The lake christened as the Evendeeps has an ill repute. Once an ancient quarry, floods and rain-water have filled it, becoming bleak and brackish in colour. Many have been found drowned upon the rocky shores of the Evendeeps, while some had to be hauled out from the water. Strangely though, many of the drowned come not from the nearby village, and the local priest had no idea who the victims were. This mystery persisted until one night some passer-bys (who very well may be the adventurers) come by and heard the sound of thrashing in the Evendeeps.
- If the adventurers managed to recuse the person thrashing in the water, she turned out to be a lady in waiting serving a certain lord more than tens of miles away. Her clothes were be weather-beaten and stained, and her shoes torn and muddy. She claimed to have no idea of what had happened – only that she was wandering in a dream – when suddenly she found herself deep in the water. She claimed to have heard a voice chanting to her, and if she recite that chant to spell-casters, they would realise it was a spell of charm and summoning. Sorcerers may be excited as the spell itself is deemed to be long lost – what could dwell within the lake that uses this spell? What is that bleak, rocky island in a sheltered corner, where the lady could still hear the chant coming from?
- Many foolhardy passer-by have leaped into the water, hoping to rescue whoever is drowning, only to find himself confronting a rusalka, the decomposing wight of a drowned lady, who killed herself because of a loved betrayed. She could never be beaten while in the waters, reforming within two hours in hidden caves among the shores. She haunted the lake because it was precisely the villagers who have caused her death. The daughter of a minor nobleman, she was left there while running away from her family’s enemies. However, her guardian died, and the villagers ill-treated her. She fell in love with a young man, and they pledged to elope. Alas, this turned out to be a trap to cast the charge of adultery on her, and she was drowned in the waters. However, one day she finally got her prize – the young son of the man who had betrayed her. Instead of immediately drowning his son, the ruslka wants the father to bring to her all responsible for her death — or, all she thought responsible. Many innocents would be imperiled unless the adventurers step in.
- Before the quarry was dug, at where it is now, was a great grove where faerie creatures would gather. It was place of serenity and peace, until the humans came and despoil the grove. Some power gave the humans the ability to drive back the faeries and the latter could only watch helplessly as the human dug a pit for sands and stone. Most of the faeries left but some remained as they were bonded to the land. They hid with a sapling of a great tree of a grove, planting it in hope that one day the human presence may leave and the grove could regrow. Alas, the sapling never grew strong and the faeries have resorted to using human’s blood (and sometimes even flesh as fertiliser) to give its strength (if the victims were examined, they are found to be drained of blood before drowning). It had taken a long time, by human’s reckoning, but finally the tree is growing strong…and being fed on human blood and flesh, it has been tainted by evil…
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