FennWenn Summary Request

[Rayleigh]

FennWenn has requested summaries for her thread, Knowledge Rotten. Please post short and long summaries here, and FennWenn will choose the preferred summaries in a week.

[Revenant]

Hopefully I'm doing this right.
Short Summary:

The search for knowledge can be both enlightening and deadly, as FennWenn discovers in this Lovecraftian inspired tale. After discovering that the century-dead researcher Darcy Clemonts was rumored to have left an uncompleted manuscript in her mansion, a manuscript dealing with the elusive Frost Fae, Fennik Glenwey decides to brave the structure to find it. There is only one thing that will stand in the way is the lingering rumor that the structure is haunted, a rumor strong enough to leave the place relatively undisturbed even after a hundred years. But Fenn is made of sterner stuff, searching the house and overcoming its esoteric oddities only to discover not only the manuscript that Darcy Clemonts left behind, but the truth behind the house’s rumored nature. In the end, it is not Fenn who must come to terms with the reality of Darcy’s manor, but Daugi, Fenn’s stalwart wolf companion.

Long Summary:

Knowledge Rotten confronts the reader up front with an image and a quote evocative of the type of story that they will be reading. This is not a tale of brave heroics and daring-do. This is a quieter, more unsettling tale, and one that might not end up going too well for our protagonist.

With that, author FennWenn begins the story in a wagon which has reached its destination, “the foot of a hill, under the looming shadow of a large house.” While the cart’s young driver tries to warn Fenn away from the structure, the fae boy is instead encouraged by the rumored nature of the building, full of hope and playfully bantering with his wolf companion, Daugi. The long-dead researcher Darcy Clemonts was rumored to have left an unfinished manuscript on the nature of the Frost Fae in her manor before her death, and that knowledge is more compelling to Fenn than and threatening rumor could be. The cart driver takes Fenn’s money and wishes them good luck before beating a hasty retreat. Fenn and Daugi approach the house, examining its foreboding exterior and wondering just how much of the rumors of its haunted nature are true.

Once inside, Fenn and Daugi take their time to acclimate themselves to the ancient, untended nature of the structure. The house is filled with all manner of oddities and esoteric curiosities, some of which are enough to unsettle even the curious fae boy. It certainly had an effect on Daugi who, Fenn notices, is acting rather more well-behaved and subdued than usual. Fenn isn’t sure exactly what all the accoutrements mean, but he knows that it all indicates magic. Old, foreign magic.

Making their way through the house, Fenn and Daugi finally come upon the jackpot, the study of Darcy Clemonts. But amid the books and other ancient lore, something about the place seems wrong to Fenn. The structure of the room itself doesn’t quite match with the fae boy’s perceptions, as if something greater is at work here. And then there’s the statue ringed with ritual salt and pinned with a note reading “Rothaerh-Shash.” The statue itself radiates a magic-like warmth, which seems odd to Fenn, but further investigation is forgotten upon the discovery of his prize, Needle in a Snowdrift; The Elusive Fae of the North.

Excited at finding his prize, Fenn grabs the manuscript, accidentally toppling the odd statue in the process of freeing it from the pile on the desk. Something shifts in the house once the statue falls outside the salt circle, something ominous, but Fenn pays it little mind. The manuscript is old and brittle, and likely won’t survive being moved far from the old study. Ordering Daugi to keep watch, Fenn settles down and begins to read.

The first thing he discovers about his people is that, even by their standards, he is considered barely more than a child. Perhaps only a teenager. Disheartened by this, hoping that he could lord his age and maturity over human adults a little more, Fenn continues on. Unfortunately for him, the manuscript has heavily succumbed to the ravages of time and much of the research has been lost to mold and age, but there are enough tidbits to give him a much more in-depth knowledge of his people, who they are, and how to find them. If he could only ignore that growing noise from outside the study for long enough to decipher it all.

But that is not meant to be as the noise becomes an alien command in Fenn’s mind, an ancient voice of domination and hatred which overcomes the boy. After he slumps to the ground, wounded and mentally incapacitated merely by the echo of the thing’s words, it is up to Daugi to take command. Daugi, in a panic over Fenn’s state, begins to search the area to see what help she can be. The house itself seems to have come alive with bulbous, rotting fungus and other base corruption. Daugi too hears the voice’s commands but ignores them in favor of finding a way to protect Fenn from it.

That protection is needed when the study is finally invaded by the tentacle, worm like fungus creature, who lashed out towards Fenn with an incomprehensible need to cleanse and kill. Daugi leaps to Fenn’s defense and makes a valiant effort, only to find that the creature’s arcane physiology cares little for the physical rules of death in this place. Injured and knowing that she is no match for such a creature, Daugi hastily retreats, barely managing to stay ahead of the thing as it expands behind her and Fenn to fill the house. Daugi leaps through a thick window to the outside world, clutching Fenn’s limp form by the collar, and watches as a salt barrier on the window’s sill repels the creature’s physical form, trapping the thing within the Darcy Clemont’s now-certainly haunted house.

Daugi doesn’t stop though, and drags Fenn from the place until exhaustion overcomes her. Fenn comes to and is forced to confront the horror that there may be some connection between his people and the other esoteric things that Darcy Clemonts studied, but that is research for another time and a far safer place. And as the story comes to a close, Fenn presents his savior with an old bone that he’d snatched from Darcy’s pantry, a treat which in FennWenn’s words is “a just reward for an awful day.”