The Hallow Maiden
Summary
Act I.
Ashur Nemoralis and the rest of the Beltane Plague Relief Unit arrive in Deornet Valley. It is immediately obvious that that ruling Kingfinch Family have not sent any resources, instead relying on the Clockmakers to handle everything. Harlow, the Earlen of Deornet, manipulates Ashur into sympathizing with her; but this alliance is threatened when Ashur gets into a public fight with her son-in-law, Oswald Ghostcrane.
Harlow's daughter Sigrid, a sickly but sure-witted Hooded Mother, disappears. Ashur implicates Oswald, as he witnesses them arguing the night before, but he is quickly silenced with threats.
He finds a lone ally in Gisla, a fellow Lycosid who was close with Sigrid. She claims that Sigrid's uncle Ninian was investigating the plague's origins but was executed for treason. The more Ashur learns about the Kingfinches, the more animosity develops between him and Oswald. This reaches a head when Ashur discovers Sigrid's brother Arnulf signed Ninian's death warrant, worsened further when he witnesses Oswald and Arnulf being intimate.
Ashur eventually threatens Arnulf at his home, leading to Harlow intervening. She offers to help him tail Oswald on his first hunt after Midsummer, which is the only time foreigners are allowed to enter the Naefergrene Forest.
Act II.
After Midsummer celebrations, Ashur sets off with Harlow, Arnulf, and Oswald's retainer Asche. Ashur is separated from the rest and abducted by a Double Walker. Ashur wakes up deep in the forest under the care of the King of the Naeferegrene, Old Nick Blackthorne. Old Nick introduces him to Olfric and Olwen, Ninian's deceased children, who have become Double Walkers. He promises to let Ashur leave safely if he helps with a rituals to bind Olwen's soul into her new mechanical body.
Ashur is initially repulsed but the idea and refuses to cooperate. Old Nick uses the violent history between their respective tribes - the Lycosidae and Larchwoods - to weaken Ashur's ability to outmanoeuvre him. He gains Ashur's trust by revealing Sigrid died looking for Olfric and Olwen in the forest, and even shows Ashur her grave by Lake Deorcan. Ashur ultimately agrees to help Olwen and Olfric on behalf of Sigrid, a motive which surprises Old Nick.
After he exorcises a virus from Olwen's new body and her resurrection is completely, he has a breakdown and ego death which Old Nick takes full advantage of. Soon after, Old Nick leads him to the lake under a false pretenses, and tries to sacrifice him by drowning and decapitation. He then turns Ashur into an Aliruna, sowing a henbane plant growing from Sigrid's grave in his neck wound. Before Old Nick returns, Olfric helps Ashur escape to the nearby train station.
Act III.
Ashur arrives in the capital of Blackjowl by train. He runs into Oswald's Double Walker while seeking refuge at the Clockmaker compound. He is surprised at how friendly and reasonable the double walker is compared to the original Oswald. They are soon joined by Asche, who reveals Harlow and Ernoul purposely left him for dead in the forest.
Asche, who had previously interfered on Oswald's behalf admits that their chieftain and best friend is collaborating not only with Harlow, but with her sister and Queen of Ghealas, Ositha. This is extremely out of character for Oswald, who had once vowed to Asche to destroy the Kingfinch family from the inside. Ashur is further introduced to bitter and deadly conflicts between the Dolomedes and Larchwood people, much of which mirrors his experiences in Algara.
The three venture to the ghost town of Ceowan, which was abandoned by Oswald and Asche's clan after a similar plague occurred and caused a famine. Oswald was married to Sigrid Kingfinch in order to allow his remaining people safe passage into Deornet. Suspicions arise that the land was cursed by the Larchwoods, but they discover it was instead anthrax in the soil, which possibly contaminated the earth in Deornet as well.
Ashur and Oswald's double walker use an upcoming Holy Day to sneak into the Queen's estate in Blackjowl, posing as confessors from the Clockmaker compound. They learn that the land sold to Harlow to support the population increase in Deornet was contaminated as well. However, nothing was done about it, as Arnulf and his uncle Arvis had not wanted to invest money into land they plan to eventually mine for radium, a fast-growing source of energy in Blackjowl.
Oswald tells Ashur that many Dolomedes and sympathetic Larchwoods did not make it to the new settlement, and revolted by trying to break the dam which redirected Deornet River. Thus, he believes the anthrax poisoning was intentional as revenge. Ashur learns that much of the Deornet valley had been floodmeadows once, but a levee had been built to push the Dolomedes out of suitable mining areas.
Ashur begins to suffer from symptoms of forest rot, as the henbane plant begins to wrap around his organs and airpipe, causing painful hallucinations. He begins hearing Sigrid's voice in his head. Oswald's double walker offers to help heal him of the forest rot if Ashur helps him break the levee and take revenge on the Kingfinches. He is surprised when Ashur agrees and says it wouldn't be the first Larchwood family he's destroyed. After breaking the levee in Ceowan with Asche's help, Oswald's double walker and Ashur prepare to head back to Hol Gheal to neutralize Harlow and Arnulf.
Ashur is caught by surprise in the confession room by Arnulf, who believes Ashur is someone else. He claims someone has made a double walker of him, possibly as revenge for the deaths of Ninian and Sigrid. Ashur loses his temper and attacks Arnulf, chasing him to the edge of the Naefergrene. However, Ashur is arrested by onlooking Clockmakers, who hand him to the original Oswald for transport back to Hol Gheal.
Act IV.
After planting the seed of fear in Oswald about his double walker, Ashur is rescued from Oswald's imprisonment on the train by Gisla, who had gone looking for him herself. She gives him strychnine tea, not knowing Ashur is allergic to the plant. The consequent reaction causes Sigrid's henbane plant to flower and her consciousness to emerge within Ashur's deathless body. She reunites with Gisla, affirming her family's involvement and her attempts to stop them. Gisla tells Ashur upon his reawakening, that Old Nick once cursed Deornet from ever falling out of his family's hands, further complicating their ability to wipe out the Kingfinches.
When Ashur comes to, he is confronted first by Oswald and the other Clockmakers, who are searching for stowaway. He is later attacked by a double walker of Arnulf, who claims to have killed his human counterpart at the last station. In the commotion, the train derails from excess cargo. Gisla, Ashur, and other survivors find safety in a nearby Church Village.
Sigrid insists that Ashur search for any sign of Oswald or Arnulf's double walkers. He eventually finds them by a mausoleum with the human Arnulf's corpse. Sigrid's grief overwhelms Ashur's body, causing partial paralysis as the henbane plant grows. When he is eventually found barely conscious and holding Arnulf's corpse. Oswald sentences Ashur to death, but also orders him to eat Arnulf's heart in a funerary ceremony first.
Act V.
Ashut refuses to eat Arnulf's heart at the ceremony, believing it was poisoned. Another fight breaks out between Ashur and Oswald, resulting in a disastrous fire. Gisla and Ashur escape on calcatrice, attempting to reach Sunhaven and find Harlow. They discover the disgraced Earlen in the catacombs of her estate with an inactive double walker of Sabrina, Harlow's estranged half sister. She chose to forsake the town in order to revive Sabrina, who she lost in a tragic murder-suicide.
After forcing Sigrid to hand her use of Ashur's body, Sabrina's double is revived but develops a virus shortly after. She bludgeons Harlow to death and flees for the Naefergrene, leaving Gisla and Ashur to escape the flooding ruins and find safety on the edge of the forest. Ashur searches for Oswald, but Oswald doesn't believe his story. They mortally wound each other in the fight that breaks out, but Ashur is now an Aliruna, and so when he is mortally wounded the flower bloom and Sigrid returns. Oswald is delirious as he dies, unsure if Sigrid is actually there or not.
Saint Mehrdadt arrives in the aftermath of the disaster with another relief unit. Sigrid's daughter Herleva is appointed the new ruler of Deornet, and many of the settlers who remain are double walkers. Mehrdat, Gisla, and Old Nick meet during Herleva's engagement ceremony, sharing an ambivalent reuinion as they discuss Ashur's sacrifice and the fate of the valley.
Historical Basis
This folktale is based on several analogous events surrounding the Hol Gheal Disaster of 810-812 CCA. It also acts as an explanation for the disappearance of Beltane Plague Relief Unit 711, as this was swiftly covered up at the time.
Depiction of Henbane defeating The Demiurge
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