Candle Keep - The Hollow Way

Walking the Hollow Way invites the beguiling influence of the fae.

Despite the lack of tree cover, shadows lengthen and soon you find yourself in near darkness beneath a thick canopy. Glowing specks of colored light appear all around you, fall like snow, and disappear. The lights start out white and yellow, then progress to blues, reds, greens, and purples. They are always just out of reach. Some sway back and forth like snowflakes, others slowly fall straight down before winking out.

Behind you, the forest closes in, driving you forward.

As you continue, small clicks, clacks, and other sounds gently call out all around you. Try to approach the sides of the road and the plants grow thick, spined, and menacing. Glowing eyes and flashes of teeth shine out of the darkness. It is forward or nowhere.

Then the voices come, soft and childlike, whispering a sing-song cadence in an unknown tongue. As you continue, they grow louder and more threatening. The strange language takes hold in your mind and, like removing cotton from your ears, the muffled words begin to ring clear. You feel an intense sense of foreboding and creeping terror ...

Hush now, hide, all you little ones

Rush now, into the middle of nowhere

Singing and laughter will die

Dreamless sleep, follows the Nowhere King

When his kingdom comes, darkness is nigh

Quiet, crawl to the in-between

Silent, secretive feeling

Of fearsome hatred that reaches the skies

You will bring joy to the Nowhere King

When he sees the light leaving your eyes.

An opalescent mist begins to pour out of the forest, enveloping you in a clammy coldness that tickles up your spine. You feel your breathing get faster as strange shapes move half-seen through the fog at the edges of your vision. You call out to your companions but no answer. 

Despite being on a road you know is only a few dozen feet across, no matter which direction you walk you encounter no one and nothing. A dull buzz and rapid thumping sound fill your ears and you realize in the total silence you are hearing your own heartbeat. You run, trying to find something, anything. Even an enemy to fight would help to ground you in this senseless, silent gray nightmare. Through the fog, you see a brightness in the distance. As it nears and grows larger, the light becomes painfully intense. A pinpoint of utter blackness appears in the middle of the light and grows to swallow it, an impossibly thin ring of white-hot brightness the only remainder as you finally reach it. You tumble into the darkness and, suddenly, all is bright.

You feel a gentle breeze and the warm sun shining down on you. Birds chirp, leaves rustle, the sound almost deafening after the utter silence moments before. You look around and realize you stand a few feet further down the Hollow Way. As you take a step, the shadows lengthen …