If I was journeying (Patreon)

to the North Woods to find "Wild Rebecca of the Wood," I would need to prepare myself. Dr. Cesawonki might not know about wraith-rabbits, but I knew they were sinister shadows that flitted furtively around the edges of their victim's vision just before they pounced! You had to be constantly on the lookout!

I rummaged in my Elfintory to make sure I had the supplies I would need for my trip, and happened to find the scry-orbs. They were painted to look like eyeballs. I had a dim recollection of (sometime during my long isolation) making a face out of dried grass and putting the orbs in it so I would have someone to talk to. Hopefully I would never have to resort to that again, but one never knew... I carefully put the orbs back into my Elfintory and continued taking stock of my supplies.

Once satisfied that I was ready, I changed into a suit of lowfolk-style clothes and set out. I had a small detail of Ixies accompany me - but at a discreet distance, so as not to attract attention as I roamed the lowfolk world. This was to be my biggest adventure yet!

The journey itself held little of note.

Stopped by inclement weather on the other side of Ballynure, I had to spend the night in an abandoned mansion where I met a group of lowfolk youths who had a large house-ant named Folly (after an old folk song that went "Fa la la la la, where art thou?" which the youngsters sang loudly at every opportunity.) I was initially surprised to learn that Folly could talk, but my interest waned after I realized all he could say was "Merthy thaketh, Thlovenly," to the unkempt goat lad who was apparently his master. The rest of the time he was getting underfoot and begging for "Folly treats" which were grimy lumps of sugar which Slovenly carried in his pockets. It was my misfortune to be in the mansion the same night these youths were there to investigate an alleged haunting. They spent several hours bumbling around and "investigating" only to find out the mansion wasn't really haunted at all! What a disappointment! Old man McJack, the property's caretaker, had been disguising himself as a ghost to scare away visitors and spread rumors. His goal was to drive the value of the property down so he could buy it cheap. A rather lame plot, I must say! But I suppose it takes a fool to catch a fool. I left that place feeling slightly dumber from exposure to these meddling kids and their talking pet.

After that, I decided traveling by foot was not suitable for a person of my stature, so I took a ride on a lowfolk train for the first time. Would you believe it: A grisly murder happened while I was on board. Coincidentally, there happened to be a lowfolk detective aboard as well, a clever chap named Heracles Parrot. I helped him do a little bit of detecting. He was much better at it than the doltish children I had met earlier, and it didn't take long to discover that everyone on the train except Monsieur Parrot and myself had taken part in the murder. That guy must have been unpopular. The police arrested everyone at the next station, and with no engineer we were stranded.

At that point I found out, much to my chagrin, that I had boarded the wrong train and had been traveling in the completely wrong direction. On top of that, the station was in the middle of a wild, desolate moor. Monsieur Parrot invited me to accompany him on the next train, but he was heading South and I needed to go North. I set off on foot, but once again got caught by bad weather. I was forced to spend the night in an old cabin where I met a very intense young fellow who, for some reason, had a saw instead of a hand. He was (somehow) in possession of an evil book of Netherhells lore, and of course had foolishly used it to release a bunch of evil spirits that could reanimate the dead. If I hadn't come along, he would have been in real trouble, but fortunately my knowledge of magick allowed me to dispel all of the wicked bogeys in a trice.

At that point I remembered (with a vicious smack of my own forehead)that I had the ability to teleport. I notified my Ixie escort of my intentions and simply pooked as far North as I dared. From there I again pooked to the horizon, and again, and so on until I eventually found myself at the edge of the fabled North Woods.

What would Rebecca be like? We hadn't had a chance to speak at our last brief meeting. I hoped she and Burnside hadn't changed too much. Did they still talk about me? What if they were a couple now? I tried to think of vaguely positive things to say if that were the case. What if Rebecca had taken up knife-fighting? What if Burnside managed to turn her on to the joys of gutting and filleting live victims?

It occurred to me that I might be walking into a very dangerous situation. I paused and summoned my ixies to me.

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