Chapter 1

Mattick walks along Brokenhelm’s only road when the pungent odor of a corpse hits him. He halts mid stride and scans his surroundings. Just ahead, a stone cairn rises from the trampled mud at the center of the village square and reaches for the starry constellations glowing overhead. At its peak, a spear stabs skyward and impales the cracked iron helm from which the village takes its name. Around the cairn, merchant stalls and thatched roofs are little more than black silhouettes. The corpse is nowhere to be seen.

Mattick exhales and steps forward, but his foot catches on a pair of rictus legs. He stumbles, and the pelts tied on top of his pack slip from their binding and fall into the mud. Without thinking, he reaches for the knife on his belt and spins around, but there is no assailant behind him, only a body half hidden by mud and snow. Black, swollen flesh covers half its neck and face, bulging like a grotesque head of cauliflower, but even in the darkness, Mattick recognizes the man. Imuden, the carpenter. Mattick relaxes his grip on his knife and looks over his shoulder at the helm impaled atop the spear. As the stories go, it once belonged to Bastien Torrens, the warrior who rid Brokenhelm’s cliffs of raiders so his family and followers could settle them.

“Better to have fought raiders than this foe,” Mattick says to the helm. He waits, half expecting a reply from Bastien’s spirit, but the helm’s empty gaze only stares silently down at him. Mattick gathers his pelts from the mud and refastens them to his pack. Imuden’s corpse watches him work through an exposed, glassy eye. When his pack and pelts are secure, Mattick gives Imuden one last sorry look and continues through town.

Near the northeastern outskirts of Brokenhelm, Mattick stops outside his sister’s hut. Moonlight catches in the trail of smoke rising from its chimney, and dim firelight flickers through its shuttered window slats. On the front door, a carved floral pattern exudes a welcoming feeling not found anywhere else in town. Mattick opens the door and steps inside. A dying fire burns low in the hearth. Jars of every shape and size cast shadows from the shelves that line the walls from top to bottom. An old man appears in a doorway on the opposite side of the room. His face is as cracked and worn as the Ragged Coast. His short beard is curly white, and the top of his bald head reflects a glint of firelight.

“Good. You’re back,” the old man says in a wizened voice.

“And with nothing to show for it,” Mattick says. He slides his pack off his shoulders and unbinds the pelts. They tumble onto the floor for Kormak to see.

“So Great Ridge is barren too” the old man concludes. “They had nothing to trade.”

“It’s worse than that, Kormak,” Mattick says. “Great Ridge is gone.”

“Gone?”

“I mean there is no more Great Ridge. Everyone there is dead. I didn’t find a single living soul. The disease killed most of them, but there were signs of a struggle. I couldn’t tell if someone attacked them or if they turned on themselves, but their hold was burned to the ground.”

“And there was nothing to eat?”

“Nothing.”

“No medicine?”

“Gone.”

“Not good. Not good,” Kormak says. His eyes fall to the floor.

“How is Naila” Mattick asks.

“She is very ill. She does not show the black mark yet, but I fear she will soon. She needs nourishment. If she does not eat, I fear the worst.”

“Let me see her,” Mattick says.

Kormak steps politely aside. “Of course.”

When Mattick enters Naila’s room, a peal of thunderous coughs tears the breath from her lungs and leaves her gasping for air. She crumples into a ball, each breath grinding like stones in her chest. Her tensed muscles gradually relax, and her fingers uncurl from around a small object. It slips from her hand and clatters to the floor. Mattick picks it up and discovers a smooth river stone that fits comfortably in his palm. His eyes flash with recognition. The stone is a talisman he made for Naila when they were children. Carved on one side is the rune for his name. Mattick. He turns it over. On the other side is the rune for hers. Naila. Two sides of the same coin. Mattick had no idea she still had it.

“She’s been holding on to that since you left,” Kormak says.

Mattick places the talisman back in her hand and feels her skin burning with fever.

“Water,” she rasps, and her fingers tighten around the talisman.

Mattick returns to the hut’s main room. He opens his pack and retrieves a water skin from inside. He squeezes it. It feels empty. He looks around the room and spots a large bowl on one of the wall’s many shelves. He grabs it and goes outside.

Under the light of the full moon, Mattick plunges the bowl into fresh snow. He drags it toward himself with a grunt, carving a rut and filling the bowl. With the bowl in hand, he stands and looks up at the moon and stars, his breath misting in the cold air. He closes his eyes and hears the faint whisper of waves breaking on the Ragged Coast. He listens for a moment, then he takes a deep breath and returns to the hut.

Inside, Mattick stirs the fire and warms the bowl by its embers. He leaves it there long enough to melt the snow, then he uncaps his water skin and fills it. Another coughing fit waylays Naila, this one somehow worse than the last. He caps the water skin and brings it with him to her bed. He finds her shivering under the furs heaped over her. He kneels next to her and holds the water skin to her lips.

“Drink,” he says.

Naila reaches up with shaking arms and grabs the water skin. It takes all her strength to hold it, but she gulps it down without stopping. After draining the skin, she shoves it into Mattick’s hands and closes her eyes. She falls asleep before Mattick can say a word. He adjusts her furs and sits down on the floor beside her. Her arms, once strong and muscular, are now thin. Her dimpled cheeks are gaunt, and her bright eyes sunken. Mattick hears Kormak’s words in his head. If she does not eat, I fear the worst.

Mattick stands and returns to the hut’s main room. The jars packed along the walls seem to stare back at him. He grabs a large painted one off a shelf and removes its lid. A thin dust of dried herbs coats the inside, but it is otherwise empty. He closes it, opens the next, and discovers a well-worn mortar and pestle crammed inside. He closes the jar.

“Help me look through them,” Mattick says to Kormak. “There must be something in here she can eat.”

One by one, they look through every jar, box, and bowl in the hut. They find tinctures, remedies, and salves of every conceivable variety. They find gauzes, thread, needles, a splint, and even a white bone flute. But they find nothing of substance to eat. Mattick collapses by the fire. He closes his eyes and mentally reviews all his usual hunting locations. The glen to the east used to be a favorite among deer, but their trails have disappeared. Ice thicker than Mattick is tall covers the bay to the northwest. He wonders if it will ever thaw again. He could try braving the whitecapped sea, but he is not a sailor, nor does he know how to swim. Mattick buries his head in his arms. His busy mind slowly winds down, and for a moment, it becomes an empty, soundless void. He remains motionless on the floor, the fire’s last embers warming him through his coat. Just before sleep overcomes him, a memory from his boyhood springs into his mind’s eye. Mattick looks up, his fatigue suddenly forgotten.

“Kormak, do you remember when I ran away?”

Kormak chuckles. “How could I forget? The elders had just appointed me guardian of you two. To demonstrate my incompetence, you immediately disappeared for four days. You never told me exactly where you went.”

Now Mattick chuckles. “I went into the Wilds to explore. I won’t tell you how far I made it, for your own sake, but there is something I remember from that adventure. I was crawling through some bushes when I came across a glade. The forest was old, and the canopy was very dense, but in the glade, the sun poured in. It glowed. I was pretending to be an elf, so I stayed hidden in the bushes and studied the glade from my hiding spot. That’s when I spotted a strange boulder. It looked like an elf. It had two potholes for eyes, a blanket of moss for hair, and its nose was a long, jagged protrusion. But its mouth was what really amazed me. It was a giant cavernous hole carved by eons of wind and rain.”

“A totem,” Kormak mumbles, but Mattick does not seem to notice.

“There’s more though,” Mattick continues. “Inside the boulder’s mouth, there was a big, fat, wiry boar rooting for truffles. I leaned forward to get a better look at it, but I stepped on a twig and snapped it. The boar saw me then, and it lowered its head, pawed the ground, and grunted at me. That’s when I ran. I ran all the way home.”

“You think you might still find boar there,” Kormak says.

“I’ve hunted everywhere else. All the usual spots. Even the animals have abandoned us, but maybe the glade is deep enough. Maybe its old enough. They might still be there.”

Mattick stands up and returns to Naila’s room. He kneels beside her bed and pulls an iron knot necklace from under his coat. He clenches it in his fist.

“I’m going to find you a boar to eat,” he says to Naila. “I swear it.”

Here comes the first roll of the campaign! Naila desperately needs nourishment, and Mattick thinks he knows where to find it. He is making an iron vow to Naila, so I will use the Swear an Iron Vow move. Mattick shares a bond with her, so he gets a +1 on this roll.

Swear an Iron Vow: (3, 4) vs (3 + 2 heart + 1 = 6) → Strong Hit. On a strong hit, you are emboldened, and it is clear what you must do next (Ask the Oracle if unsure). Take +2 momentum.

Mattick gains momentum (2 + 2 = 4), and he knows exactly what he needs to do next: visit the glade where he saw the boar as a boy. I am going to make this a troublesome vow and use it to warm up.

With her eyes still closed, Naila reaches out and grabs Mattick’s coat.

“I’ll go with you,” she whispers.

Mattick smiles at her. “I think you should stay here,” he says and gently places her hand back on her chest.

Naila’s breathing deepens, and she slips back to sleep. Mattick leaves her room and returns the water skin to is pack.

“Is that a vow you can keep?” Kormak asks.

Mattick returns his pack to his shoulders. “She can’t die like this. I have to try.”

“Then you better hurry.”

Mattick nods. “I will.”

Before he goes, Mattick breathes in the hut’s earthy aroma—a scent he will forever associate with Naila. He says a silent prayer for her and leaves through the front door, its floral pattern catching the moonlight as he eases it shut behind himself. How many people have come through this door sick and left healed? he wonders. He looks down the slope toward Brokenhelm where the village overlooks the Ragged Coast from its perch atop the cliffs. And how many more will die without her? Mattick thinks of the smoldering hold at Great Ridge, the dead fouling their homes and streets. He turns and hurries up the slope, following Brokenhelm’s one and only road.

Mattick’s hut is the very last, sitting on the village’s furthest outskirts nearest the Wilds to the east. Rather than enter, he makes his way behind it by ducking under a rope line anchored to his hut and a large glacial boulder. A sturdy wooden table, fire pit, iron spit, and thatched shed occupy the space behind the hut. Mattick heads straight to the shed and opens it. Inside, knives, boots, furs, flint, rope, wood, and an assortment of bones and pelts accompany his most prized possession. Mounted on the wall opposite the shed’s door, a finely crafted bow and a quiver hang at the ready. He gathers everything he needs and slings the bow over his shoulder before heading out.

Mattick follows the road to the southwest where it zigzags down the cliffs to the Ragged Coast. A small guardhouse sits on the edge of the plateau near the road, a weary flame dancing in a sconce mounted on its side.

“Going hunting, Mattick?” a gruff voice asks when Mattick passes by.

“Torgan?” Mattick asks. He approaches the guardhouse and looks in through its narrow window. A man with broad shoulders, leather armor, and a long spear stands up from a tree stump and stretches.

“Unfortunately,” Torgan replies. He opens the guardhouse door and steps outside. “I’m covering for Hennion. He’s fallen ill with the black curse.”

“Really? I thought he might make it through this plague unscathed.”

“Never a fellow as hardy as he. Just goes to show you, none of us are safe.”

“I saw Imuden in the square,” Mattick says.

“Yeah? What’s he doing up so early?” Torgan asks.

“He’s dead,” Mattick says. “I nearly fell on top of him.”

“Oh,” Torgan mutters. He clears his throat and scrambles for a change of subject. “How is Naila?” he asks.

Mattick cannot tell if Torgan’s cheeks are red from the cold or if the guard is blushing.

“She’s very weak. She needs food—real food—to get her strength back. There is a spot in the Wilds where I saw a boar long ago. That’s where I’m going to hunt.”

Torgan straightens up. “Watch yourself out there,” he says, gesturing to the forest. “Strange noises from the trees last night. Neither man nor beast.”

Mattick grins and puts a reassuring hand on Torgan’s shoulder.

“I’ll watch my back, don’t worry,” Mattick says.

Torgan looks back at him skeptically. “You jest, but I’m as serious as the West Wind. We can’t have you getting torn apart by varou. The village needs good hunters.”

“I know,” Mattick says, and there is no brevity in his voice now. “I should go. I have a lot of ground to cover.”

“Aye,” Torgan says. He stands outside and watches Mattick leave before disappearing back into the guardhouse.

Mattick is beginning his hunt for the glade. I think I will make this a troublesome journey and use the Undertake a Journey move to navigate it. Since Mattick is leaving a community he shares a bond with, I will add +1 to the roll.

Undertake a Journey: (1 + 3 wits + 1 = 5) vs (9, 10) → miss. On a miss, you are waylaid by a perilous event. Pay the Price.

Mattick is barely outside his hometown, and the adventure is just starting to warm up, so I am going to scale back the “waylaid by a perilous event” wording. Instead, Mattick will receive some foreboding information. Maybe he meets some other travelers on the road and learns something that unsettles him.

Are the travelers hostile? Ask the Oracle (50/50): 50 → No.

Alright, he will meet some friendly travelers. Since I rolled a miss earlier, I don’t get to mark progress on his journey. I will have to follow up with more rolls later.

The guardhouse is little more than a spec among the cliffs when Mattick spots a group of travelers winding their way through the boulders littering the coast. Mattick counts three men, a woman, a child, and an old pack mule. Under normal circumstances the presence of the child might put Mattick at ease, but today his heartbeat quickens. He checks the hunting knife on his belt and the bow slung over his shoulder. Everything is still in place.

“Greetings traveler!” one of the men call out when they are within shouting range.

“Greetings,” Mattick shouts back.

“We mean no harm, but we aren’t afraid to defend ourselves.”

“Then may our paths cross in kindness,” Mattick replies in the old way.

Mattick approaches the group cautiously despite the greeting. When they are near enough to see each other’s faces, the group stops the mule, and much to Mattick’s relief, shows no sign of hostility.

“Do you come from Graybrook?” the man that hailed him asks. His long, unkempt hair curls and twists around itself, and frost gathers at its tips. His face is lean and hard from travel, but his eyes are still keen with a spark of iron will. Mattick feels his worries fade. How refreshing it is to see eyes still alight with determination.

“No, I live in Brokenhelm,” Mattick says. “You’ll arrive soon if you keep to the trail.”

The man’s face remains strong, but Mattick senses disappointment from the others.

“How far to Graybrook?” the man asks.

“In the summer, a few days to the north by foot. But now snow covers the road, and the west wind makes the weather unpredictable. The journey will be dangerous. You would be wise to stay in Brokenhelm until the spring. You’ll have an easier time, then.”

“We cannot wait until the spring,” the man says. He nods to the woman behind him. “Show him.”

The woman tenderly pushes the child forward, a young boy, and pulls back his hood. Mattick sees where the child’s hair has fallen out, the first signs of the black curse showing on his scalp.

“We have heard stories of a cure in Graybrook,” the man says. “Nothing will stop us from getting there.”

“I’ve heard no such stories,” Mattick says. “No one from Graybrook has visited us since the first snow.”

“I see,” the man says. “Well, we must make haste. Thank you, and well met.”

“Well met,” Mattick says.

The group moves on, and the little boy turns to look back at Mattick. Mattick returns his gaze and wonders what will become of him. The boy stumbles over a rock, and his mother tugs his attention back to the road ahead. Mattick turns, leans into the wind, and tries to put the family out of his mind.

Mattick is continuing onward.

Undertake a Journey: (4 + 3 wits = 7) vs (5, 10) → weak hit. On a weak hit, you reach a waypoint and mark progress, but suffer -1 supply.

Mattick makes progress (0 + 3 = 3) and burns supply (5 - 1 = 4). Like Naila, he is out of food, so during this journey, I’m going to imagine his supply represents his physical stamina and raw determination to help Naila.

What waypoint did Mattick reach? Location Oracle: 78 → Forest.

Mattick finds the entrance into the Wilds he used when he was young.

The snow along the road is deeper than he expected, and by mid-morning Mattick stops to catch his breath. A uniform blanket of gray clouds sails overhead, propelled by the arrival of the unforgiving West Wind. It twists and turns through the treetops, stirring up vortexes of snow that cascade to the forest floor. The trees are immensely tall, ancient sentinels from a prehistoric time, and a sense of déjà vu comes over Mattick. The trees here remind him of the glade. He approaches the edge of the forest and looks inside. The sense of déjà vu grows stronger. Undeniable. This could be it, Mattick thinks, but a stubborn sliver of uncertainty holds him back. Every minute spent in the Wilds will bring Naila closer to death’s door. This is it, Mattick tells himself at last. He puts up his hood and enters the Wilds.