A Town Beguiled

In a small farming town of Athwart, pinched between the fork of The River Surbin and Lurkwood, two young boys named Rimose and Roborant were born. They were the young sons of the town patriarch, who’d brought the wealth and status of distant lands to the isolated village in the cold northeastern plains. He was a good man; kind and generous, steadfast and orderly, financially and intellectually indispensable to the lowly farmers that populated the town. One late autumn night, when Rimose was twelve and Roborant had just turned six, their father embarked on a journey toward The Evermoors. Weeks went by with no sign of him, and with the passing months all hope of his return faded away. Their mother was left heartbroken and the town of Athwart despondent, lost in a sorrow that prevailed in the long winter of mourning and misery.

Come spring, a mysterious tiefling named Basal wandered across the valley from the direction from which their father ventured out. Though at first the town was suspicious of the devilish and handsome stranger, they were all eventually charmed by his outstanding wit and debonaire charm. Come Summer he was beloved by all, particularly by the boys’ own mother. She wed him in the midsummer festival, much to Roborant’s confusion and Athwart’s dismay.

“Isn’t he wonderful?” Their mother asked, draped in flowers and dressed all in white, “He’s so much like your father. He will make everything right again, you’ll see.”

Roborant shrugged, uncertain. Rimose said nothing at all.

From then on, things changed, but nothing was made right. Their simple world of green fields and golden harvests warped and blanched, and the tiny land in which they lived developed a bloated underbelly of lust and debauchery. As Rimose watched the world he knew rot, hatred grew in his heart for his blind little village, though he despised Basal more than anything in the world. The tiefling that had taken the place of his father proved vulgar and cruel, a slave to impulse who took poorly-hidden pleasure in the sorrow of others.

Roborant fell into melancholy, but discovered that though his love for the town square lessened, far more love for the soft brush and grand trees of Lurkwood that neighbored them sprouted within his heart. In the woods he took comfort, and often disappeared there for hours on end.

One late-autumn evening, Rimose was sent out to fetch his father, who was last seen riding his horse in the fields by the river. As the young boy walked to the reeds of the river bank, he spotted from a distance a huddle pack of oddly-dressed figures; heavily cloaked and hatted in leather, large guns belted beneath their garb. Venturing nearer, Rimrose spotted through the grass the hollow figure of Basal’s body, splayed out in a state of magical necrosis, undoubtedly and irrevocably dead. 

Having not understood the scope of the situation until now, Rimose did not move stealthily. It was only when he was faced with the corpse that he understood the danger of the strangers who now flew toward him with terrifying speed, guns drawn. Before Rimose had time to brace himself against them, one amongst the hoard placed herself between him and his would-be attackers, halting them with an upraised hand.

“Don’t risk spilling blood! We can’t have that here, not over a child!” She said sternly, “I will deal with the interloper! Wait at Athwart’s border for my orders.”

Her voice was thick with the accent of the northerners from The Spine of The World. Her face was marked with strange red symbols, her long thin hair shimmering with an opalescent silver that appeared teal in the evening light. Tall, quick and slender, the woman plucked Rimose up and carried him off toward the cover of the nearby hills as her brood of followers flitted off in the opposite direction.

Once the two were out of sight of all men, Rimose was set down, and spoken to in a voice tinged with worry and solemnity.

“Little one, what are you doing all the way out here?”

“Looking for my stepfather. Did you kill him?”

Rimose surprised himself with his own directness. He had heard passing tales of the Legatura de Sange, and knew by shards of stories that he currently stood on the threshold of a terrible death. And yet, something about this hunter was kind… even strangely innocent. When he questioned her she went quiet and turned her head away, the way that Roborant often did when he didn’t want to tell the truth.

“It’s alright. I didn’t like him much anyway.” Rimose assured “But I suppose I have to ask why you killed him.”

This seemed to put the hunter at ease. With a gesture of her hand she suddenly changed form completely, appearing like Basal in every way. Her voice, too, was a perfect imitation, though she spoke to him with the same sympathetic tone.

“Have you ever heard of Graz’zt?”

Rimose had not. So as the hunter walked him home in the guise of his stepfather, she explained all with great openness and detail, like he was a fellow daughter of Maria. She spoke of Gratz’zs cults and their debaucherous practices, the secret history of Basal and his allegiance to the Demon Prince, and the scourge of depravity that he carried with him wherever he went. By the time Rimose had been led back into the doors of his own home, he knew in full what had happened to his town, and had been told at length the only cure for it’s diabolic malady.

Rimose was happy to find his younger brother in arms’ reach, sitting in his room, reading a heavy volume listing local herbs. Without a word of greeting Rimose rushed about, packing bags with rope, food, and kindling.

“We’re going to Lurkwood.” He said at length, tossing one of the packs into his younger brother’s lap. “Things are going to get dangerous in Athwart for a while.”

Though concerned by the cryptic brevity of his sibling, Roborant didn’t ask any questions, for he was as thrilled to return to Lurkwood for an entire night as he was to see his brother finally join him in his adventures into the woods. As the sun began to set, Basal (who was not Basal) led the two boys to the back door, and saw them off with a warning to not return until dawn. Rimose, lingered for a moment in the doorway, and leaned in to speak with the hunter in a low whisper

“Mom will be alright, won’t she?”

The face of Basal scrunched up in thought, then asked, “Is she one of the cultists? Is she loyal to Graz’zt?”

Rimose shook his head ‘no,’ confident that their mother had no part in the wickedness that the true Basal had brought into Athwart.

“Good. Then there is no reason for anyone to hurt her. Now go on…” the hunter pressed a hand to the boy’s back, ushering him down the steps toward the road “… Time is short. My sisters will soon be gathering in the city streets, and if they see you your life is forfeit.”

As the boys strode through town toward the north, Rimose looked at all his neighbors– most of whom he had known all his life– and wondered who had fallen prey to Graz’zt’s spell and, in consequence, would be dead by morning. He wondered who would survive the upcoming purge, how they would cope, and whether or not things could ever truly return to the way things were when his father still lived. He wondered if his mother would try to remarry a second time, and what she would say upon his return. What excuse could he give for his own absence while The Hunters cleansed the land?

With these thoughts occupying the whole of his mind, Rimose allowed his little brother to lead on as they passed out of town into Lurkwood. But Roborant was clever for his age, and knew the forest well. They settled in a shady spot at the base of a large tree: cut off from the town, but not so deep in the heart of the woods that they would sleep in the crosshairs of wild beasts or hungry orcs.

A campfire was lit, and night began to fall. Roborant told long tales about The Thunderbeast Tribe, and showed his brother strange tricks in which he enticed budding flowers to bloom with the mere flick of his finger. Rimose pretended to pay attention while keeping his eyes on their dinner to make sure it didn’t burn. Whenever he did speak it was about their father and their town... how things used to be, and what it could possibly be in the future. But when the hour grew late and the boys curled up in their bedrolls, distant screams echoed up through the leafy canopy. Rimrose tried to ease his brother’s fears with claims that it was merely the northern wind, whistling over the mountains. But the two only truly felt safe enough to drift off to sleep once the fire was put out, and they were curled up back-to-back deep within the roots of the great evergreen.

A slow, anxious dawn rose with an unsettling silence. The two boys stiffly rose, shook the dew from their clothes, and began to make their way home, sticky with sap and dry pine needles. It wasn’t until the end of their journey did they see past the towering trees and notice that a column of smoke rose up in the place of their home. In tandem their tired trod became a panicked sprint, and breaking through the brush they saw with unutterable horror that all that remained of Athwart was blood and ash.