Izolda ponders before wading in with her thoughts.
"It could be any of those things Naty and so many more. We just don't have enough information."
"I think that we don't have much of a choice and we have to face whatever this thing is and head through that door. Just make sure we're prepared before we head through it. It might be something hostile, it might not, but I don't think we should risk it."
Izolda starts heading to the door, gesturing for Mal and Naty to follow. "Mal, you need to be invisible for this as having you appear might be ueful. I'm going to fly up as fast as I can to get out of the way of whatever it is. Naty....just be ready to hit it hard if it attacks us."
The door opens onto a small, candlelit bedroom that is empty save for a plain wooden bed and a night table where a pale candle burns in an iron candleholder. The bed is perfectly made, but the sheets display an ominous, dark crimson stain in the middle of the bed.
Shortly after you enter the room, an incorporeal shape rises up from the stain on the bed. The vaguely humanoid form continually morphs and distorts into nightmarish shapes, but you note that her base appearance is that of a female Jadwiga, with a similar appearance to the current queen of Irrisen. She groans as she reaches out for you..
Malkiel asks while invisible "Uhm, disgusting. Are we talking to her or stabbing her?"
Natalya doesn't bother dignifying that with an answer - she's hitting the damn thing!
"Right. Diplomacy it is then." Malkiel says, swinging around the other side of it and popping out of invisibility to attack it.
+3 Bleed damage with SA.
+3 Bleed damage with SA.
"Oh really?" Izolda sighs at the inevitable before aiming to hex the woman.
The thing resists the evil eye, but the distraction still allows Nat and Mal to hit. The rogue finds it impossible to sneak attack the incorporeal being. It reaches a hand into Nat’s chest!
"Gah!" Natalya yells before swinging at the creature once again.
Malkiel tries to continue attacking, but he is distraught by that creature sticking its hand into Natalya's chest!
Izolda's hair whips around as if in a wild storm as she tries to place nasty a hex upon the creature.
He voice booms out, oddly deep for the slender woman.
"Get off her, now!"
Natalya lands another solid hit, and the strange creature succumbs to Izolda's hex. Despite its ill luck, it manages to strike Natalya again, sapping more of her life force.
While the creature is hampered, now might be a good time to try to question it about its desires!
"You know you want to tell us what it is you want! Tell us that and this all can end right now!"
”I am a prisoner, neither dead nor alive, trapped in an eternal netherworld to repeat the same cycle of nightmares for all eternity! I desire freedom from Baba Yaga’s binding clutches and vengeance against the Queen of Witches!” the creature shrieks. She does not stop attacking!
So Natalya doesn't either!
Izolda rushes forwards to provide some respite for Natalya.
"Can we free you from her clutches?" Izolda asks, trying to find anyway to get the thing to stop its assault.
The creature’s only response is to drain more of Natalya’s life force!
With the icy feeling of death closing in around her Natalya lets loose all her anger and fear into ever mightier blows!
"Well we tried." Izolda states straight faced before reaching out again to heal her friend.
With two powerful blows, Natalya destroys the creature, causing it to fade away. When you return to the raven and tell her the thing’s desires, the raven gives you her iron amulet and replies: “So be it. Seek now the sisters three who are one: Mother, Maiden, Crone. But know that the Maiden is elusive, and may only be caught with the waxing moon.”
After handing you the amulet, the bird crows three times and then flies into the pool. There is no splash when she touches the surface. Instead, she seems to pass into another world and wings off into a glorious sunrise, her form growing smaller and smaller until it disappears. If anyone touches the pool’s surface, the water ripples and the sunset reflection immediately fades to reveal a shallow and ordinary pool of water.
The amulet functions as a chime of opening with 9 charges, and it is inscribed with a rune.
"I don't feel well." Natalya says, sounding like a small child with a tummy ache. "Can we rest for a bit?"
"Naty, we can rest for as long as you like. This place is dangerous for sure, but no one seemed to bother us when we rested last night. Although I'll be honest, I have no idea what time of day it actually was. Time seems to be different here."
"I can't fight properly like this." Natalya replies, sitting down and dragging her fingers through the water. "We can explore a bit more if you like but I don't want to go outside until I'm feeling better."
"Why do you always need to speak in riddles!" Malkiel growls, frustrated. "We could do a better job if you just spoke plainly!"
Taking Natalya's arm, he slides under her to offset some of her weight and help assist her walk. "Let's go back to take another rest? No sense pushing it. Come on."
You walk back down the hallway in the direction you came, eventually finding yourselves back in the storeroom where you settle down to rest for 8 hours. The house spirit Zorka appears to scold you. "Back already? You were gone, what, fifteen minutes? Some stalwart adventurers you are!" She hops back into the fireplace and leaves you alone while you rest. Eventually, Natalya has recovered from the fatigue, though dark thoughts still plague her mind and she will likely have nightmares when she sleeps that might lead her to being fatigued again.
You return to the long hallway and walk past the first door you encountered. Soon you reach another door. A symbol carved upon the door to this chamber resembles a downward facing crescent resting on a horizontal line with arrows pointing outward. A vertical bisecting line with arrows pointing both directions runs from top to bottom. Izolda identifies it as the Iobarian witch's symbol for night.
Wavering darkness devours everything that lies beyond the threshold. Thick stone columns and wooden beams, entangled with pale moonflower blossoms, support the room’s high-vaulted ceiling. A faintly glowing blood-red orb dangles from a black iron chain in the center of the room.
Shortly after you enter the room, a raven hops forth along the rafters before fluttering to rest atop the orb. Unlike the previous raven, this one is a hideous albino bird with red eyes. He waits until you show him the amulet from the prior challenge before he speaks.
"You have met my sibling, I see. While you may have convinced her of your intentions, you must now convince me of your wit. To prove your cleverness, you must find the answer to my riddle.
I mark night’s coming,
I will mark your end.
I run not in fear,
I have not a friend.
“The answer to the riddle lies within the passage of night. To find the path to what you seek, drink from the silver chalice within the grotto. Go now and do not return to me unless you can prove your worth.”
A door across the room opens into another chamber. Hundreds of tangled roots dangle from the raw earthen ceiling of this rough hewn, circular grotto, which is filled with dark, placid water. A narrow stone walkway leads to a circular platform in the center of the room upon which rests a stone table set with five silver chalices. About the perimeter of the grotto, a few feet above the waterline, five deep alcoves have been dug into the grotto walls. Though shadowed by darkness, a faint glitter sparkles from deep within each alcove.
The five chalices on the table in the center of the room are half full of dark red wine, and the rim of each chalice is etched with a specific rune in a repeating pattern. Touching a chalice reveals the corresponding object in its alcove, as a pale flash of moonlight illuminates the alcove for a few short seconds, just long enough for someone on the platform to identify the object within. The objects are a mirror, an apple, an hourglass, an athame, and a key.
"So it's the hourglass?" Natalya asks Izolda. "Sand runs in an hour glass and we use it to mark the day and night. I've got no idea about the other bits though."
"Well, I assume so Naty, but I'm not sure. I suppose we could always take a sip and see what happens? Hang on...."
Izolda casts and looks closely at the goblets, trying to detect any residual magic that they may have.
The goblets radiate moderate auras of conjuration magic.
"I'll drink it." Natalya offers. She picks up the goblet, glares at it for a moment and then takes a swig!
The red wine is tasty! When Natalya drinks three stepping stones rise from the dark waters, creating a path to the alcove where the hourglass lies. She is able to cross over and return with it before the stones recede back into the dark water.
Returning to the raven, it bobs its head. "You have taken upon yourselves a great burden," he caws, "for that which you desire, the changeling holds. Know this as well—you will find the Crone only when the moon wanes."
He lowers his head to give you the iron amulet he wears. The raven then clutches the hourglass in his talons and wings off into the passage to the pool, vanishing into the darkness.
There is another unfamiliar rune on the amulet. It also functions as an aegis of recovery.
"That doesn't rhyme. Aren't all riddles supposed to rhyme?" he says with a smirk, "All of the time?"
As the raven disappears into the darkness, he shakes his head slowly "Those things are creepy."
"You should wear this amulet." he says to Natalya, handing it to her. "Who knows what it does, but it's sure fancy."
"Of the birds, we now search for the third. I've given my word." he says, flashing a smile and motioning onward.
"You're not much of a poet." Natalya replies, but she puts the amulet on anyway. "You think there's another one of these things?" That particular thought is met with a groan.
The seemingly endless hallway eventually takes you to a third door. The door is inscribed with an inverted half-circle with a horizontal line across the top and several lines exiting the circle. Izolda recognizes it as a symbol for twilight.
A slight chill wafts through this room, carrying the stale scent of carrion and peat. Beyond, an impossible forest seems to have devoured the entire chamber. The walls are woven from tangled knots of black, leafless trees, and fine flakes of rusted iron cover the floor, softly crumbling to dust. A pale light emanates from a fist-sized orb that rests within a nest of black iron branches in the center of the room, turning all forms into ebon silhouettes.
Shortly after you enter, a third raven flies out of the darkness and settles atop the glowing orb, casting a huge, ominous shadow. He caws, ”Baba Yaga is not here, but you can find her, never fear. First, however, you must persuade me you possess the strength necessary to bear my knowledge. My question is a simple one:
Born twins, they live not,
Yet they grow until death.
Their fates are of’n tied.
Ever-crescent, as the moon,
Symbols of the warrior’s pride.
“The answer to this question lies in the chamber beyond. Bring me the answer, and I shall give you what you seek.”
A passage in the leaves leads into another room. The walls of this wide chamber are lined with gray, lifeless trees and thorny tangles of brush. In the center of the room stands a gnarled and leafless tree whose outstretched branches twist like cruel, beastly talons.
As you look around, an enormous boar emerges from the shadows! Its eyes glow a hellish red as it squeals and brandishes its tusks!
"It started rhyming with bad timing at least!" Izolda quips before realising that she too was not quite being as serious as the moment needs.
Izolda manages to keep a fairly cool head, expecting that something was going to come out at them.
The mighty boar crashes to the ground, fast asleep! A swift blow from Natalya puts an end to it. You bring the corpse back to the raven, and it peers at its tusks before nodding and giving you its amulet. ”This amulet holds only one of the three clues you seek. It reveals the first ingredient for Baba Yaga’s kettle. Look for this key where time catches up to us all.”
Clutching a boar’s tusk in each talon, the bird lifts himself atop the glowing orb in the nest. As he lands, the orb’s light winks out and the raven disappears, but not before he caws one last mysterious phrase: “Look for the Mother when the moon is full!”
Once the raven is gone, anyone inspecting the orb discovers that it has transformed into a solid sphere of rust-coated iron.
The amulet has a third rune on it and functions as a brooch of shielding,
Picking up this brooch, he weighs it in his hands and tosses it up into the air and catches it with his other hand. "Whaddya think, Izzy? Do you want to hang onto this one?" he says, no idea what it does.
Once they start walking again, he says "Looking for Mother when the moon is full. Right. I suppose we'd need to be outside for that, wouldn't we? Are we ready to leave the hut?"
"So we have a mother, a daughter and a crone and the phases on the moon." Natalya says slowly. "Why do I feel like there's some sort of puzzle or riddle coming here?"
Izolda doesn't say anything but secretly agrees with Natalya. This whole situation feels a little preposterous. Why would someone set something so complex up - is it just to waste their time to stop them finding someone or using something?
You continue down the hallway, and though you have apparently been walking in one direction, somehow you find yourselves back outside the door of the cauldron room! This time, though, you spot a hidden door on the opposite wall. The door has no visible handle or hinges, and its facade looks much like the log walls that cover the rest of the passage, though the logs sections are cut in a rectangular shape consistent with that of a door. The ravens' amulets glow faintly, and touching all three to the door causes it to open.
The secret door leads to a shallow foyer blocked by two more double doors, which are carved to resemble an oversized gate guarded by a scrawny dog. These doors are unlocked, but iron bells nailed to the opposite side of the doors sound when the doors are opened.
This room looks exactly like the main room of the Dancing Hut did when you first entered it in Irrisen. In the back alcove, a wooden door leads outside to the Dancing Hut’s porch. Windows in the alcove look out into a snowy forest clearing.
A burly man is standing guard facing the hut's outer door. When he notices you coming from inside the hut, though, he turns around with a look of confusion. He hails you in a foreign language, and when it is clear you don't understand him, he switches to Draconic, which Izolda speaks.
"I am Ratibor the Bold. I have been charged by Baba Yaga to guard her hut from intruders." He eyes you warily and waits for your response.
Izolda clears her throat, having not spoken Draconic for some time she readies herself for its strange sounds.
"We are not intruders but guests." Izolda states in Draconic with confidence.
"We are here to find Baba Yaga who has vanished and were talked with this by her Black Rider. Perhaps you can tell?"
She hangs back, not wanting to get much closer, just in case the man spooks.
"I do not know the whereabouts of Baba Yaga," Ratibor says sternly. "I am only bound to guard her hut. For 200 years, that is all I have known."
He glares at each of you in turn. "I will allow you to pass, but only this one time. Do not try to reenter this place, or I will be bound to fight you."
With a slightly frustrated sigh and roll of her eyes, Izolda replies. "Look, it might be that we have to come back in. If we're here to help find Baba Yaga, doesn't that at least mean that we're on your side. If you fight us, then you will actually be endangering Baba Yaga and her hut by stopping us from helping her?" She hopes that this did not confuse the man too much but does not hold out her hope. She is at least glad that Mal cannot jump in and offend the man somehow.
Ratibor sighs and takes a seat on a nearby table. "I wish it were that simple. I made a pact with the Witch Queen long ago, and I am still suffering the consequences.
"I was once among the most powerful barbarian warlords of central Iobaria. But as has happened time and time again throughout Iobaria’s history, plagues ripped through my lands and chewed through my battalions. In a matter of a few short months, I lost several thousand troops to disease.
"Desperate, I sought the counsel of his witchwomen. Acting upon their advice, I called upon the legendary Baba Yaga, Queen of Witches, to bargain with her for powerful magic to aid my cause. In return, I swore an oath that I would bring her the head of one of the demon lord Kostchtchie’s most zealous champions—the frost giant jarl-priest Utgaardt Hoarwind. I promised to slay all of Utgaardt’s clan and scour the Ice Steppes of Kostchtchie’s worshipers.
"But I remained skeptical of Baba Yaga’s powers. I hedged my bets, forging an alliance with Utgaardt instead of slaying the giant jarl as promised. To appease Baba Yaga, I brought her the head of one of Utgaardt’s weaker rivals, but the Queen of Witches immediately saw through my treachery. Her fury over the betrayal was fierce and relentless. She rallied her allies, laid waste to my army and nascent kingdom, and imprisoned me here as punishment for my arrogance and deception.
"There is a way to free me from my servitude. The ritual she used to bind me here is contained in a magic book. The last time she was here, Baba Yaga left with the book but returned without it. It's possible she left the book somewhere here in Iobaria. Find it, and I will no longer be bound to fight you!"
Izolda ushers the other two to find a seat and relax, urgently trying to make the guardian feel further at ease.
"Do you mind if I translate?" Izolda says, before committing herself to anything else.
Translating the main points of the guardian's story to Mal and Izolda, she turns back to the man.
"You've lived an impressive life and I can see why anyone in your situation would turn to another for help. It must have been hard to find the right course of action with so many men's lives on the line. What was the name of this magic book? If we did free you from this servitude, what would you go on to do next?" She asks, not wanting to agree to make the situation worse without realising all the pieces.
"Baba Yaga simply referred to it as her 'arcane cookbook,'" Ratibor says with a grunt.
She ensures she translates everything again for Mal and Naty.
Izolda's eye flash with interest at the idea of an arcane cookbook but repeats her question. "Again sir, please could you state your intentions about what you would do if you were to be free?"
Ratibor sneers. "First, I would run far, far away from this accursed hut! Then I would see if I could pick up where I left off. Find what is left of my allies, raise a new army, and conquer Iobaria, as I should have rightfully done long, long ago!"
Izolda translates again and racks her brain for any knowledge she can recall about Iobaria.
Izolda knows that Iobaria lies far to the north and east of the nation of Brevoy--quite a long ways from Irrisen! Human settlers have united the land into an empire in the past, but currently the land is largely wilderness thanks to a series of plagues that have severely depopulated the region.
Iobaria today is sparsely populated, with most humans living outside of the old cities in tiny settlements. About eight of every ten inhabitants live in the endless forest wilderness in a state of semi-barbarism, and avoid the ruined cities of their ancestors altogether. The numerous diseases which emptied Iobaria two millennia ago have never disappeared completely, and still serve to keep its population very low.
Turning to whsiper to Mal and Naty in celestial, Izolda asks, "Look, there aren't too many people in Iobaria, and it means we can continue our own mission. What do you think? Needs of the many in Taldor to return the place to normal vs needs of the few in Iobaria?"
"I say we leave him for now. We go do what we came here to do and if along the way we find this book, then great, we can negotiate with him then. Right now, we don't need to worry ourselves with this or waste resources on it."