Adventure of Puppet

The muddy stones suddenly tremble beneath your boots. Along the road, dead ward-stones flare with blue fire, their light bending away from the shrine and toward you.

Warmth drains from the lane. The temple bells remain silent while blue radiance gathers around your shadow, tugging at it as though something beneath the earth has found a handle.

Sava steps between you and the shrine, her copper-green body shielding you from the dead stones. One clawed hand closes around your cloak as the blue fire climbs your shadow.

Behind Sava, the six monster girls hold the road but do not advance. Their faces shine blue as the ward magic thins, drawn from the shrine for some greater working beyond sight.

The pull tightens around your feet. Sava braces herself in the trembling lane, but the radiance continues gathering at your shadow, leaving the next choice and its cost before you.

You follow Sava as she advances through the trembling lane, keeping pace despite the blue pull wound around your shadow. The road carries you beyond the shrine's open threshold and its immediate reach.

A sharp stone slips beneath your boot. You catch yourself against Sava's arm, scraping your palm and leaving a thin smear of blood, but you do not lose your footing or your chosen direction.

Behind you, the six monster girls remain clustered near the shrine road. Their voices fade beneath the bells' silence as Sava leads you around a bend and between leaning ash trees.

As Sava glances back toward the fading voices, you twist beneath her clawed arm and wrench your cloak free. The sudden effort tears the fabric at your shoulder.

You sprint around the bend between the ash trees, boots striking wet stones. A hidden root catches your foot, and you hit the ground hard enough to bruise your knee, but momentum carries you beyond Sava's reach.

Sava does not catch you. She remains behind the bend, one hand lowered, while the blue radiance still clings faintly to your shadow and the distance between you holds.

Their cry fades behind the trees. You are away from Sava for now, limping only slightly as the road descends into a darker stretch of forest.

You drive onward through the darkening ashwood, favoring your bruised knee as the road drops toward a valley. Beyond the trees, a thatched farm glimmers beside pale grazing fields.

Then the road ends at a ravine. Springwater churns far below, carrying half the old bridge away; the remaining timbers sag too widely apart for a safe crossing.

Blue radiance crawls over the stones behind you, faint but persistent, while the distant forest answers with the crack of pursuing footsteps. The road offers no second path around the gorge.

Across the gap, a woman’s lowing call rises from the farmyard, followed by the clatter of a closing gate. Whoever tends that place has heard the commotion, but remains beyond reach.

Your knee throbs as you approach the broken bridge. The nearest intact beam shudders under your first testing step, and the ravine wind pulls coldly at your torn cloak.

You slip from the ravine path into the farm’s shadow, using stacked hay and a leaning shed to vanish from the road. Your bruised knee protests, but the hiding place holds.

A young adult woman named Rowan, with a small scar at her chin steps from the farmhouse, broad-shouldered and sun-browned, with dark braided hair, a green wool dress, and a silver milking charm at her belt. She pauses beside the haystack.

The woman’s gaze settles precisely on your hiding place. Behind you, pursuit cracks through the ashwood, but the farmyard’s gate and sheds conceal you from the road.