Tales from Solemn Vale: The Stack

Atop a grassy outcropping on the cliff edge overlooking the mostly submerged wreck of the Persephone, a strange structure protrudes from the ground. The old red brick chimney, commonly known as ‘The Stack’ around town, extends fifteen feet in the air above the rocky ground. The treacherous cliff path to get to it, as well as its distance from any roads or viewpoints, make The Stack a well known spot for teenage hangouts and underage drinking. The weathered red brick is covered in graffiti, and if one would climb to the top of the construction, they would peer down into nothing but darkness with no bottom in sight. 

Town records are vague as to what exactly the Stack was for, or what it must have been built to vent. Many claim it’s simply leftover from a never completed property, or all that remains of one.  

During the night the chalky brick of The Stack is oddly warm to the touch. People say it just absorbs the heat from the day gone by, but there are a few who claim to have seen smoke churning from The Stack in the dead of night, belching out from the bowels of the cliffs beneath its protruding exterior. Sea maps state no cavern extends below The Stack, with the chimney apparently just continuing straight into the ground. Put your ear to the grass though, and it’s almost like you can hear movement down there. Under the low sound of the waves, a low and churning rumble, like the gears of some ancient machine. 

Birds that fly directly over the stack have been seen to twist in flight, as if their sense of direction is suddenly compromised. They spiral from the skies, flapping wildly, to crash into the ground not far from the old chimney. Even sitting near the Stack itself has been known to bring a feeling of dysphoria, nothing a few drunken teenagers would notice at first, but too long around the Stack does more than make you feel strange. The longer spent by the Stack, and the churning becomes louder, in the air even without an ear to the ground, the sound becomes more complex, intricate, until the sound of cogs and gears and pistons can be heard. 

The sound of the infernal machine follows visitors to the Stack for some time. They feel it in their fingertips, in the ground beneath their feet. Those who’ve been to that old chimney too many times know that something is down there, beneath The Stack. They know that one of the darkest secrets of Solemn Vale is not born, but forged. 

Tales from Solemn Vale: The Legend of the Ryswell Strait.

The forests of Solemn Vale are home to many rivers and streams that babble along through the trees. Some are wide enough to be crossed by small bridges, others just large enough for a traveler to leap from bank to bank.

One unassuming length of river, a few miles into the forest, bears a history of death. The Ryswell Straight, as this quarter mile of rugged river is known, runs between mossy banks and looks to any passerby like any other quiet woodland creek. The little river is deceptively deep though, and startlingly fast.

Following the Ryswell Straight will lead to a flat rock, slipping out from the forest floor over the river. The rock is treacherous, slippery even when dry. And it was from this rock, in the winter of 1576, that a girl named Bethany Ryswell was cast naked into the freezing river by the town priest. 

Accused of witchcraft after a neighbour’s hen began laying black-yoked eggs, Bethany was swiftly apprehended by the local clergy, and the priest declared a test of faith. Promising Bethany would be cleared of all accusations should she swim the river and climb the other side, the girl was thrown in. 

Only a dozen feet across, the river’s current held the girl down against the rocky riverbed, and Bethany never again rose from the water. The Priest cursed her name as a witch, it let it be known that holy justice had been served. 

Ryswell straight began to be visited by missionaries over the decades following, becoming something of a holy site. They noticed strange things about the waters moving through the area. As if disobeying the laws of nature itself, the waters of the Ryswell straight coarse faster when touched, streaming past errant fingertips or dangled toes as if clutching for them. The waters turn in onto themselves in places, spinning the current in strange and unpredictable ways. Holy men at the site say it was the power of God in the waters. 

This narrative was kept up a while, until a visiting Bishop blessing the river stepped on a particular out-jutting rock and slipped into the straight. The waters gripped the man like claws, tugging him under without time to scream. It was hours before they pulled the Bishops body from the waters downstream of the Ryswell straight, bloodied and torn upon the rocks. 

In the strange way of things, more people began to visit the Ryswell Straight following the bishop’s grisly death. Each seeking a test of faith, to prove their holiness by leaping into the waters and successfully swimming to the other side. It seems none were as holy as they believed. Since 1576, no-one who has stepped into the Ryswell Straight has made it to the other side. Every single pious soul, adventuring daredevil or unfortunate walker who just happened to slip, has died in the short straight of river. Either held under by the twisting waters, or smashed upon the rocks. Some believe God is a harsh judge, and others say that the ghost of Bethany Ryswell still lies seeking warmth from the river bed.

At the Ryswell Straight today, little marks the place but for a poorly constructed wire fence around a few areas of the river, and a sign that warns ‘DANGER. Beware slippery Rocks. No Swimming’.