A quiet return

[Treadwell]

Clip-clop, clip-clip, clip-clop go horse hooves on the final stretch of the North Passage Down heading into Myrken Wood. The horse itself is exhausted, having been nudged on, rested, fed, nudged on, rested, and fed in cycles for the past week. Now, they near the northern border of Myrken Wood, and the horse gives a puzzled snort. This wall wasn't here when he last left.

It wasn't here when the rider atop the horse left either.

The horse itself is a short, elderly beast almost wider than it is tall: a gray and white old animal known at first glance to many in Myrken Wood. It used to be Treadwell's old horse, Arnold, that used to carry the Councilor around in his mission to collect taxes at most inopportune moments. Up to a few weeks ago, it was owned by Jonathan Lincoln of Westenford, Amasynia; now, it has been returned to its rightful owner.

The rider turns this horse to one side for now to skirt the wall and try to find a suitable entrance into the town. It turns out that the rider is much like the steed: a short, elderly tub almost wider than he is tall, or so it seems given his five feet and a few scant inches.

He, too, would be known at first glance to many in Myrken Wood--especially the younger ones. He used to own a toy shop in the middle of town, a toy shop he left in a most unusual fashion, like the horse he rides again, to Aloisius Horatio Treadwell.

He has spent the last years away from Myrken Wood. He has heard of Mr. Treadwell's having gone missing and his being turned into a fairy. But all of that aside, he has spent time recuperating, resting his great girth in a secret place--a cave, to be honest, near his ruined town that he used to own in Amasynia.

But for now, with mystery on his mind and word of evil and treason in his ears, one Roderic Gustav Cliché returns home to Myrken Wood, a little older, a little sadder, and a little less magical.

But for all of these changes to himself and to the land he calls his second home, Mr. Cliché is every bit determined to find out just what's happening in Myrken Wood.

[Treadwell]

Words of treason and ruin and madness and assaults on the governor's home run through the streets, streets that Roderic Cliché wobbles slowly through. Having had to house his horse at one of the miscellaneous inns in Myrken Wood for a night, the former landowner turned toymaker makes his way to his old toy shop only to find it locked up nicely and abandoned several months ago. After a scritch-scratch at his beard, Roderic finds himself returning to Arnold's saddlebags to retrieve quills, ink, and parchment. Writing a note is easily done, and soon there is another exhausting trip back through town to leave it on the door of the toy shop with a thump from a nail and a tiny mallet in his belt of toymaking tools.

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To whom it may concern,
I wish to see about the purchase of these premises in order to open once more my own toy shop here in Myrken Wood.
Thank you.
Roderic G. Cliché
July 18, A.R. 206
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