Oaken Arcana

🌫️ ☾   You  are  𝕝 𝕠 𝕤 𝕥 .

It's this confounded fog. It came out of nowhere, roiling in with the moonrise, transforming well-known territory into a bewildering whitescape. Now unfamiliar earth squelches under each stride as you stumble blindly through rustling yellow tallgrass, your pelt snagging on briarscrub. Even the air is inscrutable, thick with the scent of mud. Somewhere above, the lonely shrill cry of a hawk punctuates the solitude.

A susurrus among the brush-tipped rushes alerts you too late, as a dun blur surges straight for you, colliding and sending you tumbling downhill, plunging into icy murk. You resurface, sputtering, and the tooth-bared maw of a looming she-wolf snaps urgently, "Hsst! Hush!"

Stilled by instinct, your ears prick as the wind picks up suddenly; there is a booming sound as of mighty wings beating, and a crash in the underbrush uphill rings out across the moor, followed by a frustrated shriek.

Grimly you stare into the dark eyes of your companion in danger-filled silence, until the sound of wings recedes and the eerie stillness of the fog-laden marshland returns.

"You were lucky," she whispers. "That was no mere eagle, but a great Roc. He has eyes like mine, and can see through the fog." Her eyes glint an 𝒶𝓇𝒸𝒶𝓃𝑒 light. "You are far from home, aren't you, wayfarer? Not many make it this far without meeting an ill fate. You find yourself, stranger, in 𝐅𝐞𝐲 𝐅𝐞𝐧."

You mutter assent and begrudge gratitude as you both shake the cold muck from your pelts. "Come, we will walk the streambed to hide our scent from the Roc, and other fell beasts besides. I know where to find some sunshine," she says simply, setting off. You follow the burbling rill until you reach the base of a rocky bluff that switchbacks high into the fog. The dusky wolf leaps up, balancing easily on the cliff's edge, and you hurry to follow as she disappears into the mist above. Tracing her precise steps, at last you burst through the cloud onto a lichen-carpeted outcrop.

Warm rays of sun radiate across a cedar-shrouded meadow of wan grasses. From the clifftop, you can see far across the sea of mist. Here and there a craggy hilltop juts above the wind-stirred wisps, or a skeletal silhouette of sycamore peeks into the sky, blackbirds perched in its white-barked branches, but far into the distance the land is all stark and obscure.

You hear murmuring behind you, and turn to meet the mirthful moon-white gaze of a kingly golden wolf emerging from the meadow. He greets his companion with brushed muzzles, then regards you shrewdly. "Another foundling!"