Darkness, then Light, then Salvation

“So dark, I can’t see a thing.” The hunter muttered under his breath, passing through some underbrush. “At this rate, I'd be happy to see any source of light.”

These woods, which he had always hunted in, now turned against him. Darkness had settled in the sky, but it was still the beginning of the night. Still, in these woods, the twilight light of the sun was all but consumed amidst the dark shadows of the forest.

Towiló’s Dark Forests were well known. They provided great economic benefit, and cultural inspiration, for the Gnomes. But they were also dangerous, incredibly gloomy, and dark unlike anything else in the land. Swarthy coloured bark, saturated green leaves that look black in the night, and an oppressive canopy that swallowed almost all sunlight. This was a land of shadows and myth, and it is in these woods that the hunter has hunted in since birth.

And yet, he was all turned around. Confused. Scared even. He could hear the crickets play their cacophonous melody, mix in with his own footfalls, heavy breathing, the very shifting of the forest itself.

The hunter took another deep breath. He could see his breath in the chill night. His father had always warned him that the woods were impossibly ancient. Older than the world itself, he said. They were free to be roamed, and be roamed they did let the Gnomes.

But, never take the woods for granted, he said. They can take you just as easily as they let you enter, when you come to harvest the amber, truffles and deer that lay within.

It was all so quiet, and yet so loud. He didn’t know how it happened. The hunter had been stalking some rabbits in the afternoon, he had followed them for an hour, he almost caught them too.

Then suddenly, darkness. It was odd, he couldn’t quite remember what happened. He pulled back on his bow, but the world went dark, there was a loud noise, and now he was here. Stalking the woods, bow on his back, trying to find his way home.

“By Wagneraz, I should know where I am.” He muttered again. It felt like he had been in the woods for days, but time didn’t exist between the trees. He was confused at first, and as he walked on further, this turned to anger. Now, however, he wasn’t sure how he felt. Calm? He was at least determined to find his way back to the lodge. The hunter imagined himself to be in a stoic cool, but deep down, the hunter knew he was afraid.

“By Wagneraz, what did I do to get lost?” No one, bar the trees and the darkness, was there to witness this Gnome’s calamity. The darkness, the trees, and the moon itself.

Through a small spot in the canopy, there he could see it. The hunter gasped, and froze, like a deer in the face of torchlight. The moon, full, hung in the sky mightily and eerily. It was so bright, the hunter felt like the moon itself was watching him.

He saw it in the afternoon too, before it was even twilight. The hunter thought it was very odd to see the moon so soon, and so large in size too, but that’s when he caught wind of the rabbits. A shiver ran down his spine. The moon was watching him. It was staring at him.

He shuffled on, now for sure spooked. He wandered the dark woods for who knows how long. He felt lost in the walk, the world passing him by as he weaved between moss-covered logs, tall trees, and slippery rocks.

He would be looking down at the ground, trying to see where he was, consciousness adrift. Thrice he came back too, looking up towards the canopy. Thrice he asked Wagneraz where he was, and thrice, the moon appeared instead.

There, each time, through a hole in the canopy, the moon stared back at him. Massive, white, bright, watching. Thrice the hunter shuddered at the moon’s sight, and thrice he had hurried off at each moment. For the third moment, however, he flew into a panic.

The moon was watching him, he knew it. Món, who lived on the moon, and became the moon, taken up from woods just like these, was watching him.

“What have I done?” The hunter asked himself, sprinting now, a cold sweat coming over him. He was frantic now.

“Did I take the forest for granted? Am I not welcomed here anymore? Did I break a sacred law, like Món once did?”

“God, help me. Anybody, help me. Help me!”

“Help! Help me!” he screamed aloud, running through the woods, tripping over a twig.

“A-ah, aha, help! Anybody?! Help me!”

Run and run and run the hunter did, flying past all that could be there. He only saw a blur of trees and grass, but what else was out there? If Món was watching him, who else was? Wolves? Spirits? Was evil on the march tonight? To come for him? To exact a bloody toll from him?

As his eyes streamed with tears, running still, the hunter prayed and made 100 promises in his mind. He promised to give up hunting, and never to enter the woods again. He promised to visit the temple every day, to visit his family’s graves, to appease the spirits. He’d do anything, anything, just to find salvation from the nightmare that he was in. To find a light in the darkness.

With a deafening crack, the hunter went somersaulting forward as he tripped over a piece of root. Snapping, due to the sheer force of the gnome’s speed and weight. Facedown, covered in both dirt and blood now, the hunter slowly raised himself from his humiliating position.

Then he saw it.

It all happened so quickly, he saw everything so quickly. He was in a grove now, empty and wide, with verdant grass. The trees, oh so dark, lined this entire grove in a perfect circle. Each trunk was as smooth and as uniform as the one besides it. The sky above was impossibly black, fading to purple at the edges. The stars seemed almost swallowed by the darkness, but that might also be because there were more powerful sources of light present tonight.

Above it all sat the moon, as great and bright and eerie as it was all night. And yet, in this grove, it felt all the more intense. Below it, something that was utterly indescribable existed there.

The grove was wide and empty, but it was not vacant. Scattered about, in bunches and handfuls, were many magnificent things. Mushrooms, like none ever seen before. Rocks with moss that looked like water, maroon in colour. Little stalks of something that glowed soft colours, of blues, yellows, purples and reds. There was almost a mist in the air, omnipresent, but hard to see. Like a spiderweb, or the skin of milk. Vaguely white or grey or silver; there, but not.

And then something so utterly indescribable. The hunter had never seen anything so beautiful, so majestic, so ethereal, so grand. In a form that the hunter didn’t have the words for, there was a great, geometric structure of crystal-like stones. They were blinding, and yet, the hunter stared on. Like the moon itself was on earth, right there, before him, in this ethereal grove.

“Oh, moon! My salvation!” The hunter immediately exclaimed, body shaking in feverous reverence. “Oh, moon! How you come to deliver me! Oh, moon! Let me commune with you!”

The hunter tried to stand but immediately fell to the ground. He tried again, but fell once more. He tried again and again and again. It did not register in the Gnome’s mind that his knee was dislocated, his tendons ruptured, and the fact that he bled from his arms and face rather profusely. Despite what should be excruciating pain, the Gnome didn’t feel it, there was only one thing the Gnome cared about. If he could not stand, then he would crawl there.

In a flash of furry, the Gnome hurried and scrambled and hobbled towards the glowing stones before him. Pain, like a needle, indescribably sharp and acute, pushed into his mind. The Gnome howled as he went. He should have been in more pain, he should have been outright incapacitated, but he kept going. He howled and hollered and screamed and shouted in pain, in praise, in utter madness. His blood stained the grass, and his screams poisoned the air.

“Moon! Moon! Moon!” He went on. “MOON! MOON! MOON!” He went on and on, reaching the cluster of crystals now. ”MOON! MOON! MOON!” He went on and on and on, his hands sizzling as he touched the stones, his mind overloaded with an energy he did not know, but will never live out even for just a moment.

“Moon! I am here! I came for you!” He praised at his altar now, rocking in psychotic ecstasy. He felt the power continually course through him, he felt like he was growing. He felt a small sensation in his leg, and he looked back. It seems that his left leg, with the dislocated knee, was detached. Something was growing around it, and where his knee was once, was now a new sprout.

“Yes, yes, take me moon! I am here, moon! Lift me up! Up! Up! Up!” He continued to exclaim, rocking even more intensely now. He rocked and rocked and rocked. Even as he slammed his head into the stone at times, splitting his head open further and further, giving him pain and pleasure like none experienced before, he continued to rock.

“Moon, moon, moon, oh moon!” He began to sing now, and that will be all that he would sing, or say, ever again. He felt he was reaching a new height. He felt like every second was a new height. He felt how the growth continued to mature around him, on him, in him. How the lights around him brightened, how the chorus of a celestial melody, now heard, rung sweetly in his ears.

The hunter, or what once was the hunter, looked to the sky in his luminous ecstasy. He could see the moon. Even as his senses were totally overwhelmed, even as his senses numbed, and the world faded around him, he could still see the moon. So still, so peaceful. It sat gently in the sky, looking down towards the earth. It reassured him, the bearded Món did.

“You are safe.” It told the hunter, and the Gnome smiled like a child, who was cradled in his father’s arms and assured that all was alright. New tears, tears of joy, of acceptance, of reassurance, exited his bloodshot eyes as fungal growth began to grow upon his chin, and the edges of his face.

“I love you, moon.” Was the hunter’s last thought, before everything flooded back to him at once. The pain, the pleasure, the fear, the calm, the confusion, the faith, the terror, his entire life, and he began to sing once more.

“Moon, moon, moon, oh moon! Moon, moon, moon, oh moon! Moon, moon, moon, oh moon!”

A party of Gnomes trawled through the dark woods, numbering thirty total. They were varying degrees of cloaked figures, men and women, but led by a single Gnome all the same. It was 9 o’clock now, but they had been going since 7.

The dark woods around Frugamwó were always revealing new secrets, and always hiding so many more. This section of the forest was apparently one their administration had yet to touch, or at least hasn’t been investigated for some time now. Scouts had been sent even earlier in the day, and one of them approached the new party of Gnomes.

“Matron.” The Gnome said, coming down towards the party.

“Briefly me quickly, what have you found.” The woman says sharply.

“It’s...startling, Matron. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and yet, it’s all so confronting at the same time. It’s a grove, a gruesome one.”

“A gruesome grove? What is there that makes it so gruesome?

“Well, that bloody patch there is a nice indicator.” The scout pointed to a cluster of rocks just to the left of the Matron, where a prominent blood streak lay.

“We found more patches, left a path that led straight to the grove,” the scout said. “They were running, that much is certain. But nothing seems to have been chasing them.”

“Hmm. Curious.” The Matron said, whose eyes had been on the bloody rock the entire time the scout had spoken. She turned to the scout now, apparently having her fill of the bloody rocks. “Alright, lead on.”

With a nod, the scout spun on his spot, and marched forward. The Matron motioned for the others to follow, and follow they did.

With the scout’s assistance, though now that she was actively looking for a trail, said trail was not hard to notice. Disturbed bushes, broken branches, pieces of cloth and blood amongst the leaves and bushes. The footprints were fresh. Someone was absolutely running for their lives, but there was only one set of footprints present here.

“We are not even there yet, and I feel its power.” The Matron suddenly remarked, breathing heavily as if a wave of heat and refuse just hit her.

“And that power, you will witness now.” With the prying of a bush, the Matron stepped past the scout, and audibly gasped.

Before her was the largest Moonstone Grove she has ever laid her eyes on. The Grove itself was absolutely massive, and teeming with Grove flora, making it the largest Moonstone Garden she has seen also. They were dormant now, being exposed to daylight. A few steps in, and the magic of the Moonstones gushed forward even stronger. It was as palpable as the subtle mist that wafted in the Grove.

In the middle of what was a perfect circle, was what looked like a cairn of stones. Moonstone, fused together, jutting out of the tower like a mighty monument to the occult. It pulsed a gentle glow, hinting at its preternatural nature.

The largest Grove, naturally, was accompanied by the largest single piece Moonstone the Matron had ever seen. Huddle around it? Bodies. Many, many bodies.

The group of Gnomes that followed the Matron immediately began to fan out, securing and bolstering the perimeter set up by the earlier scouts. They were all over the site. Cataloguing, identifying, looking on in awe and horror. The Matron immediately moved towards the Moonstone itself, braving the magical winds it flung towards her.

“They’ve all been grown over.” She remarked, pointing to the bodies. Covered in a fungal growth of some kind, with mushroom and other fungi looking plants clawing their way out of their corpses. There were about two dozen bodies present, or at least bodies that still looked like they were a body.

“This area has reported a number of missing peoples over the years.” the scout said, walking alongside the Matron. “Nothing new in Frugamwó, but with discovery, I think we’ll be able to close a few of those cases.

“Or at least come to an educated assumption. Many of these are old bodies, nothing will remain past the fungal skin.” the Matron replied, coldly.

“Perhaps.” The scout replied with a shrug. “But we can at least identify that one.” The scout pointed towards a corpse that was slumped over the Moonstone itself. Missing a leg, it grasped tightly onto the Moonstone itself, hands actually melted into the stone. A thin layer of the fungal skin had already covered most of the body, and a great, orange capped mushroom began to grow out of the Gnome’s back.

The Matron came up for closer inspection, to look at the man’s face. Screaming, mouth eternally agape. The head was heavily split, enough that one could probably fit their finger through the gap. Where there seemed to be streaks of tears, there was now a channel in the flesh. Looking up, however, there were no eyes. Looking into both the mouth and empty eye socket, a hive structure of hexagonal fungus could be seen within. Shuddering, the Matron stepped back, but suddenly stopped.

“A bow.” She said. Indeed, there was a bow strapped to the man’s back, though no quiver could be seen.

“A hunter was reported missing yesterday.” The scout replied, looking at the desecrated corpse. “They were hunting during the super moon.” The scout paused. “Poor sod, was out at the height of the moon’s power. Was unfortunate to be drawn to this Grove, and was finish not long after, I suspect.”

The Matron had stopped paying attention at this point. At the mention of the super moon, her gaze immediately looked up. There, high up in the sky, faintly mixing in with the clouds, lay the one the Gnomes called Món.

The moon, large and innocent, sat high in blue skies. It watched at a distance, and it knew what it had seen, and what it had done. The Matron held her gaze, before looking back to the corpse. Broken, destroyed, and only a pale reflection of what the mind of the being had experienced but a night back.

“Safe travels, hunter. The Afterlife is as perilous as the woods who once hunted in, and there, like here, you are prey. May you find the Fire, the light of salvation in the dark of death. Wagneraz be with you.” Silence a minute long followed, before the Matron turned to the scout, who looked at her expectedly.

“Remove the corpse, and prepare the area for cleansing.” The scout nodded, before rushing off. Leaving the Matron with the hunter, the Moonstone, her thoughts, and Món high above.