Phandalin, 951 DR

The evening sun begins to set, casting the last rays of golden light and warmth upon the soil. The farming families of Phandalin, wiping sweat and dirt from their sun-baked brows, leave their fields and begin to gather, sharing stories of the day’s labours. Crickets begin their chirping evening song. A frog hops across the hardened path into the adjoined field, and a young girl with dark eyes and dark curls releases her mother’s apron to follow. 

The girl manages one hop to the frog’s three – after all, it is much harder for a human body to perform a feat designed for a frog. She likes pretending to be a frog, but she prefers to release her crickets when she catches them. She hop-chases the frog into the middle of the field, where she loses sight of it. Frowning, the girl stands up from her half-crouch and narrows her eyes against the setting sun.

She slows her breathing to try and listen for the frog’s rustling in the grass. She strains to hear something other than the cricket song, and it takes her a moment to realize that the crickets are no longer singing. They must sense the frog and fear him, she thinks, knowing that the frogs of Phandalin are not as merciful when they catch a cricket. She looks back towards her mother, relieved to see her still standing and chatting with the neighbours. She resumes her search for the elusive frog.

She spies a tendril of brown smoke rising in the distance behind Olson’s farm, the farthest farm within the Phandalian limits. She shakes her head – Olson is always forgetting which days are for burning. She turns away, but something feels strange – hadn’t she seen Olson in the village this evening? She looks back at her mother again, and spots Olson chatting merrily away. Who, then, is burning at Olson’s farm? As she ponders the mystery, she feels the ground beneath her feet begin to shake. Huge dark shapes are spilling out from either side of Olson’s house and outbuildings, their steel weapons glinting in the dying sunlight. They are running – towards the village, towards her mother, towards her. She screams.

Phandalin burns.