Tricksters of the Hills

Dotting the countryside and the rolling green hills of the Imperial Kingdoms one can find strange collections of stones, a pile of fresh flowers, or a circle of mushrooms and dandelions; deep within the oak woods that cover the darker parts of the Imperial countryside just off animal paths that wind through these green expanses one can find sudden clearings, hollow logs of indeterminate age, and moss grown in strange patterns on the barks of trees: these are all the signs that the tricksters of the hills gather there under full moon to dance to melodies that only they hear and drink of their otherworldly wine.

Although there are many housewives tales of these little creatures and much myth built up around their secret lives, few have ever seen them clearly, been aware that they are seeing them, or remembered seeing them after the encounter.

Like colorful shadows they flitter across the Imperial Kingdom behind the visible, content to play their games on foolish mortals, partake of their carnal rituals, and relish in the ageless beauty of their timeless lives.

Once I was ensnared by a nymph in the Darken Woods far south of the City of Aur in the green apple countryside of that grows wilder the further west you walk.  She walked into my campfire late one night with the full moon glinting off her silvery hair and the sounds of leaves in the summer breeze in her voice.  Little could I do, but follow her as she lead me deeper into the dark wood and away from my fire, my horse, and my belongings.  And suddenly she and her soft glow were gone, only a sweet smell of the woods after the rain lingered in the air and in my dreams as I came to my senses to realize that I was lost.

Only days latter would I wander into small town, Ystelle, that lay over a months hard travel to the east of the City of Aur and dominating visage of the Passage...almost three months hard travel from where I think I encountered that strange fleeting beauty.

Another strange encounter that left me wanting was in broad daylight.

I was walking along the Sharrick Road--a smaller path than the Imperial Highway--that winds through the less common towns dotting the Imperial Kingdom towards the Daemon Mounts when I was suddenly assailed by an old man bent over a twisted walking stick.  My senses are sharper than normal men's and the road was empty for miles and miles, but I did not see him approach me from anywhere nor see him from any distance away.

Slowly he raised his withered face to mine and I saw a strange youthful sparkle in his green eyes.

"Walk with an old man, lad, and listen to his tales of these hills...do you know that a god died upon that one," he motioned at a distant hills with a tree growing on the top of it, "and that a king sleeps under that one awaiting his queen."

So I walked with the old man listening to his tales and hearing some truth in some of them.  Others were beyond my days and memories and some had not even come to pass yet.  And then it was night and the old man suggested that we sup upon a small hill that the greatest tayle of all would be told on in the future.  He said how if I provide the food and the audience that he would bring the wine and the tales...

I awoke a week later on that same hill with a strangely off-sweet taste in my mouth, a head rocking with the age-old hangover, and none of the possessions that I had had before I met that strange old man.

Some beings defy tales and times to wander through the dreams that seep from the Endless Wilds into our very myths that permeate those brief moments in between reality and make-believe that exists in old wives tales and the warm summer kiss of lovers under an apple tree at full moon.

--Anonymous Monk