A tune of a piccolo carved from an old branch echoed through the forest as the person playing it made her way through. The pleasant tones continued for a while as they closed in on the clearing, until they died out in disbilief. Tala stood on the edge, staring at an old, but well maintained inn. The flute fell out of her hands as desperation slowly sunk in. She has been here before. Two days ago, she passed the inn and continued on, all the time thinking she was walking straight. She made a very big circle instead.

Before she entered, she didn't know the legends about Drachenwald. She went in, hoping to find the rare resources she would need to craft her guild's membership ring. The first day she only wondered how big the forest was. On the second day, she started to think the place was alive. The branches above her seemed to arch over and block the sunlight, and she could have sworn she saw the roots moving. On the third day, she came upon a warning. It was crudely engraved into a bark of a tree, and it warned of the forest catching you and never letting you go if you went too deep. In her folly, she dismissed it as superstition.

It was on the fourth day when she found a white skeleton that she realized her mistake. Something about the place was evil. Tala tried to go back the same way, but a rain washed away her tracks, and the forest was too disorienting. Still believing the place had to have an end somewhere, she picked a random direction and went on straight, stumbling upon the inn, but she never bothered going in as she thought she would be out of Drachenwald in no time.

Now she understood the curse of the place. She was here to stay. For how long she didn't know. Tala wanted to try and escape the curse, but the last two days took her through the deeper parts of the forest. Food was scarce and water was mostly poisonous, and she was too exhausted to continue. With a sigh of surrender, the girl picked up her flute and headed inside. "Hello?" she called, hoping the place was not a haunted, deserted house.