Connects to: 29.07.02 and 30.12.01.
Some way east of Stargazer Keep, (19.04) on the borders of the Kingswood, lies a small gully called Dun’s End. At the end of the gully there is an old oak door set into the rock. The door is not locked, but no man who has passed through it has ever returned to speak of what lies on the other side. The following story is told of the door’s origin:
Some hundred years ago, an orcish reaver named Vartan Montra-Brey roamed the foothills of the Grey Mountains near here. Though he preyed upon trader and freeholders, his chief delight was in hunting and robbing the elves of the Kingswood. This proclivity has been passed down to his rather more respectable grandson, Brigadier Kalas Montra-Brey (30.12.01). One summer, Vartan began consulting with the sages of the Grey Mountains, and through this hatched a plan to make a daring and unprecedented strike against the elves. Choosing Dun’s End as a good site for an ambush, Vartan employed certain obscure rituals (involving a virgin girl and a basket of delicious apples) to lure the unicorn of the Kingswood (29.07.02) out into the gully. While the virgin girl stroked the unicorn and Vartan’s band of orcs lay in wait, the clock struck noon.
As was bound in the bargain by that fey prince of old, a door to the Holt of the elves (29.07) was forced to open where the unicorn was grazing. Expecting this, Vartan had set up a wooden door without a frame and propped it against the rock wall. At the moment of noon, the door fused to the stone and became as it is today - a portal into one of the fey paths. Vartan’s bandits leapt up from their hiding-spots and rushed through the door. Their goal was nothing less than a surprise attack on the Holt, the capital of the elves itself.
Unfortunately for Vartan, their coming had been expected. See, the virgin girl involved in the ritual had recently become smitten with a young elvish hunter (some tales say a huntress) and had told her lover the secret of Vartan’s plan. In response, the pathfinder-mages of the Holt decided to unbind this particular path, redirecting it from the Holt into somewhere…else. None can say where the door leads now, but none of Vartan’s group ever returned.
As for the girl who had betrayed him - rumor has it that she was blessed by the Bloodied King for aiding his people, and granted eternal youth so long as she remained within the Holt. But whether she lives there still - and whether she retains the heart of her fey lover - is a mystery.
Hooks:
- What’s on the other side of the door?
- Who are the sages of the Grey Mountains?
- What exactly is a pathfinder-mage?
- What happened to the girl and her lover?
