Oddly Saren felt at home in the dark foreboding forest. The warped branches twisting and turning in bizarre, elderich, patterns incomprehensible to any man. As the young man walked, his steps on the forest floor crunching the deadfall was the only human sound in this forest. The wailing of something dark and twisted filtered through the air but to one as interesting as Saren, the wailing of the cursed spirits and whispers of the demonic tree was just two more voices of madness amongst many. But the whisphers that drove Saren were as clear as day to man, driving him ever deeper into the wood. Promising..something would appear if only he kept going. And so he did. Only pausing to rest and sleep. 

As Saren went deeper in the woods the wailing grew fainter, giving way to something darker, growling, tearing, biting, and howling in the eternal night of the forest. Still undaunted, Saren moved onward, the voices in his head promising something grand lay just beyond the forest. Some piece of magic, a book, an artifact, something interesting for sure. All the voices seemed to agree on that.

The young man paused as if to listen to some presence only he could here. "Well we are quiet lost this time. Are you sure there is something so great here? All I see are a lot of dead trees. I would much rather go back to the cities, there is much more to be found there than in this dark dank wood"

To the sandy haired youth, this was a normal conversation but to anyone watching there would be naught but a young man talking vigorously with air. The young man's bright green eyes the only spark of bright light in the forest. He would be handsome with fair features, but something was off as he talked with himself in the night.

Zephyra had enjoyed the Haunted Caravan while it has been in the clearning of Koschei Forest. She now stood where the caravan and its ghostly inhabitants had moved on. The clearing was oddly empty and very quiet. On the ground were tracks from the romping ghost puppies, ruts from wagon wheels, and cursed jewelry and other such items that had been lost or abandoned. Not wanting to take any chances in finding herself with any madman’s or cursed possessions, she simply nudged the items with her boot as she walked around. Around her neck was a pretty white shawl that had an effervescent glow that lit up the darkness of the forest enough that she needed no torch.
 
Despite the danger of banshees being after her (for she had killed at least five of their own kind to finish the morbid scavenger hunt), she made her way back into the forest anyway. Besides, she was rather enjoying this beautiful glowing garment she had wrapped around her neck and then wrapped as a hood upon her head of dark hair. The white glow lit up the area immediately around her and she walked, hearing the distant wail of some banshee or banshees.
 
She made it deeper into the forest, deeper than she had been even in her hunt for banshees, and the wails seemed to be sucked into some kind of noiseless vortex. Instead, there was the gnawing and gnashing and snarling of darker beasts that she might need fear. Fortunately for Zephyra, she was as fearless and bold as her mother and paid no mind to the beastly noises of death and dismemberment. Besides, she thought, she had handled the banshees just fine. Only one had gotten a lick on her and it was because she was surprised.
 
Up ahead she thought she heard someone’s boots crunching against the fall of dead leaves just like her own, though hers were caked in mud and muck from her adventures for the Haunted Caravan. It somewhat muffled the noise of the crunch of the leaves. Then she heard a voice. As she got closer it sounded like the man, for it sounded like a man, was talking to someone but she heard no other person walking. When she got closer still, she saw no one next to him. The glow of her shawl would give her away before she could get any closer.
 
Zephyra walked up to him, knowing she would be seen anyway, and smiled a friendly smile. “You sound lost. Maybe I could help you?” For a minute she paused and reached out with her magic to his mind. In it she saw madness and a number of voices and delusions. It was so much so that it struck her mind with pain. But within that mind she also saw genius. She clutched at her head, which was pounding, as she dug in her pack for her book. When she found it, she flipped to the pages until she found the chapter on Koschei. There was a map of the forest and she held it level so he could inspect it.
 
“Where do you figure we are? You just missed a caravan. It was haunted and run by ghosts. They had all sorts of interesting challenges for prizes. It’s where I got this,” she indicated the shawl she was wearing. “It is made of wisps they said.”

The young man continued to stare off listening to whatever it was only he could hear. Paying attention to everything around him but at the same time studying something only he could see. "Yes, yes, I know, I can see that glow from a mile away." he said seemingly to himself. Saren turned to face the newcomer to the woods. She gave a nice friendly smile spoke to him. As she did Saren felt..something poking around in his mind. a fluttering of a butterfly's wings at it was gone. It could have been the woman. It could have any of one of various people talking with him. or even the forest itself. But it was most likely the woman before him, Saren reasoned. She offered to help and they were quite lost even if Tabris said he knew where he was going. He would listen to what she had to say a least.

"Hullo, yes some help would be quite welcome." As he spoke he looked at the book she held open. "I honestly have no idea, the forest seems to change every hour" Saren titled his head in an odd way. "The caravan sounds like fun. Perhaps that what he was talking about. Tabris said there was..something at the end of this wood. Something good." Saren's eyes seemed to focus on something far away. "No, No not a caravan though that would be fun. We are looking for something else. Though that shawl seems to be quite useful. It helps one see in this dark wood at least." 

Then Saren seems to remember something else he wanted to ask about. "Oh yes! That is right. Was that you perchance looking inside my head? Pleas ask first. It's quite messy in there and I would like some time clean up in there." The young man looked about quite guilty. "There are some dangerous things in there and I wouldn't want you to let them out" Saren's face went white. "Too Late, he here."

As he spoke, an inhuman screech filled the air. And with a sudden gust of wind it landed. There but at the same time not there, an inhuman thing with bat wings, and upon its back was a burning metal wheel of starfire. It had a mask with seven eyes for a face and squid like appendages for hands. It's very presence warped the air around it with power, making the air shimmer with madness given form by magic. Saren, whispered in a terrified voice. "He is here, he found me." The door was left open and he got out"

The young man, though he was still several winters beyond her years, was a strange man to say the very least. As she stood there he seemed to stare off at something as if it were only something he could see. He spoke as if he were speaking to someone, though obviously not her, and there wasn’t anyone visibly around but her. Perhaps he was mad. Or, as she had learned in her books, he could have been any number of things. Possessed. Multiple spirits sharing a body. A piece of one other person occupying his body. The possibilities were endless.
 
Finally he greeted her and mentioned that some help would be nice. Obviously he had reasoned out among himself and whoever else he was speaking to that he was indeed lost and had no idea which way to go to wherever he was going. “Good day. You can call me Zephyra or Zeph. I have no preference really.” She shrugged and looked down at the map she had opened up from the book she was carrying. Admittedly she had an idea of where they were, but she wasn’t exactly sure how accurate it would be. After all, it was her first time here.
 
When he mentioned that the forest seemed to change every hour she could sort of see what he meant. The trees didn’t always stay their same shapes and often they warped and twisted into new ones. It could be confusing which was why Zephyra had made a point in marking trees that she had passed. “You are right, it is a twisted forest and it likes to play tricks. I mark the trees as I go so I know if I come up on one I’ve passed.” She shrugged her shoulders as if it were advice he could take or leave.
 
He mentioned that someone named Tabris said they could find something interesting here at the end of the wood. Tabris must have been the name of whatever person or creature was inhabiting his mind. He thought for a moment that it could have been the caravan but after staring off again at something she could not see he determined it likely was not the caravan but he rather liked her shawl. Zephyra hugged is closer to her shoulders and it lit up the map in the book a bit more than it had been.
 
When he asked, with quite bluntness, if she had been poking around in her mind, she felt a pinkish blush rising to the apples of her cheeks and her face got hot. Normally people did not or could not notice her prodding about in their mind to see what was in there. Admittedly his mind had frightened her and confused her and she had left in a hurry and thought she had certainly closed the metaphorical door on the way out. “Yes, I noticed your mind was quite… different. So I left in a hurry. I have far from mastered my mental manipulation skills so I guess I should not have gone somewhere I shouldn’t have.”
 
But her voice trailed off as she saw his face turn white and he mentioned a ‘he’. Zephyra clamped her hands over her ears as an inhuman noise louder than a screech owl filled the air of the forest around them. It landed, entirely inhuman, and was both there and not there with its elongated bat-like wings. Its back was a burning metal wheel of starfire, its face a mask of seven eyes, and its appendages were squid-like. Around the creature the air seemed to warp and bend as if reality itself altered around it. “I’m- I’m sorry. I’ll help you. What do we need to do?” Abandoning the book to the forest floor, from her hands came forth writhing balls of crimson and black magic that were pure chaos entirely. They could be used as force magic or simply in destruction. But she wanted to know from the man, first, what the best way was to go about this creature.