shadows in town

It began many years ago in a small town was celebrating the death of their tyrannical ruler who used magic to cruelty suppress the population. What no townsfolk knew was that a curse had been spoken.

As the ale was flowing shadows started to shiver in anticipation. Drunk and ecstatic the crowd remained clueless. Then a shadow separated from a drunk who had just fallen into a stupor. This shadow wrapped itself around the mans neck and squeezed. The man was lucky, for he would never know of the panic.

Even through the celebration a young child noticed that her shadow moved in a strange way. She tried asking her mother about it, but could only scream as her mother started flailing around in panic as the child's shadow latched onto her and started strangling her.

The door to the room flew open and the people celebrating in the room next door came crashing in, wondering what was going on, not noticing that they left their shadows behind.

The child continued screaming as the others started fighting the shadow, but not very successfully. One took the child by the hand and lead her away from the struggle only to end up outside where there were screams, fresh corpses and shadows out to kill.

The man took the child to the nearest horse, calmed it down enough to put the child on it and told her to flee as quickly as the wind.

The screams slowly faded in the distance, as her vision blurred from her tears.

To this day some say that there is a person who is always riding somewhere, hunted by their shadow.

Summary

In his final hours a powerful magic user cursed all the villagers who were rebelling, freeing their shadows from their bodies, and making the shadows kill.

Historical Basis

The name of the town in question was quickly lost to time and the location was lost as well, since no one dared go anywhere close. If someone wanted to find it, one would have to look trough all of the forbidden places scattered around the world.

Spread

Most humans, elves and dwarves knew of this story, or at least they have heard a summery, but in some places it was commonly told as a warning against magic users.