“We heard the clicking long before we saw her… and by then, it was far too late.”
“We followed the honey.”
That’s how the report began—written in shaking hand on damp parchment, tucked between pages in a salvaged field journal. What was left of the team was found days later, wax-sealed and glassy-eyed, beneath a canopy of flowers that shouldn’t have been blooming.
They had entered the Forgotten Grove just before dusk, drawn by reports of unnatural sweetness in the air. An old apiarist had spoken of hives the size of barns, long-abandoned, dripping golden rot. “Don’t listen to the hum,” he had warned, eyes clouded with pollen-dust memory. “That’s not bees anymore.”
The expedition was simple—catalog the surviving flora, retrieve a few honey samples for the Institute.
Then came the scent.
Sweetness that stuck to the teeth, heavy and perfumed like decay wrapped in nectar. Some claimed they could hear music beneath it, like flutes played through bone. One by one, their senses dulled. Voices slurred. Feet forgot to move.
When they finally saw her—The Honeydrip Fien—it was too late.
She emerged slowly from a curtain of golden wax, her body glistening, armored in hardened comb. Wasp-thin and crowned in honey-slick horns, her arms moved like liquid smoke. From her spine hung dripping tendrils of hive-wax and antennae. Her breath carried the pheromone burst—an invisible gasp that rooted the men in place, their lungs filled with sweetness too rich to survive.
One reached for his blade, and she hummed. Just once.
That’s all it took.
His hand turned to wax. Then the rest followed.
The others watched, unable to scream, as she leaned close, whispering hymns in a language only flowers could understand. She did not eat them. She preserved them. Left them standing in the grove like forgotten candles, slowly hardening, golden tears frozen mid-fall on their cheeks.
The last sentence of the journal:
“If you smell honey in the dark, don’t breathe in. She’s waiting for the bloom.”
The Forgotten Grove is located in the southern region of Vort’Naal, nestled between the Fungal Reaches and the Sallowmire Thicket.
🗺️ Placement on the Map:
- 📍 South-Central Vort’Naal
- Surrounded by:
- West: Fungal Reaches – spores drift in from there, giving the grove an eerie luminescent glow at night.
- East: Sallowmire Thicket – swamp gases often mix with the honeyed air, making the scent even more hallucinogenic.
- North: A fading path from The Withering Canopy leads to the grove, nearly overgrown.
- South: Closer to the edge of Vort’Naal, near The Silent Ashfields, where bees once migrated before the fires.
Author notes:
The Forgotten Grove used to be a thriving corridor of apiaries and rich flora, but after a mysterious fungal blight and a sudden disappearance of the beekeepers, the forest consumed the land back. Now, twisted trees ooze honey instead of sap, and the buzzing never stops—but no one sees the bees.
“The Walls Moved at Night”
Entry #9 – Third Night – Northeastern Watch Post
I haven’t slept.
It’s not the cold. It’s the scratching.
It started as something faint—like rats in the roof beams. But last night, it got closer. Deeper. I swear it’s under the floorboards now.
I sealed the shutters. Lit every damn candle. But around midnight, it begins: frantic, erratic scratching from within the walls. It’s not trying to get out.
It’s trying to find something.
This morning, I found claw marks across the cellar door—inside the cellar. I’ve never opened that door.
Entry #10 – Fourth Night – No Moon
Heard it again. No, felt it. Like claws on the inside of my spine.
Around the third hour, I lost myself. Rage poured through me like fire in my chest. I screamed at the walls. Tore my own books apart. I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but when I woke—my hands were bleeding. But they weren’t the only ones.
There were new marks on the ceiling. From the inside.
Entry #11 – Fifth Night – Final
Tonight, I saw it. Just a sliver—an eye glowing like mold behind rotting wood. Long limbs bent wrong. Claws twitching like they were hungry. It smiled at me. I think.
I can hear it now. Above me.
Below me.
Inside.
If I hurt someone tonight… please burn the post.
Whatever it is, it claws until you’re hollow, too.
Location: Upper Northeastern Vort’Naal – shadowed border between The Withering Canopy and the Hollow Bastion.
🗺️ Map Placement Notes:
- North of Withering Canopy, where the trees are thinned into tall, hollow trunks with ancient ladders leading nowhere.
- West of Hollow Bastion, where old ruins and towers provide crawlspaces and empty attics.
- Known landmarks: Collapsing watchtowers, long-abandoned guard posts, wind-bent trees like fingers.
🕯️Author notes:
Probably will name this microregion “Splinterhold” or “The Creaking Verge”—a liminal haunted zone on the map, perfect for nocturnal horrors that live within wood and stone.
“When the Fog Began to Bleed”
Recovered from the waterproof lining of a guide’s rucksack. Owner presumed shredded.
Day 1 — Shoreline Near the Boathouse
The lake was supposed to be dead quiet—no fish, no birds, no signs of life.
But the reeds are bent like something crawls through them often. Something heavy. And I swear I saw feathers nailed to the inside walls of the boathouse. Swan feathers. Torn. Stiff with some resin.
They say a man once lived here, obsessed with grace, with flight, with transformation. Something about the lake broke him.
Day 2 — The Howl in the Fog
I woke up choking. The fog had thickened and wrapped itself inside the cabin. The sound came next—a screech that made my bones vibrate. Not loud. Deep. Like it cracked me from the inside.
I glimpsed him. Tall, twisted. Broad shoulders hunched beneath matted wings, arms like paddles lined with claws. A neck too long for a man, too solid for a bird.
He didn’t chase. He just stood. And screamed again.
Day 3 — Torn Sky
He found me again near the shore. I tried to run, but the water pulled back like a gasp and the fog thickened behind me. I heard wings. Not flapping—tearing.
I turned to look. His eyes… not dead. Worse. Grieving.
He isn’t hunting because he’s hungry.
He’s hunting because something took his name… and he wants it back, piece by piece.
He was once a man.
Now he is The Swanretched—the scream of a body that refuses to die with dignity.
Proposed Zone Name: The Lacustrine Murk or Dreadwake Reaches
🗺️ Environment Notes:
- Dense, lingering fog
- Collapsed docks and silent water
- Reeds that sway without wind
- Feathers, bones, broken boat fragments scattered along the shore
- Dream-distortion effects for nearby travelers (hallucinations, déjà vu, auditory dread)