Sister Willow's Story

by Luke Thomas

Dear Diary,

This morning, we made ready to travel to the old shrine that my sister has been meaning to revisit. I gave Anna a few tasks to keep her busy while we were gone and tried to explain to Lumiria that she couldn’t come with us this time. She wasn’t happy about it, her disappointment was written all over her face, and I promised myself that I’d bring her back a gift to make it up to her (and then forgot because we ended up passing no towns…). Gael said his goodbyes to Dynia with that same shy awkwardness that keeps all of us hoping they’ll finally say what they mean. Dadroz stayed behind on knightly matters.

We gathered our horses, Liliana summoned her mount, and we rode out of Wolf’s Rest, heading north toward Ravensfield. We passed the site where the draconic construct had fallen — now dismantled, its massive form replaced by half-rotting scaffolds. Odd flowers, deep red and almost purple, had begun to sprout where the great machine once lay. They pulsed faintly with magic, residue from the thing’s death. I sensed enchantment in the soil, a taint that would likely fade in a year or so. For now, it felt like the ground itself was remembering what had happened there.

The day wore on as autumn clung to the air. The leaves were turning gold and brown, falling under grey skies, yet the forest felt too alive. Shrubs bloomed out of season, roots stretched across the trail, and the trees leaned closer than they should have. I counted several of the old border runestones lying cracked or missing entirely. The wards that once kept the Feywild at bay are failing. Every mile north feels like it belongs to someone else now, someone who doesn’t care about boundaries.

By evening, rain poured cold and hard. I set magical wards and raised a dome to keep us dry and warm, but even magic couldn’t ease the tension that clung to us. Liliana and Alistan tossed and turned. During their watch, my sister noticed a strange tattoo on Alistan’s shoulder, a wolf’s mark that hadn’t been there before. Liliana found one on herself too, a frog. When they woke us, I discovered a bat on my arm, and Gael bore the image of an owl. They weren’t magical, but they were real. None of us could explain it, so we lay back down uneasy.

Hayley dreamed that night of a little girl walking into a dark forest, accompanied by an owl, a bat, a wolf, and a toad. She told us about it over breakfast, her voice quiet against the mist that rolled over the hills. The day stayed cold and grey as we reached the shrine.

The place had changed. Where once there had been a ravaged stone and forgotten altar, now stood a shrine fully restored, almost inviting. Two statues watched over it, one a long-haired child, the other a tall, thin man with unsettling limbs. Four bowls lay before them, stained dry with blood. The inscription above read, “A gift of life we demand, from those the story was told. Follow the path throughout the tale and return all players to our hold.” On the altar, a set of candles stood fastened, each carved with a sigil of magical communication.

We understood enough of the puzzle to know what was required. We cut our palms and bled into the bowls in the order of Hayley’s dream. She lit the candles one by one.

An ungodly scream tore through the forest. A great tree nearby opened its many eyes and started to move. Hayley rushed to complete the ritual as Alistan held the creature at bay. A night hag emerged from the woods, accusing us of stealing from the “dark mother,” hurling curses as seeds from the living tree birthed blights that swarmed us. The tree lashed out, vines coiling around me and Hayley, draining our blood as it tried to pull us closer. I burned at the vines with desperate magic, freeing myself long enough to transform into a giant eagle and fly upward. My fireball went wide, exploding harmlessly against the earth.

Hayley’s hands worked furiously at the ritual despite the hag’s psychic torment. At last, a portal tore open in the air, and she dove through it. I followed in hawk form, escaping the tree’s grasp a heartbeat before it drained me dry.

We landed in a warped forest under a dark sky, purple mist curling around twisted trees. Frogs croaked from black pools, and a hollowed-out tree stood before us, its door carved like a grin. I perched on Hayley’s shoulder as she summoned an arcane eye to scout.

Some kind of mothman approached silently, wings like veils of shadow. He warned us not to linger, then asked why we had come. Hayley told him we sought Sister Willow. He introduced himself as her sage and asked if we had brought our “characters.”

He lined us up, inspected our tattoos one by one, and pricked our skin to extract the ink. Gael went first and vanished. I stepped forward next, letting the strange creature draw whatever essence had been contained in the tattoo, and the world twisted.

We were back at the shrine. The night hag was gone, only her tracks remained. Likely a minor hag, not part of the Runehill Coven as we might have feared. But Hayley had acquired her gift from sister Willow so our quest had been successful. I wasted no time, drawing a teleportation circle back to Wolf’s Rest.

We stumbled into our keep exhausted, damp, and silent. Sleep claimed us quickly, but I know tomorrow we must turn our attention to the mysteries we’ve left behind — the death of Ser Donovan, and the potential strife between the Long Table and the Briar Ring.

— Luke

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