Out past the last dry ground, pale wisps hover over black water. Come near and they scatter into the reeds; hold still and, one by one, they drift back to watch you. Move your cursor across the fog. Click to strike a new light.
They gather where the peat exhales — over sunken causeways, drowned orchards, the soft edge of a pool that has no bottom worth knowing. For centuries the fen folk read them like weather. A steady light meant safe crossing; a light that fled and returned meant the ground was lying to you.
Marshlight is a keeping-order for these lights: cartographers, lantern-wrights and night-walkers who tend the wisps rather than chase them. We do not promise the marsh is safe. We promise you will not walk it blind.
The common fen-light. Curious, shy, and fond of company it can keep at a distance. Approach and it flees three paces into the reeds; wait, and it returns to hover just out of reach — testing whether you'll follow it off the path.
Sits low over one spot of black water and does not move. To see it steady all night is considered a warning: something beneath is keeping it there.
Two lights that orbit and never touch. Follow the wrong one.
Rides the fog like a leaf on slow current, always downstream, always toward the deeper channels. Cartographers use it to chart where the water truly runs beneath the reeds — then mark that ground as no ground at all.
Palest of all, cold-white at the core. Old grief given somewhere to hover. Bow, and pass.
Not born of the marsh at all. Struck by a keeper's hand — a bloom of light where none was. Click the fen and make one.
Brightest, warmest, kindest-seeming. Wants very much to be followed.
Read it against the field guide. A Wanderer you may follow at a distance. A Lure you must never turn your back on. Naming a wisp is the first defence — the marsh has fewer names for those who give it none.
Wisps scatter from motion and return to stillness. Sweep your hand toward one and it darts into the reeds; go quiet and it drifts back, curious. Learn its rhythm before you trust a single step it offers.
If the marsh takes all its lights at once, do not stand in the dark and wait. Strike a wisp of your own — a keeper's bloom — and let it settle. Your light answers to you, and only you, until it fades.
Never carry a wisp off the marsh; it will only go out in your hands and take something of yours with it. Set it back over the water, bow once, and cross into the reeds without looking behind you.
Follow a light and it leads you home. Follow a hungry light and it leads you deeper — and calls that home, too.— The Fen Almanac, entry for the moonless week
Marshlight keeps the lantern-maps, the field guides, and the long list of names the fen answers to. Wade in with us — the fog is deepest just before it clears.