Presence
Hidden Life
Distinctive Voice
Giant
wyrdstone activation!
This Autumn things are rather different, for starters invitations had gone out to the members of the freehold, a necessary step because well you’re not in Funderland anymore!
The ashen king had followed through on the plan to move Edna’s boarding house out of the fun park; carefully, intricately shifted to a setting more appropriate for the playground of the court of fear. An out of the way spot between the Sacramento River and North stone lake.
A reasonable drive cuts into the exterior wall that boarders the new grounds of the Witch house, winding its way forward through the promenade of seasonally appropriate trees in full Autumnal glory. Hawthorns and crab apples, overshadowed by silver birch lightly dressed with flickering candle lanterns leads up to the boarding house itself, every window stands dark the guests having been paid to find alternative accommodation for the one night, under the pretense of some kind of necessary maintenance.
The dim path of lantern light continues not up upon the shadowed veranda but trailing mysteriously around the side and to the rear of the imposing ominous building and into a small orchard of apples and plums, of chestnuts and conkers, snaking blackberry vines trail and entwine with bushes of elderflower, each and every plant hangs heavy with an overabundance of autumns bounty crisp sweet fruits, clusters of bronze nuts, berries ready to burst with juice and hung on brown garden string from the branches, fastened to the thorns and tied off to stems, or nestled among the flowers are papers, pages of all manner, varied in shape, size, colors and type.
Following the path of flickering lights to the center of this abundant orchard larger fires crack and crackle. The central, of which is the greatest, however has its light greatly obscured and fragmented by the immense carcass of the pig spit roasted over the open flames, skin crisp and clear drops of fat falling to hiss in the flames and cinders below, evidently this hog roast had been cooking for many hours.
Small fires radiate out from that largest central blaze, like burning ethereal satellites in the clearing, each offering another treat of the season. Over one simmers a pot from which emanates the spicy scent of warm mulled cider, another burnt down low to cinders a small red glow in the dark smells sweet and rich as it keeps the hot chocolate warm. A third longer log fire sends forth a dizzying array, a feast of scents, as it warms a metal stand upon which sit many pies of the fruit and nut variety, each in turn harvested from the surrounding trees although none seem to lack in their bounty of fruits or nuts. A fourth fire hosts tinfoil wrapped treats nestled among it's flaming boughs and branches, jacket potatoes being cooked among its crackling cinders. The fifth and final fire is unadorned but the nearby surplus of biscuits and marshmallows makes the sweet, sticky purpose readily apparent.
The giant, grotesque form of the ashen king himself, head bare of his usual hedgespun fedora knowing what is to come, tends the central and largest fire slowly rotating its porcine occupant to ensure a even cooking even now in this the final moments. His rented suit of brown and orange stained with the soot and grime of his labors, shoes however still black and polished shiny, the bulbous yellow eyes fixed hungrily upon his tasks as the troll’s tongue wets the terrible teeth in anticipation of the meal to come.
And for the more security minded changelings, who might be left to wonder how something so precious as the Wyrdstone might have come to leave Funderland, well wonder they shall have to for it there it sits innocuously among the giant ogre’s other preparations, waiting for his tithe of fear fueled glamour to officially announce the turning of the season.
Saber Sloth
Draft this Post
Dexterity
