Pilgrim

Still Valley

He doesn't remember anything.

Well he remembers a lot. Remembers everything up to Dresden. He remembers his life up until then.

His life ended near that city. He was on a pilgrimage of sorts. Chasing rumours of an ancient temple with a miraculous fountain.

Some he remembers so clearly. His favorite smell, juniper. A soft blanket of fog. Damp cold in his boots. The strange shaman in the village. The dead tree with swirling butterflies.

Hotors' old place was nearby. That had been abandoned for a long time. The woman left the place after her husband died, what was it, twenty years ago. The place became a squat for brigands and ruffians, for vagrants and hermits.

But he is old, now. Must be in his sixties. That morning in Dresden he had not seen his thirtieth year yet. He doesn't know what happened with his life, and doesn't remember anything else after that.

Until now...

He is here now in this clearing, near this abandoned temple with that God awful statue looming over him.

He is a sage. A sage from the Walking People. Of the blood of Atsigani.
He has a staff and a thick leather bound book under his arm. He knows he finished his long journey and finally arrived at the ruin he's been looking for.

He has come here searching for the mystical secret of a great power that once dwelled here. In this place, now claimed by a unnatural swamp. A land stalked by a being from the Void.

He looks around and sees that this place is very old. Older than he imagined it to be. The ground here has crumbled away to reveal an ancient underground river bed, which runs through this area. There are also many stone steps leading up to a large circular structure made of black stone. It looks like it could be part of some sort of altar, but there are no signs of any worshippers here. Not any longer...

The Broods no longer come here. They no longer venture far from their yurts and hearths. They are no longer of the land.

Just like him, they no longer remember who they are...