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Missing girl of Elm

CanonOfficial lore from the books▶ Actual play

The missing girl of Elm is an unnamed child of the village of Elm in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"). She is the daughter of the farmer Lena and has a brother. She played with her friends by the waterfall near the village; the others went home one by one, but she did not, and when her family raised the alarm in the night, Liam came to ask the travellers in his barn for help.1234

The first night

Olaf found the child's tracks leading into the forest, away from the village, with no sign of anyone carrying her. The trail kept to a sensible path, avoiding dead ends, and the searchers began to think she had not strayed but had been going somewhere. It ended at the Vanishing lake of Elm.567

When the lake vanished at dawn, the very old, brittle bones of a girl were found where it had been. A first guess put them at about a hundred and fifty years old, but it was soon said that they might be eighty, and only that they had decayed for many years. No tooth marks were seen. Whether they were this girl's, another child's, or the sign of something rarer, was argued over and never settled.8910

The second evening

When the day seemed to begin again, the companions watched her family. Her mother at first would not let her and her brother go to the waterfall; once Jonathan River had put Lena to sleep and Bold had drawn the children's attention, they slipped out to their friends. In a game of hide-and-seek she hid in a hollow under some roots and did not come back when her friends called. Instead she looked aside as if she heard something else, and walked towards the lake, unseen, with Jonathan, his book and Bold following. Bold saw nothing calling her, and she showed neither pain nor resistance.11121314

As her feet reached the water, Max ran and lifted her, but an unseen force kept pulling her towards the lake. He dropped the rope he meant to tie her with, and Jonathan held her with his mind for a moment, until Olaf and Max together pushed her back. She fell away from the water; the pull let go, and the wind and waves died down. She was alive and seemed not to understand where she was.1516

She cried for a few minutes and then fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, which was the weariness of what she had been through, not illness. She was laid down far from the lake. Tim stayed with her at first; when the others went down into the water, she was left in the care of Zarama, who said that her death was not what was meant to happen and that he would not harm her.171819

Spoiler: What became of herSpoils: Zincirsiz #26 · Say what you have read

Notes

  1. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 59:48
  2. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:02:01
  3. ↑At the tableKırılma | DnD 5E Oynanış #22 (Zincirsiz #22), 1:48:51
  4. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 35:11
  5. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:06:58
  6. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:13:26
  7. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:27:11
  8. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:51:44
  9. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:55:03
  10. ↑At the tableBir Garip Köy | DnD 5E Oynanış #21 (Sürprizli) (Zincirsiz #21), 1:56:56
  11. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 1:42:48
  12. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 1:49:27
  13. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 1:54:53
  14. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 2:18:46
  15. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 2:22:00
  16. ↑At the tableKarmaşık Olaylar | DnD 5E Oynanış #23 (Zincirsiz #23), 2:22:51
  17. ↑At the tableMistik Göl | DnD 5E Oynanış #24 (Zincirsiz #24), 30:01
  18. ↑At the tableMistik Göl | DnD 5E Oynanış #24 (Zincirsiz #24), 38:08
  19. ↑At the tableMistik Göl | DnD 5E Oynanış #24 (Zincirsiz #24), 1:02:02
  20. ↑At the tableUyanış | DnD 5e Oynanış #26 (Zincirsiz #26), 2:02:04
  21. ↑At the tableUyanış | DnD 5e Oynanış #26 (Zincirsiz #26), 2:04:35
  22. ↑At the tableUyanış | DnD 5e Oynanış #26 (Zincirsiz #26), 2:07:38

Sources

This article draws on:

    ▶ Actual play

    Related articles

    PlaceElmA small farming village at the foot of a forest on a wild road south, in the Zincirsiz campaign, where the mage Jonathan River and his companions saw the place turn for a moment into an old ruin, and found themselves living the same day again.CharacterLenaA widowed sheep farmer of the village of Elm in the Zincirsiz campaign, mother of a son and a daughter, under whose bed the mage Jonathan River found a box of simple folk rituals.CharacterLiamThe keeper of the village house in Elm in the Zincirsiz campaign, a man in his forties who lodged travellers in his barn, and who twice came at night to ask the mage Jonathan River and the mercenary Max for help finding a lost girl.CharacterAmnesiac sleeper of ElmA nameless man of the Zincirsiz campaign found asleep on a stone bed in a small room beneath the lake of Elm, who remembered nothing of himself, read every script with ease, and seemed to shape what lay around him in his sleep.CharacterAquaThe fey spirit of the forest of Sınır Sapı in the Zincirsiz campaign, born of water and dwelling mostly beneath it, whose heart is tied to the region's plenty and who lent that heart to the mage Jonathan River against a common enemy.CharacterAzboThe great Azbo of the Zincirsiz campaign, an ancestor revered by orcs who reject their god as a shackle, whose hidden tomb inside a mountain the orcs and the mage Jonathan River sought.CharacterBlinkThe companion of the young mage Jonathan River in the Zincirsiz campaign, a small pink, cloud-like shapeshifting being of unknown kind that appeared after a failed ritual at the Archon Academy and can take the form of keys, tools and other objects.CharacterBoldThe familiar of the young mage Jonathan River in the Zincirsiz campaign, a brown owl that is a fey spirit in owl form, through whose eyes Jonathan scouts, spies and keeps watch.CharacterBrakarAn orc chief of the Zincirsiz campaign who, with his shaman Gromak, set the mage Jonathan River and the sellsword Olaf to recover a relic taken from an ancestor's tomb, and later entrusted the rod to Jonathan.CharacterCaptain MarkusA legion captain at Sınır Sapı in the Zincirsiz campaign whose secret trips out of town drew the suspicion of the witch hunters, and whose house Jonathan River searched and in whose cellar he questioned him.