Whisperbane - The Reborn Knight of the Lower Paths
Whisperbane - The Reborn Knight of the Lower Paths
Before the Deepwood hollowed him out and remade him, he was Sir Edwin Marris, a competent, overly proud knight with more ambition than wisdom. He did not enter the forest seeking glory or heroism. He entered seeking gold.
Old tales spoke of relics buried along the Forgotten Paths: ancient armour swallowed by moss, spellbound trinkets left behind by wanderers, forgotten coins glinting beneath roots. Edwin followed those tales with a shovel across his back, his sword gleaming at his side, and a hard, hungry greed burning in his chest. But he found something else first.
A Whisper. Faint. Directionless. Curling through the branches like a promise meant for him alone. At first, he ignored it, stubbornly pressing deeper. Then he slowed. Then he listened. And before he realised it, he was following.
As Edwin pushed deeper, the Whisper grew stronger. The paths shifted beneath his feet. His memories faltered. His mind clouded with confusion and desire until he felt as though he were wandering inside a dream.
That was when three Lepus Custos stepped from the fog, forming a silent blockade across the narrowing road. Their long ears twitched; their armour creaked softly as they studied him with ancient, unblinking caution.
They offered him a safe way home. They warned him the treasures he chased carried a fate far heavier than its worth. But Sir Edwin refused. The gold he sought had already faded from thought, replaced entirely by the Whisper’s pull. When he stepped forward, the Lepus Custos moved to stop him.
Bound by oath to shield wanderers from the horrors hidden in the forgotten paths, the guardians drew their blades, not to strike, but to warn. Steel glimmered pale through the fog, runes along the edge humming against madness and shadow.
Edwin’s hand flew to his sword out of instinct… but the Custos moved before steel even cleared his scabbard.
Silent.
Precise.
Unrelenting.
One swept low, knocking his balance out from beneath him. Another smashed a shield into his shoulder, folding him to the dirt. A third pressed a shimmering blade beneath his chin, urging him to turn back before the forest claimed him.
The Custos feared not just for the wanderers who strayed, but for whatever might find them… and use them as a way out of the Deepwood and into the outer lands
But Edwin heard nothing now except the Whisper. With a shout born from the madness blooming in his mind, he heaved upward, blades shrieking as sparks scattered through the fog. Slipping their formation, his eyes fixed toward a darker trail winding behind the Custos like a whispered invitation.
They reached out to him again, but Edwin had already made his choice. He shoved past their shield wall, ducked beneath a cleaving strike, and sprinted into the thickening forest before they could bind or disarm him. The custos called after him once, twice, a warning, not a plea. But Edwin did not slow. He was already claimed.
He followed the Whisper until the trees bent sideways and the ground folded into impossible shapes. And then he found them: the lower paths, the roads beneath the roads, where the forest revealed its true nature.
Down there, the Whisper was no longer gentle. No longer promising. It was sharper now, hungrier, less welcoming and more malevolent. Piece by piece, it consumed him.
His name dissolved.
His purpose crumbled.
His flesh withered.
And Sir Edwin Marris died painfully and alone, until a black crow perched at his side.
The Crows of Deepwood are ancient things, older than the Lepus Custos, older even than the forest’s descent into danger and confusion. They alone remember the age when the forest was gentle, when its paths welcomed all who walked them.
Sensing a buried greatness still flickering within Edwin’s fading soul, a greatness he never knew he carried, the crow tapped at his gauntlet with its beak, a small but deliberate call to pull him back from the brink.
And the forest, recognising one of its eldest children pleading for a mortal life, stirred in answer and released its oldest magic. Edwin’s body twitched first, a single, unnatural jerk that rippled through his withered ribs. Then the air around him thickened, heavy with the Deepwood’s ancient breath. Roots shifted beneath his spine. The soil trembled. Dust lifted from his armour as if gravity itself had loosened its grip.
His chest rose in a shuddering imitation of breath. Bones cracked back into place. His fingers curled, claw-like, as if grasping for a world he no longer belonged to. His eyes opened last. Not with the warmth of life, but with a cold, silver light, the mark of something ancient pulling him upright. Edwin did not gasp or scream. He simply rose, jerked upward by invisible strings, a puppet dragged back into motion by forces older than death itself.
Sir Edwin Marris was gone. In his place rose a hollow knight, reforged by pain, reshaped by desire, and bound in ancient magic. The few who have glimpsed him wandering the forgotten paths now utter a single name:
Whisperbane.
He manifests on shattered roads and fractured paths, lingering where wanderers slip from the world. He offers no guidance, no mercy, only the tireless pursuit of what was once his undoing. He keeps record of every route he walks, chasing the faint trails where the Whisper still coils in the air. The Whisper that reshaped him. The Whisper that still draws the foolish into the Deepwood’s jaws.
Whether Whisperbane seeks to silence the Whisper, reclaim what it stole, or finally yield to it…even he does not know. The Lepus Custos still watch him from afar. They pity him, they fear him and they remember the moment Sir Edwin refused their help, a lesson carved into the heart of the Deepwood:
This is why the unwilling cannot be saved.