LEGENDS OF VARLAUREA

THE DRAGON EMPEROR: THE MISTY FOX OF THE BAMBOO FOREST.

The story begin in late summer, third year of the Dragon Emperor Suk Lam reign.

In the northwest region of Varlann empire lied a small beautiful town called Bai Ni. Small town Bai Ni is but the town had been blessed by the gods with a rich soil and a very suitable climate for growing many types of tea including Green Jade tea, one of the ten most famous types of tea, and with a breathtaking surrounding scenery, especially a vast lush green bamboo forest north of the town. Making Bai Ni is a very attracting vocation destination for the aristocrats and the scholars. Not only that Bai Ni also is home of a very prestige White Cloud academy, an institute build for teaching young mage and a place where the magical scholars and mages from all over Varlann came to discuss, train and research about magic and the arcane matters. Which turn the small town into a very vibrant and busy place with tea traders, mages, researchers and tourists come and go every day.

It happen in a fateful day, a tailor had gone missing when he on a fishing trip. The town folks had searched for him but without any success, and of course his family are heartbroken. Normally this kind of incident will be considering just an unfortunate event if not for 3 days late another incident happened. A group of teenage girls went to the bamboo forest to digging for bamboo shoots. Their trip have nothing out of the ordinary until when the girls prepare to get home at midday, a dense veil of mist came out of nowhere in midday of a summer day and set upon the girls for a few minutes. After the mist dispersed, the teenage girls realized one of them is missing. The teenage girls quickly return to town and inform the town folks of what happen. According to them, when the strange mist befell them, they suddenly felt a rush of fear and saw strange figure moving and animal growling noise echoing in the thick mist. The town folks think the missing girl might be attacked by wolf, so the town guards organized a search party with some local hunters throughout the night. They start at the girl’s last known location, and found 2 set of footprints going deep into the bamboo forest, one set belong to the missing girl, the other set are fox footprints not wolf. They follow the girl’s footprints to a small stream inside the forest then the trails end, the hunters spread out to look for more trace in the surrounding area, and to their horror a corpse had found. A dry out mummified corpse lied under a layer of bamboo leafs, but from the clothing on the corpse this is not the missing girl but the body of an adult man. The corpse was recovered and brought back to Bai Ni. After being examined, the town’s physician concluded the cause of death is unknown as he cannot find any signs of trauma or puncture wound on the corpse, and judging from the corpse clothes and some belongings, they identify this corpse is the previous missing tailor. But one thing the physician cannot explain is the corpse’s condition. The tailor only went missing for 3 days, what cause the mummified condition of the corpse? Why is the corpse’s face cover in dry blood? And how does his body end up deep in the bamboo forest? The town folks continue the search for the missing girls in the following week but to no avail. Then early of the next week, another missing case happened. A wealthy tea merchant on a business trip in Bai Ni and 2 of his servants has disappeared. According to the merchant’s other servants, on the day of the merchant’ disappeared, they were accompanying their master to visit the tea fields and the tea processing workshop at the outskirt of the town for business purpose. After the trip, at late noon they go sightseeing near the bamboo forest. Then a strange vail of mist suddenly befell them, when that happened the servants said some of them felt anxious and unease almost fear like emotion, but some felt an rush of euphoric, and saw something moving in the mist, and their master and 2 other servants just walk into the mist and never come back.