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Locwain forms one plank in the great wall of exclusion that the Sylvan of the Mistwood have maintained for centuries. But even the Sylvan’s famously strict and violent enforcement of privacy has not stopped the outside world from trying to pry out their secrets and influence their affairs. Unique Sylvan techniques of cultivation and biomancy inspire awe, jealousy, and curiosity worldwide. Then there is the Rhythm itself, the core of the Sylvan people, a fascinating enigma to outsiders.

Inevitably, the curiosity of outsiders manifests in covert and threatening ways. The Fae Court, whose works of scheming and espionage are the stuff of legends, tends to effortlessly repulse the rare attempts made to infiltrate it. The Sylvan Court confronts the danger of enemy spycraft with their own campaigns of misdirection and eavesdropping. They also founded an elite armed force dedicated to extirpating all foreign agents and influences. Called the Vermilion Chamber for the spilled blood of enemy spies, its warriors often wear crimson silks and anonymizing full helms, and wield two blades said to represent the striking fangs of the lethal, elusive Mistwood chameleon-viper. But those emblematic features are only necessarily present when the operative is required to appear before court to bear witness or give testimony – otherwise, members of the Chamber are indistinguishable from other Sylvan Elves as they go about their secret duties.

The Hwytchfinders of the Vermilion Chamber are those specifically dedicated to countering the actions of magicians and illusionists. Foreign wizards are seen by the Sylvan as a particularly acute danger: potentially laden with magical wards and glamours strong enough to fool even a Fae, and often motivated by scholarly curiosity rather than greed or nationalism, they are hard to find, resistant to bribes, canny negotiators, and quick learners. To detect and combat them, Hwytchfinders are trained to attune their senses not to the natural world but to the unnatural, and to detect the extremely subtle cues that can betray the use of shapeshifting, illusion, or mental beguilement. Then, by secret arts, they are able to strip away those layers of magical protection and alteration, laying the truth bare. Hwytchfinders are an exclusive and highly-skilled group, and Locwain is a Hwytchfinder of exceeding talent.

A tale of Locwain’s cunning illustrates the Hwytchfinder way. He spent six days undercover posing as a custodian of the new Heart Tree of Nyresa, the great anchor of Sylvan civilization. The Vermilion Chamber suspected a plot to steal a cutting of the Tree and smuggle it out of Mistwood. Locwain maintained his cover among the gardener-monks who reverently care for the Tree’s roots, all the while using his super-sensory training to absorb as many details as possible from each one of them: their mannerisms, their habits, their minutest facial quirks, their scents, the sound of their gait. Locwain’s suspicions began to center on a particular greentender and he confronted them one day as they worked. With a burst of concentration and a firm grasp on the Elf’s shoulder, Locwain exerted his will. The false Elven shape the impostor was wearing sloughed away like melting clay from his true Human form and the pseudo-Rhythm emanating from him ceased. As the other monks summoned jailers, the Human seemed unwarrantedly calm, but Locwain already knew why. With another burst of Hwytchfinder arts, he unleashed a wave of clarifying energy, and suddenly half a dozen more Humans appeared before them, the veil of invisibility cast over them now dispelled. Locwain had detected these henchmen too, days before, by reading the subtle disruptions in the air caused by the presence of their bodies. All seven now languish in Sylvan cages.