The Village

The Village.1

Giedrius, the Land of Demons.


A formerly powerful country laid to ruin twenty years ago with the twin eruptions of hellfire from Fulke Mountain and the Desert of Shifting Sands.


Our story starts here, on the Western border of Giedrius, in the Forest of Demons within which the Village of Partha is nestled. This little village high up in the wooded mountain ranges past Fulke Mountains is remote and secluded, guarded at three sides by the Forest.
Little do the people care for the Demons of the Forest, but little do they hate them.  They go only as far as needed for supplies in the forest and avoid intruding upon the Demons' territories.

The Demons of the Forest guard the village well, but care just as little for the villagers. They drive off malicious intruders and leave the village and its inhabitants alone, staying out of sight as much as possible.

A timorous relationship to be sure, but neither side resents it and neither side cares to better the more or less tranquil lifestyle they have grown in to. Save one small exception.

Five years after the rest of the country had been thrown into turmoil, Partha Village remained more or less unchanged. The Demons of the Forest were more on edge and guarded all of their realm jealously, but Partha itself saw little change. The dark things that creeped up the path from the Fulke Mountains never left the Forest once they travelled under its eaves.

During this time, a woman gave birth to a child and died from the strain. Her husband had died months before in an accident as he gathered firewood, and the child was left to the man's brother. But the child wasn't normal. The rest of the village never understood quite what the issue was, but they all agreed on it.

The child wasn't normal.

The man's brother and his wife soon could not bear the unease the child gave them, and in a fit of paranoia abandoned him in the Forest. They were not evil people, and remorse soon overcame them and they fled into the Forest themselves to find him, but the Demons found him first. They were delighted with the child. The man's brother found them playing with the child, too enthralled with him to notice his own presence, and he left the child there.

The villagers all agreed, it was for the best. Every week they left things for the child at the edge of the Forest, and left the child to the Demons.


Fifteen years later, the village received a bird. Attached to the bird was a letter, and in that letter was a summons for the little boy who was left to Demons.

In these fifteen years, the child had grown up and was called Tiernan.