�The Nameless,� Simeon asked. �You mean our gods?�

�No,� Chendrelle said, shaking her head. �Those your race name as gods are only beings of power. They trade favor for idolatry. The Nameless were the shapers of all that would be, but they did not require worship or reverance from us. They simply gave what was best... for everything. Some did not see it this way unfortunately.�

Chendrelle caressed his muscled arm lightly saying, �Your flesh was so fragile... As paths of men and fairy began to cross, many Fey resisted the Nameless�s wishes. They taunted men mercilessly, using them for their own perverted will. Most instances were harmless in nature, though some deaths did occur from time to time.

Eventually some began to take great pleasure in the killing of men. The protector of this wood, Khorrus, was one. He grew to despise all men, and would call for them to be brought before the base of his massive trunk. Encircled by rabid Fey, he would scratch and stab with his sharp limbs, �til the blood of the poor men emptied into the earth. The delight in killing was terrible enough, but eventually the day came when Khorrus�s hate crossed into blasphemy. He began dissecting the men to learn the secrets of the Nameless.�

Simeon noticed a tiny tear fall from Chendrelle�s face. Gently, he raised his hand and wiped it away, though said nothing in reply.

�It is not known how long the Nameless watched Khorrus�s desecration but, with the mutilation of the seventh man, the sun grew blood red in the sky. Clouds of fire rained down upon the forest, the drops burning everything they made contact with. Every Fey within the bounds of the wood fled to Khorrus for his protection, but none would come.

As we gathered round him, we watched as Khorrus�s bark began to harden, gradually turning to cold iron before our eyes. The weight of his limbs pulled him earthward. He wrestled against it defiantly for days until his strength failed him, the effort ultimately leaving him too weakened to stretch his limbs toward the sky. As a final punishment, the Nameless wove the tips of his branches within the depth of his roots, leaving his very form he object of his imprisonment...a slumping, cold iron cell.�

Chendrelle motioned for Simeon to rise and resume walking.

�The seven men that had been slain rose from death then and spoke to us in all of the known languages simultaneously. They told us that from that day forward, the forest would slowly die, its power waning with the rise of mankind. Their myriad voices decreed that when it came to be that our flesh also passed from this existence to the next, we would all serve the seven for eternity.�

Simeon looked around him as he walked. The wood was still thick with vegetation, flowering plants he had never seen before dotted the forest floor in thick clumps. The canopies of the massive trees spread into the distance, broken occasionally by beams of bright warm light. It was hard to imagine a wood this lush dying, but if Chendrelle�s description was accurate, it was just a fraction of its original size.

�What happened to the Fey who followed Khorrus?� Simeon asked.

�Many of them went slowly mad, unable to accept the weight of their punishment,� she wept. �They continued to war with the men who encroached the wood, not believing that they were only ushering their fate closer. Most died in those conflicts, needlessly sacrificing themselves in winless slaughter, but some... some invited the gravest of ends, pledging themselves to the emerging dark powers of the world.�

�So some still live?� Simeon wondered aloud. �Or did they all find death?�

Chendrelle raised her head, finding her composure again. Brushing the long golden hair away from her face, she stared into his eyes saying, �Eventually those that were left came to accept their fate, but found ways to struggle against it. They became physically tainted by their spite and sought to use it to fuel a subversive resistance, while the rest of us determined to make amends to the Nameless if possible.�

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