On the orders of Duke Finlaud, the king’s older brother, my companions and I set out on an expedition. Our objective was to explore and evaluate the Grimwood region and determine how viable it would be to create a settlement there.
The Grimwood region extended across the northern border of the country of Doma, which made up the entire southern tip of the continent. Numerous smaller countries lay to the north of the forest, but because the Grimwood was considered exceedingly dangerous, none had ever made an attempt to settle it. In fact, most here in Doma seemed to think that the terrifying creatures that infested the woods served as an effective deterrent against war.
The duke struck me as a man of great ambition. I was sure he sought the great renown that would come with such an expansion, but who would he ever get to live there? Unless the entirety of the forest were destroyed, and all the hostile creatures living within perished, nobody would ever feel safe there. Our band of mercenaries was rated highly by the association, but parties like ours were uncommon. You’d never find enough people with our strength to populate a whole village. But regardless, I was happy to take the money that was offered, so I kept my doubts about the mission to myself.
At first, the expedition went much as expected. It took more than three days to travel to the Grimwood on foot. Horses would’ve made the journey faster, but we wouldn’t have had any way to keep them for the journey home. Traveling on foot also cut down on the provisions we could carry, but we managed as best we could.
By the end of the fifth day, we were deep within the Grimwood. We made camp for the night, and I happened to be on watch. I heard a subtle noise from an area not too far away, so I roused my fellows. Once we were all awake and armed, we set out to investigate the noise I’d heard.
We encountered a group of strange creatures, moving stealthily through the forest. They were short, green, and pudgy. To put it bluntly, they looked a bit like exceptionally rotund goblins. Average goblins generally didn’t appear in the Grimwood, but occasionally advanced species would migrate there in search of better prey. Unlike ordinary goblins, the creatures we observed seemed to be wearing armor and carrying decent weapons, but there were only four of them, so we had them outnumbered.
I silently signaled my fellows, and we ambushed them. Just like goblins, they proved quite weak—perhaps too weak to survive on their own in these woods. Did they normally get by with stealth? When I struck the first fatal blow, the creature I was fighting vanished into tiny specks of light. Nothing was left behind. I turned to observe the rest of the battle, and the other three creatures vanished in exactly the same way when they were defeated.
I’d never heard of such goblins appearing in the Grimwood before, and I’d never heard of any monster just vanishing into twinkling light when it was killed. I worried that this was an ominous sign of things to come. If these were illusions, they were on a different level than any I’d seen before, and the caster must have still been around somewhere. Creatures that could create illusions or cause hallucinations were rare, and always problematic.
Even if those creatures really were some other species, something told me we hadn’t seen the last of them. But my fellows seemed to be in high spirits, so I kept my concerns to myself. It seemed I was the only one who thought much of the way the creatures had disappeared. It also concerned me that they’d obtained weapons and armor from somewhere. I’d never seen a goblin wear armor before, and when they did have weapons, they usually weren’t maintained very well. Goblins typically looted weapons from people unfortunate enough to fall in battle against them, but didn’t know how to take care of them properly. It was common to see goblin weapons covered in rust and dents.
The way those creatures carried themselves, on the other hand, was frighteningly similar to the way humans did. Their weapons, while not amazing, were at least decently maintained. Considering the odd shape of their bodies, their armor couldn’t have been left behind by any unfortunate human warriors. Who would make armor for such creatures? Did they have their own settlement in the area? The longer I thought about it, the more questions arose.
My men were much more carefree. They easily accepted all the strangeness and went about their business. We broke camp at dawn, and continued deeper into the forest.
During the sixth day of the expedition, we came across the remains of an armed bear. These were regarded as one of the most dangerous creatures in the Grimwood. With their durable armor-like hides and their knifelike claws, they were a threat even to seasoned warriors like us. As to why they were called “armed bears,” and not “armored bears,” there was an old story about how they got their name. From a distance, they looked very much like humans wearing armor. A scout for a large military expedition into the Grimwood reported seeing a group of “armed men” in the forest. When this military faction surrounded the “armed men” and tried to confront them, one of the soldiers yelled out, “Those aren’t armed men, they’re armed bears!” The name stuck.
These remains, however, were completely inexplicable. It looked as though the creature had been blasted apart somehow. What could have happened? There were bits and pieces of it everywhere, almost as if something inside of it had exploded. If there was something in the Grimwood that could do this to an armed bear, humans would never be able to conquer this place.
In the afternoon, one of the men spotted something completely unexpected.
“Hegram!” he called out. “Take a look at that!”
I peered through the gap in the forest canopy he was pointing through, and I must admit, I couldn’t contain my shock.
“A tower?”
There had never been any reports of any sort of structure being found in the Grimwood. If these were some sort of ruins from a long-extinct civilization, it would be an unprecedented discovery. What unknown treasures might lurk inside? Valuable artifacts, jewelry, ancient weapons forged with lost techniques from precious metals... Even the building itself could potentially hold some value if it could be repurposed for military use. With these possibilities in mind, we set out for the mysterious tower.