A Grim Tale of Gallows Wood

Visitors from Without:- 

The first leaves of autumn are swirling down as you enter the village of Ereworn, in the Vale of Shadows. To the west you can see a river meandering from some distant, wood-covered hills. The margins of the forest come right up to the boundaries of the village, and beneath those trees you see the broken ruins of many more houses speaking to the past size of this settlement. It is obvious to you that all is not well with the land: fields that should be ripe with harvest stand untended and wild, emaciated cattle huddle forlornly on a windswept hill and many of the doors to the huts in the village swing open and shut to the vagaries of the wind. On the skyline, blackly silhouetted, three figures clank in chains on a gibbet, black crows feeding on their eyes.

You notice the few inhabitants who are outside scurrying into their huts as you approach, and soon the central street is utterly deserted apart from the fallen leaves that dance madly in the blustering wind. You approach the only large building still standing, where a blistered sign creaks on rusty hinges. You can just make out the name of what passes for an inn here: ‘The Horned Man’. It seems that the place was at one time more prosperous than it is now; trailing woodbine hangs over a broken trellis that once must have shaded summertime drinkers, stools lie broken and lichen-covered in a backyard where a fierce dog howls and leaps at you from the extremity of its chain.

The sounds of low voices and a hint of firelight beneath the door of the public house tells you at least someone may be within....

Familiar Faces Within-

Your seated in the cold, dust-filled parlour, the fire pit is lit but little of its warm reaches you. Others are sitting nearby talking quietly, four taciturn, grim-featured men who are seated around a ramshackle table.  They pay you little heed.

The local 'small beer' you are nursing tastes bitter, as if it had been brewed with sun-withered weeds instead of good hops.....no real surprise to any local. One of the drinkers, seeing you grimace at the beer’s harsh taste, addresses you:

“Aye, it has not always been so with the ale of Ereworn: once it was the sweetest drink in all the Vale of Shadows. But now it is tainted by the curse of an evil hobgoblin that dwells in yonder forest.”

He begins to make a gesture to ward off evil, then checks himself., “All our meat and drink is befouled. Hens drop shells full of muck, and the cows yield black matter. The very well is cursed by this creature’s breath. Two children we’ve had born to us this past year. One had six fingers on his left hand. The other had no eyes. Just webs of skin over the sockets.”

The other three men nod sourly, the one speaking is Eldron the village headman but he is so deep in his cups that he doesn't seem to recognise any of you, though Smilch and Garfax; his 'advisers' note you all well enough and Gond, the owner gives you all a wry smile.

Gond grimaces, " Now Eldron, all of Ereworn has its troubles these days......Old Neds not to blame for all of it....though I venture your right about the hens...."

Smiling Jack

With his typical big grin Jacks repeats "Hens" then his face scrunches like he sucked a lemon..."eggs".... Jack sits at a table and asks Gond, can I please have a plate and some liquid?  Jack reaches in his pocket to pay for the meal.

Jack looks to  Smilch and Garfax, repeating what they have heard from Jack several times over the last few months,  as Jack tries to find work, "Know anyone that needs any goods that need transporting? "

The wind carried the smell of rot long before Caelan reached the village proper. A lean, weathered man of thirty with storm-grey eyes and an unkempt dark beard moved with the quiet wariness of someone who had spent most of his life in cursed woods. His hooded green cloak clung damp to his worn leather armor, patched in places where old dangers had come too close, and the carved rowan charm at his neck tapped softly against his chest as he walked. Even from a distance, it was clear he was not a soft traveler; he had the steady, alert presence of a seasoned hunter who expected trouble long before he saw it. By the time the first leaves brushed against his boots, he already knew what he would find: fields choked with weeds, cattle grown gaunt from fear more than famine, doors wheezing open and shut like dying breaths. The few villagers still outdoors vanished at the sight of him, slipping into their homes as though a single stranger might carry the curse on his back. Caelan didn’t fault them. A man arriving on the breath of autumn rarely brought good news in these parts. He lowered his hood in quiet reassurance, letting the wind rake through his tangled hair as his gaze drifted to the gibbet on the horizon - three silhouettes swaying in rusted chains, crows feasting at their leisure.

The blistered sign of The Horned Man groaned as he approached, its faded paint barely hinting at better years. A chained dog barked and snarled until Caelan shot it a single, steady glance; after a heartbeat, the beast settled into uneasy growls instead. The murmur of voices behind the tavern door was the first sound that didn’t flee from him. Touching the rowan charm out of habit more than faith, he pushed open the door and stepped into the firelit gloom. Warmth, smoke, and stale ale wrapped around him. A few patrons glanced up, startled or simply wary, but he offered only a nod before choosing an empty table in the corner where the wall kept watch at his back. He set his bow beside him and rested his hands on the scarred wood. When the innkeeper’s attention finally drifted his way, Caelan raised two fingers. "A hot meal,” he said, voice low and rough from the cold wind. “And whatever passes for drink.” His grey eyes swept the room again, gauging shadows, listening to the murmur's tone. “Been on the road for a while," he added. "Figured it’s time I heard what’s become of this place...and what’s haunting it now.”

Barn's Image (see spoiler):

Were he not slouched over a table, his eyes staring into the middle distance, drink untouched, Barnaby Anwyn would stand a giant of a man.  Nearly six and a half feet and well muscled despite being barely into adulthood, his stature and slightly tapered ears hint at traces of both goliath and elven blood, while his olive skin and dark brown hair clearly speak to his being mostly a human of mixed blood, a bastard son of a minor noblewoman in truth.  Which make his eyes all the more incongruous, hazel and wide, like a child's.  His haunted look, and the haft of a halberd poking over one shoulder mark him a soldier.

Though apparently a soldier no longer.  He had found his way home to Ereworn alone.  Why had he come back?  As ever, the big man finds it difficult to remember.  His... friends?  Maybe his friends were why he had returned.  Not that Barn has many of those, whether in or out of Duke Darian's levy, by which he had been swept up just two years ago.  Two years?  Maybe it had been longer.  It feels like longer.  Perhaps he had just wanted to feel the stillness of the woods again.  The mystery and deep shadowed forest of Gallows Wood, both threatening and alluring at once.

Nevertheless, Barn rouses himself from the slow eddies of his mind to peer around what remains of The Horned Man, thinking he recognizes a few faces.  Uh... Jack?  Right, Smiling Jack.  Still smiling and talking about hens and eggs and goods.  Even the rugged stranger who enters seems vaguely familiar.  Soothing the dog with a glance, which makes the big man himself smile despite himself, and asking, quite reasonably, what had become of this place.

What had become of this place?  The three men hanging from the gibbet feeding crows?  Barn remembers much the same while at war.  When some of the worst of the Duke's men had laid claim to a still prosperous farm house.  Not to mention, apparently, the farmer's pantry, wife and daughters as well.  Barn can still remember their muffled sobbing, though as often, he did not rightly understand what was happening.  When a few of the better ones, along with the farmer himself, had brought their objections against such behavior to the captain, the objectors had ended up the ones swinging at the end of ropes while those who even Barn recognized as villains laughed and went free.  It was that very night the big man had walked away without a backward glance.

Yet that is a thing of war, was it not?  The fear and horror and pain.  Or so Barn had thought.  But then why is it happening... here?  Men on gibbets feeding black birds with their faces while everyone cowers and hides, afraid, as if waiting to be struck.  The big man turns to Gond who had just spoken.

"Now Eldron, all of Ereworn has its troubles these days......Old Neds not to blame for all of it....though I venture your right about the hens...."

As ever, Barn's stutter asserts itself, even when saying little.  "Old N-Ned?  Wh-who's Ned?"  Somehow, he feels as if he should know.  A familiar feeling.