The Pineveil Chronicles
The Relic Shelf
Traveler's Warning
This chapter contains themes of psychological horror, unsettling supernatural imagery, and the disappearance of characters. Reader discretion is advised.
Long before Pineveil had a name, before cottages stood beneath the pines and lanterns burned along the winding roads, the valley belonged to the forest. There were no marked paths, no council hall, herbalist’s cottage, or workshops filled with the smell of cedar and smoke. There were only the trees, the mountain fog, and the stories told by those who had gone near them and returned changed.
At the edge of the northern ridge stood a small settlement known as Briar’s Rest. It was little more than a gathering of timber homes surrounding a weathered stone well, but every traveler passing through knew the village for one thing: No one was to enter the forest beyond the ridge. The villagers would not hunt there, they would not gather fallen wood from its borders either. Even during the cruelest winters, when snow buried the roads and firewood grew scarce, they left the dark line of pines untouched.
Elias Toberman thought they were foolish. He arrived at Briar’s Rest at the beginning of autumn with three companions, a wagon of provisions, and a commission to survey the valley beyond the mountains. The land was said to be untouched and rich with timber. If a safe route could be established, a new settlement might follow. Elias had spent most of his life drawing maps of places that frightened other men. He had crossed frozen passes, slept beneath cliffs known for landslides, and traveled through ruins villagers swore were cursed. Everywhere he went, fear became smaller once measured. A haunted ravine became loose stone and poor footing. A witch’s hill became a place where lightning struck too often. A forest that swallowed travelers, Elias assumed, would become fog, steep ground, and bad directions.
On the morning they prepared to leave, an old man waited beside the northern trail. His coat was patched at the elbows, and one eye had clouded white with age. He held no walking stick, though he leaned slightly toward the road as though listening through the soles of his boots. Elias greeted him politely. The old man did not return the greeting. “You are going into the valley,” the old man said to Elias. It was not a question. “We are surveying it,” Elias said. The man stared deep into Elias's eyes, “There is nothing there to survey.” Elias quipped back, “Then my work should be easy.”
One of Elias’s companions laughed. The youngest, a broad shouldered man named Tomas, covered the sound with a cough. The old man looked at each of them in turn; Elias, Tomas, Eamon, and Bryn. His gaze lingered on Eamon, who stood nearest the trees. Then the old man pointed to a slab of stone half buried beside the trail. “Read it.” At first Elias saw nothing but scratches worn down by rain and time. He knelt and brushed away the moss. Letters slowly emerged beneath his fingers.
'Don't trust the carvings'
Elias looked back at the old man. “Who wrote this?” The old man replied, “No one remembers.” Elias was not pleased with his answer. “What carvings?” Tomas asked. The old man’s expression did not change. “If you see one you do not remember, keep walking.” Eamon stepped closer to the stone. “What is that supposed to mean?” The old man leaned in closer to Eamon, “It means you should turn around.” Elias rose and wiped the dirt from his gloves. “We will return within the week.” The old man looked past him toward the waiting pines. “No,” he said quietly. “You will not.”
They entered the forest shortly after sunrise. For the first several hours, Elias found nothing remarkable. The ground sloped steadily downward beneath towering pines. Their trunks were wide and dark, their roots thick enough to rise from the earth like the backs of buried animals. Mist drifted in narrow ribbons between them. Elias marked their route carefully, noting the angle of the descent and the shape of the surrounding ridge. Bryn carried the compass. Tomas pulled the wagon with supplies. Eamon wandered ahead whenever the ground allowed it, eager to prove the villagers wrong.
By midday, they came across a carving. It was cut into a pine beside a shallow stream. A spiral. The grooves were dark and deep, softened at the edges by years of weather. Eamon traced the shape with one finger. “Old boundary mark, perhaps.” “Could be,” Elias said. Bryn glanced back through the trees. “There were no settlements marked this far north.” “Maps are often incomplete,” Elias said as he looked at his notes. The answer satisfied no one, though they continued.
Before sunset, they found another spiral. This one stood farther down the slope. Eamon stopped first. “Same spiral.” Elias approached the tree. The design was identical, but the cut wood beneath the bark was pale. Fresh sap gathered inside the grooves. “That was not made years ago,” Tomas said. Eamon pressed his palm against the trunk. His face changed. He pulled his hand away so quickly that he nearly stumbled. “What is it?” Elias asked. Eamon stared at the tree. “It...it felt alive.” Tomas gave an uneasy laugh. “It is alive. It is a tree.” Eamon looked at Tomas and sternly said, “No... alive!” Eamon rubbed his palm against his coat. “I know what a tree feels like.”
They made camp before nightfall. Elias chose a clearing surrounded by low stone and kept two lanterns burning. The men ate dried meat and hard bread while Bryn studied the compass. The needle pointed northeast. Then north. Then slowly turned toward the trees on the far side of the fire. Bryn rotated the compass in his hand. The needle adjusted. It pointed toward the same pine. “That is impossible,” he said. Elias took the compass and tested it himself. No matter which direction he faced, the needle returned to the tree. A narrow carving marked its trunk. Not a spiral. A single eye. Elias was certain it had not been there when they made camp. He remembered the warning at the ridge. If you see one you do not remember, keep walking. “Pack the compass away,” he said. Bryn obeyed.
That night, Elias awoke to the sound of metal scraping against wood. Slow. Measured. Then a pause. Then another scrape. He sat up and reached for the lantern beside him. Across the clearing, Tomas was already awake. “You hear it?” Tomas whispered. Elias nodded. The sound came again from somewhere beyond the firelight. Scrape. Pause. Scrape. Eamon stirred beneath his blanket. Bryn rose and reached for his knife. Together, they moved toward the edge of the clearing. The darkness between the trees seemed thicker than the night above them. Lantern light touched the nearest trunks but did not travel beyond them. The scraping stopped. They waited. Nothing moved. They searched the perimeter of the camp and found no footprints, no tools, and no sign of another traveler. Elias said, "It's probably just a bear or something. I'm going back to bed."
By morning, the eye carved into the pine had changed. Its lower edge had split into four long lines, like fingers reaching downward through the bark. Elias saw this and ordered the men to leave immediately. They traveled south, or what Bryn insisted was south, for most of the day. Near midday, they crossed a shallow stream. Elias stopped, the same spiral was carved into the tree beside it. The old one. The weathered one. “We have circled back,” Bryn said. “That is not possible,” Elias replied. “We walked downhill the entire morning.” Tomas looked toward the stream. Their camp should have been nearby. It was not. There were no ashes, no stone ring, no tracks. Only the stream and the spiral. Elias studied his map. The valley slope no longer matched his measurements. The ridge behind them had vanished into mist. He drew a new line across the page.
That evening, they discovered a camp hidden beneath a stand of bent pines. A rusted pot sat beside a circle of blackened stones. Blankets lay folded beneath a torn canvas shelter. A wooden cup rested on its side. Everything had been left behind. There were no bones, graves, and no sign of struggle. Eamon picked up a small leather journal from beneath the canvas. Most of its pages had rotted together. One remained readable. The date written at the top was nearly forty years old. Below it, a single sentence filled the page. We followed the road until the road began following us. Eamon dropped the journal. They did not stay at the camp.
The next morning, Bryn was gone. His blanket had been folded at the edge of the clearing. His boots stood beside it. Inside the left boot, they found a small piece of bark. A spiral had been cut into its surface. Tomas swore and threw it into the fire. The bark did not burn. It blackened at the edges, but the spiral remained pale. They searched for Bryn until the light began to fade. They called his name until their voices grew raw. Sometimes an answer returned from far away. It always sounded like Bryn. It never came from the same direction twice.
That night, they all fought sleep. Eamon sat nearest the fire with his knife drawn. Tomas whispered prayers Elias had never heard before. Elias opened his journal and recorded everything: The missing camp, the compass, the changing carvings, Bryn. Elias could feel the weight of his eyelids getting heavier and heavier. Slowly, he fell asleep. When he woke the next morning, the journal lay open across his chest. A new sentence had been written beneath his final entry. You should have listened. Elias stared at the words. The handwriting didn't belong to any of them. He tore out the page and fed it to the fire.
By noon, Eamon disappeared. A moment earlier Eamon answered Elias from somewhere behind him, the next, there was nothing. “Eamon?” Elias called. No reply. Elias and Tomas searched in widening circles, calling his name until the sound vanished among the trees. Then Tomas froze. “There.” A figure stood between the pines. It was Eamon. His back faced them. He stood perfectly still before an ancient tree, his hand resting against the trunk as though listening to something hidden beneath the bark. “Eamon!” He did not move. Relief and terror struck Elias at once.
They hurried through the undergrowth. Branches caught their coats. Roots twisted beneath their boots. When they reached the tree, no one was there. Only the pine. Its bark had been cut with a carving neither man remembered seeing before. It showed three figures standing beneath a crooked moon. A fourth figure watched from between the trees. Tomas stepped back. “That is us.” “No.” “It is.” Tomas pointed to the smallest figure. “That is Bryn!” Elias refused to look closely.
“Move,” he said. Tomas didn't budge. The carved fourth figure seemed deeper than the others, as though the knife had pressed harder around its outline. Its face was blank. “Elias...” “Move!” Elias exclaimed. “There are only three of us in the carving...” Elias grabbed Tomas by the coat and pulled him away. They ran until their legs trembled. The forest changed around them. Fog gathered low across the ground, curling around roots and stones. Lantern light appeared occasionally in the distance, moving slowly between the trees. Each time they followed it, they found only another carving. Once, Elias saw a woman standing beyond the mist. She wore a long pale dress, darkened at the hem with mud. Her head was bowed. When he called out, she raised one hand and pointed deeper into the forest. Elias blinked and she was gone. In her place stood a pine marked with a carved doorway.
The following evening, Tomas began to hear bells. He insisted they were close to a village. Elias heard nothing. “There,” Tomas said. “Again.” He turned away from the path. Elias caught his arm. “There is no village.” Tomas whispered, “You do not hear them?” “No,” Elias replied. Tomas looked at him with tears in his eyes. “My mother used to ring a bell like that.” Elias looked down, “Your mother is dead.” “I know,” Tomas said under his breath. The bells continued for Tomas. He pressed both hands over his ears. It did not help.
They found a great pine shortly before midnight. Its trunk was wider than a cottage and rose beyond the reach of their lanterns. Carvings covered every part of it: spirals, moons, eyes, hands, faces. Some had nearly disappeared beneath new bark. Others gleamed with fresh sap. Wooden charms hung from the lower branches, tied there with strips of rotting cloth. Elias recognized one of them. Bryn's compass. It swung gently from a branch despite the still air. The needle pointed toward the trunk. Tomas walked forward. Elias seized his shoulder. “Don't.”
Tomas stared at the carvings. “They are moving.” Elias looked despite himself. At first he saw only overlapping lines. Then the shapes shifted. Not across the bark, inside it. Faces pressed outward from beneath the grain. Mouths opened where knots had formed. Hands stretched through carved spirals. Tomas screamed. The forest answered with the sound of hundreds of voices whispering at once. Elias could not understand the words. Tomas could. His face went pale. “They know where Pineveil will stand.” Elias tightened his grip. “What is Pineveil?”
Tomas looked at him as though he had forgotten Elias was there. Then something moved behind the bark. Tomas was pulled forward. Elias caught his coat, but the fabric tore in his hands. Tomas struck the trunk and vanished. Not behind it, into it. The carvings shuddered. A new figure appeared beneath the crooked moon. Elias ran so fast he left behind his lantern, supplies, his journal, and his maps. He ran through the fog until branches cut his face and blood filled one eye. The whispers followed. Sometimes they spoke in Bryn’s voice. Sometimes Eamon’s. Sometimes Tomas called for help from directly behind him. Elias never turned to look, he just kept running.
At dawn, he reached the northern ridge. The forest ended without warning. One step, he stood beneath the pines. The next, he collapsed on the stony trail above Briar’s Rest. The old man was there waiting. Elias did not ask how or even care to know how he found his way back. He laid in the dirt, gasping, while the old man looked toward the tree line.
“You looked at them,” the old man said. Elias tried to answer but no sound could come out of his mouth. The old man’s gaze fell to Elias’s hands. Tiny splinters of pine were lodged beneath every fingernail. Across the backs of both hands, thin red lines had begun to appear. They did not look like scratches. They curved slowly into spirals. The old man stepped away. “No,” he whispered. Elias stared at his hands. The lines deepened. Terror seized him. Without a word, he staggered to his feet and fled before anyone could stop him. Hidden from the village, Elias knelt beside the old stone near the northern trail. He pulled out his knife and with trembling hands, he carved four words into the stone.
'Don't trust the carvings'
Somewhere beyond the ridge, hidden among the ancient pines, a bell began to ring. On the old stone, fresh sap slowly seeped into the letters Elias had carved. By morning, no trace of the knife marks remained. Only the warning.
Centuries later, people would build homes in that valley. They would raise lanterns against the fog. They would give the winding roads names. They would call the town Pineveil. Beneath those roads, beneath the cottages and gardens and carved wooden doors, the roots would continue to grow.
Thank you so much for reading Chapter Three: Before Pineveil.
I wanted this chapter to pull back the curtain a little and show that long before Pineveil became the quiet little town we know today, something ancient was already living within the forest. Not every mystery is meant to be solved right away, but I hope this chapter leaves you with more questions than answers.
If you've been following my custom content, you may have already started noticing little connections between the story and the things I create. That's completely intentional! One of my favorite parts of this project is bringing pieces of Pineveil into The Sims 4, whether it's through the characters, relics, furniture, clothing, or little details hidden throughout the world.
Thank you for coming along on this journey. It honestly means a lot that you're here, and I can't wait to share what's waiting in the next chapter.
— PTAI
© 2026 Pine Trees & Incense. All rights reserved.
The Pineveil Chronicles, its original characters, storylines, relics, locations, and lore are original works of fiction by Pine Trees & Incense. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is prohibited.
The Pineveil Chronicles is an original story created and written by Ady under Pine Trees & Incense.
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