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September 2025 Edition
“Almost there,” you whisper to yourself as you race ahead through the forest, zigzagging through trees and jumping over underbrush. The edge of your cloak catches on a nearby branch causing you to stumble to a stop. You yank the cloak free, a jagged tear ripping through the worn fabric. Dread fills you as a sickening shriek rings out. One by one, an echoing chorus of clicks and wails fills the valley. The pack has caught your scent.
If you can just make it into town, the wards will keep the creatures at bay. After years of hunting in these woods, you know the way by heart. Breath ragged in your ears and muscles screaming from the strain, you burst from the forest on the banks of a stream. There’s no time to look for a place to cross so you plunge into the waist deep, icy water and wade across. You emerge from the stream soaked and shivering just as another round of wailing screams fills the air, closer this time. Much closer.
Sodden leather boots squish and slide as you stumble your way over moss covered rocks to a thicket of briars and vines that crosses this part of the valley. Luck is on your side as you quickly spy a small opening in the tangle, just big enough for you to squeeze through. Dropping to the ground, you scramble and crawl through the mud, thorns catching on your clothes and hair, scratching any exposed skin. Crash. The sound of smashing branches and yips of pain fills the air as the creatures attempt to follow you into the thicket, forcing their enormous bodies through the small opening you took. It will slow them down but not stop them.
“With any luck, that will hold them just long enough for me to cross the wards,” you mumble as you scramble out of the thicket: muddy, bloody, and exhausted. But as you turn towards the town that had come to be your home these past five years, something isn’t right. As you peer through the trees, you don’t see the sunlight shining into the valley clearing housing the modest hamlet, but darkness and shadow. As you run towards where the town should be, you realize with horror that there is a wall, a huge stone wall that hadn’t been there this morning.
Too tall to climb and stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction, this mysterious wall is blocking the only path forward to safety. As the creatures draw closer, there’s no time to ponder the wall’s magical appearance. You pick a direction at random and start running along the wall looking for any cracks or passages to get through but there is nothing, just a continuous span of weatherworn stone. Sweat pouring down your face, you hear the creatures break through the last of the thicket.
This is it, this is how you end. There is no safety, no protection, no escape. You brace yourself and turn to face the creatures. If you go down, you’re going to go down fighting. In the corner of your eye, you see a flash of red. There in the wall is a bright red door.
Now you know that wasn’t there before. It can’t have been, could it? Nevermind that, if you run, you just might make it to the door before the creatures attack. You gather the last of your strength, sprint for the door, and slam it shut just as the first of the creatures smashes into it. As soon as the door closes, the sound of the creatures and the forest vanishes. You collapse against the door, head hanging, and breathe a sigh of relief. Safe at last.
When something taps you on the shoulder…
