Spindle’s End
Overview
Spindle’s End is a place of lore, both good and bad. People have walked the path and never returned, while others entered ill and dying, and returned healthier than ever.
Ursula is an excellent hostess to those who come with good intentions, and often has hot stew at the ready. While the meat is usually deer or rabbit, it’s best not to ask too many questions about what she’s serving that day.
The End is, over all, a warm and cozy place, despite the glassless windows and uncomfortable sight of her ingredients and personal affects, and to those with good intentions, it is a good place to visit -- though the journey through the wastes is not always worth it. One most travel twelve hours east from the main road in Nore, and two hours north, and another two hours into the forest itself.
Regarding the Forest Fauna
Spindle’s End, while not altogether safe, is one of the only accessible places in the Black Forest for civilians. Ursula, whether she knows it or not, is a quarter fey and so gives off certain pheromones and scents that keep the fey from growing agitated around her. That, along with certain spells and wards keep them at bay.
Wolves, bears, and other predators, meanwhile, are kept at a distance with their own wards, incense, and spells, While they will come when summoned, carnivores and omnivores keep their distance from the end, leaving a sanctuary for deer, snow hares, and other game animals.
None of this is advertised openly, but many people have figured out that the End is protected with some sort of Magic, to be sure.
Marking the Entrance
The pathway to the end is marked with standing stones, carved and weathered from centuries of existence. Before Ursula set up shop two hundred years ago, Spindle’s End lay on the path to a worshiping ground for Alva and the forest guardians. These stones once served as symbols of protection from Alva and Tove, as well as both of the brothers, depending on the carvings.
Some stones now lay in crumbles, and the worn path is grown over in places, making it a difficult, but not impossible trail to travel.
At the end of the path, just past where the daylight fades, Spindle’s End is marked with three distinct features -- a rickety fence, surely decades old at least,; a single, perfectly round window with wood cross-beams that lets out light and warmth from Ursula’s ever-burning hearth; and, finally, Ursula’s door, a round, short wooden thing that’s rotted and chipped in many places. Once painted red and covered in golden runes, the door has worn away over the years and now is all but returned to its original color.
Aside from these three things, the end is indistinguishable from a mound of dirt, root, and foliage. It appears as if it grew there naturally, which was one of the intended effects when Ursula built the end in the first place.
Inside the End: The Front Room
Once inside, one sees that Spindle’s end is not much different than any other home in Nore aside from the dirt walls. Ursula has a niche carved out for her hearth and cauldron, always hot and boiling, though its contents change from day to day.
In the front room is also a round table, often covered in an organized mess of books, ingredients, spells, vials, and remains. The table also has an old wooden rug from the Deserts, which was given to her as a gift after helping a local king give birth.
She has a small side-table with a brass oil lamp, with various herbs, beads, rune stones, and other odds and ends. Beside it is a small bed with an old but comfortable mattress (cleaned regularly, via magic) with a single feather-down pillow, and multiple heavy blankets.
On the back wall is a floor-to-ceiling stack of shelves with jars, skulls from various species, and boxes. Every jar and box contains a different ingredient for spells, among Ursula’s other personal affects. Candle holders, feathers, organs from various species (and, unfortunately, humans), bones, scales, herbs, fins, and more.
Inside the End: The Back Room
Behind the bookshelf is a nook that allows people to walk into a smaller, perfectly round room. This one is for private patients, who need to stay near Ursula for extended periods of time and need more intense care. In this room is another bed, another spit -- this time in the center of the room. It can be used for steam, cooling the room, heating the room, cooking, and more. There is another side table, this time empty save for a bowl of water and a rag.
At the end of the best is a chest with three more blankets, and storage space for the patient. On the other side of the room is another chest, with tools to be used for home life, such as cooking utensils, extra shoes, and more.
Beneath the End
Ursula’s hearth covers a trap door (thanks to magic) that leads down into a massive tunnel system that leads all over Nore. Ursula is the only person who knows it’s there and still lives. These tunnels connect to most mining systems, as well as the lowest levels of the Barn, the University, and the Obsidian Palace.
(Trigger warning for violence and gore in the next paragraph.)
Many people have traversed these tunnels. Children go exploring, and Miners get ambitious. However, Ursula’s shadowhounds are constantly on patrol. They bark and growl whenever someone walks too near, but, if the person is still determined, they will kill the person, bringing their corpse to Ursula’s store rooms to be dealt with accordingly.
These store rooms are located directly beneath the end, and go on for an unknown distance. Each one contains shelves and chests of other ingredients, some rare and some common, so that Ursula may always be prepared. She employed the help of some earth-movers when she first came to Nore, and then either erased their memories or...worse.
It’s best usually not to ask.
