As the heroes leave the temple on horseback, Dra'vin Frostblood and List Defthand notice two small children watching them from an alleyway. The children appear to be staring at Tohav Greycrown and Zinnias Miller.
The girl (the older of the two children) appears to be staring at Tohav. The smaller of the two children, a boy of seven or eight years age, appears to be carrying a wooden sword and shield and wearing a home-made cape inscribed with magical symbols. The boy appears to be mimicking Zinnias's movements and List and Dra'vin hears the boy say, "I'm gonna be like him."
As the heroes are on the edge of the small village, you notice a crow fly low overhead then swoops up to perch in the branches of a nearby tree. Once on its perch, it stares at the party.
As the heroes travel out of the village, you pass to the west through outlying farmlands towards the hills that seperate this valley from the next.
As you travel on horseback, Dra'vin, List, Tohav, and Zinnias find themselves wondering how their lives led them to this point. Jalen Isadore has no doubts; she understands fully how her background led her to this point.
The trip across the sloping hills takes several hours. You see farmers tending their fields and shephers walking among their flocks. You spot farmhouses with smoke curling from their chimneys. In the distance, mountaintops peek at you over the shoulders of the foothills.
Eventually you top a hill and the valley comes into sight. More a crevice than a valley, the sides ride at sharp angles. A thick fog lurks there, rising from the ground itself and sitting fat and heavy between the enclosing ridges on either side. The broken ends of a wooden trestle bridge hang from the hillsides. Sharp-edge remnants jut into mid-air. The trails that once continued to either side of the bridge now disappear in the forest, neglected and overgrown.
More impressive still are the shadows that cling to the valley. The wall of fog looms over you as you get closer. The ground takes on a sucking wetness that clings with muddy squelches. The smell of mildew and rotting vegetation offends your nose.
Descending the steep sides of the valley, you discover the valley is overgrown with moss-draped trees, bushes, vines, and is one big marsh.
Moss covered trees resemble hulking creatures that emerge from the fog to menace you. Vines threaten to trip you at every turn. Insects hum their disgruntlement at your intrusion. Just when you think the ground has begun to feel more solid, it gives way to mud that threatens to tug off a boot or send you sprawling face-first into the marsh. Creatures rustle the underbrush just out of sight. Moisture settles on your skin like a chilling death mist. After a few moments of plodding through the fog, you begin to see great chunks of slick shattered stone jutting from the marsh like the slimy teeth and claws of some enormous petrified beast.
This would be a terrible place to die.
