Once upon a time, there was a manor house wherein lived the spirit of art.
From time to time, an individual would be drawn toward its secret.
They would approach through the gardens, which were surrounded by a great forest at the edge of a town.
In this forest grew a strange green fruit that the country folk would eat at their own peril. It was said that this fruit had the power to turn the unlucky into trees and that the forest which had sprung up around The Manor was not a natural forest at all. Indeed, it was said that green apples had come from a large and strange tree that stood atop a hill, and that its apple seeds had grown root in the hapless bellies of wanderers, all turned into trees themselves.
Still, there were the rare few who did not heed the legend’s warnings and sought out the treacherous food. When they found that it did not transfigure them, they gave thanks and throughout their lives, they were enthusiastic collectors of art and books and ardent supporters of music and the arts, collecting rare treasures from the world over.
But there was still the matter of the surrounding grounds, which had long lay untended. Soon The Manor summoned a gardener who devoted her life to designing the landscape in a most mysterious and iconic way.
Then one day came a young lady who desired to become an artist. Drawn in by the enchanting garden, she soon found herself deep within a hidden shrine inside The Manor, filled with strange vessels and votive figures of golden beings and animals. The room hummed and she began to spin, her head filling with visions for new works of art to be painted with precious and rare colored pigments.
And so The Manor endures, casting enchantments upon the unwary and engendering those who dare to pass through its gates with the spirit of art.
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