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A very special DOUBLE FEATURE from Waldonian Sounds.
WINTER WANDERLAND
When a gnome goes for a walk in the snow...
Old Erbsto Bedherwyc returns, like that one sweater in the back of your closet, with a septet of snowy stories concerning what happens when you sit in the snow for too long and end up with "rosey cheeks." (his words, not mine) Find yourself a mug of spruce ale or your favorite tea and sit by the fire a while if you will. Erbsto likes telling a good story and isn't known to embellish (much).
“Did I ever tell you of the time I got lost scarce a league from my house? When winter sets in and the snows deepen in these mountain passes and forest paths ‘round the Thrivinwood, it can be hard to see yer hand afore yer face. Well, come on in then and warm yerself by this here fire. Just leave those wet boots by the door. I ain’t got a spell powerful enough to get out soggy stains from my new rug…”
-Erbsto Bedherwyc, writing his spell-poem “A Frosty Epistle to a Winter’s Guest”
“So lost I was, that I found I had grown quite frustrated. At this rate, I thought, my expedition for nary half a cord of firewood would turn my undoing and some poor hunter or traveler would find my icy husk come the spring. Probably the best that it didn’t all shake out that way, or I’d have had to haunt that poor soul with my angry ghost. Still, though, in my frustration I sat down on what I thought was the stump of an old bygone oak. As it turns out it was just a snow drift, and…welll… I can still feel a stinging in my seat to this day when I remember it…”
-Erbsto Bedherwyc, “A Frosty Epistle to a Winter’s Guest” Chapter II, verse IX
“I’d stay clear of The Spear if I were you. Ice gnomes live up in ‘em mountains… Build their villages in the valleys and under the glaciers, they do. Sure, they trade good ancient silver for a pint of arak or a well-woven hex, but they’re a mite unpredictable too. Get on their bad side and, well… they can peg a mouse ‘twixt the eyes from a hundred paces away, and those snowballs of theirs sting mightily…”
-Erbsto Bederwyc, on the ice gnomes of The Spear near Hawkstone
“Half an hour’s walk is two hours in the deep snows. I know these passes like the back of me wrinkly old left hand and even I don’t attempt to cross Pinecastle Creek in the Month of Dreams. So why did you, old friend?..”
“Oh to be sure the Thrivinwood’s dark and the Valewall mountains are cold, but I’d not give up my home near The Spear for a cartload of bribery gold. For ‘tis here that you see, grows that auld magic tree, the Northern Westmeri Spruce.
Tips of the needles for teas, tonics and ales, other spices all pale, when compared to thee. Collect in summer’s light and brew warm and bright, and all winter you’ll drink the nectar of life.”
-Erbsto Bedherwyc, spontaneously composing poetry aloud over one ale-pot too many
“Finally home… Too long was I out today. I have to remember not to strain myself overmuch when all it takes to keep fire and food all winter have I stocked and piled in the new cellars and larders I’ve built. Those ancient ruined halls ‘neath my tower may still look grim and foreboding but I mustn’t trick myself into misremembering that they are cleared and safe of their…previous horrors…
Not a moment too soon have I gotten the fire going too, a little smoke and itch within are fair trade for being spared those winds without. The snows are water-laden too. It’ll weigh heavy on the pines. I’d better watch my head with that branch by the door when next I go on walkabout.”
-Erbsto Bedherwyc, 19th of Úlmanad, 1112
“I suppose I can rest my eyes for a moment until the kettle boils. The pines rocking like that in the wind may set me to sleep but sure the whistle will wake me…”
-Erbsto Bedherwyc, on more evenings than he’d like to admit
DREAMS IN THE GNOME HOUSE
Erbsto Bedherwyc is alone one early summer’s eve when who should alight on his tower windowsill? Can be none but azure Ffestygardd, an Feydrake of yon Thrivinwood. It has been some moons since Erbsto’s old winged friend has paid a visit to his woodside tower, and the two quickly set to talking. Over a third-or-so pot of wine, the pair make a wager over who can weave a better story. Ffestygardd declares that Erbsto is a master of such things, and could probably tell a better tale about going to bed than even a mighty dragon such as himself. Erbsto insists that though his powers are great, even he could not make an epic lay of such a mundane event. Ffestygardd grins mischievously and offers up a ruby the size of a gnome-fist that he shall be proven right by morning. Erbsto puts up a solid golden walnut in exchange, and the two agree. Scarcely a moment later, Ffestygardd blows a puff of feyrie-dust, casting a pall of dreams about the place…
…continued below
Credits
WINTER WANDERLAND
All tracks written and recorded in the Thrivinwood by Thee Wandering Gnome on a Korg MiniLogue, Fender Stratocaster, and some dusty old VSTs.
Art and logo by Thee Scrivener of Fenmoss
Art assets from Pixabay
Public domain painting "Glædelig Jul," Artist Unknown, 1885
Many thanks to Hjartans, Hypgnomsis, and Wooden Vessels for sage art advice and putting up with my demos and shenanigans.
Dedicated to the memory of Warren B. (DOTS).
Underground Metal Forever
DREAMS IN THE GNOME HOUSE
All music and art by Fenmoddlian residents and ye Bard of Fenmoss
Nature samples by ye Bard of Fenmoss and ye goodfolk of Pixabay
Analog tape grain sampled from Towers at Ries
Many thanks to ye goodfolk of the dungeon synth subreddit, and especially Aveline and KAP for organizing yon dungeon rushes and shambles.
STORY CONTINUED…
Erbsto awakes in his room, only to find that his tower has grown strange and cavernous, and spends many an hour in this strange reverie as he traverses the suddenly unfamiliar tunnels and caves of his home. What was once the kitchen is a massive crystal chamber, a closet is a maze of stalagnates and geodes…the privy, an endless dark crevasse of no return…
When finally he awakes from his reverie, Erbsto finds his tower’s rooms and halls once again the way he remembered them. He staggers down the old creaky stair, alights on the kitchen floor, stirs the hearth, and settles into his best chair. Gazing for a moment at the golden walnut on the windowsill where he had set it, Erbsto mutters to himself, “That’s the last time I trust that dragon, and his damned magic dust!..”
