Beware the Circling Steps

If sooty footprints are seen circling the fields, the writer urges flight — especially for those with children: they are ravenous and numerous, hailing from the shadows, and what they crave is tender young flesh.

Initially the tracks keep their distance, tracing broad rings about the settlement like a cautious hunter; but nightly the rings grow smaller and more numerous, the soot darker — the prints smaller than a man's, larger than a child's, crooked as if clawed by a hen.

Once the tracks close in on the homestead, it is already too late: no prayers, no begging, no fathers with axes or mothers with blades will stop the children being gone before dawn. The excerpt breaks off there.

Drop odds are derived from the game files and assume a fresh roll; pity bonuses and duplicate protection shift them as you play, so treat every figure as an estimate.

• Mevasser Witchcraft Vendor 9.3%
• Henrik Merchant 9.3%

• Generic Junk 0.6%