After an hour or so of resting, we decided it was time to awaken Terry and continue on, since it was too early to actually make camp. For some reason, I was volunteered to do the job. I think the men were worried she might be cranky at being woken.
During our conversation, Marislova had managed to extract herself from Terry’s grasp, and now the girl was snuggling with Bekkin. For his part, the piglet looked content. All in all, it was pretty adorable. But it was time for it to end, at least until it was time to make camp.
I gently woke up Terry, who sat up groggily and wiped the sleep from her eyes. I pulled her aside and gave her the care package I’d put together. “What is this?” she asked as she looked through it. “Oh,” she said as she found the instructions card. She sighed. “This is my life now,” she mumbled to herself as she put it away in her guitar case.
I decided to say nothing more about it.
There were two doors leading out of the chamber. Marislova seemed insistent on going through one of them. As we had no other information about the place, we decided to go that way. We’d be careful, of course, in case it was a trap, but it would tell us more about the woman, either way.
The hallway was dark, but we could see a light at the end of the winding tunnel. We could also hear the sounds of children laughing. They had an almost rhythmic quality, not the usual near cacophony you get when multiple children are laughing at their own tempo.
Burin stopped short. “What’s up that way?” he nervously asked of Marislova.
“There should be little danger ahead. But do not trust. This is the Mother. The children may not be what they seem.”
“Have you been this way before?” Terry asked.
“I’ve been to many places within Artrosa. But the place is ever-changing, due to magic. Be on your guard.”
The chamber at the end of the tunnel was a massive natural chimney – don’t ask me how it formed, because all I could guess is magic – with a single staircase cut into the wall and spiraling up into the darkness overhead. At the center of the room was a huge stage that looked to have been made by shearing the top off of a single stalagmite – that’s the one that’s on the ground, right? Or is that the one where it hangs from the ceiling? I always have trouble remembering the right name for those.
On the stage stood a very pregnant woman dressed in nothing but a raven-feather cloak and a smile. She was watching six children as they ran around, hooting and hollering. She was laughing in response, clapping along with the children.
Bekkin, excited by all the fun, pulled away from Terry and rushed over to the children. One of the kids picked him up and the kids began playing a game where the tossed the piglet like it was a ball. For her part, Terry looked unamused.
The pregnant woman turned her attention to us. “Visitors to Artrosa, what are you doing here?”
“We kill witches,” Burin said. That dwarf, I swear.
Before I could clarify, I was distracted as Terry pulled on Marislova’s sleeve. Once she had the terrified looking woman’s attention, she pointed to the pregnant woman’s belly. “Did you do that?”
The pregnant woman raised an eyebrow at the dwarf. “Is that so?” she asked.
“Are you serious?!” Marislova whispered to Terry. “Do you know how babies are made?!”
“Yes,” Terry answered seriously. “With a penis, which you had.”
“Well, probably not you,” Burin added to the woman before us. “Assuming you serve Baba Yaga. But I have to know, what’s the illusion I’m detecting here?”
“I’ve been a woman since almost the beginning of my time here!” Marislova whisper-shouted at Terry.
“Yeah, as a disguise so you can move about freely. But maybe you leave here with the warden to slip her the old trouser snake,” the girl said with a shrug.
“It’s of no concern,” the pregnant woman told Burin. “But be careful of the children.”
Gregor, who had been paying attention to both conversations as I had, turned his attention to the half-naked woman. “Excuse me, but we’re looking for some keys so we can follow Baba Yaga’s trail. We need something to do with gold, and something to do with a dragon. These may not look like keys, as the last keys were a lock of hair and some kind of mask. Do you know anything about where we might find these?”
“I’m sorry, I do not. But if you seek them in Artrosa, then you are going the wrong way.”
“Really?” Burin asked. “What is this place?”
“This is one of the entrances to Artrosa,” the woman replied.
Burin turned around. “Marislova, why did you want to bring us to the exit?”
The pregnant woman’s eyebrow arched dangerously. “Yes, Marislova. Why did you lead them to the exit?”
“I, uh, well –“ Marislova stammered.
“I really think you’re the warden,” Terry said to the pregnant woman. “You see, I thought you couldn’t be at first, because you were pregnant, so I figured you got raped by the satyr. Which we’ve already established would mean that you aren’t the warden. But then I remembered Marislova, and if Marislova knocked you up, then that means you have to be the warden. And since Marislova is a woman when here, that means that you have to be going outside, which means you have to be the warden, since that means you can leave this place easily.
“But I thought the warden was the girl with the ox, and you, lady, are not nearly as young and hot as the woman with the ox, and she definitely hadn’t been knocked up. So unless Marislova knocked you up so hard it made you old and fully pregnant in the five or ten minutes between when we last saw you, which, if that’s the case, good on you buddy, but unless that happened, you’re either not the woman who we saw with the ox, or you’re not actually pregnant. So which is it? Are you the pregnant warden? Or the not pregnant warden? Or the not-pregnant or pregnant not-warden?” She put her hands on her hips, looking smug in her flurry of deduction.
I was absolutely stunned by her logic. I’ve seen conspiracy theories about my family that were slightly more insane, but only slightly.
Terry then suddenly pointed at one of the children. “And you! GIVE. ME. BACK. MY. PIG!”
The pregnant woman, Jadrenka, if she really was Marislova’s lover, reached out and deftly snatched the squealing and terrified piglet out of the air. She then stepped down from the stage and approached Terry. She handed Bekkin to the girl, who snatched him from her. She then drew a key from her pendant and passed it to Terry, her face amused.
“So, you are the warden!” Terry accused.
Jadrenka held a finger to her lips, then shrugged. She then turned her attention to Marislova. “As for you, you may leave if you wish. But understand that you may never return.” She then turned to the rest of us. “Mind the children.”
“If you leave, you’ll regret it,” Terry said to Marislova. “Be a real man, and take care of the kid you put in her belly.” She then spun on her heel and began marching back down the hallway we came from.
Gregor rolled his eyes and gave me a pained look. “Why? Why does she always go alone?” he complained, not waiting for a response before following after her.
Marislova looked at me, her eyes pleading for guidance. I felt for her, but I couldn’t answer this question for her. This was a test. No, perhaps this was THE test. Failing it and walking away would mean she could never be with Jadrenka, who she obviously loved, ever again. But there was no certainty that this would be the final test. She might wind up paying for a mistake that she may not have even actually made for her entire life.
If it was me, I would have left. I know that’s funny coming from someone who is having trouble figuring out her own situation regarding a sudden marriage. But this was different. There was no telling if Jadrenka would ever trust Marislova again. And I couldn’t tell if Marislova would ever trust Jadrenka again. So again, I would leave. Life’s too short to be stuck in a bad relationship.
But I couldn’t tell her that. If I swayed her decision, she would always second guess herself. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know the answer. I will say this, though. It is your choice, but choose wisely, as I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to take the choice back later if you aren’t happy with what you’ve chosen.”
Marislova nodded. “I think… that I need to think on this a bit more. I will return to my room and think for a bit, and only make my move after I’ve truly decided. Thank you.”
“We should probably get moving,” Burin said. “The kids are starting to get restless, and I think that the illusion is starting to fade. I don’t want to know what’s really under there.”
Silly, practical dwarf. I laughed in spite of how serious the moment was. “Sure thing. Let’s get going.”
Back in Marislova’s room, Terry tried using the key she was given to try to open the other door. “It’s not working!” she whined. “Why give me a key that doesn’t work!”
“Maybe it’s stuck?” Burin asked. He gave the doorknob a hard twist, and it broke off in his hand. “Oops,” he said as the door creaked open. He handed the knob to Marislova. “You may want to have someone look at repairing that.”
Marislova, unused to the antics of this party, just looked confused.
The tunnel beyond the door was dark, so Terry lit a torch. Between holding onto Bekkin’s leash and the torch, she realized she wouldn’t be able to carry her gun, so she put it in her guitar case and slung it over her shoulder.
Terry and Burin took the lead, and since we had Marislova staying behind, I brought up the rear. It was fine, since I was really still trying to figure out Terry’s train of logic earlier. So I needed as much warning as possible if we encountered trouble.
So, naturally, when the others stopped to examine something, I ran full speed into Gregor. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“Dwarf and girl have found something,” the fighter answered. “A trap door of some kind, I think.”
“Oh, okay.”
The two at the front carefully opened the hidden trap door and Terry touched her key to the floor underneath. And then she was gone. “Why?!” Gregor sighed. “Every time, she must go alone!”
Gregor went next, then Burin, and finally me. I arrived just in time to witness Gregor lightly smacking the girl on the back of her head. She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him. She then handed him Bekkin’s leash so she could look around with the torch. That was sorted, so I looked around the dark chamber.
We were in some kind of torture room, with manacles hanging from the rough stone walls and forty foot deep pit in the center of the room, likely as somewhere for blood and other fluids to drain. “Hey, we’re in a torture chamber! Hello! Is anyone here?” Burin called out cheerfully.
We heard the sounds of something stirring in the pit. “Is too far down,” Gregor said, peering over the edge. “At least thirty, maybe forty feet. And too dark. I cannot see what is there.”
“Redcaps!” Burin shouted as he took a look. He immediately drew his axe and leapt down.
I’d never heard of any kind of dwarven hatred for any particular kind of fey, so I was surprised to see him do something so rash. “I’ll throw the torch down, so I can see the bottom and shoot at them!” Terry said as she dropped her torch into the pit and began retrieving her gun.
As Burin hit the ground, he landed in some kind of fine powder, perhaps dried blood and crystallized bodily waste from the room’s many previous occupants. His impact sent a cloud of dust flying into the air.
When the fine cloud hit the burning torch, it ignited, causing what’s known as a dust explosion. It’s like when you blow a cloud of cornstarch through a torch as part of a performance. With that much surface area, the powder ignites all at once and with a lot of flash.
“Burin!” I yelled in worry, moving towards the edge to see if he had survived. Gregor was faster than me, and went sailing over the edge. I made it to the side just in time to see him land, striking one of the pair of redcaps with his fist. Burin still seemed to be fighting, but there was no telling just how injured he was between the fall and the explosion.
Gregor’s landing kicked up another cloud, so I altered my fireball into acid and had it avoid hitting where Burin and Gregor had been when the cloud obscured vision. Nebula flew down into the fray to use her powers to heal the dwarf as much as possible.
Bekkin, scared by the sounds of fighting, rushed forward and bumped into Terry, causing her to shoot into the air instead of down at the pit. She glared at the pig and quickly reloaded. As the cloud dispersed, we could see that we had the upper hand. So Terry shot down at the foes and I launched another ball of acid.
Between the blows from axe, fist, bullets and acid, the redcaps succumbed to their wounds and collapsed, dead. “You okay down there?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Burin said.
“So too am I,” Gregor called as well.
Terry started scolding Bekkin for bumping into her. The piglet, in no mood to put up with scolding, ran down the dark stairs into the pit to find someone to protect him from Terry. “Come back here!” Terry yelled, chasing after him.
When he reached the bottom, his front hoof went straight through the grate at the bottom of the pit. He squealed in surprise – it was still dark, so he hadn’t seen it – and Terry, running right behind him and just as blind, tripped over him and tumbled, face first into collected refuse.
After managing to suppress my laughter into a short giggle, I made my way down the stairs as well. Once there, I began using my magic to clean Terry, then Gregor. Burin had already handled himself and was cleaning the pig when I finished.
Terry lit a torch and snatched Bekkin’s leash from Burin, giving Gregor a bit of side eye as she did so, her look clearly implying that she was mad at him for dropping the leash in the middle of combat. She then thrust the torch into his hand and began examining an engraving on the wall. On a whim, she touched her key to it and disappeared, leaving the now glowing engraving behind.
Gregor threw up his hands in annoyance. “Didn’t we JUST go through this?” he shouted before going after her. Burin and I exchanged a look, then he just shrugged and followed.
I arrived last, finding myself in some kind of closet or something. The door was open and the other three were lying on the ground. Almost as if the closet had been closed and they’d been wedged inside. Then they’d all burst forth when the door was opened.
I wish I could have seen it, but I was glad I hadn’t been part of it.
I peeked around the corner, and saw that we had entered some kind of shrine to Mestama, the demonic patron of witchcraft who was worshipped by evil witches and hags alike. And over near the shrine was a figure made of glowing green flames.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
“Aye,” Burin said in his deeper, combat serious voice as he pushed to his feet. “That be a witchfire.”
Well, crap.
A witchfire is like the older cousin of a witchrime. They come into existence when a particularly evil witch or hag dies and proves too tenacious to be called to the realm of death. Covered in sickly green flames, their very touch burns a curse into their target, and they seem to attract will o’ wisps like a lantern attracts moths.
On the plus side, we were indoors, which limited the enemy’s ability to fly, and unlike with the witchrime, we all had some kind of magic or enchanted weapons available, which would really help us out. On the downside, it was still an incorporeal undead, and we weren’t exactly specialized for this. And it was going to hit harder than the witchrime ever did.
Terry got up and kicked Bekkin behind her while drawing her weapon. The witchfire shrieked and launched a blast of fire at her. She took the hit on her coat and did her best to shrug it off. Burin marched forward and swung his axe. “Hit me instead, ye overcooked moth!” he roared.
Gregor teleported behind her and hit her in the back. The witchfire spun and hit the fighter with another blast of flame. He immediately became engulfed in green flames which didn’t seem to harm him beyond the initial blast. Terry shot her in her back for her trouble.
“It’s a curse!” I told him as I unleashed an adjusted fireball made of cold blue flame. “You’ll be more susceptible to the flame until it fades!”
Another figure entered the room from a tunnel on the other side of the witchfire. She looked familiar. Took me a moment to realize who it was. “Oh, you’ve gotten here sooner than I expected,” Caigreal said. “I was hoping to have a surprise waiting for you.” Her body began to warp and shift, and moments later, she had become an annis hag.
An annis hag is a fierce creature that delights in the consumption of the flesh of innocent creatures, especially children and small animals. With skin whose color can range from deep blue to the blackest of midnight black, they’re feared especially for their insidious way of putting people at ease by appearing as normal humans.
“I’m guessing you’re not with us,” Burin said to the new arrival. “Time to die!”
“Wait, we need to kill this one first!” Gregor protested as he continued fighting the witchfire.
Terry looked at the witchfire. Then at her gun. Then at the hag. Then back at her gun. Then at Gregor, still wreathed in green flames. She then immediately shot the hag. I’m sure she had logic behind it, but damned if I can find it. “Hold still!” the girl shouted. “I’m trying to fix your ugly face!”
Luckily, I didn’t have to choose which to attack and unleashed another ice blue fireball. Caigreal responded by channeling the energies of the negative plane. I could see Gregor and Burin wince in pain as the concentrated unlife washed over them.
“Another one’s coming!” Gregor shouted. He withdrew back to Terry.
“What do you want?” Terry asked, annoyed.
“Seriously?” Gregor asked, his wounds plainly self-evident.
We didn’t have time for that, not with another on the way. “Heal him!” I told her as I began casting another fireball.
“But I was finally getting to shoot something!” Terry whined. She rolled her eyes. “Fine!” Holding her rifle in one hand, she drew the nanite gun from a holster and injected Gregor. The nanites began mending his wounds immediately, pulling him together just enough to survive another blast from the witchfire.
I unleashed another blue fireball. The witchfire flashed out of existence, its necromantic energies dissipated by the overwhelming attacks. Likewise, Caigreal fell just as another hag – a green hag this time – entered the room from the same tunnel. She took one look at the situation and filled a large section of the chamber with smoke, obscuring our vision of her and the corpse.
“She’s trying to rescue the other!” Burin shouted. “Follow the sound of my voice!”
“Here!” Terry said, shoving the nanite gun into Gregor’s hand and taking some random shots in the general direction of where Caigreal’s body had been. “You aren’t getting her out of here! I’m not dealing with her again!” she shouted.
I couldn’t tell where Burin was, so I couldn’t exclude him from the touch of my fireball. But at least I could be sure I’d hit them, and I knew Burin had some resistance to cold. So I let loose another blue fireball into the smoke. “Sorry Burin!” I shouted as it left my fingertips.
Gregor injected himself, dropped the nanite gun and ran off into the smoke. “Where is she?” he asked, then let out a grunt of surprise. “There she is! She seems to be invisible!”
Terry fired again, and I really hoped she wouldn’t hit the other two. But she could hear them, and I hoped she was at least making educated guesses at where to shoot.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t risk attacking. Not while I couldn’t see Gregor. He was already injured, and the witchfire still engulfed him, so if I hit him with a regular fireball, it would likely kill him. And I’d used up the last of my ability to warp the energy of the spell for the day. In truth, I was exhausted.
So I waited. The smoke was beginning to dissipate. As soon as it was gone enough for me to see my companions, I would fire blindly, hoping I could hit the hag before she could escape. I could miss them without knowing where she was, and that was all that was really important.
Gregor came into view first, thanks to the witchfire, then Burin. The second I could see the dwarf, I cast my spell. With a burst of flame, it was over, though I couldn’t tell if we’d killed her or she had escaped.
Gregor carefully walked back towards me and Terry, still unsure of whether the hag was still about. “How long until this is gone?” he asked, pointing at the green flames engulfing him.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Ten minutes or so?” I asked Burin.
“Aye, about that long,” the dwarf said, stumbling over something. “I think I found the green hag!” He kicked the invisible figure on the ground. It didn’t seem to respond. Terry walked over and shot it twice, just to be sure.
We took some time to heal up and decided to make camp. The chamber was large enough and we needed real rest. I was nearly spent, as was our healing wand. As we finished taking everything of value, the other hag’s corpse appeared on the ground. She was definitely dead.
We dragged both corpses into a tunnel, covered them in alcohol and lit them on fire. We then covered the entrance to the tunnel with a large piece of cloth, to prevent the smoke from coming into our area and choking us.
I fixed dinner while Gregor set up more cloth as a privacy screen around the makeshift latrine that Burin was digging. Terry, meanwhile, made herself busy painting a bushy beard on the mural depicting Mestama behind the temple’s altar. I doubted that Baba Yaga would care, since she seemed to view herself as the equal of any demon lord, if the story of Kostchtchie was any indication, so I didn’t intervene.
The girl needed to cut loose a bit. No sense in stopping her.
I called the others to dinner – a stew of reconstituted meat paste thickened with freeze dried mashed potatoes and turnips. “It tastes better than it looks,” Gregor said, after taking a taste. I added some hot sauce and ate a bit. He was right.
“I think I’m done playing detective,” Terry declared, taking a bite of her soup. “Mom was way better at it than I am.”
“Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s obvious Caigreal wasn’t the warden, even if there’s no way the satyr could have… you know.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“So, everything’s gonna be hostile here, it seems,” Burin said, sounding dejected.
“Not everything,” Gregor told him. “Marislova, for instance. Or that woman who keeps giving Terry keys.”
“Yeah, what is up with that?” Terry asked.
“I think she finds you funny,” Burin said.
“But why keys?”
“Maybe she wants to annoy Gregor?” I asked, suppressing a grin. He snorted, almost shooting soup out of his nose, but wisely said nothing.
After dinner, we set out the bedrolls and starting getting ready for bed. As I pulled a blanket over me, Terry asked, “What do you think Marislova chose?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just hope she’ll be happy, whatever she decides on.”
After a minute or two of silence, she spoke again. “Do you miss Greta?”
“A little,” I admitted. “I’m worried about her.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. We’d better both get some sleep. It’ll be time for our turns at watch before we know it.”
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