Mapping Shadow
(AKA: The Mushroom Curse)
Big Fire-Breathing what now?
Here's a map of Shadow. You might notice, if you look closely, that the coastal regions appear to have been named by a somewhat fearful cartographer - which leads us to today's Shadow Fact.
Shadow Fact #1
In the year 1986 (approximately 1884 in human time), a group of muses set out to map the whole of Shadow.
Several Freakin Fairies, intensely interested in this process and hoping to open up some trade routes, applied to join the expedition. However, the muses refused on the grounds they didn't want to accidentally upset the fairies and find themselves poisoned or cursed hairless halfway into the wilds of Shadow.
Naturally, this didn't go down well with the fairies, who promptly cursed the chief cartographer to be unable to resist any mushroom he ever saw. The muses didn't think this so bad, until the chief got into a mushroom patch scientifically named Moonie Soonie you'll be Seeing a Rocket. Say no more.
The expedition did make it all the way around Shadow, but afterward the muses had to confine the Chief to a mushroomless room in Shadow City.
The damage was done: no muse ever did go to find out if there really were big fire-breathing sharks at the Impasse, or what was so terrifying at the Big Bay of Terrifying Tidal Surge.
Fairies one, muses zero. Never be rude to a Freakin Fairy.