You approach the forge and see that it's still running. Inside is Luca Braybon, a muscular redhaired woman. She's throwing a green bough into the forge to create more smoke — likely to keep the mosquitoes away.
After tossing the branch into the fire she smacks her hands and turns, sizing up your group. More witch hunters? Luca Braybon, of Braybon's smithy. What can I do for ya?
Others? That half-elf in gold armor came in here, bought a new compass a couple weeks ago. Claimed the old one was busted. Saw her at the inn a week later, and she said the one I sold her was busted too! Well, after some heated words we took a look again and it semed my compass weren't busted. Strange. As if sometimes it works, and sometimes it don't.
Yeah, the smoke keeps 'em out. SHe shows you a beefy forearm that is unblemished by bugbites (unlike your own). See? Smooth as fresh-churned butter! This's why I keep my forge burning twenty-four-seven. Don't be afraid of a little hard work, I say — it pays off in more ways than one!
Luca watches the rock interfere with the needle.
Who'da thunk it? Bet these "magnetic qualities" could work all sorta wonders. As for me, I'll let my buyers know that compasses cannot be guaranteed against that rock. Thanks for the learning. What else can I do for you?
Luca gives Max an odd look before responding to Zallarra. Well, the lingerin' smoke in here keeps 'em away, but outside in the open air you won't be able to make enough — not with a slow burn. You'd need a big old bonfire for that.
Struck through are places you visited.
Galia's
Hart's Brewery
The Bell Family
Mordha Lyons house
The Tanner
The Whitefish and Stag
Ruza’s House
Braybon’s Smithy
Marmazine’s House
Shrine to Hanspur
Abandoned Farm
Directional Clues: Witchtop Hill to the North, bloodseekers flying Northeast, the man in white went East. Half-eld gold armor went Northeast and had problems with compass.
Marzimane's house is located near the town's erstwhile thoroughfare. A sign outside designates it as a bakery.
Inside you find a display case filled with artisanal witchbreads, cupcakes topped with fanciful witch hats, cookies with red witch eyes, and even a cake that claims to be shaped like witchtop hill — complete with a tiny witch chasing tiny teenagers. Everything is marked 50% off.
Marzimane herself has rose-pink hair and yellow eyes Welcome to Marzimane's bakery! Half-off everything — your lucky day on account of no Witchdayz this year, and the bugs and the town being abandoned and whatnot! But I still bake fresh every day, to keep busy. You have to keep busy, you know! That's what I always say! Otherwise you might go crazy, ha-ha-ha! Well, what can I do for you? Cupcakes? Wedding cakes? Mosquito pie? (Don't worry, it doesn't really have mosquitoes… they're just chocolate…)
This is my home. Why should I leave?
She cozys up to the idea of gossip. I heard the witch drinks blood. But that's not true! The real witch drinks tears. Its victims lose the ability to cry, and then the ability to feel, and they waste away and get colder and meaner as they get thinner and thinner.
That’s what happened to mean old Ms. Mordha Lyons. She's so horrible!
Its a long process, but eventually they stop eating, too! If your feelings are stolen, then you don’t care. Common sense can’t even save you then. You waste away.
Mordha always rants about how the witch took something from her, and how she can’t remember what. Have you heard that? It must have been her tears. Marzimane shivers. What’s life without tears?
It's all very exciting! Tell me all about it if you do!
You walk to the roadside shrine with full bellies.
Hanspur's shrine is just outside the town gates. His altar is a flat-faced stone painted in bright colors that depict a rat walking on water.
Carved into the altar is a deep bowl filled with raInwater. Coins gleam at the bottom. Dead mosquitoes, along with a Mosquito Witch doll much like the one Max is holding, float on the surface.
You have now visited everywhere in town. You can either revisit locations or start heading out, following the directional clues you acquired. It's also a good time to discuss any theories or ideas your characters might have.
Struck through are places you visited.
Galia's
Hart's Brewery
The Bell Family
Mordha Lyons house
The Tanner
The Whitefish and Stag
Ruza’s House
Braybon’s Smithy
Marmazine’s House
Shrine to Hanspur
Abandoned Farm
Directional Clues: Witchtop Hill is to the North, bloodseekers flew Northeast, the man in white went East, the half-elf in gold armor went Northeast.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As the group stands around the shrine Zallarra speaks up, "Well. I have to say I am skeptical that an "evil" witch is behind all this. We have a crazy acting man who seems to know tidbits about the future, a troubled woman guarded by an oversensitive person, both of whom may somehow be stuck in a time loop and other strangeness..."
At this she looks pointedly at the doll, which is likely staring at her over Max's shoulder.
"It's more of a feeling but I jsut think something else is going on here. Does anyone think of a need to revisit a location here in town, perhaps we missed something or didn't ask the right question or is it time to head out, look for the source of all the bugs and the other 'Witch' hunters?"
You follow a game trail on the outskirts of Shimmerford, but it soon veers away from the Northeast. You're forced you to push through the trackless swamp.
It's oppressively humid. The musty air is filled with the croaking of frogs and the buzzing of insects. Rank mud sucks at your boots and horseflies, attracted by your sweat, join the mosquitoes to torment you. The late morning sun casts a dizzying lattice of shadows through the tree branches.
Even the most fastidious of you are soon splattered with swamp muck and drenched with festering water. You're in danger of getting disoriented and losing your way among the meandering pools.
Bramble leads the way unerringly northeast. A miserable hour later, the trees seem to be thinning and the ground a bit higher — you see a hill rising not far to the West (likely Witchtop Hill).
Ahead is a copse on high ground, surrounded by ancient weeping willow trees. You eagerly move towards it, glad to escape the swamp muck. As you approach, you notice two things: the willows have strange, insidious-looking runes gouged into their trunks.
Down in the grass, you see a shred of red cloth as well as a glinting metal object.
The willows leave shiver in the breeze.
Nothing seems amiss, so you cautiously enter this area.
There are strange, pointed tracks crisscrossing the soft mud. There's a scrap of torn red cloth stuck a thornbush.
In the tall grass you discover a short sword, a dagger, a bottle of liquid labeled lesser antidote, a suit of gold-plated half-plate armor, and a vial on inky black liquid.
Gaz finds that the markings are gibberish; mere scribbles intended to look frightening.
Max can't make heads or tails of the tracks.
Zallarra identifies the old, ink-black vial as an Invisibility potion.
Seebonickk discovers a second set of tracks: those of a medium-sized humanoid.
He follows them from the edge of the glade to where the gear is piled up… then he follows a scrape mark that's several feet long. It ends abruptly, below the thick branches of a willow tree. It seems as if this humanoid was snatched by something and dragged up into a tree.
Further, Seebonickk notices that while the tracks resemble those that would be left by the Mosquito Witch’s pointy feet (according to Mordha's story, at least), a creature of its reported size would be unlikely to take such close footsteps.
The pointed tracks move deeper into the swamp.
Max, holding the witch doll, leads you deeper into the swamp. Up ahead you see something white.
As you move past the trees, you find yet another pond — except that its surface is a squirming carpet of with mosquito larvae. You cannot even see the water.
A man with fine brown hair and brilliant white clothing is lying supine on the shore; his head and torso float in the water.
The man rolls over and coughs up a wet lungful of drowned insects.
It seems like, somehow, he's still alive. You also notice that though he lies in the middy pond, his clothes are a brilliant white — unblemished.
Zallarra can tell he's suffering from bizarre and potentially magical lung disease, which is likely to kill him sooner rather than later. However, she fails at giving him relief.
Seebonickk isn't able to help the man cope with his disease, but he thinks that magical healing might help the man cope — at least temporarily.