"Well, you're out late. Cutting it a little close, aren't we?" Auber the gatekeeper remarked. Ashur like Auber, sort of. He wasn't as bad as most villagers. He was gruff and rude to everyone equally, not just Ashur, like the other guards. The others would always claim that his offerings at the gate were too small, forcing Ashur to leave unreasonably large offerings behind, and go home with left.

Ashur lifted his arms, indicating the boar and hare swinging from the thin log Ashur had fashioned to carry the day's catch. "Boar makes for heavy lifting, master Auber," Ashur said with a smile.

"Suppose it does, at that," Auber replied without returning the smile.

"Been a good day for hunting, Master Auber?"

Auber sniffed and gave a slight shrug. "Eh, 's been alright," he remarked, "Dunnem and Gower came back with a deer."

"A whole deer, huh?" Ashur asked as he set down the boar and took off his backpack.

"Mmmhm. A grown buck."

"Well isn't that something," Ashur remarked in a half murmur, as he carved off an offering of meat for the gate shrines. One for Muyun, to cleanse his soul of any unwanted spirits. Another for Anur, for returning unharmed.

"Your catch ain't too bad either," Auber said, indicating the boar and the hare.

"It ought to hold me for a decent while," Ashur agreed, pleased with himself.

"Well then, on with ye. No amount of meat will help ye if ye stay out long enough for the spirits to take ye."

Ashur did not need to be told twice. Ashur began the purification ritual by rolling up his sleeves and taking a clean piece of cloth from his pouch. With it, he picked up the ladle resting in Muyun's basin and poured it over each hand in order. He was careful not to spill any dirty water into the basin, but scrubbed his hands over a hole in the ground next to it. Next, he rang a small brass bell. This was to get the gods' attention, or so tradition held. Finally, he said a silent prayer to Muyun, asking her to cleanse and keep his soul safe from spirits with ill will. Once done, he looked to the gatekeeper for approval, who looked Ashur and his catches up and down. Then he looked at the sizes of Ashur's offerings, sitting on the stone bowls in front of the small statue.

"Again," Auber the gatekeeper said, refusing the ritual. Unsurprised, but nevertheless left with no choice, Ashur started over, beginning with offering another cut of meat. Wanting to test out a theory, he cut off a fresh piece from the hind leg of the boar this time, forgoing a cut from the hare. Then he did the ritual all over again. Ring the bell, clap his hands, pray.

"Again," Auber said. That was the problem with the gatekeepers. They got the meat once the purification was approved, to put in their own cookpots or barter off for other goods. Most of the other hunters tried to get their hunting done when Auber wasn't watching, as he always demanded more rituals than the others. In Ashur's case however, it didn't matter. They all demanded more purification rituals from him than from any other hunter. Auber simply demanded the least over all. At least, it had been that way with his parents present, regardless of the villagers' respect for them. "It's on account of the markings, Ayna," the other gatekeepers would say when confronted by Ashur's mother, "He's more likely to bring back spirits, ain't he?"

Three purification rituals complete, Auber finally relented and let Ashur through the gate into the village. Still less by half than the second best gatekeeper. The village sprawled out in front of him on a gentle downward slope, hemmed in on three sides by a shoulder high wooden fence separating it from dense forests.

Though most in the village would not agree with Ashur, he felt a vague kinship with the village itself, if not its inhabitants. Like him, it stood out from others of its kind. Back when Ashur had used to go with his parents on trips to other villages farther west, he'd had the opportunity to see for himself.

Unlike his home village, they all had names. The normal thing for a village name was to say something about the village itself. Honeybarrel, for example, produced honey and related products such as candles made from beeswax. Willowshade was blessed with a grove of ancient willow trees which was used in making medicines. Some willows even featured in its spiritwood grove, whose bark was said to be even more effective in remedying pains and wounds. Not all village names were for something pleasant, though. Barrowdun had the unfortunate distinction of being known for a set of ancient burial mounds, which were said to be haunted by old spirits from before the Great Fall. Another example was Shitterdun. The less said about that village, the better.

Ashur's home village however, stood out. It had no name. Whenever someone asked an inhabitant of the nameless village where they were from, custom was that they would reply vaguely.

"Oh, from over yonder," they might say, and point in the general direction of the village. Or they might say "Due east from here," or else "Over near the forest," if people were especially dense. Most would get the hint by then and not ask any further questions. Once, a traveller had come from outside Haval. Listening to Vaund, Ashur's father, try to explain without getting too close to the subject had been painful. In the end, the traveller had gotten the point. The possibility of a village taking such a risk with their souls by living where they did was completely foreign to him. It could also explain in part why the gatekeepers kept demanding so many rituals.

The problem wasn't the forest. Plenty villages sat near, or were nestled in between, forests, even deep ones with large rumored populations of fey in them. Otherwise, getting lumber would be a right pain. No, the problem that faced the inhabitants of the village Ashur called home was that a village with a name soon enough gets their own god. And here, any spirit of any size, from river spirit to fey or even god or demon would attract disaster. For this village sat less than a day's travel from one of the most dangerous places in the world, bar maybe the Last Border. If one climbed the tallest trees in the area and looked east, past the Lost Forest, they could see it, plain as day, as a thin pale line cutting into the horizon. The ruins of the Lost City.

Stories, told to scare off children and foolish adventure-seekers, spoke of the Great Wraithstorm that dwelt within, devouring any soul that got too close, growing just that much larger as it did. Ashur suspected however, that it was more accurate to say that it hovered over the city like a vast red and golden stormcloud. That was, at least, how it always appeared in his nightmares.