#249 Telvin's Fog

Age: 700 Years

Hidden or Lost?: Lost

History: Beware the call of Telvin’s Fog, a trap laid long ago that still calls the quick and the clever to their doom.

In a long dead eon, a gardener by the name of Emoras Telvin fell in love with the poet Syth. Telvin was a calm, patient man, a student of the natural world who liked to allow ideas and thoughts to grow in his mind before they bloomed on his lips. Most thought he was simple, but Syth saw his intellect for what it was, often finding herself charmed by his methodical imagination. In response, Telvin was smitten. In addition to her notorious physical beauty, Telvin became enamored with Syth’s work, finding her words to be fertile soil for nurturing his own view of the world.

Tragically, classically, Syth’s heart belonged to another: Escot Hork, a fellow poet known for his angular handsomeness, biting stanzas, and lightning wit. Where Syth found beauty and inspiration with Telvin, when she was with Escot their ideas sparked back-and-forth with true electricity.

Telvin held no hatred for Escot, but he coveted the poet’s speed, clarity of word, and most of all the shine it brought to Syth’s eyes. Like a hardy shrub that rots from the root, Telvin's jealousy began to lead him down a dark path in search of a way to emulate or even rival Escot’s spark.

Telvin began experimenting with forbidden potions and blasphemous charms. None worked as he hoped, but Telvin did come in contact with a powerful Satyr of the Grove who agreed to make him a match for Escot in Syth’s eyes. The Satyr gave Telvin a single, thorned seed and told him to swallow it if he wished to change.

Armed with the strange seed, Telvin arranged a picnic for the three at one of Syth’s favorite spots deep in the Grandwood. At the assembly, as Escot sent Syth into fits of laughter and glee, Telvin choked down the barbed seed, and the effects were immediate. A thick, damp fog began to emanate from Telvin, smelling of must and rot. The fog had a powerful dulling effect on everything around him. Syth and Escot began to babble, neither seeming able to focus or form a thought. Telvin had become the quickest thinker. But as the mist spread, his love and his rival wandered off into the fog-drenched forest, quickly losing their memories. Telvin searched and searched, but both eventually perished alone in the mist-shrouded wood.

Ever since then, Telvin has been searching the fog for Syth, the seed inside of him connecting him to the plant life and keeping him alive. Countless explorers have wandered into the grove looking to solve its mysteries, but all have succumbed to the fog. Even hundreds of years later, Telvin remains, longing for his lost love and emanating his dulling fog into that forgotten grove. And from somewhere within, the Satyr laughs.

1. Gate of Forgetting

2. The Mad Warnings

3. Fog Traps

4. The Boughs of Lost Names

5. Escot’s Barrow

6. Amnesiac Graves

7. Satyr’s Camp

8. Hide of the Eternal Vengeance

9. The Recurring Mementos

10. Telvin’s Garden

11. Maps In the Sand

12. Monument to Forgotten Ardor

13. Syth’s Final Poem

14. The Crumbling Quartos

15. Focus Blooms

16. The Telvin Arbor