🇪🇪 Jack and the Forest of Echoes

Estonia was colder than expected — not in temperature, but in silence. As the team wandered through the dense woodland near Viru Bog, it felt like the trees were listening.

“This place is spooky,” Ollie muttered.

“Good spooky,” Imogen said, scribbling down runes carved into bark.

Bernard padded quietly, his breath visible in the morning chill. “There’s a marble in this forest. It’s hidden in a forgotten shrine, built before even the earliest Estonian kings.”

The pouch pulsed faintly against Jack’s side. As they crossed a mossy clearing, the sound of birds stopped — everything still. Ahead, a crumbling stone circle stood among the trees.

Jack approached the centre stone. It was cracked, covered in green lichen. As his fingers brushed it, the stone glowed, and writing appeared:

“To find the marble lost to lore,
Stand where none have stood before.
Speak not in sound, but thought alone —
And call the echo to come home.”

Lenny looked around. “I think I preferred the lightning storm.”

Ollie whispered, “We’re being watched.”

The forest creaked.

Then… the pouch glowed brightly, and a marble rose from it — patterned in green and grey, swirling with tiny lightning bolts and soft streaks of silver fog.

🌲 GREEN ZOMBY

The marble pulsed slowly, like a sleeping forest spirit waking from a long dream.

“Green Zomby is… old,” Bernard said. “It protects ancient places. Places nature has reclaimed. If you treat the land with respect, it will guide you. If not…”

Jack stepped forward and knelt beside the stone.

He didn’t speak.

He just thought:
We remember you.
We will protect what’s left.

The marble flickered once — then pop! — slipped into the pouch, and the clearing filled with sound again. Birds. Wind. Leaves.

A soft, distant voice whispered:
“You’re not the first. But you may be the last.”

Imogen shivered. “Let’s go before something else wakes up.”

Bernard turned toward the road. “Next up: Poland. A marble carved in resistance.”