Elandril's Letters to Home

[Tamlin]

To my friends and family back in Sunfall,

I hope this letter finds you well, I myself am in excellent health, although I find the wet never truly allows one to feel warm in this region.

To my colleagues, as we strive to learn, record, and teach I have a tale to add to the books back home. You recall I left a little over a year ago to explore the world and learn for myself, to better my own knowledge before I become a teacher of others. I have now found myself in the town of Baldur's Gate. To afford the warm inn rooms, books, and fine wines I find myself partial to I must admit to have accepted work as a mercenary, much to my own chagrin. And to this end I have stumbled firsthand onto a most unusual of stories.

While in a local Inn we were told the legend of "the Jack" a denizen described as a living scarecrow "cursed to walk the land for he has been barred from both the lands of the gods and the depths of hell" who would create scarecrows to steal into people's homes for unholy purposes. While I originally dismissed this story as a a quaint human story, fit only for scaring their young, I soon was proven quite wrong.

We were hired by Torold, a farmer at the town of Darfleet to hunt down a pumpkin thief. The only eye-witness described the thief as a bundle of sticks with a pumpkin for a head - "the Jack". The four of us scoffed at the notion, figuring the witness had a little too much harvest mead. However, after a dangerous delve through goblin infested woods, we found a house, seemingly built in opposition to common sense as it was in the middle of said dangerous woods.

The house was covered in strange decorations and indeed there was the heart of an enormous beast outside - we were unnerved.

Originally we figured the thief to be human, and wrapped our weapons to take them alive, however upon entering the house we found it was full of the undead, and quickly found ourselves in a fight for our lives. However, this was not the worst to come.

On the top floor of this house, the walls and floors seemingly were made of flesh, and I thought perhaps I had lost my senses. They pulsed in a parody of life, the ground soft under my boots. We were assailed by a pumpkin headed scarecrow who nearly spelled the end of us all. After destroying the scarecrow we discovered a strange orifice with what seemed like a portal, though nothing we threw at it seemed to have any effect. We quickly ran to the basement where we found the Jack himself speaking to some dark spirit. "Ho Ho my friend the time will soon arrive when you can spread your gifts upon the sleeping pigs. Soon soon just a few more seeds." Luckily before whatever dark magic could be performed, the dwarf Orin, the leader of our mercenary band, cleaved the Jack clean in two. This other nightmarish creature quickly vanished. With speed, we fled the house as it too began to vanish beneath our very feet! By the time we escaped it had disappeared completely from view.

Though the tale above may seem embellished I swear upon Labelas' one eye that it is only the truth. I shudder to think of what might have befallen the nearby townspeople had we not been there, and an army of scarecrows been able to descend upon them. And when I think of next harvest season, I feel a shiver go down my spine - should this malevolent spirit return again.