"I am still feeling pretty fresh myself. I say we push on to the meet the Witch tonight. We have so little precious time to complete this mission!"
As the Sacred Sister decided Albus accedes and puts the weapons in as protected a place as possible for later recovery. Albus is paying too much attention to dangers and not quite enough to landmarks unfamiliar to him but is aided by his new friends. They push on to full dark when Albus pauses Virdel makes his views known. Albus replies to Master Harg, "Yes, We can press on but we will need light, I'm having trouble not tripping over everything now. Hope you can use your persuasive voice to convince the witch to help after interrupting her in the night; I don't want to be a toad." Albus says the last with a weak smile. He then frowns, "It's difficult to carry a torch through the deep woods, Aelerie you mentioned some ability to create light? That may be better than a fire." Albus is willing to press on if the others are if some light is provided.
"I think you have all the light you need. You just don't know it. Why don't you check your belt pouch? I think it's in there."
When Albus opens his pouch, Virdel casts light on the inside cover. "See? Now you have light whenever you want it and darkness whenever you need it."
Albus lifts an eyebrow at Virdel's cheeky show of casting light. With a dry tone he says, "I see. It appears that we we own our light to a follower of the Prankster. Well, we need all the miracles we can get, so my ankles thank you." Falling back to his usual serious demeanor Albus says, "We can press on for while we should make it in about an hour." Albus carefully leads the others to the area of the hut.
The sounds of the forest become suddenly distant as the trees part, opening into a small, almost perfectly circular glade. The nearest stands of pine, eyln, and darkwood—all typically sturdy woods—twist away from the clearing, as if bent by some impossibly strong wind or seemingly in an attempt to flee despite their paralyzed roots. At the glade’s center squats an ugly cottage, little more than a pile of twigs, shoots, and ivy stacked upon mud walls.
Under the bright light of the full moon you can see from the thatched roof dangle bundles of gnarled roots, old dried beast carcasses, and knucklebone bangles, all clattering together like gruesome wind chimes. A dozen small thatched fetishes—each shaped like a tiny man, imp, or rearing serpent—stand propped in the yard, keeping guard before a rickety plank door.
Albus checks abruptly as the forest shears to a strange meadow like none he has seen before. As he looks over the moonlit scene his hackles rise as this is no natural place. Still he looks carefully around the perimeter for dangers that he can understand while whispering, "This is it, a most unholy looking place. Someone better suited to placating someone we just likely irritated by our arrival should now do their best." Albus then looks at Virdel sighs and repeats himself in the ear trumpet in a normal voice.
See anything interesting here.
It remains deathly quiet. The fetishes seem to stare directly at the four of you. The fox is nervous and cowers behind Astrianna who is furthest away from the hut.
Virdel gives Albus an annoyed look when he repeats himself into Virdel's trumpet. I know where to point this thing, thank you very much.
"Are we sure this home belongs to a witch?" He looks around at the others slyly.
Before approaching the house, Virdel checks out the fetishes a little closer.
Astrianna draws her longsword and walks closer.
"Fear not, little one. I won't let anything get you." she says tenderly to the fox.
She focuses her attention toward the house and the fetishes and concentrates.
Neither Virdel, nor Astrianna's enhanced senses pick up anything as the party draws closer.
The clearing remains deathly still. The fethises keep staring at you.
Now suddenly finding herself standing at the edge of the clearing where Ulizmila's hut sits, Aelerie can't help but be reminded of the old folk rhyme that lead them here; in particular, the line I wonder what your price will be has taken on an ominous new meaning. Would any price be too high to pay for what they were seeking? There's only one what to know for certain. After attuning her senses to the presence of magical auras and finding none in the surrounding glade, Aelerie turns to her companions with a smile that is more confident than she feels. "I don't sense any magic coming from those poppets. I think we should be safe to cross. At any rate, if she's as powerful as everyone fears, I have little doubt she knows we're here, in which case it's best not to keep her waiting." Turning to the halfling, she adds, "Shall we?" Assuming no objections, Aelerie will start toward Ulizmila's door, her four, floating orbs of light leading the way.
The four of you step silently through the small path between the fetishes and now you're at the entrance of the hut. The fox remains behind.
You can see the cottage's moldering door has rotted off its hinges but still blocks the way within.
Albus comes to the door and notices it seems that it has not been use in a very long time. Not sure what to make of it he turns to his companions and shrugs waving at the door, inviting someone better suited to take the lead here.
Astrianna feels uneasy, despite not feeling the presence of any evil, but steels herself as she was trained to do.
"Aelerie, you sense no magic, and I sense no evil. Perhaps it's best if you simply announce our arrival then, being more familiar. I am at the ready should evil choose to reveal itself to us after all."
She steps forward, longsword drawn.
"Helloooo!" calls out Virdel with a folksy tone, rapping loudly on the rotting doorframe in a catchy rhythm. "We seek the famed witch who is said to live around here. We need her desperately to treat the grave illness facing our town. Does anyone here in this lovely home know where we could find her?"
Virdel is met with absolute silence.
Albus can see the door seems to have rusted and moldered into the frame itself. With a little effort you and Astrianna should be able to push it open.
Astrianna finds a point of leverage, puts her shoulder into it and with a grunt gives the door a push with her entire body weight.
Inside, the cottage is dank, reeking, and filled with shadows. Aelerie and Virdel's lights cause the shadows to dance and bob on the wall and floor as if they were possessed as they leer and shy away from the magical illumination.
Haphazardly hung shelves line the walls, covered in all manner of clay jugs, clouded bottles, strangely cut rocks, rotted bunches of herbs, and a museum of other crude curios and remnants of a bone grinder’s artifice.
A rusted iron cauldron, with a mouth nearly 5 feet wide and a depth of at least 3 feet, dominates the hut’s single room, its ash-covered surface shaped with a relief of capering fiends and leering devils.
Across from the door, against the far walls, stands a highbacked chair made of wicker, the gigantic curved tusks of some monstrous beast, and thousands of human teeth. In the chair sits what looks like a corpse wrapped in filthy burial linens, its form padded with pungent herbs and sprouting patches of thick white mold.
Albus follows Astrianna's bold entry, he becomes a bit unnerved by the creepy scene inside but pushes on when he spots the corpse. He go over carefully to examine the body.
Anything of note on the way to or on the body itself.
The body: is it human, female, really dead,undead, how did she die, when did she die? Assuming it's a she of course.
Albus eyes start to water from the mold, and his sneezes really makes his task difficult.
There is something... odd about the corpse though you can't really tell from a visual examination what's not right about it, shrouded as it is in linden and herbs and mold.
Aelerie is brought up short by Astrianna's suggestion that she is familiar with Ulizmila. Despite knowing that the paladin doesn't think ill of her for her magical talent, a lifetime of growing up among the suspicious people of Falcon's Hollow makes it hard not to see her words as an accusation of sorts, as though Aelerie is somehow in league with Ulizmila. She fumbles for words to explain briefly that she isn't at all familiar with her, trying not to come across as defensive or to insult the witch on the other side of the rickety door, but is thankfully saved from providing such explanation by Virdel's announcement.
When they decide to let themselves into the witch's hut after receiving no reply, Aelerie waits just outside the door, her eyes peering around the room and cataloguing what her floating lights slowly reveal. Where is that Rat's Tail? But the thought of finding the second ingredient leaves Aelerie's mind on spotting the shrouded corpse seated in the grotesque chair. "Ulizmila?" Aelerie timidly calls, not truly believing what the scene appears to be. With how the townsfolk talked about her, she had become convinced that the old witch would outlive the whole town and then some.
Watching Albus go to examine the body, Aelerie crosses the threshold into the hut. "Wait, don't touch it!" she warns, convinced that, if it truly is Ulizmila's body, then the crafty witch would have left some nasty trick for any intruders. After a quick incantation, Aelerie focuses on the corpse with her mystical senses, before slowly turning her gaze around the room.
Astrianna lets her elven eyesight adjust to the dark room and she concentrates on the corpse for a moment.
Aelerie's eyes narrow as she focuses on the dark corner of the hut where the illusion aura emanates from. "Hold on. I sense something in that corner over there. Illusion magic." Could Ulizmila be masking her presence from us? As she sends her dancing lights to illuminate that corner, Aelerie's mind works to recall whether or not she recognizes the spell that creates this particular magical aura.
Under the dancing lights you see a grotesque, amulet-like shrunken head, lying in the dust as if forgotten to the world.
Said to contain the enslaved soul of its former owner and forced to obey whomever carries it, once per day a soulspeaker can repeat a message as if the spell magic mouth were cast upon it. The owner must merely hold the 6-inch-in-diameter head and speak his message and the conditions under which the soulspeaker should repeat it. While it carries a message, the eyes of the stitched head stretch open, closing as soon as its messages has been delivered.
Virdel regrets his tone when he sees the dead witch. He approaches her with Albus, trying to figure out what happened.
Albus continues wheezing for a while trying to recover. Covering his nose and mouth with his scarf, he decides to check the rest of the place out. He check out the to see if any of the herbs are usable, and try to see if there is anything in the jars or bottles of use. Croaking Albus says, "Cough, <choke>, wheeze, Hruumf, it appears no one has been here for a long time. I'll check this stuff over."
Taking 10 on Int/Perception/K(nature) any other relevant skill, Albus tries to estimate just how long this place has been abandoned.
For now just peering, if anything looks more interesting I'll examine close but not break anything. I'll remember for later anything that I'm not confident about.
Virdel doesn't see anything about the corpse that Albus didn't see.
Being very careful not to touch anything, it takes half an hour for the group to peer and peek and everything in the room under Virdel and Aelerie's magical lights.
Finally on a small shelf near the back of the room you see it. The specially pickled root that Laurel described. You've found the rat's tail!
"Well, I found what was creating that aura of illusion magic," Aelerie says, holding up the amulet-like curio aloft for the group to see. "It's called a soulspeaker. Under the right circumstances, it can be used to deliver messages from its owner. I wonder if Ulizmila might have used it to capture her final words," she says, eyeing the slightly swaying head with barely hidden revulsion, waiting to see if it will speak its last message.
As soon as Aelerie lifts the amulet you hear a huge clatter! The four of you turn to the center of the room just in time to see the large cauldron in the center of the room come to life and rush at Aelerie in a clanking lunge!
The cauldron snaps at the surprised young woman.
But perhaps the rust of disuse keeps it from being effective in the attack and, as the magical lights shine off it at crazy angles, its lid clangs loudly on thin air.
Albus: The undisturbed dust in the hut is thick. No one has been in here for at least months, if not years.
Aelerie: The eyes of the stitched head of the grotesque are closed. There is no message here.
Virdel tries to warn Aelerie about the cauldron but is just a bit too slow. He backs as far into the corner away from the pot as he can and tries to will his companions to victory.
Albus wheezes less as the search goes on, at last with success as the needed item is found. As Albus moves to take it Aelerie is attacked by something terrifyingly unnatural. Albus's survival reflexes kick in as he grabs his Greataxe, steps closer to the abomination and does a pivot swing in the confined space at it.
Bless active To hit it: , makes a threat on a 20.
Confirm crit only on threat.
Albus's axe lodges deeply into a particularly brittle part of the aged cauldron. As he pulls it out with a yank a very large piece of the vessel comes out with it and falls to the ground with a rusty thump.
It seems unconcerned by this though the rest of you can see that the it seems very close to being destroyed now.
Astrianna five steps into flanking position with Albus and slashes at the cauldron.
And that is enough to end the threat of the guardian utensil. Astrianna's longsword strikes at the gaping hold Albus' greataxe created and the cauldron collapses into iself in a rusty pile with one final clang.
Albus, hands stinging from the shock of metal hitting metal shouts, His shout is interrupted by his titanic sneeze, wreaking his drama. "- thing." He finishes quieter and rather lamely. He seems to look around for more terrors to come.
Albus is looking and listening around to find the next horror that he is gloomily sure is about.
Silence reigns again.
Aelerie, standing huddled in the corner where she was pinned not moments ago, looks up from the rusted heap at Albus' question, seeming both shocked and a little guilty. Despite being shaken by the encounter, the well-read young woman supplies the answer easily enough. "It was an animated object. Ulizmila must have enspelled it to attack anyone that touched her possessions," Aelerie says, glancing at the grotesque amulet that still hung on her fingers. Looking contrite, she tells Albus, "I feel like a fool now. There I was, warning you not to touch something, but failing to heed my own advice when I spotted the soulspeaker. I should have known better to think a witch wouldn't have some safeguards in place. Thank you." Turning to Astrianna, Aelerie adds, "Both of you. If you hadn't stepped in, I... well, to be honest, I'm not sure what that rusty cauldron would have done to me, but I doubt it would have be pleasant. There are just some things you aren't prepared for, even when you know magic."
Aelerie glances around the dank confines of the hut and in spite of her desire for more arcane knowledge - in particular, a spell such as one that could imbue objects with a semblance of life - she feels no desire greater than to leave behind the creepy hut and turn in for the night. "We should take the Rat's Tail and make camp somewhere deeper in the forest. Far, far away from this place," Aelerie suggests, suddenly sounding very tired.
Virdel was prepared for lengthy encounter with the mysterious cauldron but Albus and Astrianna absolutely obliterated it, so he put his flask of acid back to save for another occasion. "Are you harmed, my dear?" he asks Aelerie. "Yes indeed let's be away from this place."
At Aelerie's words Albus stops brooding and replies sheepishly, "Oh, not a problem Aelerie, I've just not ever had cookery attack me before." He looks toward the shelf containing the rat's tail, heads towards it, and carefully pulls a bag out of his pack. If not otherwise interrupted he secures it the same way he did the moss. He then cuts a brief message with his dagger on any large enough surface he can find. It says, "To heirs, In Town, Albus." To, others he says, "If there are no heirs, this is salvage but if so I'll take a debt. Sometime I'll have to come back and see about some of this other stuff, Laurel can make use of it and it does no one good if left to rot." He then checks carefully out the door, saying, "We can go a little further but not much if we are to me well rested for tomorrow's trip. I suggest maybe a half hour and them quick meal and swift to sleep." He waits for the others to get ready.
The check outside. The camp rolls in the next post if something isn't waiting to eat us outside. Albus is still a little unnerved.
The rest of the night passes uneventfully. Even though you make sure to put distance between yourselves and the hut it seems you haven't left it behind far enough to get back to the part which animals don't avoid. Soon enough it's morning and the five of you face the day with two of the three ingredients you braved the forest for.
At the Hut
"Only my pride, Master Virdel," Aelerie says, looking chagrined. "But thank you for your concern." Albus' reply earns a quiet chuckle from the young woman, helping her to get over the harrowing attack, although she is still eager to leave the witch's hut behind. She watches with concern as Albus scratches a message into the wall. She doesn't think that the witch has any kin, but if she does, Aelerie doesn't think they're the sort one would want at their doorstep.
At Camp
At first light, Aelerie wakes the others as gently as possible, as has been their routine the past few days. Afterward, she finds a quiet spot not out of sight of the others where she studies her spellbook. Still a little rattled after the prior night's ordeal, Aelerie prepares a few defensive incantations in case she should find herself in such a bind once more. "How long will it take for us to reach these Dwarven ruins, again?"
0th -- acid splash, daze, detect magic, prestidigitation
Virdel sleeps well, happy to be contributing to such a successful mission thus far. He awakes refreshed. "Good question. Master Albus? Perhaps we can be back in town tonight?"
As a part of her investigations Aelerie also discovered a pouch containing essential salts useful in summoning a familiar. If burnt in such a summoning ritual, these minerals decrease the rite’s required gp by half.
Albus prepped the camp last night as usual, leaving little sign of their presence. He plays with the friendly fox, feeding him or her. "I think i'll call you Whisper, you are quiet and with those ears could hear one." He puzzles over a desert bred that only known to live in a mountain valley.
Fennecs are desert foxes their large ears are radiators, so why are they only in a mountain vale, unless it's rather warm here even in winter?
In reply to Aelerie's and Virdel's question he says, "We've made better time than I expected, still it's a half day trip to the base of Doskar's Crag. I'm not sure how long it will take to find what's needed. A half-day to get to the river, and about the same or a little less to get to town, if we can ford the river, going around would take much longer."
Albus prepares to lead the way north, saying, "We'll be going to higher ground now. Check your feet, any sores must be treated now. This will be a punishing trip and we can't have someone trying to tough it out, that would only cause more delay." Albus will treat anyone footsore.
See it before it sees us.
Getting along in the wilds, find the best path.
Get there well
Same
As you travel towards where Rhoddam said the dwarven building is you see a giant snake, when it senses you it slips away into the undergrowth (unless you guys want to do something with it).
Albus you recognize this as a giant moorsnake. Not an uncommon sight and not usually dangerous during the day.