My kingdom for a crone’s tinctures to cure this demoniacal sneezing!\n\nYet and still, it is impossible to maintain a sour countenance in this verdant wonder. I was even able to barter for a new inkhorn and quills.\n\nCome to think on it, literacy and letter writing are surprisingly common on this strange island. I suppose that is logical. We have nothing but time, why not learn letters from a fellow. In a closed system like this, literacy spreads. Language as pathogen, though a most delightful contagion, I dare say.\n\nArriving in town, I found a proper place to wash the road dust from my throat. My smiling fancy occasioned me to whistle. Instantly, a gnarled oak of a man stood at my side, saying, “Enjoy your drink stranger, but best not be whistling, singing, nor dancing.”\n\nAt first, I thought myself the butt of some provincial jest. How positively Calvinistic! However, given the graveness of his continence and immense size of his oaken knuckles, I thought it politic to acquiesce. Everyone in the room was merry enough, but there was no music or singing. Conversation was kept to a low murmur.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

A page from the journal of Ichabod Shaw

Preludes and Inkhorns

I am not adventurous. Dusty tombs might draw the likes of Grenville, but not I. My scholastic investigations occur through books and interviews. I desire to piece together the folktales and culture bubbling in the unique pot of this island.\n\nTo that end, I found the man with the oaken knuckles – his name is Zadok – and I plied him with libations and many games of draughts. Though his words slurred by the time he opened up to me, his pickled tongue hinted at intriguing tidbits indeed.\n\nHe spoke of a dancing plague, a contagious compulsion to gyrate night and day. He spoke of a spreading pandemic and people dancing until literal death.\n\nHe fell asleep before divulging more. What a delightfully bizarre notion. A dancing plague!\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

The Dancing Plague

In the sober light of day, Zadok is much more tight-lipped. He sent me away with only the vaguest of grumblings. Later in the evening, I repeated my stratagem of carousing, but with diminishing returns. Filled to the brim, I stepped outside to pass water. Suddenly, a great ogre of a man accosted me in an alley, backing me up against a wall. His breath reeked of the Lost. I thought the brute was about to offer me personal violence.\n\nInstead, he whispered, “Have you heard Her music? Have you seen the Emerald Queen?”\n\nBefore I could do anything but stammer, the giant lumbered off towards the woods, with a giggle that sounded too childish for his titanic frame.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

A Question in the Dark

Days of interviewing the locals and dozens more games of draughts with Zadok have reaped some reward. This Dancing Plague, if it happened at all, happened long ago. Time is a tricky thing to track here. The details vary from mouth to mouth. All agree that a great many died. Some even suggest their exhausted bodies died permanently.\n\nSome think the plague a punishment. These fertile lands saw endless war and strife by those who wished to control it. It is thought the land eventually had enough.\n\nThis is all connected to a very loose myth cycle of a figure known as the Queen in Emerald, also called the Verdant Spirit and the Music that Eats. Opinions vary whether this is meant to be an actual entity or simply the madness of the dancing given allegorical form, a shape seen in the delirious ecstasy.\n\nOnly a portion of the community believe in any of this, and they think we should enjoy the bounty of the land very quietly.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

Who is the Queen in Emerald?

Zadok shewed me something interesting today. He took me outside the settlement to the edge of the woods. A woman and two men danced. Their faces betrayed absolutely no awareness of their surroundings, even when I shouted to them. I gather that he and other believers moved the dancers away from the populace, to avoid contagion.\n\nI tried to approach the dancers, but he stopped me with a vice grip on my arm. He told me of a book he once saw, written entirely on the subject of the Queen in Emerald. He only said this to lure me away from the dancers. It worked.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

The Dancers

I must find this book! I have so many questions. Did the dancing plague happen? If so, what caused it? Mass hysteria? Ergot poisoning? An actual preternatural agent?\n\nWhat had I witnessed in the forest? Were these contained cases of the surviving plague? Simply more hysteria fed by old stories?\n\nI am for some reason reminded of a particular species of ant that often falls prey to a more particular species of fungi. The spores bewitch the ant’s mind and put its body under the power and ineffable motives of the fungus.\n\nI must find this book.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

Ichabod’s Questions

I dreamed. I saw a figure resplendent in green. I could not bear to look at it directly. With a knife, I modified my vocal organ to better sing.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw\n\nSupplemental – I awoke this morning to see the above written in my journal. Though it is my handwriting, I recollect neither the writing of it nor the dream it implies. Curious.

What Dreams May Come

Eureka, I have done it! I have acquired the book. I do not feel proud of the method. It was certainly not in my normal character. Nevertheless, I have much reading to do.\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

Acquiring the Book

Nearly finished with my reading. I could no longer focus on the words today. I decided a walk was in order. I find myself rambling by the edge of the woods. I hum a tune and if I harmonize it just right, I can very nearly hear a distant music. Like the sea in a shell. There’s a cadence there…\n\n-Ichabod Shaw

Infected With Humming

My eyesight is poor in the dark. I did not wish to come here, but my Judas legs brought me all the same. Humming. I can nearly hear it! I cannot keep from swaying. I will just leave my journal here, at the edge of the woods, just for a bit. Maybe I will see Her.\n\nIf I hum, I can hear the words. The cadence births verses in my mouth.

A New Dancer Takes the Stage

Aeternum's rolling plains of green filled with abandoned ranches and farms

Ichabod's Journal Chapter - NWGuide Database of Lore

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