The Seer and the Silent Marionette

Hollowmere was still a marsh, timber, and scattered dreamers in 1704.

The town had begun to gather—a handful of restless people, some coin, a single stubborn

vision of a fenced marsh and pale lantern-lit homes. The villagers worked timber,

bread, and channels from the mire, unaware of the force that would later

define their lives: the Shrouding, a winter mist that crept along the river and through

the reeds, lingering for days. Dangerous, patient, inscrutable—it watched,

and it took. Carrillo was a seer, a man both blessed and burdened by visions.

One night, beneath a crescent moon, he was seized by a dream unlike any