It's not turning place, it's going around a fixed point in a circle.
Wilhelm goes around the circle once, and he can still follow the footsteps. The path in appears to have disappeared.
Wilhelm looks around to re-orient himself and try to mark the place in his mind, then picks up the trail again. Bow is still strung and arrow drawn but not nocked.
Int roll to mark the place: Int 0 + Ways of the Forest 3 + die roll of 7 = 10.
Tracking roll to follow footsteps: Per 2 + Hunt (Tracking) 4 + Ways of the Forest 3 + die roll of 5 = 14.
Two more times around and the clearing size has shrunk significantly. The weather system that Wilhelm had noticed earlier in the day has now moved in, but instead of rain falling as he'd expect, it's snow.
That might suck a little bit, since he's dressed for summer. He doesn't know if he has time to go back and change (not that he brought any winter clothes anyway), so he's going to press on.
Two more times around, and the clearing is quite small, forest is darker, and the snow is coming down pretty hard. The snow has covered most of the tracks, but there is a an area with tamped down snow and follows what appears to be a path out of the clearing. It appears to be directly opposite of where Wilhelm entered, and there's no trail leading the way he came.
Wilhelm unstrings his bow, puts his arrow back in the quiver, and draws his knife. He then starts down the trail, pausing every so often to take a good look (and listen) around. If the trail branches, he tries to follow the tracks (such as they are), and will make a mark on a tree trunk so that he should be able to find his way back.
If needed:
- Hearing Check: Per 2 + Awareness (in the forest) 4 + Sharp Ears 3 + Ways of the Forest 3 + die roll of 2 = 14.
- Seeing Check: Per 2 + Awareness (in the forest) 4 + Keen Vision 3 + Ways of the Forest 3 + die roll of 7 = 19.
- Tracking Check: Per 2 + Hunt (tracking) 4 + Keen Vision 3 + Ways of the Forest 3 + die roll of 3 = 15.
As he starts going down the trail the knife in his hand gets warmer and warmer. Before too long down the trail he finds a girl's doll dropped on the trail. And then he gets further down and he find's a child's shoe, and about this time, the knife is intolerably hot in Wilhelm's hand.
Wilhelm (who had picked up both the doll and the shoe) swears and drops the knife, looking at it in surprise. He waits a minute to see if it cools down any, then either picks it up or finds something to wrap around it, and tucks it away in someplace safe that he marks so he can find it again. Under the roots of a tree, under a rock, in a log, something like that.
It was getting hotter as Wilhelm progressed. He can walk back a bit and store it in a spot where it's not so cold, go back and leave it in the clearing or near the clearing. Checking his other metal on him, he finds that the more iron it has the hotter it is, so probably all of his arrows.
Wilhelm grumbles when he realizes what's going on, but finds a (hopefully) safe place to stash all his iron stuff. He holds on to his bow, just in case, but does unstring it. Then he continues onward, a little more wary than before, since he knows there's magic afoot now.
Picking up the trail, he catches a few other toys that have been dropped, a carved horse for a baby and another doll. At just about sunset, Wilhelm can hear laughing in the distance, what sounds like a large gathering, not too dissimilar to the Tribunal Mons Electi held last summer.
Wilhelm picks up what he can along the way without burdening himself. He follows the sounds of laughter, picking his steps very carefully if it gets dark, and watches for a couple of minutes when he gets to where the laughter is without revealing himself (if possible).
When Wilhelm sees where the merriment is coming from he has trouble restraining himself from joining. Standing before him is the village that he thought he'd left along with all the residents engaging in merriment and revelry consistent with Christmas celebrations.
Wilhelm watches the proceedings with suspicious curiosity, and curious suspicion, for a few minutes. He looks down at the stuff he's picked up along the way, shrugs, says a quick (pro forma) prayer, and steps out into the clearing. [color=green]"Good morning!" he calls out.
"You mean good evening, don't you?" says one of the revelers.
Another responds, "Or is it morning?"
"It's midday."
"It's the dead of night."
And the first answers with, "Well, whatever it is, it's not quiet." and they all laugh bawdily.
[color=green]"It's evening," Wilhelm says, [color=green]"and it looks like you're all feeling quite merry. I have some things for you, I'm not sure what belongs to who."
He brings out the handful of stuff he's picked up along the trail (doll, toy horse, shoe, etc) and sets it all on the ground before him.
[color=green]"How long have you been here?" he asks anyone who will answer.
"Why do you..." says one of the revelers.
Another responds, "say good morning..."
"when it's clearly not..."
"morning."
And the first answers with, "Do you even know? That time matters little to us here? We've been her as long as the winter has."
"Those things belong to our most recent guests. Perhaps they lost them."
"Perhaps they didn't."
"It's a clever trick."
"Yes, but we're cleverer."
"Well, you aren't." he says to the one who said cleverer.
[color=green]"But...it's not winter! See how I'm dressed? It's almost the dog days of summer! It's only here in the faerie lands that it seems to be winter, and that's just a trick of the fae!"
"A trick of the fae you say?" He smiles and Wilhelm notices that his skin is a darker hue of blue than one would expect for someone who has been out in the cold.
"Yes, always tricky are they."
"A clever trick?"
"Didn't I just say we are cleverer?"
"Quite." he says to the one who said cleverer.
Wilhelm looks at the "villagers" with growing concern. Not quite fear (not yet anyway), but apprehension that he's in way over his head and may never make it out again.
[color=green]"Who are you?" he asks the Blue Man.