“I’ve had a number of patients come from the Harlequin Wilds. You may think, ‘Well, they survived! So it cannot be that bad.’ Except you haven’t spoken to them. They are constantly itching. Some have lost parts of their bodies. Others have completely lost their minds.” – Doctor Notes
Records have shown the Harlequin Wilds to have increased in size significantly for the past couple hundred of years. It has been under the gaze of Awei’s lead researchers due to it’s danger to all that go there.
The Harlequin Wilds are an unique enchanted forest. Only insects are known to live there and even they are often unseen due to the infestation of vines the forest is famous for.
There is much argument among scholars on what creates an enchanted forest. Some say it’s the age of the un-touched plant life or the amount of generations an kind of animal has lived there (which they proved is how a guardian for those places is made). Others believe it’s similar to a haunting, in which a lot of death happened on the land.
In the case of the Harlequin Wilds, there is an old tragic tale some believe are connected to why it’s enchanted. The story was about a winged being girl gifted in white magic who was kidnapped and killed in a grove. When she was discovered, her body was entwined in strange vines. That is where the Harelquin Wilds started, that little grove. The vines have spread further and further ever since.
For those who venture into the wilds, they are often lured deeper in by illusions. They begin to get sleepy and they may not even notice that plants are beginning to grow out of their skin. Survivors say that behind the vines of the Harlequin lay bones, bugs, and flesh.