HOLLOW'S EVE

Wailing Willow, hush your cry,
Hollow's dreaming where roots lie,
When the night wind starts to blow,
Quiet now, or it may show!

Deep within Willow Grove, where the branches droop low enough to brush the forest floor, lies the home of the Hollow. Long before the Aegles arrived on the Spine, a semi-sentient wisp of a being already roamed the lands—a solitary creature from an ancient Age, surviving by feeding on ambient magic.

Fearing the bedlam the creature could unleash on retreating Aegle troops, a talented Aegle mage skilled in dimensional magic set a trap for the Hollow. Although the ensuing fight saw him briefly possessed by the crafty creature, the mage managed to magically seal the Hollow within a tiny pocket dimension inside a spelled leather pouch. However, the chaos and devastation of war saw the mage subsequently lose possession of the pouch in a small forest that would eventually come to be known as Willow Grove.

The lands surrounding the forest were seized by Humans during the Great War, and after the war ended, the Human settlement of Whitebeard Village sprang up next to Willow Grove. During these early years, the villagers lived in terror every late autumn, for during that season fellow villagers, farm animals, and even objects would sometimes be briefly possessed by a shadowy, wispy entity.

Over time, the villagers learned of this creature’s habits, its haunts, its movements. They discovered that both Aegles and Humans had called it the Hollow during the Great War. They studied  how it prowled in darkness and thrived on fear. They came to know which night in the late autumn season the creature’s presence was strongest. So, each year on that night, the villagers celebrated Hollow’s Eve, driving the creature away with lights, colourful costumes, and raucous merrymaking. This tradition was passed down from generation to generation, continuing even after the village grew into the modest town of Maille.

Although few scholars dedicate themselves to the study of such aberrant creatures, the ones who do offer a plausible reason for the Hollow’s annual emergence. They theorise that the seal inside the leather pouch gradually weakened over the years. Because the Hollow’s power is affected by night and stars, and reaches its peak when the stars are in a certain position, it is able on that night to partially break free from its prison, sending a fragment of itself into the material world. This fragment spreads fear among the villagers and feeds on that fear and ambient magic alike. Eventually, as the days and weeks pass, the Hollow’s power wanes, forcing it back into its dimensional prison.

Some residents of Maille say that the Hollow slumbers inside the Wailing Willow—a tree in Willow Grove with a great hollow between its roots. When the wind blows strong, the air rushing into the hole produces a wailing sound, which is how the tree got its name. No leather pouches have ever been reported as found, but those aforementioned scholars warn that should the seal in the pouch weaken and break completely, the Hollow would return to the lands in its full form—hungrier and more dangerous than ever.