The Cultist
The day wears on…
After we eat our day meal, we follow the path of a wide, gentle river. The pleasant patter of its waters is a welcome reprieve from the Wood’s haunting silence.
Unfortunately, the idyll is shattered when one of our party discovers a strange knife upon the stream’s shore. The curved, brazen blade appears to be ceremonial — a sickle forged in the undulating image of a horned figure. Upon the hilt is an inscription: “In blood He is known, with blood He is sated.”
We have heard of blades like these. They are the relics of the mysterious Lost Children, a cult that reveres the Lord of the Wood. The Lost Children, it is said, know the secrets of safe passage through the Elder Wood. Perhaps, with this sickle, we may invoke their rites of protection for ourselves…
The Conundrum
In return for protection, the travellers may cut their hands to offer a small blood sacrifice to the Lord of the Wood.
First, the travellers may discuss between themselves.
Then, clockwise starting with the Reader, each traveller may choose whether to use the blade and make the blood pledge, or refuse the Lost Children’s rites.
