Hellsborough Exposed — prophecy

Naval had handed the beggar at the crossroads five ¢hits an hour earlier, and the beggar followed him all the way to the edge of the wisewood to tell him not to go in. "She's gone fella. Doant enter that wisewood - that's all I 'as to say to thee." "You're wrong. I have no choice. I need to go into the wisewood." "She'll come back fella, when she's good and ready. Tha doant need to go in there looking for her." "Wait, what? - how do you know she'll come back?" "I's milting fella, I maybe old, but I's seen all this an 'undred times before."

Van told me to watch for black flecks at gloaming — specks of darkness spinning at the edge of vision, present only at that precise low-light hour. He said it was dark matter in transit, pulled toward another source, and that seeing it was the sign of dunlockslyn the three-tailed venomtooth. He said this very quietly, which was the part that worried me most.

Seven guardians of the hinge have been tracking my crossings since I first started making them — a fact I found in the hivemind's activity logs rather than being told directly. They had held this post for many years before I arrived, watching nothing, because nothing happened. I find it worse to know they noticed me from the beginning.