Over Root and Thorn (Day 63)

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Tombolin was a secluded hamlet hemmed in on all sides by the Lakara Wood, its people more or less oblivious to the comings and goings of the people past the forest. The people couldn't exactly be described as xenophobic, necessarily. Interacting with outsiders wasn't something they actively tried to avoid, but it still very rarely happened. The woods engulfing the surrounding territories was a storied, magical place to the village's residents and in the many years of the village's existence, it had never been fully explored. Only the most adventurous of souls made it all the way through to the village; it hadn't happened in many years as far as anyone in Tombolin knew.

According to local lore, the village had been founded by a group of priests who wished to live in nature. Ironically, the deity they worshiped had been lost to the passage of time and the villagers were now mostly secular. What had remained, however, was a deep reverence for the surrounding woods, with more than a touch of fear. Tales of fearsome creatures residing in the depths of the forest had been passed down for generations. The newer generations treated these tales less seriously, but still declined to travel too far into the woods.

Adventurers of days past, as infrequently as they showed up, brought with them tales of bustling cities, powerful magicians, and bizarre creatures that lived beyond the plains. Every brave soul that had battled their way through Lakara seemed to have something different to say about the world that lay outside--and in fact, they contradicted each other. The locals, having no frame of reference, knew not who to trust, so the general consensus became a general distrust for adventurers. As a result, there was nothing about the outside world that was commonly agreed upon.

Lakara was a land of rolling hills and miles and miles of unbroken forest. Somewhere in the deepest depths of that forest was Tombolin, striving to coexist with the trees surrounding it. The priests that had founded the village so long ago sought to harm as few trees as possible when constructing the village, and the tradition had continued to the present day, with dozens and dozens of marvelously constructed stone buildings dotting the landscape. The oldest structures in the village were enigmatic, beautiful buildings of unbroken stone, while the newer ones were somewhat crude in comparison. The ways of the craftsmen of the past had been lost to time.