It loomed there up on the mountain, like a hawk looking down on its prey.
Nobody would go near it. Few would ever even speak of it.
And those who would? Well, they weren't exactly the pleasant type.

I stepped into the tavern and was greeted by the stench of unwashed bodies and alcohol. The place was a mess. People talking over each other. Barmaids rushing to and from tables. I scanned around for the guy I was meeting. Middle aged man, bearded, rough work clothes. That would be... Everyone. I was told he always had a knife stuck in the table. There, in the corner.

I walked over to the corner. "You Gethin?"

"What's it to you?" Gethin said, looking down at the table.

"I was told you know something about the mansion."

"Bad news that place, the man who owned it?" He said."Secretive fella, had all kinds of strange business going on around there."

"Whatever happened to him?" I said. Maybe this one who actually have something useful.

"S'pose the old man Grimm must've died up in that there mansion. He aint left since before I was alive." Gethin waved his tankard toward the window. Out there was the forest spread behind the village, the mountain towering above it. And halfway up, there sat the mansion, a blight of wood and shingles on a rocky outcropping.

"Why didn't anyone go up there and visit him?" I said, taking the seat across from Gethin.

"He don't have relations or nothin'. But here's where things get real interestin'." He glanced at the others. "Now don't go telling people I said this, boy, but up there is a great treasure. Ancient and mighty powerful, but no one can get at it cause of a curse."

He leaned back and took another swig. "Now run along boy, can't give you all my secrets."
I'd gotten all I could out of him, as much as that was.

I left my seat and walked out into the rain. Gethin was the last one willing to talk. I'd asked every other drunkard, lowlife, and teller of tall tales. No one had any answers. If it wasn't curses it was ghosts. I looked at myself in a puddle in the road. Green eyes and dark hair, they said that meant I was strong-willed. It didn't mean anything. Not everything could be attributed to just ghosts and hair color.

I continued my hike down the muddy road. My mother would worry if I were out too long.
"Ithel, where you headed?" I started and turned around to see Celyn running up to meet me.

"Just walking home." I said, as he fell in beside me.

"Were you out interviewing people again? Who was it this time?"

"Gethin, he wasn't any help." I sighed.

"If your mother finds out, you're in trouble."

"I just... got to know. We've lived our whole lives in the shadow of that place, it's always been this taboo thing. Why?" I said stopping to look up at it.

"Well, what if you went there?"

"Weren't you just talking about how much trouble I'd be in for just mentioning it?"

"Yeah, if she found out. Live a little dangerously."

"Perhaps I should..." I said. I would finally get answers. "To the depths with it. Let's go."

Celyn's grin spread ear-to-ear. "Meet by the tree?"

"Meet by the tree."

As we parted ways I shivered, but not from the rain. Tomorrow, everything would change.

I stared at the rafters as I laid in bed. I could feel the straw poking through the mattress. The early morning sun shone through the window above my head, casting a spotlight in the otherwise dark loft. Time to get a move on. I pulled on my clothes. Here in Ter most clothing was made from sairge, a sort of wheat-like plant, with soft fibers at the head instead of grains. The rich snobs could afford better, but since Grimm we hadn't had any of those. I grabbed the bag I'd packed the night before and slung it over my shoulder. Reaching under the bed I grabbed my life's work, a book titled; Aloysius Grimm, The Truth. Everything I learned about him I put in that book. Most of the pages were blank.

I headed down the stairs and crept out the backdoor, trying to avoid catching my mother's attention.

"Ithel, can you haul some water in before you go?" She said, lifting the pot onto the stove.

"Alright." I sighed. I dropped my bag and grabbed the pail. I walked to the well, noticing a gathering over by the village. Yggsil traders must have come to town, I thought pulling the pail back up. Odd little fellows, I'd never met one taller than a guy's knee. They'd come with some harvesting contraption or planter to barter for foods. Always a big deal for a town full of farmers. I headed back into the house and set the pail on the kitchen table. "I'm headed out Mom."

"Don't you want breakfast?" She said, slicing a loaf of bread.

"I've got a busy day, so I packed breakfast last night." I said about to leave.

"Bye Ithel!" Said Anwen coming into the kitchen to help our mother. She was too little to be of much real help, but she still tried.

"Bye!" I said. There was a bounce in my step that I hadn't felt before as I begun my journey. I could feel the glares of the others my age as I walked through the village. Here in Ter it's decided from birth whether you get a "pure" trade or an ordinary one. Me and Celyn were the only ones who got a pure trade in our village, that's why we never had to get an apprenticeship, or work on a farm. My trade was Alchemy, Celyn had Mechamancy, it would be a few more years before either of us went into training.

I left the village and begun to walk up the hill. No taller than a house, the hill had an old apple tree that we'd met under since childhood. As much fun as having next to no responsibilities was it left us with a lot of free time to spend. And as I got older I ended up spending much less time playing games, and more asking questions. The mansion being one, and even my religion. Why did only a select few get a pure trade? We were told that our god Ternyll needed warriors to fight for him, and the "pure" would be those people. But that didn't answer why some were pure and others weren't. I was soon interrupted from my internal ramblings by Celyn's cheerful voice, as he saw me reach the summit.

"Ithel! Took you long enough, I was worried you were having second thoughts." He was leaned against the tree.

"Nothing will keep me away from that mansion, you should know that."

And with a laugh from Celyn we took off down the hill. The forest stood guard a ways ahead. The sun shone down on the forest, yet from this distance it seemed none broke through the canopy. I had never been even this close before. Getting even nearer I noticed how much taller the trees were, I'd never seen anything tower so far above. They seemed to touch the clouds themselves. We came to a stop right at the edge, looking deep into the shadowed woods.

I looked at Celyn, before taking the first step into the wood. This was it, beyond here would be the mansion. I heard the crunch of leaves as my boots hit the forest floor.

"You notice that too?" I said, shivering a little bit.

"Notice what?" Celyn said, shooting me a look.

"It's so much colder now" I said, looking around. There was an occasional shaft of light that punctured the otherwise impenetrable forest roof. The only other light was a strange mushroom that glowed dim blue along the floor.

"There's no sun beating down on us, why wouldn't it be colder?"

"It just doesn't feel right..." I glanced around. Everything seemed to move, like a hunter stalking. I heard something behind me, and looked over my back. There was a figure there, behind a bush. It was motionless, yet I could feel it looking at me. "Celyn!" I said, turning to point back there.

"What is it?" He said, looking where I was pointing.

"There was a figure back there, I'm sure." I said. Whatever was in the darkness was gone now.

"You're letting things go to your head, there's nothing there." He looked to me with a reassuring smile.

"You're right." I said. There was nothing there, a spooky atmosphere is all you need to scare someone.

"We'll be out of here and onto the mountain soon, it shouldn't be much further now." Said Celyn. It appeared the atmosphere didn't have the same effect on him.

We came to a knoll overgrown with weeds. The foliage overhead broke, casting light down and revealing a ruin atop it, behind it sat a house. Out to the sides a row of fallen buildings were lined up facing a main road. Homes covered in vines, no one living there but the nature that had taken it. Shops with windows shattered, some closed by the trees that had grown out through the doors.

"Was this... A village?" Said Celyn, "Why haven't we heard about it?"

I looked around, noting how much more developed this had been than our village. Stone buildings, where we had only wood. Brick roads, when we had only dirt. Houses with three stories, where we had, at best, only two.

I looked at the house in front of us. "Do we go in?"

Celyn paused for a moment. "Lets do it."

We entered the building, stepping carefully to avoid falling through the rotted floorboards. The main entryway had an arch either side. To the left it opened up into a living space, the ceiling was caved in, and a mound of rubbish was piled in the center. Straight ahead was a staircase, but it had long since crumbled, leaving nothing but the top step to hang. To the right was a dining hall, which was mostly still intact. There were chairs sat around a central table made of a dark wood, being feasted on by moss and mold. The plaster walls were stained by water and the roof sagged. We stepped into the room.

"There's so much left to rot. Whoever abandoned this place was in a hurry." I said, examining a liquor cabinet that still had half empty bottles in it. I turned to see Celyn in front of the fireplace that sat at the end of the room. He looked up at a coat of arms hung above the mantle. On it was painted a wooden shield with an automaton depicted kneeling, it's sword thrust into the ground. Celyn pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket, it had the same emblem embroidered on it. He stared into space.

"There's a backdoor over there, do you want to leave?" I said, pointing to the entry into the kitchen.

"Yeah... That might be best." He said looking down at the cloth in his hand. After a moment Celyn stuffed it back into his pocket and walked into the kitchen, with me following. Celyn didn't have any parents, he was found in a basket left in the village with no note, just that cloth, or so the story goes. We were too young to remember any of it.

I grabbed the door handle and pulled. "It's stuck. Can you give me a hand?"

"Ithel..." Celyn said. "Turn around."

I turned. There it was, the shape from behind the bush. It stood at the other end of the dining room motionless. So still the world itself seemed to pause for it. The thing looked like a cloak of night, with a fuzzy outline not unlike that of a human. It had no features beyond a single, sharp point of white light in the center of it's chest. And in that point of light seemed to be everything, the world, the stars. Twisting, yet still. And from it rose that which is good, evil, and every shade in between. Dark, yet light.

The world turned gray, and seemed to move once more. And the thing came closer. I bolted for the kitchen counter, nothing but pure fear moving me forward. I scrambled for something I could use, a weapon, a way out, anything. There, a knife and a pot. I picked up the knife.

"Catch!" I said, throwing the knife to him.

He caught it just as the thing reached the doorway. Celyn thrust the knife into the creature. The thing stopped, everything turned gray again, and the wall begun to shift and spasm. For a second I was able to see through it, as if it was glass. I had no time to waste. Picking up the pot I threw as hard as I could toward the back window. It shattered.

"We need to get out." I said, grabbing Celyn and shoving him toward the window. The thing was still frozen, as if in shock at what had happened. Celyn made it outside and I soon followed.

"We... we need to head home. I don't want to stay out here." I said, looking back at the house.

"I..." Celyn was interrupted by the sound of the house collapsing. It boomed through the forest. The wood crunched and the bricks clattered as it all came tumbling down. It was so sudden, we didn't cause it, did we? As the ear-splitting racket died down, and the house was left as rubble, I breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing could survive both being stabbed and having a house crash down on it. At last we were safe again.

"So we head back?" Said Celyn, turning to face me. "We admit defeat, and walk home?"

Then I saw it, rising from the wreckage. Standing no taller than me, yet bigger than the trees surrounding it. "No, we RUN."

Celyn looked back towards the ruins. The color drained from his face. The thing had lived. It stood atop what was left of the house, knife still hanging from it's chest. It moved closer, the world becoming gray again. In that instant we bolted. I didn't know where we were going. I didn't care, anywhere but here.

I could hear nothing but my own heartbeat and the thump of our boots as we ran. I didn't dare look back, I didn't want to know if it was still there. The forest that had seemed cold earlier now felt hostile. Like every branch was reaching down to grab me. The mushrooms on the floor give no light, they only showed me what I didn't want to see. 

"Is it getting steeper?" Said Celyn, lifting himself up a small cliff. Our journey had become far more vertical. "We should be going downhill to get home."

"We've been going the wrong way." I said, pulling myself up as well. "We'll just have to get out the other side and skirt around the forest."

"That will take days!"

"Do you have a better idea?" I yelled. "Do you want to go back and see the creature?"

"Quiet! It's going to hear us."

I kept walking, I didn't care. Soon the trees became sparser, and then the forest broke. We were  near the mansion. Something else I noticed was the setting sun. It was almost below the horizon. Had we been in there that long?

"There's no sign of the creature, should we go to it?" Said Celyn, pointing to the mansion.

"Might as well get what we came for." I said. I knew it was wrong to be so cold to Celyn, but I didn't care. I was some mixture of scared, angry, and tired.

The mansion was a short hike away, and by the time we reached it the moon had rose partway in the sky. I stood in front of it, feeling something strange. It was made of a foundation of stone, which then transitioned to wood. The roof a black slate. The windows embellished with metals. It was massive. Six stories towered above me. Two wings spread out to the left and right. In the center was a double door thrice my height. This was it. We walked up onto the front porch. I peered into one of the windows.

"Great there are curtains blocking it." I said, looking over at Celyn. He was pushing the door open.

"We can... Look... Through here." He said, exerting himself to push the oversized door open.

"What are you doing?" I hurried to the door. "If that thing was in the woods who knows what will be inside the mansion. We need to leave."

With a groan the door opened, casting moonlight onto a grand entryway. Dark varnished wood floors, and red carpet led up to a double staircase. And not a thing was rotted either.

Celyn turned away from the door to face me. "We have one chance Ithel, don't you want to take it? No... No!" He turned pale, his eyes wide.

I looked behind me. There it was again, the thing, standing on the porch stairs. "No! Celyn, this is your fault. You wanted to come here!"

"Where do we..." I shoved him toward the open door before he had a chance to finish. He grabbed my arm and pulled me in with him. We hit the hard mansion floor together, then begun to go down. We were sinking through the wood, like it was quicksand. I struggled against it trying to pull myself back up. Before my head went under I saw the thing once more, standing in the doorway. Then I broke through the bottom and fell.

We were falling down something. I couldn't see anything in the pitch black. I could feel it in my stomach as I dropped faster. Reaching out I grabbed Celyn's arm. "Celyn, I'm sorry..." I heard no reply but the smack as our bodies crumpled to the ground.