The across the land of Speria there live creatures and figures of untold power and sorcery. Those that follow the light and their gods, but there are those that embrace the powers of the demons. To the north, in the lands of the frozen wastes, lie a great mountain range as old as time itself. If you were to ask the inhabitants of small village at the entrance to the frozen slopes and cliffs, they would not know its name or its paths, nor could they tell you. The men that go in, never come out, the women that go in are sent back in a plain wood box and the children...haunt their former home.

This mountain range belongs to a coven of witches. They have neither name nor would one survive the encounter with one long enough to ask. When brought up in conversation, if by unlikely chance, they are simply called the the Blue ones. The name comes from an unlikely source. A young woman, betrothed to one of the villages best hunters, was one day out gathering some winter plants when she spied in the distance an odd figure red against the blinding white background. As the figure got closer, an almost primal instinct in her told her to run. The walking stick the figure carried was a severed finger from a Frozen giant, a dangerous rank 5 pseudo calamity, and was carrying something over her shoulder.

She hid herself among the trees and waited for the figure to pass but while watching the young woman realized that the figure was carrying was a corpse and the severed finger had something attached to it. The head of her beloved. Before she could scream, the eyes of the figure had found her. Dressed in rags, young woman could fearfully make out the figure. Dressed in rags and the skins of Frozen giants, dark blue etchings carved into its arms, a mouth full of sharpened teeth, and eyes of solid black with a single glowing blue dot in the center. Those eyes, the eyes that froze one's soul, those eyes that made one tremble, locked on to the young woman like a lion eyeing its prey.

The woman ran, tumbling down snow covered hills and across ice covered streams, never being careful. Only after stumbling back into her village could she hear the ring of laughter. That night, trembling as she told her story to the elder she was taken home by a friend who promised the elder she would watch over her for the next few days. The next day, the woman was found hanging inside her home.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The story was kept quiet and the events that transpired were never spoken of. It was sworn by every man, woman and child in the village that no one should trespass into the mountain range. But as time went on, oaths were forgotten and a loose lip inside a tavern let slip. People played it off as nothing more than a simple superstition, but when the bodies began piling up, the rumors became darker. A child of no more than 11 hanging from a tree, an experienced hunter  decapitated and his own arrows stuck through his eyes, an elderly woman clawed to death.

Adventurers of little stature came and went to see if the rumors were true. None came back. The mission that once was a simple low D rank quest, was soon elevated to S and elites were sent. Finally the villagers thought, they would have some justice for their dead, but then the fears came knocking.

The ghosts of young boys and girls gone missing showed up around their homes. The bodies of those that entered the mountain range froze to death even when standing inside a blaze. But the biggest fears literally came knocking. The morning after the elite adventurers that journeyed into the mountains, the corpses of the elite adventurers were found on stakes in the center of their villages, fingerless and burnt recently. Everyone in the village had crowded the village square, many in fear and panic. Never before had the Blue ones been as bold to enter the village. This was a clear message. We can come for you. You won’t hear us. And your best warriors can do nothing. All signed in a finger, for when everyone went home that day, they would find one finger from one of the elite adventurers, somewhere in their home.

And so, the regional lord declared the area off limits and enforced his word with armed guards. The villagers all quietly left for warmer climates, and the stories left secret. And so as a tradition of the Blue ones to remind all that live there, every year, during the season of pouring on the 31st of the month of rain, a man would be taken from the village. His body burned in the center of the square and his fingers scattered somewhere throughout the village, and the Blue ones that committed the act were never seen and never heard.