The Whispering Woods

## Prologue: Among the Ashen Boughs

The company crossed the timberline at dusk, where the road dissolved into roots and the wind learned to speak in sighs. A shrine to the Lost Mother lay toppled, its stone face cracked and weeping black sap. Tracks of a blight-boar circled the site like a warding ring — or a warning.

At midnight the trees began to whisper names none of the party had spoken aloud. The goblin heard a lullaby from a village long burned; the changeling smelled smoke from a home she never knew. They pressed on, torches guttering against a breathless dark.

By dawn, they found a rune-stone buried in nettles. Its grooves were filled with resin that pulsed like a vein.

Hooks: rune-stone favors an old hex-circle; the resin reacts to witchcraft; the shrine’s offerings include a straw doll bound with hair.