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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 322929" data-attributes="member: 114">She watches as the ghostly figure walks over to the unicorn corpses, then it appears to rest one hand on the nearby tree trunk and cover the face of its helm with the other. If it didn’t seem foolish, she would say she thought it was - weeping?Deciding to risk it, Anne Marie stands up.“Excuse me” she whispers haltingly “do you know who slew the unicorns?”The figure straightens up and turns to face her, one hand on its sword hilt. It remains silent.Anne-Marie continues “I hate it that someone could do this to creatures that are so lovely. I want to stop them. Will you let me? Can I help?”The ghost gestures and a small twig breaks off a nearby tree and flies over to him. It hovers in the air and starts scratching some writing in the dirt.“Thefocusofevilrestsinthe village.”“They slew mebutI cannotRest”.“Where is your body?” Anne-Marie asks.“Bythelake.FollowMe”A ghostly horse fades into existence beside them, and Anne-Marie starts following the horseman out of the forest.A half-hours travel brings them to the hillside with a red horse carved out of the grass, and a still, dark tarn gathered near the horses feet, reflecting the clear blue sky and the red horse. As they approach Anne-Marie notices her two friends standing by the lake. She can see them loosen their weapons, and feels a tenseness from the horseman, so she quickly shouts out“No! Friends!”.They draw together and she quickly explains to Trajan and K’tan what she has seen. They figure that if they can bury the body, the ghost will be set free. They decide to ask the horseman a few more questions.“Sire,“ Trajan asks, astonished at the majesty of the ghostly horseman sitting astride his ghostly mount “Where is your body lain?”The figure points to the tarn. Trajan and Anne-Marie wade into the shallow water and before they get out of their depth find a headless body lying, covered in a thin layer of mud. They drag the body out to the bank.The horseman seems to be staring intently at the body. Once again a twig is used to scrape some words in the dirt“SHEFEDITTOHERBEASTS!THEY ATEMYHEAD!”Suddenly the horseman wheels his horse around and charges off in the direction of the village, fading from sight as he thunders away. Anne-Marie, Trajan and K’tan look wordlessly at one another. He must have been talking about Henwen and those evil little squirrel-beasts which serve her. Consider Cuckoo too - surprising that he showed up in the middle of the night, surprising that the animated tree was more interested in attacking him than any other, surprising that the horseman chased him down rather than any other. Gradually the evidence seems to be piling up that their companions in the village are taking their ease in the midst of a nest of evil, and their erstwhile enemies might turn out to be the ones in the right...</blockquote>

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