The landscape surrounding Lake Zarovich slowly surrendered to renewal. The twisted remains, remnants of a blasted wasteland and wretchedly barren trees, began to sprout buds – foliage and leaves slowly unwinding to reveal their plumage. Foreign fungal growths withered into blackened husks and deconstructed into ash in the winds that crested off of the lakefront. That which had frenzied the fauna receded, natural order restored.
Rumors swirled of haggard forms hobbling through the dark-enshrouded landscape to safety and of the waters of Lake Zarovich expelling several bodies upon the shore, their huddled masses scampering to sanctuary in the night. A pallor of reverence and phantasmal heavy-burden labored their motions – figures bolstered by victory but beleaguered by an unknown weight. -- As the sun began to rise over the lands, cascading light in luminescent beams through the gaps in the branches and leaves, a forlorn figure shuffled into the foothills and trees of the Northern Shores.
In esoteric, cloistered circles – covenants devoted to the Thirteen exalting the One – a collective orison of praise was raised to the altruism of one of their devoted. An exemplary testament to the mercy and sacrifice of the sequestered and obscured benefactors to the ailing. Furtive breaths of that seclusive sect mouthed the name, Teyrn Bedca; the man securing his place among the weave and giving all to the tenets of the Thirteen – relinquishing life for the succor of many.
Upon the favorable winds of the sea comes news of rejoicing on foreign shores. Word travels from a distant land. Sailor’s tales of a despicable curse lifted and blissful reuniting – mud-encrusted and feed littered children locked in the embrace of their joyous and emotion-wrought parents throughout several households in Kellee, Tepest. Fortune and benevolence did not grace every house, however, as the Malone residence – a dilapidated and silent structure serving as a reminder of the pestilence and wickedness of the Inquisition’s objective, the Fey, remained dark and uninhabited. The search for a missing child, the one piglet that did not return whole and home, weighs heavily on the alcohol-laden breath of sailors returning. Though what the child would have to return to, given a derelict and shattered home, remains a mystery.