“You wish to hear something that none before has heard? I am sorry, good innkeeper, but such a tale I cannot tell for I do not know. But I can tell you tales from lands beyond yours, tales that, while miles and lands aplenty apart, seemed to me to be of one story. And if I preach while I say these things to earn my lodgings, pray forgive me. I am a preacher of the Wanderer after all, and such is my calling.

Now, when one embraces the Wandering Aspect, one’s feet will lead one to many a different land. Each land, one soon will learn, has its own tales to tell; pieces of folklore shared around the hearth, of varying length and importance. I think, my friend, that the need for a good story lies in the hearts of all humans, and in the core of most intelligent races as well. Much like you asked of me to pay in tales, so, I think, was the art that is folklore born. In my travels I submerged myself in it fully, certain tales, however, proved to have a modicum of truth to them, and – most oddly of all – an underlying connection between them.

My first such encounter with a folkloric oddity occurred during my travels in the region of Austersia within the Hundred Kingdoms. It is there that I came across a quaint and unsuspecting village. Inhabited by simple peasant farmers and with no great castles and lords in sight, the inhabitants there were of an honesty and kindness that seems to become ever rarer in today’s harsh and unforgiving world. It is in this village that I met a woman; grooves deeper than the ruts that marked the mud-strewn roads were carved across her features, and the depth of her age was evident for all to see. Over a bowl of lukewarm stew, the crone shared a story from her youth. She was betrothed to the baker’s son, she told me, when she was still fresh like the Spring, but fate had grimmer plans for her. One day, the love-bound duo went on a secret trip, just the two of them, and followed the winding river that cut through their village upstream. There, they found a great willow flush against the riverbank. Finding shade under its weeping veil, the couple stared up into the greenery above and thought of the life that awaited them together – then the whispering started.

Multiple times I did ask, and the same answer the old woman gave me each and every time. The willow whispered to them she claimed, hypnotizing them. It was the tree’s crooning that made the crone’s would-be husband drown himself, and she herself was saved by tripping into a jutting root, breaking her trance. None of the other villagers would speak openly about the mystical willow, yet I sensed the fear marring their faces – an answer in its own right. Thus, I travelled up the river and searched for the willow myself, and, in time, I found it. At first, I heard the faintest echo of a whisper, as if there was a person, just out of earshot, behind me. Then more whispers came, and my thoughts slipped to far away and exotic places, to my travels to come. It was when I felt the cold river water embrace my waste that I came back to the present, with day having turned into night. Hurriedly, I left, never again seeing the whispering willow.

At first, I thought this to be the work of the secretive Weavers; while the world forgets, it is known to those who, like me, ever seek the answers to things, that their control over the natural world is, reportedly, a thing of wonders. But such a thing felt wrong, in this case. I remembered in my early days as an acolyte, when I secretly spirited tomes I was not supposed to, I had come across unique records from the lands of the Braeons whose ancestors, it is said, knew the Weavers as much as any human ever did.  The tome spoke of a malicious glade in the heart of the Weaver Courts, with fragrant spring water and berry ladened bushes at its center. Many who went to quench their thirst and hunger, however, were said to never return, for the glade had an appetite of its own. The story seemed similar and if the Weavers themselves knew not its nature but feared and respected it enough to leave it in peace, they would not know the nature of this willow either. Yet, ultimately, it was not lore than excluded them in my mind; it was the Gift.

Calm now, friend! Easy. There is no danger for you or your inn. Ever have I been Gifted, though I have never studied to cultivate it further. But I have learned, at least, to partly see things… differently. And there, indeed, when allowing the Gift to guide my senses, it seemed to me that it was not the tree that was at fault, but something beyond it, something just out of sight, beyond the great curtain that shields our world.

Now, mysteries of such vagueness I’ve met before. Ours is a world fraught with magic and as such there is no shortage of wonders. But this willow was different than mere tales. See, many believe that to wander is a pointless task devoid of a higher meaning. Yet, to those of a pure understanding of such an undertaking, to roam the world is anything but meaningless – it is to uncover secrets long lost, it is to see the unseen. Thus, true to the tenets of my Deus, I wandered and unleashed my very being across the world, both known and unknown and searched for sisters and brothers to the tales of the Willow and the Glade.

More did I wander in the years that followed, and more such oddities did I encounter during my travels. In the savage lands of the Nords, where the cold winds rule over cold hearts, there is a tale about the guardian spirits of the hot springs in Ylgarheim, which must be appeased with feats of strength, before one is allowed to rest in the springs. Prove not your worth, the locals say, and the springs are as likely to freeze you as they are to boil you. Other tales seemed staunchly… abstract, like the Silver Lady in the City States. There, somewhere on the slopes of the Pindae, there is an elegant, almost frail, old olive tree, with leaves like shining silver. Endless tokens and offerings are brought there, with people coming from all over the peninsula to ask for favors of the Lady. There too the Gift told me of something just beyond reach, not the tree itself but as if the tree was the shadow of a thing.

More such tales I can tell you. The crossroads of the village Heggun in Hermannia. Bury a lock of hair of an enemy along with a ruby red as blood and, should thy hatred be strong enough, await for their demise within a week. The Gaping One cave entrance, in the lands of the Russ, which answers questions with the wind; or drives you mad with deathly shrieks. The Bearded Lady peak near Tauria, a low mountain that is, nevertheless, always clouded. None who has tried to ascend it has returned. Even the Dweghom have such tales, or so an exile of theirs I spoke with in Narava claimed, speaking about the cave of the Burning Flowers, somewhere deep, deeper still than even their homes lie. Any of those I visited, and many but not all I did, no matter the location or its effect on the world, a common instinct gripped me across all of them. I felt as if I was being watched. I felt a presence observing me, though there was never anyone to locate, as if something lied just beyond reach and sight.

Thus, I wander still, though my bones ache and my will grows dim. And here I am, in your fair village, to visit the Singing Spring and see if it fits my bill. Yet the question remains…

Was the tale enough to earn my lodge and food?”