[open quest] trick or treat?

[Barrow]

Barrow is untouched by the grasping hands of Death in any of its forms.  

He hasn’t suffered any great losses or even witnessed any true violence. He doesn’t know that his father has ended lives down in his watery kingdom with his sharp, hungry mouth.  He perhaps hadn’t been paying attention when his mother doled our wisdom on the circle of life.  

The closest thing to death he has experienced has been the withering away of tropical, Tephran plants under the sulfuric sun.

So when he feels Death, it is only like an incessant breeze against his neck that also tousles the reddish-copper hair behind his ears.

Ever curious to a fault, Barrow bounds along a rather spooky trail, the light catching in the tree branches like a spiderweb and casting their pattern on the ground.  He isn’t worried because he’s never had anything to worry about.  The darkness doesn’t bother him, either, because there is just enough moonlight to see his way by.  Instead, he thinks of the grand adventure that is the ordinary: he marvels at the mundane aspects of everyday life.  How miraculous, then, to be caught up in something more!  For surely, the air is different on this night.  He means to see why.

Just ahead is a symphony of noises, of voices and movement.  He thinks he is not alone in his journey.  How exciting!  Barrow surges ahead with renewed vigor, his feet slower than his growing enthusiasm.  When the trees start to open, the shadowed outline of other bodies start to become exposed, even in the darkness.  Ahead of all of them, in front of a doorway of sorts, is a gloomy sort of guy.  He can’t tell what the purpose of this impromptu shindig is at this most haunting hour.  The figure they all stare at is certainly no help.  Not at first, anyway.  

Barrow is just about to ask the nearest night-owl what the deal was, when the thing speaks.  Others answer quickly, but he bides his time and bites his lip as he considers.  Really though, there’s hardly a choice.  “Trick!”  Because who doesn’t love a good trick?  No matter that this figure looks like it just stepped out of a graveyard and could devour the lot of them at any given moment.