The Ironwood Forest is dying from the roots upward.

Once a place of green silence and old druidic wonder, the forest now weeps black sap from ancient trunks. Deer with hollow eyes wander the paths. Birds sing backward at dusk.

Mushrooms grow from the loam in the shape of grasping hands, and those who drink from streams flowing out of Ironwood cough up dark resin before the fever takes them.

At the heart of these rumors stands the ruined underground manor and hidden woodland sanctuary of Torvid Albanon, a reclusive druid-scholar once beloved by the forest folk.

Torvid lived there with his wife, Lucinda, far from courts, villages, and curious eyes. Their home was said to be rich with old gold, stranger books, and living magic rooted deep beneath the earth.

Then Lucinda died.

No one agrees how. Some whisper illness. Others say betrayal.

A few claim that Torvid himself may be responsible an alchemy experiment gone awry?

Since then, Torvid has vanished from public sight. Some say grief drove him mad. Others say he still stalks the woods, gaunt and barefoot, begging the trees for forgiveness. Worse still are the stories of Charmund Albanon, Torvid's estranged twin brother, who is said to have entered the manor after Lucinda's death and haunts it even now.

Now adventurers vanish on the road to Ironwood. Those few who return come back pale, joyless, and drained of all warmth, speaking only of a woman's voice beneath the ground.

At dusk, as you near the forest's edge, a pale figure appears beneath a dead tree. She is beautiful, sorrowful, and fading at the edges into moth-white ash.

She looks at you and whispers:

'Please. Do not let him make me wake.'

Then she is gone.

Somewhere beneath the dying roots, a ritual has begun.

Somewhere in the dark, love has curdled into possession.

And unless someone enters Ironwood soon, the forest will not be the last thing to rot.