It is no understatement to say that Alice Nachtnebel lived a difficult life. Born into a family of smallholders at the edge of the Durchdenwald, she worked the field from an early age with her seven siblings. Her father, Herr Nachtnebel, had the idea of marrying his only daughter to a wealthy older man to enrich himself, and so repeatedly forced her to entertain a variety of candidates even as he grudgingly paid for her to be educated in order to appeal to a more sophisticated–and therefore richer–potential husband.

In the end, Alice Nachtnebel was married to an untergraf, much to her father’s delight, but she soon caught polio from the wedding guests and lost the ability to walk. Her husband abandoned her once it became clear she would never fully recover, and Alice found herself back in the family home with her vengeful father, who resented the failure of his plan and the burden that his daughter had become. Testimony by neighbors and siblings attest that Alice was on the receiving end of terrible abuse and neglect by Herr Nachtnebel, with her only solace being views of the wood and its creatures.

According to several eyewitness accounts, in a final fit of rage, Herr Nachtnebel boarded up the window Alice had been using to watch the forest and denied her food in response to a perceived slight. She reportedly passed away just as a terrific storm blew in, smashing open the front door and the boarded window. After that, those in the Durchdenwald noticed many strange quirks in the wind, as well as the sustained presence of unusually intense gusts. The untergraf, for instance, found himself blown out a window, while Herr Nachtnebel had a tree blown down upon him. The Nachtnebel siblings, who had ever cared for their sister, meanwhile found the wind at their backs, their windmills bestowed with unusual vigor.

To this day, the wind in that area seems to obey its own strange rules, and no explanation has ever been offered.

High Inquisitor’s Note
The untergraf in this case did not register his marriage with the imperial court, which is why he was able to abandon his new wife with no official consequences. His scheme was revealed when a piece of incriminating paperwork mysteriously blew into the herzog’s office.

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