Once Upon A Witch

Cassandra: "We can head to Tirioten to find the witch."
 
Everyone had recovered from the beast-people attacks, and after sleeping a night headed out still to Tirioten. By noon, we found another bridge, with another bestial body impaled with a pitchfork. Consulting the map, Rohrouk figured we would pass through a hamlet called Maditz -- either to find it full and provisioned, or empty and dangerous. An hour passed, and as we neared it was the cat-man and lizardfolk noticing smoke in the distance, in the direction of Maditz. A thick plume of smoke: a cry for help? We hurried on.
 

Red Fire In The Snow

 
The path led up to a small hillock, looking over small Maditz in a lean valley. At least a quarter of the town is on fire, and spreading -- it seemed already out of control. There were no people we could see. Rohrouk and Fathom ran forward into the burning village, with Margarine on the wing, as the mages walked after them cautiously. As we drew near buildings, we could make out bodies, humanoid and beastial-humanoid, bleeding red into the snow. The source (or one source) of fire sat atop nearly two dozen bodies, chopped up and set aflame -- and seemingly all cruel victims of the plague.
 
Margarine, further inside the village, heard the screams. Too animal to be human, but too sentient to be feral. Upon investigation, one building (seeming the largest in town) was entirely on fire, the entrance barred from the outside with iron rods. From what little she could see, a creature scrambled through a broken window to get out. A creature with a furred arm, and too small to be an adult.
 
"There was a lot of... chopping," Rohrouk muttered under his breath. We reconvened, and then moved on outside the village.


 
As the sky began to gray, and our worries of what the night would hold returned, we hiked up another hill similar to that on the outskirts of Maditz:
 
Nestled in this expanse, this time, sat a frozen lake. Adjacent: a settlement, surrounded by a wooden palisade with sharpened stakes. Even from a distance, the village's appearance was different from the others we had seen this far north -- closer together, and of different design. Outside the defenses, we could see figures before the walls. Nearby, a mass of forms assailed them.
 
This place was under attack, with archers on the battlements and soldiers out front fending off the creatures.
 

Safety

 
Silently in agreement, the party burst into a sprint to help the defenders. Cassandra and Eragon lagged behind, tripping over themselves and preparing magic in heavy snow. Brom surprised everyone, his tenacity seeming to burn through the snow, with more endurance than one might first think. As we all neared, we recognized friendly faces.
 
Ivan, an axe in each hand, felling one beast after another as if they were nothing but wind.
Karista, swinging her halberd as a farmer would cut wheat.
Fidaika, hidden behind a few bodies, with arrows silently finding their marks.
Anton beside the archer, with a complicated movement of somatic casting to summon rays of fire striking creature after creature near the front line.
And Ivanka, drenched in gore, a twisted visage of human and beast ripping her plagued cousins to shreds.
 
From our reckoning, fate would have it that the Hunters had the situation under control. Though Fidaika almost mistook Fathom for a hostile creature, our two parties met as... calmly as ones might after the attack. Ivan explained that they had encounter the creatures in Maditz, and though had "cleaned up" things there, the horde followed them to their current defensive position -- Tirioten. At Ivan's command, the gates of Tirioten opened to reveal a crowd of citizens looking on with concern (to be replaced by relief). Before entering, Ivan moved over to touch beastly Ivanka on her shoulder: "Ivanka, there are our friends here." Turning her horrific, bloodied maw towards the group, Ivanka arced her back in a stiff motion, head moving to the sky to howl before her body twitched and shook, painfully snapping bones and skin to return to a more human form. As her eyes passed over our group, the beautiful blonde-haired girl furrowed her brows, before collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.
 
We followed the Hunters inside, into a long hunting hall=style building. Fires were lit, food and drink shared amongst us, and with Ivanka resting (unconscious) in a bundle of furs Ivan confronted us: "why are you here?" Between Cassandra and Rohrouk, it was explained our need for the witch, and through her a (new) deck of cards. Ivan explained the following:
- the trip to the witch's cottage would take (round-trip) a day
- do not interact with any creature or voice in the water, reaching out or otherwise
Rohrouk asked about Ivanka, about her "ability", but Ivan confirmed it was no secret. As for the plague, he confirmed it was spread through blood, sweat, and spit.
 
Anton, on Serenray, "In this end of times, the gods have not abandoned us."
 
With interrogation by Rorhrouk, it was explained that nations east and west are surviving the plague far better than Tirioten and its surroundings.
 

Searching for a cure

 
We woke early the next morning, in preparation to find the witch in her withering woods. Before we left, Eragon found Ivanka. "She loved the flowers!"
 
And we left. It was hours until we reached the woods, when the trees thickened. Almost all at once the world outside seemed to hush, though Cassandra considered casting a deafness on Eragon and Rohrouk, "just in case" -- though she did not. Carefully, we made our way through the woods, every step measured. It seemed we all held our breath, even when the trees broke to reveal a cottage in a clearing. Adjacent to a small garden, the patchwork cabin was quiet as well, save for the quiet sound of running water from the ubiquitous brook. Cassandra was the one to approach, and as she neared the door... we all jumped at the sudden muffled scream from inside. In haste Cassandra, Fathom, and Eragon pushed inside to investigate, with Rohrouk on their heels and Brom nervously outside.
 
The inside of the cottage was disorganized chaos, cramped and busy. Between bizarre alchemical reactants, strange animal trophies, and the half-broken furniture a human man laid on a table. Thrashing about and moaning-no-screaming in pain through cloth in his mouth, the man's chest was damp from some unseen injury -- and bound with rope. Even after freeing the man, Rohrouk and Cassandra were unable to help: more crying to "make it stop" and pain-seizures. Something had slashed the man almost in two, with blood and flesh and bone -- even organs -- that would normally kill a man. "How is he... still alive?" Fathom breathed -- before silencing the man once more with his gag.
 
Outside, Brom could make out quiet footsteps. A gnomish woman made herself known, dressed in a simple robe and carrying a wooden basket full of some herbs or flowers. Stuttering, Brom couldn't stop her as she returned to her home: another tired look at the party, and she asked too calmly for the party to step away. As if nothing were wrong, the witch explained to the group that she too had no idea what to do for the man, to "ease his suffering". As it stands, the man is miraculously no closer to death, but at the same time there exists no cure she knows for his wound (or even just his pain). She made an offhand comment about the man sitting between life and death, his life seeming to not choose one or the other.
 
"In truth, Fatecarvers, you seem to know more about this than I." When asked about us, the witch mentioned a "powerful friend", though we could not learn more.
 

 
"There is a rot in the house of death." The witch continued to explain. It seemed that life and death were being suspended, that things that died... could not die. She surmised an attack on the realm of the dead. When Rohrouk mentioned an ink-black sea, she responding with a night-filled wood -- with the same moonless sky.
 
"We only need one last thing before we can make the journey," Cassandra implored. "It is a special deck of cards." The witch confirmed with her the prophesy -- that we had the promise of the lifeblood of a creature. She clarified: the creature must die for this. "Something taken from death must be given back." The Ashen Wolf (Cassandra's next idea)? "It is not alive." As we might imagine, the gnome witch directed us to the magic of fate, and death. An eldritch power we could distill, in a way. Though she could give Cassandra a deck of cards now, to the northwest lay a cavern, an old giants' cavern. A relic there may be able to help us, in particular: runestones. "Bring them to me, and I may transfer their power to the cards." Asking for our names, we were formally introduced to Ratka Rafaela Schmeader.
 
Suddenly, Madame Schmeader asked Brom to close the door, "Some... visitors outside. Do not look at them." She continued: we would need his name. In the woods to the east, she has spied a fae spirit that is visiting our realm. However, a dream forewarned the witch that the fae will be in danger; with this omen, we may save the fae and then perhaps ask a question of it. "The fae unseelie stalk their cousins relentlessly," she advised.
 
And above all: "We do need to hurry. Time passes for him more slowly than for us. We have an advantage here, however small."
Both the cave and the fae were in opposite directions (east and west), which would force us to split up.
 

Runes in the Dark

Brom, Fathom, and Rohrouk would head northwest to the giants' caverns, and fetch the runestones.
 

And the Dark Runs

Eragon and Cassandra then were to head east, to track down the fae and protect it from the unseelie attack.