Long ago, in a secluded valley sat a village of honest working humans. These humans had created this village in this valley so that they may claim the bounty that was it's many fruits and fertile lands. This valley however, was home to one other large creature, the dire wolf. This was a magnificent beast of silver and black fur, and the half the size of a house. There lived a pack of four wolves in this valley with the villagers.
These two sects never bothered the other, and lived with each other in a type of harmony. The human's claimed just their small settlement as their own, while the large beasts roamed throughout the woods of the valley. This peace between species lasted for as long as any of the village elders could remember, which was since the creation of the village seventy years prior. The villagers took trips through the night to gather more resources from the bounty of the woods, knowing that in the night the wolves were almost all back wherever they called home, resting and feasting for the next day. 

This night would change their understanding of the beasts forever however... As the group of three left the settlement, they concluded that they would go and explore an area previously unknown to them, and thus they set off at dusk. This was about the time the wolves would settle and fall into a deep sleep until dawn, granting them ample time to explore and return before the beasts woke. As they began to trek through the woods, a deep and foreboding mist began to seep through the brush, off putting the three who were sent out. This did not stop them however, as they continued to push through denser and more severe briars and brush. As the group was about to forsake the expedition and return to the town, they pushed through an extremely dense patch into a clearing. All three men were shocked with what they saw, a large circle of flat-stone, inlaid with an inscribed gold ring, of a language they had never seen, the ring also had carved images, those of wolves and a single man, who seemed to be doing something to them.

This had no bearing on them, as they did not know what the words that were inscripted said, but as they were discussing this they heard movement coming toward them from the deep woods around them. They believed this to be one of the few dire wolves, to which their suspicion was correct, they all hid within the nearby brush until the beast decided to leave. The large beast came through the brush and looked around as if he knew that the area had been disturbed.

The three men watched, curious as to what the creature was doing. After the beast walked around the circle once, he sat down on one of the four points on the circle. At this point another hound came into the clearing from the forest. This process was repeated until there was a wolf sitting on each point, four in total. Then suddenly a man which the villagers had never seen before walked into the clearing. This man looked to each of the beasts then knelt in the center of the ring of gold. He recited an incantation, one that the men did not understand at all. This drew the mist in from the surrounding darkness, shrouding the man in a thick veil, and it also caused the four beasts to also be covered completely in this mist.

The men, even given the opportunity to escape, decided not to. They chose to stay and watch whatever was happening, as to possibly get a greater understanding about the man and the grand creatures. The mist encased the five figures for a good while, finally shattering at the word of the stranger in the center of the ring, at which point he emerged a changed man, he seemed.... Almost weaker to the three watching, as if he lost some of his energy in the mist. The wolves, after breaking from a trance-like state, walked off, back into the forest from whence they came. The man, visibly exhausted, leans on a branch he picked up at the edge of the circle. This man then began to walk off, in the same direction that the Dire wolves had departed.

The three villagers, fearing for his well being decided to follow him through the woods. He had passed through two similar, but very slightly different clearings, each with a ring of a different metal, with different inscriptions. The villagers were taken aback by how well this stranger could traverse the dense brush of the forest, as he was traveling at a steady pace, not stopping no matter how hard or dense the brush in his way was.

After a long walk, and a lot of quizzical looks from the three men to each other about where they were, they approached a large hut, built into the edge off a sheer-faced wall above it. This hut was much better constructed than the huts at the village, and too large for one man to live in alone. The three men decided to post one man at this house, and send the other two back to the village for supplies. The three decided who would stay, and though there was much silent arguing, the smallest and fastest was chosen. Unbeknownst to the men, the stranger had known about their presence the entire time, and decided to hide this knowledge from them, relying instead on the dense mist to distort their passage back to the village, and instead sending them to the den of the dire wolves. The third man, waiting for the others to return waited and waited, watching the man on his weekly routine with the circles and home.

He realized then who the man was, he was the same man that they had seen carved into the rings surrounding the clearing. The stranger however, had disappeared from his view while he was contemplating this, leaving the third alone in the forest with no way to return to the village or to the man's home. The man, however had not ran away or disappear, he had simply hidden from view, curious to what the villager would do. The third, not knowing what to do, and not fearing the consequences of his actions, began to call out for help. This action alone proved to the stranger that the man was frightened of being alone in these woods.

The stranger then decided to lead the man back to his home using the mist. After a long and excruciating walk, the man entered the lone man's home without thinking, only wishing to be sheltered from the woods. Only after entering the home had they realized what they had done, hurrying they tried to leave, but the stranger entered the hut as they tried to exit. This large man scared the small, but quick villager, as he knew what he saw that day after watching the man for many more nights. The man could control the beasts and the aspects of the woods in any way that he so chose. This man had been protecting the villagers and the forest for his life WITH his life for as long as they could remember.

The quick villager agreed to never speak of the man's home to the others and mark the edge of the map before that point in return for the man continuing to defend the valley and the people in it, and for the release of his fellow villagers. The man nodded silently, controlling the mists and the beasts to guide the men back to the village, where they continued their lives, only with the knowledge of the man of the wood.