Center of the Tangled Hills – a place of Chaos by Tharsig, Priest of Sigmar
In areas of our Empire, there are places that have long been known as Chaotic. Strong forces twist and alter the landscape. Beings of wonderous and scarred natures feel compelled to flock to these places. Men of sound mind avoid unless compelled by the gods themselves to visit.
This chronicle tells the tale of such a group of men, following a quest for knowledge and the glory of Sigmar.
At least one of these areas is already known to scholars. The Devil’s Tear has long been known as a place of Chaos. Strange energies flow from the moon’s fallen piece. The landscape around it has strange plants and monsters stalk at night. It is only the strong, ancient magic of the stone circle that surrounds the Tear that keeps it from spreading. Such magic makes the trade routes through those hills possible.
The Tangled Hills also has a reputation as a haunt of monsters. But, until this time, no man has journey into the hills and returned to tell of its mysteries.
In (Month and Year), a small party of truth seekers ventured into the hills.
Traveling East from the doomed village of (Shrine Village), the Tangled Hills become choked with dense, unnatural plant life. Trees grow twisted and stunted. The land itself is blasted and torn.
Two days of slow travel East into the hills will lead one through this to a sloping plane. The twisted trees give way to scrub and patches of grass. Before one lays a dense fog that never lifts.
Journeying into the fog exposes a man to an odd feeling. It feels as if bugs crawl across your skin. No bugs are visible, but the feeling remains. Such a feeling only lifts when one enters the light of the sun. People outside of the fog claim to see bugs crawling across the flesh of those within.
The fog also has another peril. Undead wolves stalk the mist. Our group survived their onslaught and destroyed the beasts, but only after great peril and injury.
Journey through the mists is long and unmeasured, but if one can remain steady you will reach the center.
The mist rings a crater.
It is as if a giant had driven his hand deep into the earth.
But several unnatural obstacles stand between one and the center of this ring.
Brambles, vines, and weeds all grow in a ring inside the mist. These plants are unholy. Any person that touches the plants will have flesh torn away as if by the claws of a beast. Also, these plants will grow swiftly, by the light a the Chaos Moon. Such plants can be cut or burned but grow back each night.
We were able to overcome them by building platforms of cut plants and crushing the plants beneath them as we passed.
Past the plants is a ring of scorched rock. Nothing grows there. The heat is tremendous and presses down on a person the closer you get as you advance to the center. Only a strength of purpose can carry a person forward.
Entering the last ring, one is plunged into cold. From the hottest summer to the coldest winter takes only a step in this ring. Before one, the earth drops away into hole filled with a swirling mist.
This mist moves with a purpose. As one approaches the edge, it moves towards you and reaches out. Shapes of people, ghostlike, rise out of this center and you can almost hear the screams of the damned.
We could find no way down into the center. The mist freezes all it touches to a deathly degree. The final mystery of the Tangled Hills lies within. Ours was not the strength to penetrate such forces.
It is my hope that this writing finds its way into the hands of men of faith and knowledge that can confront this horror. Is it a creeping danger like the Devil’s Tear? Will it require the strength of lore that our ancestors wielded?
Heads wiser than mine may know.
In the service of Sigmar and the Empire, I submit these facts.
Tharsig