The party collected Bardy from the inn, where he had finally woken up after having resisted all of Malakos's previous wake-up calls, and filled him in on the skull situation.
As they stepped out into the street, they found a falcon waiting for them at a nearby lamp post. It flew over and extended a leg to them, whereupon a large scroll of papers was attached. Ruby offered the bird a piece of jerky while Malakos read the letter.
“It's from Lady Dimir,” He said. “Things are going well back at base, it seems. Several new recruits. Not much else, as she doesn't want the letter intercepted, except that she wanted to warn us that...” Malakos frowned, then flipped through the next few pages. “Hm. That does complicate things a bit, but nothing unexpected.”
“So are you planning to share, or...?” Bardy asked.
“Yes, of course I can share. Here—this one's yours.” Malakos tugged out one sheet of paper and handed it to the halfling.
Bardy looked at the paper and saw his own face staring back up at him—or rather a sketch of his face. Printed above it in bold, black ink was the word 'Wanted.'
“I told you we should have killed that duke,” Deruque growled, looking at his own poster angrily. The sketch artist had significantly downplayed his muscles, and his glorious sword wasn't anywhere in the shot.
“We would have had to kill the duke and his entire guard if we’d wanted to avoid this,” Malakos said, examining his own poster and noticing that no names were given. Good.
Deruque looked at him as though waiting to hear why killing the entire entourage would not have been an option.
“Anyway,” the tiefling rolled up his poster into a scroll and tucked it into his bag. “These will be posted in Lettinsburg and Whispenshire—possibly Dunshire as well. We'd best avoid highly-populated areas as much as we can on our way back. We should leave here as soon as possible and skirt the cities to get back to base.”
The party agreed, and swiftly finished any remaining business they had before saying good-bye to Shettleport.
The group moved quickly past Dunshire, keeping to the woods that encircled the city and avoiding travelers whenever possible. The trip was more or less uneventful, until they reached the path toward the mountains and the sun had fully set.
Though Ruby and Deruque were both on edge for reasons they couldn’t put into words, it was Bardy who first noticed it.
“We’ve been by here before,” he said, looking at the ground. He was the only member of the party without darkvision, and the moonless sky didn’t help matters, but he had stepped on something moist–a small puddle of verdure slime drippings. And, as Ruby had pointed out before, Patch (blurbling happily on Ruby’s shoulder behind Bardy) was likely the only verdure slime within hundreds of miles.
“How?” Malakos asked, consulting their map. “We’ve been following the only path, with no other paths connecting to form any kind of loop–”
“No other paths through the trees,” Deruque said. “But what about trees through the paths?”
“That doesn’t make any sen–” Malakos started, before following his gaze. There, off to the side, were a copse of trees, sprouting up through what appeared to be a frequently traveled path, shooting just off their own. Glistening just past the first row of trees was something wet–another small puddle of slime drippings.
As the rest of the party stared, trying to make sense of what they were seeing, Ruby turned sharply. She had just seen motion out of the corner of her eye. And yet, she hadn’t been able to sense any animals for the past mile and a half. Then, she saw it:
It was a tree. Or something that looked like a tree. And it was moving.
Several of them were moving.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Enclosing them into a smaller and smaller space.
“Run,” Ruby said.
Nobody paused even a beat to question her.
As the team flew down the path as fast as they could go, Deruque looked off to the side. Something was glimmering past a small row of trees. He squinted at it.
It was a lantern–flickering, warm and stalwart in the gloom, hanging off a tiny cabin in the middle of an open field.
“THIS WAY!” Deruque roared, leaping off the path and plunging into the dark forest. The party followed him, crashing through the foliage briefly before reaching the edge of the light’s illumination. The party kept racing until they reached the porch of the cabin. Deruque reached the door first, and started pounding on it. Ruby and Patch came quickly after, then Lorenzo and Bardy, with Malakos bringing up the rear. The tiefling stumbled for a moment, as they passed a row of white rocks at the edge of the field. As he crossed it, he was suddenly hit by a small wave of nausea.
Celestial magic? Malakos thought. He slowed slightly, then turned around–still backing toward the porch, but keeping an eye on the treeline. Something–dark shapes that must be trees, moved toward the boundary, but were stopped at the edge by some unseen force. Malakos continued to watch, but no other trees approached the boundary. The wind hissed through the branches, giving off a sinister sound of frustration. Just as the tiefling felt it was safe to turn back around and join the party on the porch, he suddenly heard a crashing, bellowing noise. His head whipped to face the new threat, and he saw a dark shape racing toward them, yelling loudly and waving an ax overhead.
"GET AWAY FROM THERE!" It bellowed.
The tiefling reached for his amulet instinctively–he was still half the field away from the cabin, which made him the first line of defense against this new threat.
Then, he caught a glimpse of the stone barrier–fully intact and operational behind their crazed attacker. He glanced behind him–his party had heard the shouting and had seized their weapons.
In one snap judgment, Malakos threw his hands in the air and dropped to his knees.
“SANCTUARY!” He cried.
The figure–a large, bearded man, the party could see now that he was illuminated by the candle’s glow–came to a halt in front of the tiefling, and hesitantly lowered his ax. He looked at the party on the porch. They, too, lowered their weapons and placed their hands in the air.
“We–we beg sanctuary,” Malakos finished. “From the evil in the woods. Please.”
The man looked at them, confused, then looked back at his line of stones. His eyes darted along the tree line, tracking the subtle shifting of the trees as they prowled the barrier.
“Inside,” he said. “Quickly!”
The party was hastened into the cabin, where the man firmly closed the door and slid the bolt into place.
“What,” he said, finally, “were you fools doing, wandering through the Witch’s Woods?”
“This is my whole problem with locals, okay?” Deruque said. “How come no one ever tells us we’re in the Witch’s Woods until we’re in the Witch’s Woods? There’s no signs or warnings or anything. And then they’re all like, ‘Why did you go in the Witch’s Woods?’ And we’re all like, we didn’t know, alright buddy?!”
“Who is this witch, anyway?” Ruby asked. “Is it Prunella again? I feel like she shows up in a lot of places.”
“No,” the bearded man rasped at the name. “We do not speak of her. The witch of these lands is named Valaetha. These woods are hers. None are safe in the darkness of her domain.”
“Thank you for your light and hospitality,” Malakos said. “We’ll be on our way in the morning.”
“There is no morning, here,” the man said. “She has seen to that.”
“Oh great,” Bardy said. “And I’m still the only member of this team who can’t see in the dark. So, what? We’re pretty much trapped in an everlasting night until we find our way out of here?”
“Oh it’s not so bad,” Malakos said. “Reminds me a bit of Cania, really, but with fewer glaciers. It’ll be just like visiting Mom.”
At that, their host looked at Malakos in alarm. The tiefling had had his hood up outside, but now, face illuminated by the lantern on the mantle, his fiendish heritage was evident. The man’s eyes narrowed. He glanced out the window again, scrutinizing his barrier for breaks. When he satisfied himself that it had not been weakened, he cast another suspicious glance at Malakos and moved toward the other end of the room.
Malakos’s shoulders drooped a fraction, but he quickly shook it off. “Well… we’ll go ahead and rest, then. I’ll, uh, I’ll take first watch.”
“Wake me in two hours,” Bardy said, shifting his rucksack to the floor and unpacking his bedding. Ruby and Deruque followed suit, falling asleep quickly after the excitement from earlier.
Malakos sat perfectly still, hood lowered over his face, for a very awkward hour and a half, as their host stared into a fire he had built. Both sets of eyes flew to a pile of cloth in the corner, however, when it stirred and moaned. The man quietly stood to cross the floor. He pulled back the cloth and caressed whatever was inside.
“Illness?” Malakos asked, his voice breaking the silence for the first time since Deruque had been convinced to stop speeching about revolution and go to sleep, an hour or so earlier.
The man startled, having seemingly forgotten his guests entirely until that moment. He looked at Malakos, then back at the lump of cloth. He seemed to resist for a moment, but finally nodded.
“She has been unwell for her whole life,” he muttered.
“May I come closer?”
The man looked at him suspiciously.
“I may not look it,” Malakos said, gently. “But I am a cleric. For the Ministry of Life. Healing is my specialty–there may be something I can do, with your permission.”
Resistance flashed weakly across the man’s face once more, before defeat and sorrow filled it again. He pursed his lips and nodded.
Malakos stood and approached the pile of cloth. As he got closer, he saw a tiny face poking out from under the makeshift bedding. She was a child–no more than four or five, by the looks of her. Her soft, pale skin was beaded with sweat, and her white-blonde hair was tied back in a messy braid.
“Do you know what ails her?” Malakos said, seating himself across from the child’s father as he pulled out his prayerbook. “Poisoning? Magic? A curse?”
“Not poisoning, not magic, not a curse that I know of,” the man answered. “It is that which claimed her mother. Beyond that, I do not know.”
“I see. Then, we’ll just give it everything I’ve got,” Malakos said, rolling up his sleeves. He cast spell after spell, starting with general healing spells and moving his way to more and more specialized ones; but none of them seemed to have any effect.
Malakos was disappointed and frustrated, but the man seemed unsurprised.
“I’m sorry,” the cleric whispered, closing his book. “That’s…that’s all I can do.”
“You are not to blame,” the man said, as tired despair settled back on his face. “I was unable to do anything for her mother, either. So long as we are trapped here, she has no chance to recover. I can only watch as she…” he cleared his throat. Then, the worried creases on his face softened as a gleam entered his eye for the first time since the party had met him. “But…beyond these woods…there are doctors. Other healers.”
“Yes, of course!” Malakos said. “Come with us, and we can pay someone to–”
“I cannot. My magic is the only thing that keeps Valaetha confined to these woods. If I leave, she will escape and fill the world with her evil. But…if I show you the way out… if you will take my child to the healers…”
“Of course,” Malakos said. “We will get her the best care.”
Stirred by the sound of muted conversation, Bardy hauled himself off of his bedroll and walked across the small space to smack Malakos on the shoulder. “My turn,” he yawned. “Off to bed with you, Mister Chatty, or I’ll start casting sleeping spells.”
“Wait–” Malakos said, parrying the halfling’s tiny, shoving hands. “Sir, when she–”
“Christopher,” the man offered.
“Christopher,” Malakos amended. “When she is healed… how do we return her to you?”
The grizzled woodsman looked over at his daughter, now sleeping peacefully.
“Don’t.” He said.
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