Mold, Magic, and Mystery
Amrynn
One must concede a certain chaotic logic to this place. Bavlorna Blightstraw’s cottage is a testament to entropy, a structure seemingly held together by mold and spite, yet it operates on a set of arcane principles as rigid as they are bizarre. To navigate it is to solve a puzzle crafted by a mind that has long since abandoned conventional reason.
Our exploration of the upper floor began with a curious discovery. A hallway of dour-faced portraits led to a mirror that, when met with a smile from Pork-Bottle, dissolved into a doorway. The passage beyond was a spatial anomaly, far larger than the cottage’s exterior dimensions would allow. It terminated at a door, curiously barred from our side with a needle of comical proportions. Beyond it lay another moldy chamber, but we decided to reseal the passage and investigate the more conventional rooms first.
One such room served as a grim museum. Shadow boxes lined the walls, each containing the mummified remains of a pixie, pinned and displayed like a common butterfly. To treat fey creatures as mere entomological specimens is a particular brand of cruelty. Pork-Bottle’s frantic search for his own companion, 7-up, among the dead was a disquieting sight, though I was relieved for his sake that she was not among them.
From there, we passed through a dilapidated dining hall, complete with mounted goblin heads and fly-covered meals, into a room containing a massive, sputtering contraption. I recognized it as a form of alchemical still, though this one was leaking foul-smelling liquor. It was in the adjacent kitchen that we met our first true resident: a redcap named Bloody Toes, who was engaged in a frantic chase with several vultures over a haunch of meat. He informed us that, as “guests,” they were not to be harmed.
On a balcony off the kitchen, we found a satyr named Vancel, naked and caged, awaiting his fate as Bavlorna’s next meal. Barnabus swiftly freed him. The satyr immediately fashioned a toga from a tablecloth and secured a bottle of wine before we could blink and then we escorted him to safety. His parting gift to Barnabus, a stick that bloomed into a flower of good fortune, was a small but welcome piece of fey reciprocity.
Our return to the secret, needle-barred passage proved… disorienting. Upon entering the far room, we were overcome with a powerful illusion or dimensional distortion that made us feel as if we were growing at an alarming rate. We retreated just as the doorway seemed to shrink to an impassable size. A potent ward, and a clear sign that we were not yet meant to be there.
Finally, we opened the last door and came face to face with our quarry. There, in a squalid parlor, sat the hag Bavlorna Blightstraw, a toad-like creature draped in filth and attended by smaller versions of herself. With her was another woman, tall and dressed in black, whom Bavlorna introduced as Charm. The hag’s opening gambit was a barb at PB about his stolen sprite. She then followed up with with a glance at my missing hand and asked if I was here to “give her the rest of the set.” The audacity of the question.
She insisted that before she will bargain, she demands three things: the return of her book, skins from local bullywugs, and for us to repair her bath. The irony, of course, is that we already possess her book, giving us an immediate, if hidden, advantage.
We retreated to regroup, but it was Melina who provided a hidden piece of the puzzle. She recognized Charm from a previous vision and noted that the woman cast no shadow. I can confirm this; in the dim light of the parlor, her presence left no silhouette. Her shadow, according to Melina’s vision, detached itself and fled into a swampy building. A person without a shadow. It is a concept from cautionary tales and arcane theory, but to see it manifest is another matter entirely.
We came here to bargain for what we have lost, but it seems we have stumbled into a web of secrets far more tangled than we anticipated. The hag’s demands are our immediate task, but the true mystery lies with the shadowless woman and Bavlorna’s chillingly personal welcome. We need more information to know how to proceed without creating our own peril in this realm of crazed twists of rules and logic.