The Prisoner of Birque's Forest
As told by Trayvon the Lighthearted on Fedus 27, 5427
I was told, by them who knows......that, deep in the northern territories of the forest that we now call Birkwüd, a slim yet incredibly tall tower rises above the treetops. A tower of large stones. Mortared together with concrete made of fly-ash, mixed with lime and powdered aluminum, as was the way of old. It has been there for time out of mind, each stone more and more defined as the white outer coating of limestone plaster slowly wears entirely away, leaving them naked to the elements. They stand stark and uniform; layer upon layer, ring upon ring. Arrow slits decorate its walls, immediately starting at ground level. There is only one door; a steel banded security portal. The kind with a peephole and murder port. Actual windows begin one hundred feet above the ground, and there are only two floors of them. The topmost level is entirely ringed in patterns made with red stained glass. The entire tower is topped with a slate roof that has held up well over the generations. Well! We will get into that in just a moment, folks! Behave yourselves! For generations of men, the tower has been there, and there it stands, still; all alone, far out in the wastes. Generations! And here's the thing; nobody ever goes in there! Not only that, but no one ever comes out! No carriages, or supply wagons. No roads, not even a game trail, lead to this stark tower, sticking into the sky like some obscene gesture towards the gods. No ghosts have been seen or heard. No spirits of the uneasy dead haunt the nearby landscape. It just stands there, alone, in the silence of the nine month winter that far north. It withstands howling storms and arctic temperatures alike with perfect aplomb. Nothing but the white, outer coating of it ever seems to wear away. Now the lands around this tower are populated with only small settlements. Very few towns exist, for the most part people in that part of the world live in groups, or clans. There is safety in numbers, after all! But there is also warmth in closeness, and in the harsh weather of the northern climes, that closeness keeps you alive come winter. So, when the locals began to talk of a bloodthirsty creature that terrorized the townships and hamlets, it was with whispered dread. It was the elderly, at first, or babes in their cribs. Within a few years, though? Hunters were disappearing forever. Farmers would go missing in broad daylight, just dropping their tools and clothes and poof! Gone. The only thing anyone could ever tell was that the remaining items all smelt strongly of brimstone. Of sulfur and caustic gases, as if they had been nearby a volcano. Or possibly a geyser. So, dear listeners, imagine my surprise when Them Who Knows told me about a surprising little detail that it seems everyone has missed. No investigation has ever picked up on it. No inquiry has even been readily forthcoming; there was no evidence of anything other than a smell of rotten eggs and dispersing unstable gases. But, folks, think of this! Someone goes in there. Somebody lights the flames in the hearths. Wisps of black smoke have been noted throughout the years. The tiles of the roof are shiny and new; the chimneys and vent pipes are in good repair and functioning as they should. Once in a great while, however, a report would come in to the Regional Governor. Reports of mysterious happenings going on around, and even in, the old tower. Eldritch lights shining from the upper windows in the dead of the night, for example. Elk and moose, shot through-and-through by something, have been spied in the clearing around the tower by our Kingdom's daring Rangers. Strange clouds and storms, localized to the tower, have been reported. Lightning, leaping upwards into the sky from the tower's tallest spire. And folks...all of these things were reported on the same days that somebody went missing! The chances of the two things being mutually exclusive are astronomical. There is a theory, to which I subscribe, that states these two things are related, and that if we find the one, we can find the other, and we could perchance do away with a greater threat to the populace at large. I digress! Please forgive your humble tale-teller; my elderly mind has a wont to stray! Ahem.Them Who Knows then, shrewdly, asked me a question..."Who is it, oh Lighthearted One, that keeps the tower in such good repair?" They asked of me. "And why would they go through the expense?!" the wise ones queried. "Why does a hint of the smell of burning flesh permeate the entire area so thoroughly for a half a mile around the tower?" Well just between us, I will tell you what they said. Looking very grave, indeed almost seeming afeared, they said...well, I can quote them, here. They said "It is the Keepers. The Keepers of the man with the metal head. A human man, who lost his head during a vicious battle by falling to a vile kobold trap." Yet his powerful wizard lover could not bear to live without him. The owner of the tower, this wizard caused a face and head of purest silver to be cast in the visage of his beloved, placing it upon the dessicated neck and shoulders of his immaculately dressed mummified lover. He cared for the macabre scene as it were his own family! He played Chess, and Two Dragon Ante, together with his lost lover. Sometimes, they would go with a classic called 'Go Fish'; a ridiculous name, of course, but the card game was fun enough to massage the wizard's fragile hold on reality just enough to keep him from violently tearing the lands about apart in a fit of mad rage. Then, one day, it spoke. This symbol of his lost love, this fetish that he had pondered so often and for so long, began to speak back to him. He could not remember how much longer it took from that point, but it seemed like in no time the corpse was standing up and following simple orders. This object upon which he bent so much of his will and power, began to stir. It began to become self aware. And as the wizard's wealth and power grew, so did his paranoia and violent agoraphobia. He began to hide his wealth in myriad places around the grounds of the tower, protecting the stashes with powerful spells of illusion and wanton destruction. He began melting down his silver trade bars; then his gold. Platinum and electrum were soon to follow, melted in the wizard's crucible by hellish slaves. Carefully pouring the molten metal in a slow, steady flow, the aging wizard himself poured it into the various receptacles within the cast silver head of his lost lover. They did this for years, the wizard and his lover, the wizard always pouring some of his power into the precious metal in order to preserve it, also. And, when the one hundred and first anniversary of the wizard's lover's death passed, so did the wizard himself. With the wizard gone, there was naught to control the Silver Skull but the wizard's old guards and servants. They do their level best, mind you, but every once in a while The Silver Skull gets past them. The nearby villagers live in terror, never going outside of their protective stockades at night! Never traveling at night if they can help it, many folks shun the great forest altogether and will only travel by waterway and river. And that's because every time he gets out? Every single time he wanders away from his keepers? Somebody dies a horrible, brutal death. By some instinct of magic he keeps trying to feel alive again, but he can never even touch the goal. So he observes at first, watching from the shadows of the forest as some hapless woodsman or farmer ambles by. His head will tilt, this way and that, as he tries in vain to get a sense of belonging or of even being. And the rage will grow inside of him. A rage so vast and intense that he rushes from his hiding place, beating his target to death with his own head and hands as he tries to dig ever deeper into their flesh. Ever closer to their naked soul!
Summary
There is a tower out in The Impenetrable Forest of Birkwud with a terrible secret.
Historical Basis
Unknown; yet, as with any myth, there is bound to be a kernel of truth in there.
Spread
It is in general rotation among the people living around Birkwud, although not too much farther.
Variations & Mutation
In some of the stories, it is a man in a metal mask. In others, a cleverly fashioned ceramic cowl. Some say his head has been replaced with a pumpkin; others that he carries his head around with him, under his left arm. Ridiculous theorems, certainly! But they all have one thing in common; people have always died when there have been reports of the Silver Skull.
Cultural Reception
It is generally scoffed at, and believers in this myth are (almost) universally held in little regard.
In Literature
This myth is saturated throughout the literature of Pax, although none but some few scholars are aware of that fact. There is some sort of reference to it, directly or not, that can be attributed to the story of The Prisoner of the Silver Skull.
In Art
Many of the edgier riding clubs around Craysilt love the aesthetic, with 'silver skulls', and 'crossbones behind prison bars' as some of their most adored imagery.
Date of First Recording
Fedus 28, 5427
Date of Setting
Sometime in the 5200's
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