Reporting on the tragedy of the Mourning Mists.

Greetings Compatriots, I have returned from another quest, although I am in much worse form than usual (despite being of much better health than usual).
It all began when I spotted a notice placed in the centre of the outpost. The notice was looking for adventurers to thoroughly investigate a large pocket of magical mist to the North-West, one found by a party of scouts. One of these scouts had died, another injured and two escaped unharmed. I must apologise, this is quite the journal entry, but it is of dire importance.
Myself, Vyla, Sidus & Strepsil gathered at the scout hut outside of town, where we were informed of our quest. We signed some waivers, and set off. The journey to the Mists was uneventful, but as soon as we reached it, we noticed the magical properties. We had to push through, and all around us were dead trees, not trees that had been killed, or died from any natural reason, they were all hearty trees- that had died instantly and simultaneously. It was a sign of what was to come looking back on it.
Suddenly, we were separated; myself and Vyla brought to a large pedestal, and Strepsil and Sidus brought to a manor, both areas surrounded by the same mist. Myself and Vyla immediately saw the large pedestal, a few hundred feet in diameter, with one set of steps onto the platform. In the middle, separated, were two statues. I made an attempt to detect good and evil, I was overwhelmed with the vision of Undead, this land was desecrated unlike any place I had ever seen, someone shouted in my ear “SILENCE”, and I shut myself off from that sense.
Strepsil and Sidus found themselves at a faintly glowing manor, one they quickly discovered was ethereal, but at the front of the house, a gathering of ghostly dancers and musicians made merry. The conductor of the event wore a mask, whereas all the other people had no faces at all. Of note was that the people attending were wearing a miriad of outfits, including one caveman by the looks of it. The Conductor filled them in on the situation we had found ourselves in, that I will now explain to you.
The Mists are a game, a story and a trap. Long ago, a woman (who I shall refer to as The Bride), was betrayed and suffered greatly. Somehow, she created the Mourning Mists to tell her story, to process her immense grief and in some ways, get revenge on those that had wronged her. The mists hold a number of locations that tell her tragedy, but you may only visit 3 in your time there. After you visit them, you must return to the podium area (that myself and Vyla first stumbled onto). There, the statues (Mourning and Malice) ask a riddle each to the people present. Should you get one wrong, as we did, you have a chance to escape. Should you get both wrong, The Bride will make quick work of you, and your soul will be trapped eternally to serve a ‘role’ in her game. Throughout the Mists, there are ‘characters’ from her life, forcibly played by those who have perished to her fury.
The characters we encountered were as follows. The Conductor/The Father, The Groom, The Priest, The Best Friend/Abby, The Mother-In-Law, and The Doctor. Of these, the Father and The Mother-In-Law are not played by poor souls who wandered in, they are who they say they are. The Groom was unfortunately played by the poor ranger who lost his life in the mist. The people who have been forced to play roles do not have any choice but to do so, asking them about their own lives was fruitless.
 
 
We visited the Manor, The Church and the Birch Wood Walk. There may have been characters- and other elements of her story- that we missed in the Village, the Graveyard and the Lake. It seems that these places may change their time in her story depending on when you visit them, for instance, we visited the manor first and it was well before the Wedding in her story, but when we returned there after exploring other areas, it was after the Wedding.
We found the Father and the Groom in the Manor originally, we then found the Priest and Abby in the Church (Abby was in the belltower!) and we found the Mother-in-Law in the Birch Wood Walk, before returning to the Manor and finding the doctor (seemingly only because we found and questioned Abby).
I am explaining all of this so that if anyone else ventures here, they know where to go and what to do, perhaps through multiple visits we can save this poor woman and the people she has stolen. I will now tell the Bride’s story to the best of my ability, but I may be missing pieces, and some pieces may be wrong, multiple of these characters lie (whether they want to or not). Abby is a particularly vile character, the soul that played her did her best to stay truthful, but was forced to lie about certain things. The Father lied about actually being the Father, pretending to be a trapped soul, until we realised, he is a tricky figure.
 
The Bride has lived in the Village her whole life, she became a florist, but she wished to explore, to escape. The Groom was the son of the town’s nobles, and also wanted to leave the village. The Father did not want his daughter to leave, and the Mother of the Groom did not want him to leave, so they came to arrange their marriage. But the two did love each other, for 2 years they did, it just meant that they could not explore. 2 weeks before the wedding, the Groom proposed to her in the woods nearby.
The day of the wedding arrived. Preparations were in order. On the fateful day, a gathering of the relations were outside the church in a large gazebo, drinking and celebrating the marriage to be. Before they could however, a spell was cast, a Chill Touch on the groom. This would not have been enough to kill him, but it activated a poison that was strong enough to do so. In the chaos that ensued it seemed like the Bride had cast the spell. The priest rushed in and revived him, and he immediately started screaming “Why?”. Abby, perceiving her best friend (the Bride) to be in danger, rushed in and stabbed the Groom with an odd red blade. Following this, the chaos really began, the Bride was hysterical and ended up being dragged away by Abby, who cast Pass without a Trace to escape. The events culminated in a Fireball being cast in the tent, as well as the Groom’s corpse disappearing.
Abby dragged the Bride into the woods, where she told her to leave. 2 days later, a wrathful spirit came and attacked the town, splitting into multiple forms. The Bride destroyed the town and many who lived there, especially those who had wronged her. Soon after, Abby was pushed off the clocktower for being the last one to have seen her.
 
I know, it is an odd series of events. That is how we first found it, but there was much more at play here, although this was indeed at the surface level, what occurred. So what was the truth? Where to begin? Here are a number of areas we had to uncover.
 
It all revolves around Abby. Abby was immensely charismatic, she was in everyone’s good books (except for the Father-In-Law). She informed the Doctor that the Bride was going to kill the groom in an attempt to become a Lich, the Doctor then created a poison to kill the Bride with before she could kill the groom. But Abby had other plans, she switched the poison, making it kill the Groom instead, and she was the one to cast the spell to activate it.
Why would the Bride attempt to become a Lich? After interrogating the Father, we found out that he was once a member of an adventuring party that had multiple necromancers in it. They gave birth to a daughter, she was to be sacrificed in a vile ceremony, one to make them Liches. The Father killed them all. He adopted the Bride, and kept her true heritage a secret, not wanting her to escape and become a Lich somehow, he devised a plan to keep her in the village.
When the Bride was young, she went with a friend to the Lake, they were playing on boats when the friend’s boat sank and she drowned. The friend was the daughter of the Manor Family, and the Bride thought she had killed her by accident. The Father not only covered this up to make it look like the daughter had gone missing, but was actually responsible, he had sank her boat. He did this to try and keep the daughter here, but years later arranged a marriage to the Manor Family’s son to make sure.
So how did Abby know of this? We never found out, but Abby seemed to want to become a Lich herself. You see, Abby did not leave the Bride in the woods. Abby killed her, and took the body to her basement. When she was found in Abby’s house, Abby feigned ignorance, but the Doctor realised he had been a fool, and pushed her off the Clocktower soon after, as well as raiding her home and destroying everything necromantic. The body of the Bride was buried near the graveyard, in an unmarked grave.
Soon after the Bride returned and destroyed the town. The Doctor survived by playing dead (aided by a potion). I don’t know when the Bride returned again, creating the Mourning Mists. It is worth noting that everything in the Mists is a creation, and much of it is symbolic. But everything you see is not the original, that town is somewhere else in place and time, lost forever.
There is much tragedy to this tale, but one of the worst elements I have not told you yet. 2 years before the wedding, the plot of marriage was created, Abby possibly began her plot at a similar time. The Doctor was brought into town by the Mother-In-Law, brought in to apply a Love Potion, every 2 days, on the Groom. Even during the Groom’s proposal, the Doctor was there to make him love the Bride. At the proposal, there were 3 parties watching in the shadows, invisible. The Mother-In-Law, the Doctor and a small entourage with them were the first party. The second: The Father and the Priest.
I barely made out the third, but she was there, Abby. Near Abby was a tree, covered in items; a child’s skull, a vial of poison, a set of flowers and a vase. Marked into the tree itself and the Vase was a Necromantic Sigil. These items were involved in an attempt at lichdom, probably Abby’s attempt, the vase seemed to be an attempted Phylactery, and attacked us when we touched it. There was one other item on the tree, a ghastly Scythe. The scythe was also in Abby’s chair at the wedding. There was someone attached to the Scythe, being held down, when I touched the handle she flew off of it. We think she was the Bride. Many things there were symbolic in hindsight, but the Scythe is important, if you do venture into the mists, find it.
 
This is as much as we managed to learn. We returned to the plateau, where we came to the two statues. One represented her Malice to those who wronged her, one her mourning of her life. We were asked a riddle by each. The Malice asked us about the word that defined her life. Strepsil gave the answer, Betrayal. The Mournful asked us another riddle, “Tell me Seekers, on that day of proposal, why are all these feelings [joy of the proposal] thrown to disposal?”. We thought we knew the answer, I placed my hand on the totem and spoke, “No one in her life truly loved her, they all used her in one way or another”. The totem whispered “Close”, before disappearing. I had failed. The Bride appeared, a ghastly and terrifying figure, “You got it wrong, now LEAVE!”. I did not wish to fight her then, for fear of my compatriots' lives, and for genuine sorrow at her tale, we turned and left, apologising as we did. As soon as we touched the mists again, we appeared at camp, with new items we had never seen before.
If you’ve read this far, I implore you, go to the Mourning Mists, find the rest of her story, perhaps if we get her riddles correct, we can set her and the souls she has captured free. I have a feeling that she cannot truly be killed until this game is over.
I will continue my search for the Daybreak Armour, perhaps its light will allow me to burn away the Mourning Mists.
-Dawn Knight Tiernan Greendew