The Green Witch

The next morning, the adventurers got on their way. After much debate, they decided stay off the paths and go through the mountains, hoping to catch the Green Witch unaware. That also meant postponing their visit to Lord Ironhammer.

The weather was forgiving and allowed them to climb the mountain side. It was easy enough to keep to the high slopes while staying out of sight. After a morning of marching, they got around to the north face and could see the Ironhammer keep down in the valley. It was a beehive of activity. A lot of guards were stationed by the gates, patrols were moving seemingly everywhere, and the people moving to and fro did so tensely, with hurried steps. Something was afoot.

Whatever it was, the three companions ignored it and pressed on. The young farmer had told them about a special log he used to send and receive messages from the Green Witch, lying just where the river emptied into the lake due west of the keep, so they aimed for that location. By noon, they took a break, and Raori showed his prowess as a hunter, bringing down a large mountain goat that would supply them with food for days, while Tindri did some foraging for ingredients for her healing potions.

Having thus prepared, they pressed on. It was dusk when they finally reached the lake. Finding the log proved easily enough, and some scouting revealed that no one was watching it at the moment. Thus, they approached it and planted a message from the young farmer that he had prepared for them before they parted ways. Then, they spread out and hid to watch it.

As the shadows lengthened, too humans approached, one male and one woman. They were engaged in some kind of bickering that was the complete focus of all their attention - who was the most deserving to become a green person and who was the one who was the most favoured by the Green Witch? The man had made someone who got too nosy around the ruins disappear, and the woman had dragged a dead body to the ruins. And so they continued their boasting, grabbed the message from the log and returned, still in heated debate, never noticing that they were being watched.

Raori and Tindri left Perrima behind with instructions to alert them in case danger was approaching and then followed the two henchmen. They walked nonchalantly towards the ruined temple looming ahead. As they did, Raori noticed a group of people moving across the ice at the far side of the lake, but paid them no heed.

The two cultists entered the ruins through a hole in the wall and join someone by a campfire. The smell of frying goat was thick in the air.

"That means they have not yet learned much," Raori whispered. "Let's split up. I go right, you go left. We can cover more ground that way."

Tindri agreed, as she didn't feel that any of the cult members had posed a threat to them yet.

Raori moved with confidence, and the moment he got to the wall of the central keep, he climbed it straight up. The old cracked wall provided plenty of gaps for his claws to grapple onto and soon enough he was on top of the keep wall, some 20 feet above the courtyard below. As he moved about there, a man went to fetch someone on account of the message. The summoned authority figure was a young male, with fair skin. Raori thought he could have been an elf, had it not been for his perfectly normal ears. The clothes were made of very expensive fabrics, but were dirty and badly weather worn by now. Most interestingly, though, he wore a sword, and judging by how he walked, he definitely knew how to use it. That separated him clearly from the rank and file they had seen so far, who only had peasant weapons.

The swordsman received the message, read it and shrugged. Then he walked back, muttering something about "more trouble than it's worth"...

Tindri had lost sight of Raori at this point. On the side of the wall she followed, there was no keep, but some side buildings, where the roof in many cases had collapsed from years of snow. Again, she came on some holes in the wall. There were people active there. She went closer, and found two persons, a male and a woman, leaning over a table with a dead body. They were conducting an autopsy, and the woman clearly had the thick green skin of a Shagulite.

Quickly, she sent her cat to fetch Raori.

Meanwhile, she listened in to the conversation. Apparently, the dead was once a follower, but had been killed by some kind of monster that stalked this area. This was not the first victim, either, but it was the most intact remains they had been able to recover, and that allowed them to speculate on the nature of the beast.

By the time Raori arrived, Tindri had learned that the woman seemed to be the leader of the two. Indeed, the man did not have green skin. The two had a brief look at each other, and then decided how to proceed. Tindri whispered to the plant spirits in the ground and just when the man leaned extra closely to the body, studying its features in detail, vines sprang from between the cracks between the stone tiles, enveloping the Green Witch completely. Tindri made sure that some of the vines wrapped around her mouth to make sure she could not use her magic against them.

That was Raori's cue. He charged the man, who was as big as he was, but with a flick of the wrist, he managed to get Nabakos to cut through the belt and into the side of his foe, disarming him as well as giving him something to think about. The man screamed in anger, but when he tried attacking Raori with his bare hands, the wolfman buried his axe in his head, ending the fight before it could begin in earnest. Then he walked up to the Green Witch and looked at her for a moment. He gave Tindri a sideways glance. "So, what do we do with her?" he asked, before chopping her head off with his axe. It rolled across the floor and came to a halt on one side, showing the cheek that was adorned with a flaming and swirling red tattoo.

It seemed that someone had heard the man's screaming, because they could hear loud voices. Still, they had a little bit of time and used it to search as much of the area as possible. They found an old tome in the Witch's possessions, as well as a couple of journals with different handwriting.

Suddenly, they heard a roar, and a beast jumped into the room. Bigger than Raori, it reminded them of a wolfman, but with much less fur, and its greenish skin was broken by puss-filled bulges in many places, its eyes crazy with rage. It charged Raori first, and the two were entangled in each other. Time and time again, they clawed and gnawed at each other. Raori managed to get a strong hold on his enemy's arm, nearly breaking it, but it was Tindri who finally brought the monster down. She asked the fire spirits for help, and they leapt to her side, setting the creatures head on fire. With a death howl, it stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, filling the air with the smell of its smoldering flesh.

Just as they were prepared to explore the wider area, a group of brigands forced the rickety door open. These were not simple peasants, but well armed, and well trained. But instead of attacking the odd pair, they asked who they were, as Tindri and Raori clearly were not cultists, further underlined by the remains of the Green Witch and her companion on the floor. It turned out that the men worked for Commodore Kaldor, and were seeking loot on his behalf in the ruins. Tindri and Raori convinced them to avoid anything that was not coins, holding up the witch's head and warning them that she was turning people to plants. The intimidated pirates immediately took their warning and left them alone.

Thus it was that the trio vanquished a nascent group of Shagulites in Kark and retrieved a book on Somatrophy, as well as a journal that talked about Shagul's early days in the city of Fontra Cilor, in the estate of Craig lime castle....