Story 1083: Wormtongue’s Hymn

In the ruins of Ashwood Monastery, the wind sang a song that no human throat could replicate—a rattling, lilting dirge that twisted the mind of anyone foolish enough to listen. The villagers whispered that it was the voice of Wormtongue, a creature born from the bones of saints and the bile of blasphemers.

Long ago, Ashwood was a place of purity, a citadel against the growing horrors of the world. Monks chanted hymns from dusk till dawn, their voices said to keep the darkness at bay. But one winter, an abbot named Eldric Malrow dared to study the forbidden psalms—the hidden verses left by mad prophets and nameless gods.

He opened a hymnal that should have stayed sealed.

From the depths of that blasphemous text, something answered.