Into the Fens of Canmoor

In the not so distant past that might have been a place only mentioned of in whispers around warm fires late at night, when the only thing to fear was one’s own imagination giving life to the harmless shadows cast by that same firelight. For the Fens were a place where criminals and wild animals and shape-shifting monsters lurked, an anarchic swamp to the east of the once great kingdom. Now the notion seemed quaint, almost laughable. Exotica had never been to the fens, and had never hoped to venture into that seemingly endless quagmire, where even the crooked, wraithlike trees seemed to harbor dark intent. But alas, even in a place as dangerous as the fens there was something good to be said. For within that very swamp in which lawless men dwelt and venomous snakes slithered, there also grew rare flowers, and roots, and mushrooms that were prized for their medicinal or magical values.

Exotica was sore from riding, her thoroughbred was spent, and yet the Priest insisted they must press onward. They were in a countryside that no longer resembled the Allaria Exotica had once known. Villages along the road were largely deserted, some had even been burnt beyond recognition. Pikes were set along the road with rotting, disfigured heads impaled upon them. Cries of terror rang through the air. Mad riders dashed past them, bearing demented standards that betrayed the kingdom. Naked children crawled through the muddy, horse trampled tracks, begging for scraps of food or fighting over the mangled remains of dogs and livestock. Women wept in ditches thick with corpses. Men cried unabashedly and threw themselves upon their own blades. All of Allaria had descended into madness.

She had left her brother a hurried note, insisting that he knew not the horrors she had seen, but had only experienced a taste. She knew he meant well, but that in the end sacrifice and compromise was the only thing that would purge the north, and indeed the entire world, from the evil that now assailed it. She had been forced to...borrow...two horses and some supplies. And still the memory of Mary's last moments haunted her.

The priest extended a long boney finger to the east.

“But even this dark omen is not completely dire,” the priest insisted. “We are now nearing the Fens.”

She awoke with a sharp, painful start. A shadow loomed over her, vaguely familiar. “She’s awake,” a familiar voice rang out.

1. the Priest of Eibon.
2. Prince Exeter.
3. Duke Zular.
4. Someone she had never met but still seemed strangely familiar.

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