Hollin Wood · the Pit Clearing

Claiming free land in Hollin Wood, with the reeve's lantern on the path

A goblin charcoal-burner, a dwarf who quit the mines and a branded poacher walked into the one wood with no lord to raise a hall before the snow. Then somebody cut a notch in the wrong oak.

Skrit with her axe in falling snow, Bram hauling the cart past the half-raised timber frame of their hall — Dusk, first snow, and a hall with no roof: Skrit, with Bram at the cart behind her.

Skrit, charcoal-burner, goblin — Skritcharcoal-burner, goblin

Bram Hollowell, miner who quit Dunhammer, dwarf — Bram Hollowellminer who quit Dunhammer, dwarf

Wren Ashby, poacher with a price on her head, human — Wren Ashbypoacher with a price on her head, human

Hollin Wood is the hardest place to begin in the Rimewild: no walls, no lord, help a day's walk away — and land free to whoever builds on it. That last part is why three friends walked in with axes and a hand-cart at the end of autumn.

Skrit, a goblin charcoal-burner, wanted a kiln of her own and a fire that never goes out. Bram Hollowell had left the deep seams of Dunhammer after a collapse crushed his left foot, and wanted to raise a hall that would stand a hundred winters. Wren Ashby had a brand on her cheek and a lord's warden looking for her, and came because a wood with no lord has no wardens. Each wrote their own orders. The world answered all three at once.

Dusk, first snow, wolves

They opened at the Pit Clearing with the walls of their hall half-raised and open to the sky, the first snow coming down, something howling on the moor and a second voice answering much closer. Skrit did what a goblin with a felling axe and a plan does:

Skrit’s order: Skrit grabs the felling axe, shouts for the others to get the cart under the half-built wall, and strides toward the old oak to mark its trunk with an axe-cut before the snow buries the way.

Bram, meanwhile, limped to a burner's hut where Skrit had been arguing over a flour sack, planted his good foot and his pick-haft, and made the man weigh it again in front of him. It came up two handfuls short. 'Mice don't carry off a whole handful,' Bram told him, and stood there until the sack was made right.

Bram seated on a stump by the fire as the burner reweighs the flour on a hook-scale — Bram makes the burner weigh the flour again — two handfuls short.

The Family's oak

Here is the thing about free land: someone always thinks it's theirs. Skrit's notch in the old oak was pale in the snow when a man with a tally-stick came up the clearing asking who had cut the Family's tree. Edric Vane had already met Wren — she'd given him a false name, Wren Mott, and refused to lower her hood. 'Then I'll write down the hood,' he said. 'I'll be back at dawn with the reeve.'

Wren went up into the rocks above the Stone Ride to watch the track. Two grey wolves passed below her. She drew, held — and let the string go slack. A shot would bring the pack and the hunters both. That's the kind of call the game rewards: not the heroic one, the one that keeps you alive.

Wren crouched on snowy rocks above a winding forest track, bow at her side — Wren on the ridge above the Stone Ride, the hall's lights far below.

Three friends, one plan, no rehearsal

By the small hours the reeve, Osric Dane, was at the open wall of their hall with three men and a dog, and the Family was offering silver to whoever named the oak-cutter. Skrit crept toward the wall to hear what they wanted. And on the same turn, without seeing each other's orders, Bram by the cart and Wren up on the rocks wrote the same plan:

Bram’s order: Bram grips his pick-haft, drops low behind the cart's wheel, and hisses to Skrit, 'Cover the tracks with spruce bough while I draw the lantern-man's eye, then we split for the spring.'

Wren’s order: Wren eases her bow off her knees, creeps along the rocks toward the oak trees, and whispers to Bram and Skrit, 'Cut the cart's traces and drag it under the oaks while I draw the fur-collared reeve away from the hall.'

Skrit and Bram dragged the cart into the oaks and swept spruce over the ruts. Wren came down off the ridge, snapped a dead branch loud enough to carry, and ran. One of the reeve's men followed her into the trees. She waited behind a pine until he was close, slipped past him, and left him shouting for the reeve.

Bram resting by the hidden cart under spruce boughs while the reeve's lanterns gather at the hall wall — The cart hidden under the oaks, the reeve's men at the open wall of the hall.

Find her, the one with the brand.Osric Dane, the reeve, to his men

Where it stands

Dawn finds Skrit and Bram in the alders by the spring, his crushed foot numb to the hip after going down on the ice twice — Skrit waited for him on every slope. Wren is somewhere in the oaks with her bow and her hood up. The cart is hidden. The hall still has no roof. The reeve will search the trees at first light.

They haven't won the land. But nobody has taken it from them either, and every one of the three put themselves on the line for the other two in a single night. In the Rimewild that's how a holding starts: not with a deed, but with friends who'll still be standing beside you when the lanterns come up the path.

Bring your friends.

In The Churn you write what your character tries, in your own words, and the world answers — honestly. Begin beside a friend and you start as allies, in the same place, on the same turn. No class, no script: whatever you build, you build.

Begin your own life — free