The Fog Never Ends
A recounting by Nevermore
The Feywilds breathe. I can feel it in the way the mist coils around my limbs, thick and cloying, resisting every step forward. It is alive, shifting, moving, watching. We do not walk blindly—only fools would attempt such a thing here. Instead, we bind ourselves together with rope, an unspoken pact that we will not lose one another to the endless haze.
Bearkiller takes the lead, as he always does, his mind set on our destination. Intent is everything in this realm. You do not find things in the Feywilds unless you mean to. The warrior is out there, somewhere, hidden in the suffocating gray.
We walk for what feels like an eternity. In truth, it is less than an hour. Time bends here.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the mist breaks.
Echoes of the Dead
A clearing stretches before us, untouched by the fog's corruption. The air is crisp, warm, laced with the scent of freshly split wood. A woman—tall, powerful, at peace—stands before a cabin, splitting logs with effortless strength. She sees us the moment we enter.
Then—
CRACK.
The world shatters.
The warmth is gone. The fire snuffed out. The trees are skeletal, their branches reaching like broken fingers toward a sky that does not care. The grass withers under my boots, the scent of rot thick in my nose. The woman is gone. The cabin, once so inviting, now stands like a corpse—hollow, abandoned.
The truth of this place is revealed. The beauty we saw was nothing more than a whisper of the past, a lie meant to lure, to comfort.
This is what remains.
A severed horse's head lies just beyond the cabin's entrance. It is fresh—too fresh. The white of its coat is streaked in vivid red, its severed neck a brutal contrast against the dark earth. The cut is clean. Precise. A death meant to send a message.
I am enamored. There is beauty in death.
Bearkiller prepares his ritual, arranging the bones and speaking in deep, guttural tones. While he works, I take a black feather from my cloak and place it against the bloodied forehead of the fallen creature—a quiet Offering of Remembrance to honor its passing. The wind stirs as I murmur the words:
"Gone to the stillness, gone to the Queen. Your tale is written in the dark between."
Then, Speak with the Dead takes hold.
"The Executioner killed me," the horse whispers, its voice a hollow echo. "I was her mount. She wanders the fog, lost, seeking vengeance."
The Queen sent the Executioner. The warrior survived. The Executioner did not.
A Forgotten Story
We search the cabin, though it feels like an intrusion. It is silent, lifeless, yet within its walls, something lingers.
The firewood outside is wrong—wet, covered in moss, untouched for ages. There is no axe to split it. A detail that does not align with what we first saw. Another lie.
Inside, I find what remains of her. Books in unfamiliar languages, pages filled with words that mean nothing to me. But among them, a journal—written in Celestial.
She was like me. A fallen aasimar.
Once, she had been Titania's weapon. A blade wielded in penance, a mercenary so skilled that even the Feywilds whispered her name. But then she did the unthinkable.
She fell in love.
Oberon. The Seelie King. Titania's consort.
It was their undoing.
Banishment. A death sentence. She fled, but Titania sent hunters. The Executioner found her. It cost him his life.
Her final writings are frantic. Vengeance consumes her.
I closed the journal. The weight of her words lingers.
The Voice in the Mist
Then—her voice.
It drifts from the fog, disembodied, unseen.
"Did the Queen send you?"
We do not answer truthfully. Not yet. We speak of our purpose—finding a way back to the Material Plane. As we talk, I send my Arcane Eye to the fog's border, searching. It does not return. Something destroys it.
She does not trust us.
I try to draw her out, to force a face-to-face conversation. She does not move. The fog keeps her hidden, a shroud of her own making.
Then, a proposition. Help her kill Titania, and she will help us.
Silence stretches between us. Killing an Archfey is not something done lightly. But we need her.
We agree.
The mist parts, and for the first time, we see her.
She is scarred, her armor minimal—built for movement, for survival. Her warpick hangs heavy at her side, its handle worn by time and blood. Her wings—*once beautiful, now bare to the bone—*stretch from her back like a skeletal cage.
She tells us what we need to know.
The fog does not move unless Titania sleeps.
The Queen's will holds it at bay, her concentration unwavering. But when she sleeps, the Feywild goes dark, and the fog creeps closer to the palace.
There are three paths before us:
Kill her and revive her within the palace.
Find a way to put Titania to sleep.
Remain loyal to the Queen and finish what the Executioner could not.
We do not answer. Not yet.
The fog presses in once more.
And the day in the Feywilds stretches on.