Blackwood Bog breathes cold mist over the water, and the dead watch from the reeds, pale shapes preserved in the acid-dark mire. Imogen reaches the edge of the peat, boots sinking at the bank, when a fresh mound ahead begins to pulse like something alive under skin.
A man stands knee-deep in the sludge, hands clawed raw by frantic digging. He jerks his head up, wild-eyed, as the mound shudders again.
The Spiritualist
Stay back! Do not come any closer!
The Spiritualist
It is manifesting. The prophecy is already under the mud!
The peat splits with a wet sigh, and something beneath it presses upward, slow and patient, like a fist testing a coffin lid. The smell that rises is iron, rot, and old rain.
Imogen
The mound is moving on its own.
The spiritualist staggers backward, nearly losing his footing, one hand reaching toward Imogen as if for help and the other still trembling over the hole he tore open.
The Spiritualist
If you can hear me, whatever you are, do not answer it. Please. You must choose, now.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn the true origin of the nightmare
“Step closer to the mound to see what is pushing through the peat.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled +0)
Imogen steps off the bank and onto the trembling peat. The surface gives under her boots, but holds. Up close, the mound is not earth at all, it is a skin of churned mud flexing over something that breathes beneath it.
A pale ridge presses up from below, then a second shape, narrow and jointed, like fingers finding the underside of a lid. Black water wells around the torn edge in little shivering rings.
Imogen
It is not a natural swelling.
The Spiritualist
Do you see it now? I did not make this. I only named what was already sleeping here.
The peat splits wider. For one awful instant, a wrapped shape glistens in the opening, bound in roots and old silt, then the mud slumps and hides it again.
The Spiritualist
It began with the burial ground. Something was dug up, something promised, and the bog took the vow instead of the dead.
The mound pulses once more, harder. The spiritualist recoils as a cold hand seems to seize his ankle from below, dragging him to one knee in the mire.
The Spiritualist
Imogen, if you want the truth, answer it before it finishes taking me.
“I answer the call from the bog”
SUCCESS (Great Willpower, rolled -1)
Imogen answers, and the bog answers back. The tremor in the peat steadies into a pulse, like a buried heart finding her voice.
The torn mound yaws open. Beneath the mud lies a wax-wrapped bundle lashed in black roots, and the roots twitch as if recognizing her.
The Spiritualist
It was not buried to hide it. It was buried to keep it from speaking.
His ankle jerks free by a hair, then sinks again. Cold water swallows his boot, and his face goes white with the effort of holding himself up.
The Spiritualist
That thing was named in a vow. A child was given to the bog, and the promise turned into hunger.
Imogen
A child, a vow, and something that learned to feed on both.
The mound convulses. Mud sprays across Imogen’s coat as the wrapped shape shifts once, turning its hidden face toward her voice.
The Spiritualist
Now it knows you heard it. Decide quickly, Imogen.
“I seize the wrapped bundle”
SUCCESS (Good Strength, rolled +0)
Imogen lunges into the split peat and seizes the wax-wrapped bundle with both hands. The roots snap taut, then tear free in a wet shudder, and the thing comes up against her grip.
Black water splashes her sleeves. The bundle is heavier than it looks, and a strip of wax peels under her thumb, cold as bone.
The Spiritualist
No, wait, do not unseal it here.
The bog answers with a hard pulse. Mud heaves around the torn opening, and the spiritualist loses another inch to the sucking mire.
The Spiritualist
That is the vow, Imogen. That is what was offered.
The bundle jerks in her hands, and a thin thread of black root lashes across her wrist, stinging through the mud. The seal is hers now, but the bog knows exactly who touched it.
Imogen
The wrapping is older than the peat.
+ New Item Acquired
Wax-wrapped bundle
“I ask the spiritualist what he promised”
SUCCESS (Good Psychology, rolled +1)
Imogen
What did you promise it?
The Spiritualist
A child taken from a grave, named in prayer, laid into the peat so the dead would stay quiet.
The Spiritualist
I said the bog would have what was due, if it would spare the village from the thing they dug up.
The Spiritualist
I thought it would remain a rite. I thought it would never learn my face.
His voice breaks on the last word. The bog pulses once under Imogen's boots, as if listening for the rest.
The Spiritualist
The nightmare begins there, at the burial ground. We unsealed the child, and the hunger answered back through the earth.
He looks up at Imogen, pale with shame and fear, while the mire holds him in place and waits.
Quest Complete
Learn the true origin of the nightmare
Attribute Upgrade: Strength Good→Great