The Wickend Wode
On the outskirts of the Valley of the Unseen, protecting its waterfall entrance, lies the Wickend Wode. Once a peaceful woodland filled with vibrant animal life and natural beauty, now the woods are a twisted and corrupted landscape of fear and darkness. When the Trolls of Gor’reg used the Shepherd's Crook, an ancient Druidic artifact, to seal the Valley off from the world, it found the woodland’s Nature Spirit and cursed it to forever be a living nightmare. This spirit, a manifestation of Sesmi’s dreams, now is forced to forever fight off the corrupted animals of the woods in endless battle, only able to be freed if the curse is lifted by the very same artifact that caused its peril.
When entered, the Wode will do everything in its power to stop those within from leaving again. It uses a maelstrom of illusions to draw intruders towards the center of the woods, where the now exhausted spirit resides, knowing that the spirit will be unable to see them as anything other than another attack. The curse made the land itself self-aware, and as such when creatures within its bounds become aware of the illusions and trickery, it’ll double its efforts and move on to more lethal tactics.
As the spirit is a manifestation of Sesmi’s consciousness, its death would trigger the earth around it to start to decay with each passing day without it. It will also hurt Sesmi further, prolonging her catatonic state. With each manifestation’s death, Sesmi get’s one step closer to never waking up again.
