Ashen Hollow [Watchers wanted]

[Evil DM Mark3]

Could any who wish to get lost in Ashen Hollow (as watchers to try and help the current walker) please post here.

You turned left into a side road and then...

How you got here, you have no idea. You know, somehow, that your last memory is 24 hours old, but you have no idea how you know how much time has passed. You feel alert and refreshed, as though you have just woken up after a good night's sleep after a good meal and a warm relaxing bath.

You have your backpack with the laptop computer in it, along with your pistol and your wallet in your pocket.

Where is here?

It seems to be some kind of forest, the trees are large and vaguely sinister, their bark dark and more knobbly that you would normally expect. You cannot identify the leaves. The canopy is dense but here and there a feeble ray of light battles its way to the forest floor. The floor itself is covered in ferns and the occasional, black, flower. The soil is damp, as though you have just missed a light shower. The air is thick with mist that is making your clothes and skin slightly damp. You cannot hear anything and the air smells of nothing much more than damp soil. There is however a lingering taste of aniseed in your mouth.

At first you thought you where totaly alone. After a few seconds however you realise you can see an owl, that unless you are mistaken is a Tawny owl, sitting on a branch about 20 meters in front of you.

[Fan]

Micheal ook curiously at the owl... they usually don't stay close to humans for long..... Ah, well it mattered little. Micheal will keep his hand close to his gun, and proceed down the path... If any odd noises are heard he will turn to face it in all my immense paranoia.

[Evil DM Mark3]

There is silence. Nothing but silence.

As you approach the owl flies off ahead, never letting you get closer than a dozen meters, never going further than about 25 meters, hopping or fluttering from branch to branch. Then, in the distance, you think you can see shapes in the mist, as if there where a clearing with structures of some kind in it, although how large the clearing might be is impossible to tell, it could be a few huts, or a town.

[Fan]

Micheal looks curiously at the owl again... what meaning could it have, and why did it always fly in front of him? This did not bode well if somehow this owl was being controlled.... Wait, what am I thinking? Owls cant be controlled by humans everything has its own free will.
Micheal will continue to proceed down the path, and once he is within sight range of the whatever those buildigns turn out to be he will hide behind a small cluster of trees, and observe the city from that distance.

[Evil DM Mark3]

It turns out to look like a largeish village of wooden buildings, they seem to have stepped out of the 14th or 15th centuries. From here, as well as houses, you can identify an inn, a smithy and a large building with troughs and what look like washing lines outside it that is some distance from the rest of the buildings.

A large stone table with several rough wooden chairs carved out of logs are placed around it is at the closest point of the clearing. Sitting with his back to the town and his face to you is a middle aged man, smartly dressed for a 15th century man with a tunic, breaches, puffed sleeves and leather gloves. His hair is clipped short and he sports a short beard. His chair is far more elaborate with a tall back.

The owl has just landed on the back of his chair and now seems busy looking over its shoulder to the town.

[Fan]

Micheal observed all this, and suddenly thought of one of his DnD games on GiantITP.com/forums, but quickly shook off that thought. Prehaps it was a LARP convention set in the 1500's?
So, after a brief walk he will emerge inside the won, or if it has walls he will be in front of the gate his gun hidden from sight out of politeness.

[Evil DM Mark3]

There are no walls. As soon as you pass the tree line the man at the table speaks, as though he was expecting you

"Greetings traveller. I would council that you take a seat, for there is much you need to know. First of these is my name. I am Sir Llewellyn of Ashen Hollow."

[Fan]

Micheal being a cautious, paranoid bastard will take a cautious seat the wood creaking against the ground as he slid his chairs out....
"I see... first of all what is Ashen Hollow, and where am I?"

[Evil DM Mark3]

"This is Ashen Hollow. Your second question is not one that can be answered. Ashen Hollow is not a place as you would understand it, it is nearer a place you would visit in a dream, but even that is only a shade of the true answer. You are Lost and I am one of only a few who can Find you."

He leans forward, as he does so the owl flies off again.

"Tell me, do you want to go home, how far would you go to get there? I do not wish to waste my time with one who lacks resolve."

[Fan]

Micheal thinks for a second, and as he does he wonders if this place has WiFi (everywhere does nowadays), and quickly shrugs the thought off as he would have to build his own station if he wanted anything other than the slightly illegal textbooks he had dowloaded onto it for easier access for subjects....
"Well of coruse I want to go home... As for what I would do, really anythign that was required of me. I don't want to saty here for any great length of time."

[Evil DM Mark3]

"Time is not an issue here. This is no place in your time, not time in your place. Should you be able to leave in the future you will land in the very step that was the last you recall. For some who have come from where you where it was easier. A single name and they understood. But in the time you have had since those people you have forgotten a lot. This place and others like it is the place where The Stolen where taken before your place was poisoned with iron. The place where The Beasts came from. The place where secrets came from and myths go to die. A time ago the persons who reside here where the objects of terror and wonder in equal measure. Now you have all forgotten."

He rubs the side of his neck with his right hand and looks pensive.

"There are rulers in this place, people of incredible power, first came to this place to seek admittance to the Great Beyond. For this they needed a harvest. This place is here to draw you and those like you into The Vault of Tears. It is a net of snares. It is, infact, sufficiently full but a hatred has grown between the one that holds The Key of the Vault and the one that holds The Map to The Vault. This is your chance and hope. Should you find The Harvest and open The Vault if would be yours to do with as you saw fit, including your own soul. You could unmake this place and go home. Or you could use it to become a force beyond your imagining. If you want this, then you can have it if your guard your mind and head my words."