I would like to believe that while I am not the greatest person in the world, I am at least "decent". I don't argue with my parents when it comes to chores, I give beggars whatever small amount of coin I can spare and I'm not a bandit or an unscrupulous innkeeper who takes advantage of weak and weary travelers. I occasionally sneak an extra cake for myself when Mom's not looking and I may have occasionally snuck past the town's menhirs to do some light exploring and pretend to be a binder, but I stay close to them and I still come back before everyone else gets up to make breakfast for everyone in my family. Which is why I'm wondering what force of nature compelled the universe to have me stuck in the middle of a staredown between a living volcanic eruption and a walking blizzard!

Waitaminute, I'm getting ahead of myself. I should probably explain who I am and what's going on. My name is Silvia Rosewood, the oldest daughter of the three children of Grigori and Alicia Rosewood. My folks and I run the best and only brewery in Onryx, a quaint little town located in a region known as the Gemini Forest, at least that's what the traveling binders and merchants say.

My home region is called that because the forest for one reason or another somehow goes through two seasons at the same time in two different halves, i.e., fall in one half and winter in the other half, which is weird. I didn't think so, but that's because I was born and raised here. Onryx is located right in the middle of this divide, or the Equinox Line, so it does get a little awkward in terms of wardrobing when half of the population is in winter clothes while the other half is in summer clothing.

Wait, I'm getting sidetracked again. The reason I mentioned my home region's "oddity" is because it was round this time that Winter/Spring seasons we're setting in. Usually around this time, me and my dad,Grigori Rosewood, would go venture into the Winter portion of the forest to try and find some honeybee hives to get some bee-combs for our hives and to make our special Twin Flower mead. However, this time around my dad ended up twisting his ankle and was bedridden for the week, so I took it upon myself to go and bring back the honeycombs.

My mother immediately disapproved of the idea stating that the Wildlands was no place for anybody to explore alone, let alone a girl who was only sixteen years old. It took about an hour of arguing, my dad's involvement and explaining that the honeycombs are close enough to the menhirs that I wouldn't run into any MajiMonsters to finally convince her that I could go do it at first light the next day...is what I want to say, but in reality she adamantly refused and I was about to give up, until dad said he would explain and mollify her for me if I snuck out.

Thus the very next morning, I got my pack, my hunting knife and my lucky crystal charm and went off to find some honeycombs. Normally, Pa and I would just go check the trees a little pass the village's menhir circle, no more than just 10 feet away into the Wildlands, and just grab one maybe two honeycombs for the mead. However, this year was different.

This time when I went to our usual spot to get honeycombs, there was nothing there.In a panic I attempted to figure out what could have done this, which is when I found the bear claw marks on the tree. I don't hate bears, but they can be a nuisance when it comes to my line of work. I was just about to give up and go home, until I heard the faint telltale buzzing of a honeybee hive in the distance.

As a child I've always been able to hear sounds better than most other kids my age and even some adults. Ma says its because when I was a baby, a pair of snakes must've licked my ears clean when she wasn't looking, but I'm pretty sure I was just born like this. It used to drive me nuts because I could hear practically everything even farther than what most people would consider earshot distance,but Pa taught me how to channel everything out except for one key sound and focus on it. As I got better at using my hearing, I used it to help him with hunting, picking up danger when we go looking for ingredients for our brews and more importantly, finding honey bee hives.

I took note that the buzzing I was hearing was even farther from the village menhirs, which I guessed to be about 60, 70 yards from where I was. In retrospect, I probably should have gone back home because of the threat of majimonsters, but I was too stubborn to just give up! Which is why I put my ear to the wind and started walking toward the buzzing.