survived the training. Fey trickery, dark magic and demons have all been blamed — though the tales date from before these woods were called the Demonwood.
The route as walked (Session 5)
The old stone bridge
About six miles from Marin’s Hold. A single weathered arch, older than the village. Beneath it, a script that is not Common on the algae-covered stone, and on the bank a shrine of stacked stones heaped with offerings: fish bones and a small stack of mismatched coins from many eras and lands (about 10 gp). Whoever tends it seems to revere the bridge itself. Ivek prayed there and left a ration and Ulfgar poured out a drink; the weather was kind to the party for the rest of that day and night. The coins were left in place.
On the bank: discarded flint-tipped spears bound with plant fibre, the scraps of cleaned fish, eel and crab, and broad webbed footprints leading out of the river and back in. No sign of boats.
The spider woods
Northwest of the bridge, along the path. Huge webs strung across the path and into the deep wood, with a wrapped deer and smaller animals in them. The party saw no spiders, camped nearby unmolested, and detoured north around them. They left half a moose’s meat at the southern edge as an offering.
The wolf country
The deep, hilly forest north of the spider woods. A pack of five wolves attacked the party’s camp at night; two were killed and three fled.
The Hangman’s Tree
Southwest of the spider woods, alone in a clearing where the forest falls silent. A withered, twisting tree hung with vines, not ropes; bones beneath it and half-decayed bodies, some of them animals (perhaps a horse), hanging from its boughs. The vines take anything that comes within about twenty-five feet of the trunk and strip it with tiny teeth. It bears huge red apples; the party knocked one loose and retrieved it. Beyond this clearing the Fairy Path’s tiles are lost to undergrowth.
The Giant’s Playground
South of the Hangman’s Tree. A box canyon in the forest with a spring at its north end feeding a small stream that runs out of the south end to a river. Its floor is scattered with great granite stones in strange shapes — a polished cylinder, crossed slabs, a pyramid-like cluster, a weathered cube, stacks — all furred in moss and algae. Gor thinks them the leavings of an ancient river of ice. The party camped above it and did not go down.
The river
Southwest of the canyon, flowing west. The same webbed footprints run along its banks in both directions, in and out of the water, alongside the track of a barrel rolled through the dirt. Brielle saw something shiny in the water.
The Blood Falls
West along the river. The water turns blood-red as it pours over the cliff and runs muddy brown below the rapids; the air smells faintly of blood. Over the noise of it, the party heard girls singing.
Open Questions
- Who are the webbed river-folk, and who writes in that script beneath the bridge?
- Whose barrel was rolled along the riverbank — and is it Finch’s missing salt pork?
- What did Brielle see shining in the river?
- Who is singing at the Blood Falls?
- Did Mathilda, her apprentice and the two guides from Orlaine come this way?