A broad, shallow lake in the southeastern reaches of Luendrokrül, roughly fifteen miles across at its widest point. The water is dark but not murky, a deep color like tea steeped too long. The lake is still. Unnaturally still. Even when wind moves through the surrounding trees, the water's surface barely ripples.
The Shore Settlements
The lake's shores show signs of later habitation, the human-scale ruins found throughout the forest. These settlers built over and around the earlier structures, incorporating the strange architecture into their own. A village wall might include blocks scavenged from the drowned ruins. A foundation might rest on an older, larger foundation meant for different purposes.
These settlers stayed longer than anywhere else in Luendrokrül. The ruins here are more extensive, more developed, suggesting generations of occupation. And then they left too, just like the rest, with no explanation and no trace.
Whatever drew them to the lake, whether the earlier ruins, the water itself, or something they found or hoped to find, apparently wasn't enough to keep them.
Local Beliefs
The Ix'Lorett won't discuss Byvarnül Lake in detail. When pressed, they acknowledge knowing about it, acknowledge that it predates their presence in M'Svyla, and decline to say more. Their silence isn't hostile, simply complete.
The Old Terrenians in the Cowardly Mountains have stories, fragments passed down from ancestors who knew the forest before it became what it is now. They speak of the lake as a literal door, not a metaphor: a door to somewhere else, opened long ago by the tall builders, never properly closed.
In their telling, the builders didn't die or flee. They went through. And the door, left ajar, changed the forest around it. The settlers who came later were drawn by the opening, trying to follow, trying to understand. One by one, family by family, they found what they were looking for.
The Old Terrenians don't enter Luendrokrül. They don't look toward the forest if they can help it. When asked why, they give the same answer as everyone else: "some doors shouldn't be opened, and some should never have been left open."