In the lands of Duskellfan, things were often not as they seemed. It was a land of fantasy and mystery, filled to the brim with various kinds of mystiques.

Well, for the most part, that is. Some places, places like the small village of Gnirsk, the day to day life was quite mundane. People ate, slept, worked and celebrated, and in general simply lived a good life. Yes, it wasn’t always perfect, nothing is, but the people of Gnirsk pushed through it all and held together during the tough times.

There was only one issue, one stubbornly persistent thorn in their side that the villagers couldn’t get rid of. One that they never managed to figure out the solution to. Every day, at seemingly random intervals, a deep and disconcerting rumble could be heard from deep within the forest. It happened multiple times a day, and nobody knew the cause of this disturbance. And worst of all, it wasn’t even unusual for it to sound out in the middle of the deep deep night, waking the whole village and causing unrest.

Frankly speaking, the whole of Gnirsk’s peaceful village life was turned on its head due to the forest’s strange rumble, so the villagers decided something had to be done. First, they sent a message out to a nearby town, a proper city. Surely, someone there would known what to do, right? But the messenger returned crestfallen, with no help whatsoever.

Deciding to take matters into their own hands, the people of Gnirsk assembled a small expedition, one to penetrate deep into the heart of the forest and see what was causing all the commotion. Once there, they’d put a rest to it, violently if necessary.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. For the first time in the village’s history, its complete and utter mundanity came as a detriment. As if by magic, the whole expedition got turned around within the forest and exit in the exact same space that they had entered it. But so convinced were they of the non-existence of the magical that they refused to believe anything strange could be afoot. So naturally, they tried again. After all, surely it must’ve simply been a failure on the navigator’s part, they thought. And yet, the same thing happened over and over again, no matter how many times they tried to mount an expedition.

Time passed, and the villagers were forced to get used to their daily disruptions. Simply put, the unfortunate situation would have to stay.

That is, until many moons later, when a new development occurred. As it so happens every now and then, a caravan was passing through the village of Gnirsk when the forest’s rumble resonated through the air. Now, the villagers had mostly gotten used to it by that point, some more than others, but the same could not be said about the caravanners.

Understandably, some of them panicked. Only once they saw the villagers going about their day as usual, as if nothing strange had happened and everything was normal, did they calm down. Things then continued mostly as you’d expect them to. The people form the caravan asked the people from Gnirsk some questions about what had just happened, shrugged their shoulders, then proceeded to go on with their trading.

But this is where we stop following the larger picture and instead focus on the story of one person in particular. A caravan child by the name of Sorramyna.

Now, Sorramyna wasn’t really a child. But being the youngest member of the caravan, plus having also grown up with the caravan not helping the matter, everyone else on it continued to refer to hir as kid, kiddo, or some other variant of that. But I digress.

Sorramyna had, naturally, also heard the deep rumble. How could ze not? After all, it rang out far and wide, louder than any bells of worldly make. And ze was curious. What could make such a strange and unearthly sound? A dragon, a creature ze had heard so much about on hir travels? Perhaps an otherworldly demon, trapped in the overworld? Or maybe even an Ancient, a true creature of legend?

It stood without a doubt that Sorramyna was curious. Curious and young, the deadliest of combinations. It therefore also stood without a doubt that, as a consequence of said curiosity, ze would want to find out more.

Later that night, when most of the others had already gone to sleep (some due to less natural causes than others), Sorramyna got up and quietly snuck outside. Outside the caravan, outside the village, and still further out ze went. It didn’t take long for hir to arrive by the forest, its deep depth almost physically alluring to the adventure-starved Sorramyna. With a deep breath to steel hir nerves, Sorramyna stepped forth into the arboreal labyrinth.

For a time, nothing much happened. Simply a normal walk through a normal forest. Admittedly, yes, it was night out which made it somewhat scarier, but still normal. As far as Sorramyna could tell, it was just a regular old forest. This illusion, however, did not last long.

With one slight misstep, Sorramyna’s foot caught on a protruding root, and ze fell. Surprisingly enough, at least for hir, the ground did not break hir fall. No, instead, just as ze would have impacted with the forest floor, something parted in front of hir and swallowed hir whole.

Now, worry not dear reader, for this is not the end for our intrepid adventurer.

A little bit of time passed and Sorramyna woke up in a strange and unfamiliar space. More unfamiliar than the forest already had been. The sky was, luckily enough, still dark, stars twinkling across it. Not much time could have passed. Nonetheless, Sorramyna grew worried. Ze didn’t know where ze was, and especially not how to get back back to the village. All ze could see were strange plants as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t particularly far this deep into the forest. It had practically transformed into a jungle. The plants, other than being strange, were also somewhat snake-like and covering almost every available surface. Moreover, about half of the snake-vines were also overgrown by a lush moss.

Still, there was no use despairing. As much as Sorramyna was unprepared for this adventure, ze knew from all the folk stories ze had grown up listening to that giving up was not an option. So, with a deep breath, ze stood up and once more stepped forth into the unknown.

This time, the journey was much more arduous. No longer was it a nice hike through a tame forest. Instead, Sorremyna had to force hir way through. Climbing over natural barricades, crawling beneath fallen trees of immense proportions, and in general avoiding all of the forest growth that somehow, inexplicably, always seemed to go into hir face.

But the young mind is nothing if not determined, so ze persevered. At last, ze broke through a truly dense wall of greenery to reveal a small, quaint little clearing. At the centre of which grew a truly majestic and enormous tree, thick enough that it’d take at least half a dozen people to encircle it.

Of course, Sorramyna approached it. And when ze was only a few metres away from the tree, the deep rumble that had lured hir there sounded out. Only, it was no longer a dulled and distant sound, coming from deep within the forest. No, it came from right above Sorramyna. Ze looked up, and stood shocked frozen.

The tree was not a tree at all, but the leg of a truly ginormous creature. There, right above Sorremyna, stood a humanoid that could not be described as anything other than giant.

It was an ogre, a people rarely seen in these lands. How could one have arrived here without raising a huge stir, our adventurer wondered. Ze didn’t have long to wonder, as it was right around that moment that the ogre itself spotted hir.

It started to bend down to get a better look at Sorramyna, but halfway through it stopped and let out a pained bellow. That was the sound the village had been hearing all this time. The rumble was the ogre’s cry for help.

In place of bending down further, it simply pointed deeper into the forest where a faint column of smoke could be seen rising into the sky. This did not answer many of Sorramyna’s questions, if anything, it only brought up more. Be that as it may, ze went on following the ogre’s directions regardless. Ze had come too far already to turn back now. Besides, following the ogre’s directions could only provide more of an explanation, and maybe ze would even be able to help out.

Only once Sorramyna was passing by the ogre’s leg, what ze had presumed to be the trunk of a tree, did ze see the ogre’s foot. Coincidentally, it had been entirely hidden behind the leg, but now ze could see that indeed it was no tree. The foot was so large it was almost comical, the only exception being the overgrown nails which did not look healthy at all. Still, there was no use dwelling on such things.

Into the dense jungle it was again. This time, even more obstacles came into Sorramyna’s path, and ze was sure that ze had already seen that one boulder at least a couple of times now. Yet, no matter what manner of magic and tricker was afoot, ze stayed on hir path and pushed forth.

Once more, ze pushed through a wall of greenery, and once more a clearing revealed itself before hir eyes. This one, however, did not house a huge foot disguised as a tree. At the other end of the clearing, a cosy little hut stood nestled by some trees.

The hut, more of a small cottage really, only had one single window next to its door, through which a warm light was escaping into the clearing. It would appear someone was home.

Sorramyna, ever the embodiment of the adventuring spirit, approached and fearlessly knocked on the door. For a second, there was nothing but absolute quiet. Then came some slow steps from the inside and finally, with a slow creak, the door opened.

There, in the doorway, stood a small and hunched over figure. A witch, Sorramyna thought. And while that may very well have been true, you never talk about the identity of witches, especially not in the presence of one. Sorramyna therefore smartly kept quiet about that thought and instead politely inquired about the ogre that had sent hir this way.

The witch that may not be a witch did not looked pleased by that at all. Seeing their crinkled face and gradually furrowing brows, Sorramyna did the reasonable thing and took a step back. And what good luck it is that ze did so, as in the very next moment the door slammed in hir face, and what followed would have certainly flattened hir into the earth.

Sorramyna was leaving the clearing, about to head back to the ogre, when ze heard a loud sort of cracking sound behind hirself. There, the old hut gradually rose from out of the earth, revealing itself to be stood on one massive chicken leg. The hut then promptly hopped away, heading in the direction of the ogre, bulldozing all the plant-life in its way.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When the shock wore off and the dust had settled, all that remained of the hut was a half-rotten stump of a tree in its place, along with a rusty old axe wedged inside.

Adrenaline pumping, Sorramyna hastily ran over to the stump, grabbed the axe, and hurried after the escaping hut. It wasn’t difficult at all to follow its tracks, what with the trail of destruction it had left behind, and soon ze had arrived back in the ogre’s clearing.

The clearing was almost unrecognizable. For one, it was much larger than the last time Sorramyna had seen it. Numerous trees along the edge had been torn out of the earth leaving behind naught but dirt holes. Only a lucky few trees even had stumps remaining, the rest were nowhere to be seen. In short, it was the sight of a wasteland that greeted hir.

The ogre itself, towering over the trees and now with both legs visible, stood near the middle of the carnage. It was scanning its surrounding, cautious and maybe even afraid.

When it spotted Sorremyna, it froze for a single instant. Sorremyna hirself was likewise rooted to the ground, shocked by what ze what seeing. After all, just minuted prior this had been a beautiful forest clearing and now, now it was this.

In that one instant, they both reached a silent understanding. Sadly, the moment would not last long. A familiar looking building sped out of the forest, hurtling itself at the ogre. It was the witch’s hut, propelling itself with its one giant chicken foot.

But a witch hut is not a normal hut, no matter how mundane it may look. And even once it has revealed its unusual attributes, like let’s say a chicken foot, there’s still always more to it than one may expect.

Just when the hut was about to collide with the ogre, it split horizontally in half and revealed a slobbering toothy maw. The witch was nowhere in sight. All that aside, the ogre was about to have a bite taken out of its flesh.

Or it would have, had it not known what was about to happen. The battle had been going on for some time when Sorramyna arrived, and this wasn’t the first charge the ogre had to fend off. It lifted a hand, revealing a hardy tree in its grasp, and positioned the improvised shield between itself and the hut.

The hut, unable to stop at the speed it was going, bit into the trunk of the tree. At that point the ogre lifted it alongside the tree and swung. Both of them, the tree and the witch’s hut, flew through the air far far away. There, they crash-landed and for a while, it was quiet.

Now, Sorramyna was understandably still quite shocked by this. Ze had been just a normal caravan kid not too long ago. Nothing had prepared hir for anything even resembling such a situation. Despite all that, despite being fully out of hir depth, Sorramyna acted.

Ze heaved the rusty axe and ran over to the ogre. Which was a poor choice and ze was lucky the ogre didn’t mistake that for an attack. Then, ze shouted as loud as ze could, “How do I help?”

Normally, such a shout would be futile. The ogre did not speak the language of humans, and even if it did it had not the vocal cords to reply. Normally, communication would have crashed right there and then. Normally.

But as we all know, few things are truly normal. And in it that moment, the ogre understood. What else could the little creature want but to help? What else could that hopeful look in the little creature’s eyes mean? Such did the ogre think, and so it acted accordingly.

It bent down, letting out a slightly muted bellow of pain, and held out its hand, palm up. Sorramyna tentatively laid one foot onto the palm, and when the ogre didn’t do anything, stepped fully onto it. Suddenly, ze was ascending through the air. With a groan the ogre rose to its full height, many times larger than even the tallest trees, and gently put Sorramyna onto its shoulder.

The view was incredible. All around, an emerald sea of trees extended until it met with the horizon. It as breathtaking. Except for one tiny imperfection. In one far off spot of the forest a dust trail that extended even further away could be seen. And it was getting closer. It was the witch and their hut.

With a startling realization, Sorramyna realized that all around the clearing, like the spikes of a sea urchin, there were numerous other dust trails that were only slowly settling down. The ogre must have fended off at least a dozen of those charges, ze thought.

The ogre, in the meantime, reached over to the edge of the clearing and tore another tree out of the earth. All the while it did not move from its spot one bit. Truly, ogres were a massive people.

Sorramyna was thrown out of hir reverie when the ogre made a gentle grunting noise, a decidedly different sound to its pained cries. It made a gesture with the tree, as if it was defending from the hut even though it was still minutes away. Then it pointed to Sorramyna and then to the phantom hut it was defending from. It repeated the motion a few times, making sure ze understood, before locking its sight onto the fast approaching dust trail.

Unfortunately, Sorramyna did not understand. Ze knew it wanted something from hir, but that may be was a mystery to hir. Ze wouldn’t get much time to consider it. Next thing ze knew, the hut once more dashed out of the forest, heading straight for the ogre.

Almost perfectly, the scene from before repeated. The hut split open to reveal gnashing teeth, the ogre positioned the tree trunk in front of it, and the hut bit onto the tree. However, the throw did not follow. The ogre made no move to fling the little monster house away, and the hut realized it too. Its nasty, big, pointy teeth began to churn, slowly chipping away at the tree shield.

The ogre made a panicked sound, urging Sorramyna to do what it had asked of hir, and with horror, Sorramyna realized what the ogre had been asking hir to do. But time was running out, the beastly hut was almost through the tree, and there was no room for hesitation.

Sorramyna closed hir eyes, and jumped.

The landing was surprisingly soft, the hut’s roof not the hard wood one would expect but an almost elastic material. Sorramyna took a moment to orient hirself. The hut was shaking in all directions as it was gnawing through the wood, causing hir to scramble to hold onto something or risk falling off.

With not much to hold on to at all, Sorramyna did the only reasonable thing ze could. Ze grasped tight the rusty axe and embedded it inside the roof. Then, two things happened.

One, an unexpected spray of a foul liquid burst out of the axe inflicted wound.

But more importantly, two. The hut went into a frenzy. The pain woke it up from its wood demolishing trance, causing it to realize there was something standing right atop it. Like an enraged bull, it let got of the ogre’s almost entirely demolished shield and started thrashing, trying to throw off whatever it was that had hurt it.

Meanwhile, the thing that had hurt it was not having a good time at all. Sorramyna, now completely out of hir depth, was doing everything to just hold onto the axe. Ze couldn’t even see what was going on around hir, the thrashing making everything a blur.

The ogre, on the other hand, finally had a brief bout of respite. However, it knew that if it did not do anything, said respite would truly be brief.

So, it did what it had planned to do from the very beginning. It took advantage of its huge size and neutralized the hut in one simple move.

One moment, an old hut on a chicken leg was raging around the clearing like a mad bull, the next it hung upside down, held by the very same chicken’s foot. Like that, it could not do anything, not even scratch at the hand holding it. Sorramyna, once ze calmed down, let go of the axe and dropped down onto the ground.

Seeing that its helper was safe and sound, the ogre lifted the hut higher into the air until it stood face to maw with the ogre. At which point it started shaking it up and down. Up and down it went, soon causing the hut to let out gurgling noise after gurgling noise. Still, the ogre did not stop.

Sorramyna watched on with wonder, and a fair bit of bewilderment. Mostly bewilderment.

At last, the hut had had enough. With one final gurgle, it opened its maw wide disgorging a small, shrivelled figure, along with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. The figure, soaked in strange digestive juices, slowly stirred awake.

To Sorramyna’s shock, it was the witch from earlier. Except that they looked much weaker that before. They were even smaller than when ze had seen them in the hut’s door, their face much more wrinkled, and skin a sickly pale, almost green.

The ogre once more reached out, but to Sorramyna’s surprise it did not squash the witch like a bug. Instead, it gently took them and laid them on a soft patch of grass that miraculously remained untouched by the battle, away from the fluids the hut had regurgitated along with them.

Now, Sorramyna was truly confused. Had the witch not caused all of this? Should they not be punished, held accountable for the unrest they had caused? But the ogre knew the full story, and so it waited, hut still held high and prevented from doing a thing.

Time passed and sunrise came near. Sorramyna had long grown bored of the wait and retrieved the axe from the hut, to at least somewhat amuse hirself by chopping into one of the fallen trees.

At last, with the first rays of the sun, the witch awoke. They looked around confused at first, but once they saw the ogre holding the hut, a rueful look washed over them.

The ogre, on the other hand, let out a loud bellow. For the first time, Sorramyna heard it voice something other than pain or distress. The ogre laughed.

Only then did the witch spot Sorramyna. Ze hirself had no idea what to do, and by the looks of it neither did they. Luckily, the ogre was there to facilitate conversation.

The witch seemed to understand its strange grunts, moans, and bellows. But they did not reply with the same, nor in a language Sorramyna spoke. It truly was a strange sight for hir.

Eventually, they both reached some sort of understanding and the witch turned to hir. “Thank you for helping us, and apologies for all the trouble my mistake must have caused,” they spoke. “I can’t give much in return now, but if we ever meet again, hesitate not to ask for assistance,” they paused for a moment, as if considering, and then added, “In the meantime, remember this: Huts in woods are very strange, I beg you to not engage. Beware please of mimicry, lest it not go swimmingly.”

With that cryptic message, they and the ogre nodded at each other. Both of them turned towards Sorramyna, bowed, and the witch said one last thing, “I am the watcher of the forest, making sure none are left malnourished. ‘Tis my guardian eternal, protecting from the infernal. Remember us and speak our names, if you ever need some avails.”

Then, as if by magic, they disappeared.

It was another strange sight, one to add to the many ze had seen that night. With both the ogre and the presumed witch gone, or the watcher and the guardian as they named themselves, Sorramyna had no more reason to stay. There was utterly no trace left of them, not even the hut or its regurgitate. The only hint was the devastated clearing, but as ze watched on, even that began to slowly grow over.

Only one, well two, things hadn’t disappeared. The rusty old axe, and the piece of wood ze had been cutting into with it.

Perhaps it was unnecessary, maybe a complete waste of time, but Sorramyna brought both along with hir. If nothing else than to convince hirself that what had happened that night was not a dream.

Once ze returned to the village of Gnirsk, things quickly fell into old rails. Ze returned an hour or two after sunrise, when the caravan was slowly preparing to head off. The others from the caravan asked hir where ze had been, but Sorramyna simply half-heartedly shrugged and said in the forest.

So, the caravan left. They had done the trading they wanted and there was no reason to stay. It would be a while until the villagers realized the forest’s bellows had stopped, and even longer for Sorramyna to inspect the metal of hir rusty axe. But that is a story for another time, and the mystic rune that appeared on hir axe would remain hidden for some time yet.