Stanhope

"From what the man named Stanhope told me, I doubt it." The Carp's booming voice turns silky smooth.

"He had grand projects on his mind that sadly were prematurely cut short.

"It depends." Prang says. "Some apprentices are adults, fellow journeyers through the arcane like Stanhope, who agree to help because their interests align with their putative 'master.'"

"Others are unwanted children who work for a home. They are basically worthless servants. Disposable."

"I never had enough love to spend on children. My lifelong devotion to magic has been enough for me."

"Back then I was enthusiastic and naïve. Deceived by my first benign foray into the Forest! Neither Stanhope nor I had the faintest inkling of the terrible fate that awaited him.

"It is not safe inside. On our first trip, Stanhope and I only saw grinning shadows, ominous corpses, and laughing wolves. When Stanhope did not return on the second trip, I tried to go after him myself, but was immediately dissuaded by something bigger than two men standing at the farthest edge of my line of sight, slowly walking my way. I shut the Door then and dared not open it for a day.

"Why the use of light as a marker, and not a map? When we opened the Door for the second time, Stanhope found that the dimensions of the forest had changed from our initial observations. Things we had seen in the distance were even farther away. New ruins had appeared by the door. A stone pathway we had followed on our first expedition had vanished. And things in the distance not being observed had a tendency to creep short distances."

"I needed cheap labor, fast, so I sent Stanhope out to find someone with the right discretion and desperation.

"We found a company of peasants newly evicted from their lands on the Sturmport mainland. Stanhope proposed they come here and settle the Forest we discovered through the Door, and their leader Gerold accepted.

"I had half of them clear the trees near the entrance while the rest went with Stanhope deeper into the Forest. Those, I never saw again."

Prang pays the workers, and counts out the party's silver.

"And what of Stanhope, my apprentice? Did you learn what became of him?"

"We did, unfortunately, he came across some dire complications."
"He has passed away."

"Personally, my suspicion is that Stanhope's corpse is lost in the Forest somewhere, or maybe even in the Thing's lair, if it had one, as the last we heard of him, it was hunting him down. Perhaps it decapitated him and kept his head as a trophy."

Klein laughs a dark laugh. "Maybe we should do the same to the Thing. Bring its head as a trophy back to Prang.

"I wonder where it got this human face skin it's wearing anyway. It...looks like a real man's flesh."

There is also some writing on the paper, a note.

*We followed the light. Thought we'd make it back to the lamppost.*

*But light was a trap. Someone already stole the lantern this time to lure us.*

*Found the lamppost later, but too late. No lantern there anymore.*

*Things chasing us we can't see. Berglund is turning, can't help him.*

*Saw a light moving in the distance. Leaving this note in case we don't come back. - Stanhope*

"They ran blind into our glade, this hunter who had slain myriads of your land's beasts, and a weak young man who thought himself about to become a master of other worlds.

"They who lacked light, fled something that stalked them with light, whose true form neither of them ever saw.

"The hunter thought he would draw their stalker away and save his companion with a final showdown. He died here instead full of regrets and despair! When we first tasted him, it was too, too exquisite! No greater ecstasy exists than an eternal dream of the proud knowing they have failed utterly.

"He was in bloody pieces of course, but we easily fixed that up. Most of it was only a flesh wound!" The hanged huntsman lifts his hand to his vine-masked face and bows as the deep voice rumbles with laughter.

"We can show you the path that the weak one ran, but we can also let you know, the Thing stalking him went the same way."

Just behind the Hangman's Tree, there is a rustling sound as vines part, forming an archway barely visible at the edge of the lantern's light.

Working together, the party works through the series of false trails the creature has created through the trees and elevation changes, chasing it to the edge of the territory that begins to climb uphill and where the thorn bushes grow thick and dense.

A burning oil arrow from Silvius lands on a particularly gargantuan tree, revealing something large and black silhouetted in the light, trying to hide behind the trunk [Keryth can easily see this too, though it is quite far away from them].

It seems to have something like the body of a praying mantis fifteen-twenty feet long, a massive but slender abdomen of solid black, and four jointed legs.

From the right side of its narrow thorax, a segmented arm terminates in a retracted raptorial scythe-limb the length of a polearm, with ugly serrations lining the blade.

A immensely long, thin prehensile neck swivels around the other side of the trunk to stare at the party, with the face of a young man attached to the end of it.

Ragged flaps of skin at the edges of the face mark where it was severed from its original owner and stitched onto the creature; old blood still clings to the hair on its scalp.

Yet, somehow the slack eyes stare, and the humanish mouth leers with gleeful, murderous intent as it yawns wide open like a snake, extending long, dripping mandibles.

The first thing that is noticeable to the hunting party is that the Stalking-Thing is leaving no clawprints. It seems to be climbing over the closely packed thorn bushes, relying on its special armored carapace to ignore the thorns. The fox also admits with shame that it has lost the scent trail in the muddy ground, under the markings of the other foxes. The best that can be done is to track by disturbed foliage.

The second thing that is noticeable, about one hundred feet into the thorn bush gully, is the loud, high-pitched scream of an animal that is abruptly cut off, about sixty feet to the east of the party's location.

This does have the benefit of allowing the hunting party to find the right trail - along with the slain corpse of a fox with sausages wrapped around its body. It has no head.
"This...This must be the Palace-Beast!" cries the fox herald to those in earshot. It would prefer to mourn, but there is no time.

One of the Wasps is perched on the wounded arm of the Stalking-Thing, finishing up the implanting of a large egg inside the wound that begins to swell with the Thing's ichor.

Only the Stalking-Thing acknowledges Silvius.

"Hah, all that, and for it to end like this. Come and end me if you dare." says its human voice.

It is some minutes before something large and burning crashes through - the Stalking Thing, its body aflame, seeking one last adversary to kill.

But as instantly as it forces its way through the hedge, its severely burned body collapses into a still heap, still trapped in the burning hedge.

The head of the being stares around in confusion before looking back at itself and screaming as the flames from the hedge consume it.

*To briefly summarize the notes, they describe a series of instructions received from the "Golden Carp." Part of them are a series of calculations to properly realign the lantern to fix it and open the Crossroads to another place. Part of them are describing the instructions for a ritual designed to merge the caster with another creature, using the lantern as a power source. The hand in which the notes are written matches the warnings left by Stanhope in the abandoned camp.*