To Dale, thank you.

Settle down, my darling, for I shall tell you a story of Kings and Queens, little one, and what happened to them. Listen closely, my dear, for I shall begin.

All was not well within the Kingdom of Sunlight. Though bright, prosperous, and free from war bloodshed, tensions bubbled beneath the surface. The young King and Queen could never succeed in having a child. Their family line would end if they died without a child.  

From everywhere, mages, alchemists, and priests came to assist the desperate couple. First were the mages with their healing techniques. Then alchemists with their potions and brews. Lastly, the Holy Mothers and Sisters prayed for the Sun Mother Natalya to bless the King and Queen with children.  

None prevailed.  

Fear and despair seeped down into the Kingdom. Tension rose throughout the cities, whispers of a dying house. The High Priestess of the Natalyaite accused the King of infertility, demanding tests to disprove her claim, knowing that if the King failed, he would be forced to surrender. The parliament consisted of wealthy nobles, royals, influential businessmen,  powerful mages, and worldly priests who circled and jockeyed with the King, grabbing power for themselves.  

However, The royals lost not all hope; the word came to the mournful King and Queen of a Wise Woman, whose house lay in a  gigantic woodland that wove and weaved its way through the King's domain of a rival, the Trickster Empire of the Rose. 

Late one night, disguised as common folk, the King and Queen rode secretly to the forest. The old, entangled foliage groaned and creaked as they swung, vines and tree branches seemingly reaching out to snatch them up while wolves howled in the distance. 

The house was makeshift and ramshackle, a hovel that grew into the forest. The wood forming the hovel lived and breathed as much as its towering brethren.  

The King banged on the door as the Queen huddled behind him. A savage chorus of howls rang through the creaking forest.  

To the King's surprise, the Woman who answered the door was remarkably young and beautiful. Her clothes were simple and dirty from frequent use. However, her skin and hair shimmered with comely youth.  

"Good evening," she spoke with unease.  

The King forced his way in and revealed his identity to the Wise Woman, for he was blinded by hope for an heir.  

"Wise Woman, your King orders you to find a cure for my wife's barrenness." 

"But sir-King, it's the middle of the night!" the Wise Woman protested, "I can neither recommend  nor brew potions  on a sleep-starved head!" She fidgeted with her Artefact, a Ring that shimmered with gold and emeralds. It was inactive for now, the magic she channeled through it laying dormant. She would not harm them just yet. 

"You do not dither when saving a Kingdom from having our minds taken over by Trickery!" boomed the King. He snatched up a chair and sat down, folding his arms in anger as he did so. 

The Wise Woman seemingly recovered her courage and stood tall and strong against the King. "I am not a friend to the Sunlit Kingdom, nor am I an enemy of the Rose or the Stone Giants," she pointed to the door. "Please leave. It matters not to me who sits on the throne."  

The Queen gingerly picked up a chair and sat down beside her husband.  

The King pulled off a glove to reveal a gold and diamond-encrusted ring, shimmering with barely contained menace in the light. 

"Every member of the royal family and court is skilled in magic. It is part of our self-defense. You and I have similar Artefacts, although mine outclasses yours tenfold," the King sneered, his voice as still as a lake in the winter.   

"All I have to do is snap my fingers, and you will burn, and so will your house and the forest itself;  I will burn all of it," The words slithered out of his mouth, a snake of a whisper.  

A hush fell over the room. The sound of rustling leaves and the howls of wolves filled the strained silence.  

The Wise Woman wandered over to one of many cramped but dusted cupboards and picked out a thin vial of swamp-green liquid. The contents swirled and danced like liquid foliage as the Wise Woman placed the bottle before the King and Queen. The Queen stared at the vial with intense curiosity.  

 "This mixture will provide you with children. All you have to do is drink half of the vial before lying together." The Queen hastened to grab the vial. The Wise Woman raised a finger in warning.  

"However, this potion is not without its risks, for an s...." 

"We do not care about the risks," the King interrupted, snatching the vial from the Queen and heading for the door. "Not with the Kingdom hanging by a thread."

"Darling!" the Queen protested, looking over her shoulder before a strong hand grabbed and pulled her by the wrist.   

"We do not have time, dear," the King said, his voice soft and gentle. "We will weather any risk, but we must have a son." 

"But my King, "the Wise Woman protested, meek of voice and stature. "A sac..." The King and Queen left the house. "... the sacrifice of equal value must be exchanged." 

The King and Queen lay together the next day after drinking the foul-tasting fluid.  

Then a few weeks later, the Queen found she was with twins.

The King, the Queen, and the Kingdom were delighted; the church bells rang on the pregnancy's announcement. People danced in the streets as a national holiday was declared, for the birth saved the Kingdom. The High Priestess sang songs and sent many wondrous gifts to the couple. 

However, the royal children's arrival into the world was wrought with tragedy, as the Queen died in childbirth.    

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The King was distraught at the loss of his Queen. 

'That Wise Woman,' he thought to himself as the Healer Mage's runes failed to revive the Queen, "She put a curse on us. She took my wife away from me!" He shouted.  

"Don't be stupid, my King," scorned the High Priestess as she left the room, "A Wise Woman cannot cause a Queen to die in childbirth." The King didn't believe her. 

As soon as the babes were safe and shown to the mournful populace, the King ordered a bounty on the Wise Woman. He called his best Hunters and Tricksters loyal to his Crown to find and bring the Wise Woman to justice for murdering the Queen. 

For years, the Wise Woman evaded capture, all while the thoughts of her betrayal consumed the King. He refused to take another wife, no matter how many eager and willing princesses were presented. He neglected his Kingdom, which sowed discord and misery in the peasantry. They felt ignored. Their woes of family fighting in wars between the Sunlight Kingdom and the Empire of the Rose were going unheard. Peasants ran into the loving arms of the Rose, whose Trickery of the mind turned them into loyal and happy citizens.  

The King played with his children, showering them with love and happiness. He only attended court when pressed by the members of parliament. The King ignored the concerns of the fleeing peasantry, Healers, Scholars, and Crusaders, driving his increasing alienation from the parliament and Natalyist faith. He only performed the bare minimum to ensure the rioting was suppressed and the state supplied basic needs.  

One day, the King received news that a Trickster had captured the Wise Woman. She had integrated herself into a small village within his Kingdom called North Town, a place of squalor and poverty where disease ran rampant through its cramped streets.  

The King was delighted. "I shall avenge my wife!" he sang as he ordered her to be brought to trial in the royal capital of Arch.  

The people were not pleased by the announcement, for the Wise Woman had developed a reputation as a kind, gentle healer. She fed the local orphans and brought in older street urchins to become her apprentices. In addition, she acted as a midwife for the poor and helped in hospitals, caring for wounded soldiers.  

Riots broke out across the Kingdom. Demand for the King's removal swelled. Rival domains like the Empire of the Rose and hopeful throne seekers like the High Priestess saw their chance and pushed the populace onwards, hoping to take the prosperous resources for themselves.  

The Wise Woman was brought to trial in the royal court, and the pulpits filled with peasant folk who booed the King and cheered for the Wise Woman when she came on stage.

The Wise Woman had not aged a day since the King last saw her, standing tall, proud, and unashamed of her supposed crime.  

"Your Grace, I tried to warn you of the risks concerning the potion," the Wise Woman protested under the storm of accusations thrown at her by the King. "I never wished your wife to die at such a wonderful moment of life," she continued, standing tall as the King insulted her. 

The crowd cheered as she withstood the torrent of abuse.  

Ignoring the Wise Woman's statements, the King declared the Wise Woman guilty of killing the Queen by failing to tell both of the risks involved in the potion.  

Filled with rage, the Wise Woman threw a hand; a purple skull briefly materialized out of thin air, laughing, before disappearing again.  

The King cried in horror, "You were supposed to Silence her! Why didn't you take away her Artefact? Seize her NOW!" 

The booing crowd attempted to flood over the witness stands and were brutally cut down by the King's guards.  

The Wise Woman was beheaded within the hour before the approving King and a select crowd.  

 Riots flared again, ignited by the events at the trial and execution. The wealthy and the royal family prepared to leave for the stone giants, the Al'ard Alnaas, whose indifferent realm was nearby. Instead, the royal children were quietly sent away under darkness to ensure their safety.  

However, as they passed the forest, the same woods where their parents had gone for help, bandits, savage and bitter men who lost everything in the war, ambushed the carriage and kidnapped the children. As they were dragged deeper into the forest, the children saw a laughing purple skull floating above the bandits' heads. 

Upon hearing the news, the King ordered search parties to hunt down bandits and save children. Unfortunately, the forest had grown much bigger than the King and Wife had last been. The parties never returned.  

In rage and panic, the King took matters into his own hands.  

One night, the King came to a hilltop near the forest.  

Overlooking the vast entanglement of foliage, the King cast a horrible curse on the forest, unrepeatable in its horror and destructive nature. This curse would destroy all but the innocent and pure of heart.  

However, the King made a terrible mistake. The children entered the forest pure of heart, but the bandit's monstrous hate for the King had been inflicted upon the children.  

First, the trees withered, growing gnarly and malformed. Then the plants transformed into razors, brittle and hateful of anything that moved. Finally, the animals fled, unharmed but unwelcome in their rapidly changing environment.  

The bandits witnessed their bodies fall apart, from the littlest hair on their head to the most prominent bone, and they watched as it broke away and fell to the earth. The children suffered a similar fate.

However, death wasn't the end for the bandits or the children. The bandits began to transform, whose hearts had been blackened so much due to strife and hardship. Their deathless shadows twisted into monstrous forms. Their fingers turned into claws, bodies contorted and grew spidery. Their pain and agony transformed into glee as their minds changed along with their bodies.  

The children didn't change despite enduring their loss of innocence and death at the hands of their father. Instead, they became their shadow selves, free to run and play without a care. Their love for their father spared them from the cruelest of the curse. Some say you can hear children's laughter on the outskirts of the forest.  

When the King heard of the death of his children, he was overcome with grief and guilt. The King hanged himself in his bed-chamber in one final fit of despair. A laughing purple skull haunted him in his dying moments.  

The Kingdom crumbled and fell into ruin quickly after the King's death. Wars and riots raged, and political despots rose and fell as soon as they came.  

A new Kingdom eventually came together, headed by the High Priestess. She abolished the parliament and placed herself as the sole head of the Sunlit Kingdom. Her first words and actions as Grand High Priestess were, "Women rule, men obey!" She was a kind and compassionate ruler to those loyal to her and a sharp spear to those who were not. She united the warring people into a peaceful coexistence under the newly named Holy Sunlit Kingdom. 

A statue of the Wise Woman, under request by the Grand High Priestess, was erected in every major city throughout the Kingdom, declaring her a hero for humans struck down by the foolishness of powerful men. She forbade the use of magic within the royal court; she included and forced all men to forgo magic entirely. The church also purged males from all aspects of the government and religious occupations.  

Nevertheless, what happened to the forest? Well, my dear readers, some wounds never truly heal. The forest sank into a constant state of twilight, casting shadows at all times of the day. Foolish or unwary travelers who tried to pass through the darkened forest were hunted by laughing clouds whose claws pierced the skin like a hot knife through butter. They earned a name- Shadow Stalkers. They might hear the children laugh, the patter of feet against the foliage as they play, joyful in their painless existence.  

The forest became a place of danger- unofficially christened Shadow Forest. All attempts to reverse the curse and free the souls trapped there failed. Mages cannot remove some curses.

As I finish this tale, my dear, please take heed of the warnings of others. Do not act on your feelings alone, as the King did. The suffering he caused will haunt the survivors for centuries.