That's not a big problem; the adventurers catch some dinner, Hilde cleans and cooks them (the fish, not the adventurers), and they settle in to talk about hags. Hilde actually is pretty knowledgeable on the subject. She tells them she knows of three types of hags - sea hags (but as she's never seen the sea, she doesn't know much about them), green hags (who prefer swamps and forests), and night hags (who are so evil they descended through the Feywild and wound up in the Hells). Night hags in particular love turning good to evil, and that kind of desecration might attract one, though of course that's hard to fake. The party tells her that Granny Snowmelt, their target, is a night hag, and Hilde commiserates. Night hags are hard to catch, because they can fade from the Material to the Ethereal at will. She does tell them, however, that they do so using a magical item called a heartstone, and if they can obtain that, then...well, then the hag can still go to the Ethereal, but needs to cast a spell to do it and they should be able to counter that?
They talk about how to get the stone away from the hag. They consider maybe a smaller being could help bring some lighter fingers (as the group doesn't have a rogue). Clara suggests asking a rat or some other animal? But how are they going to find the hag? Zook says that if they have some information he can use his augury spell to narrow it down, but they need a place to start. Hilde doesn't have a good way to do that, sadly, "but your idea about having Dara call up something to steal the stone maybe could work." Hilde also reveals that hags generally know one another, and if the heroes have already killed off four different hags (one night hag in the Glann Plateau, a green hag in Cian, and two more greens just recently) then maybe Granny Snowmelt is trying to find more friends...or make one. Hags reproduce by stealing and devouring human children, and then birthing new hags.
Dara goes off into the swamp and calls a swamp rat, and asks if it would be willing to help. The rat says it would, potentially, though stealing things off of human (and human-sized) things tends to involve getting swatted and it doesn't like that. Also does this person have dogs? The rat's cousin was eaten by a dog. And there are dogs nearby, dead ones. But not dead.
Dara presses for a little more information, but all the rat knows is that these dogs are north and west, a journey of many miles, possibly years (but that's to a rat). As to the larger question, it's willing to consider the idea of stealing a thing off a hag, but it'll need a lot of food for that. It scampers off to consult its rat friends, and Dara goes back to the others.
She relates what the rat told her, and of course Zook is immediately concerned about these "dead-not-dead dogs." Clara agrees, but wonders whether pursuing this is going to get them in trouble with pixies (and Brébhin echoes this concern). In the end, though, they can't just let it go. They ask Hilde who lives in that direction, and she tells them that Woodsedge Estate is that way. It's a big house inhabited by a man named Íosac, his wife, and their child, but that's about all she knows.
In the morning, they set off, and though it takes most of the day, as evening falls they arrive at a large manor house. There's a gate out front (not a fence, just a gate), with the word "WOODSEDGE" on it. They see a woman picking berries off a bush and approach her, and she introduces herself as Eimile, the housekeeper. She's not as immediately welcoming as a lot of people they've met, however, and says that Master Íosac might not love having visitors (she also seems a bit frightened of him).
They ask about the dogs, and she confirms that they come out at night, horrible things that bleed continuously. Mic, the butler, has started calling them "brackish hounds," and they don't seem to die. Also, one of them bit Aingeal, the master's daughter, and she is sick and bedridden, and the wound will not stop bleeding.
She leads the adventurers to the manor house and sneaks them in the kitchen door. She tells Mic to make them some tea and she goes to see if the master will let them in. They heard yelling from another room, and Mic mentions that the master has something of a temper. He also tells them that he's hit the hounds with his sling and the master stabbed one with a pitchfork, but they are resilient and vicious, and little Aingeal seems to be fading. The heroes offer Dara's help, and Eimile returns, looking frightened and chastened. She apologizes for the master not receiving them, but says that she'll bring Dara up to Aingeal's room.
She leads Dara up a back staircase to a bedroom, where a child of about seven lies on a bad. The smell knocks Dara back - it smells like a wound gone septic. Aingeall looks pale and sick, and a wound on her arm has already soaked through the bandage. Eimile goes to change it, and Dara looks at it - it's bleeding freely, bright red blood like a fresh wound, but the edges of the bite marks are going black.
Dara casts a spell to detect disease or poison, but senses nothing. Maybe a magical effect that acts like a disease, but isn't? She casts a dispel magic on the girl, and she shrieks in pain, but no change to the wound. Dara tries again, focusing her magic, but Aingeal only cries about again. Defeated, Dara heads downstairs to talk to the others. On the way out, she meets Bairbre, Aingeal's mother, who is much more pleasant than her husband, it seems. She thanks Dara for her help and begs her to cure her daughter.
Meanwhile, the others are in the kitchen with Mic. They ask about the dogs and when they usually show up, and he says it's typically after dark. And just a moment later, they hear baying from outside. "That's them."
"All right, then," says Clara, and the six of them head outside. Aisling activates her driftglobe and sends sunlight over the area, and they hear yips and paws running away. "Doesn't look like they'll show themselves with that on them," says Keenan, and Aisling turns it off, but keeps it close, figuring it'll be a good way to weaken them if need be. Fearg charges out into the clearing and bellows a challenge, and the dogs respond!
 |
| WOOF WOOF MOTHERFUCKERS |
They charge from the trees, horrible things with mangy fur sloughing off of their bodies and diseased, frothy mouths, and all of them bleed continuously. Aisling throws a cloud of daggers at one and Dara, emerging from the kitchen just as things get started, calls down a moonbeam on it. Zook takes a more aggressive approach, and hurls a fireball into the trees. The flames light up the area and they see the dog that Aisling and Dara hit explode into a ball of blood and ash. A bunch run out and surround Fearg, biting and tearing flesh. Brébhin hurls a tiny ball of lightning at one of them, but a couple run up on her, and a couple more charge at Keenan and Zook (but their teeth miss the mark).
Fearg lashes out and whacks one with his hammer (but I could not make a roll for him to save my life, or his). Aisling unleashes magic missiles, Brébhin strikes with her sword, and Clara runs out into the midst of the dogs and starts punching them to death. Keenan fries one with a firebolt, and within a moment all ten of them are just fur, bone, and blood.
Brébhin and Fearg have both sustained bites, and their bites are bleeding continuously. Dara casts a lesser restoration on both of them and the wounds clot and start to close, so apparently whatever illness these monsters carry can be cured. Dara rests and meditates, recovering her magic, and then heads upstairs to Aingeal.
After promising that this spell won't hurt, she casts a lesser restoration, and Aingeal's wound starts to improve. But she wails that she saw her father talking to the dogs - "He is the keeper of the hounds!" And then she passes out.
Dara heads back downstairs and tells the others. Zook is perfectly happy to take the fucker's head now (figuring that even if he's not "the keeper of the hounds," he's an abusive piece of shit), but cooler heads prevail, at least for the moment. Aisling and Clara ask Mic to see Íosac, and with some hesitation, he leads them to the master's study. It's full of stuffed animals (like, trophies, not stuffies), and Íosac himself, a large, broad man, sits in front of a fire sipping something from a goblet. Mic announces them, and Íosac receives them, if stiffly.
Íosac isn't exactly rude, but he's by no means polite, either. He does, however, ask if they're the ones that helped his daughter, and then says that apparently some thanks are in order. Clara feels that there's a real note of concern in his voice, too. Aisling asks about what Aingeal said, and Íosac says that he has no idea why she would say that - he's never spoken to the hounds and certainly isn't their keeper. Aisling asks if he'd be willing to help hunt them, then, and he says that he's tried, but their constant bleeding makes them hard to track. Aisling presses the issue, and he agrees and excuses himself to prepare.
Aisling asks Mic what "preparations" he might be making, and Mic assumes he's putting his armor on. She asks why he has armor, and Mic isn't sure. Actually, Mic isn't exactly sure where Íosac is from. From his accent, maybe south, around Fiadh, but it'd have to be one of the outlying villages. He knows that Bairbre is from Cian, anyway.
Íosac emerges wearing leather armor, and orders Mic to fetch his bow. The adventurers make ready to go; Keenan, Zook, and Brébhin stay behind, in case more dogs show up (and Zook doesn't much trust himself around Íosac anyway). They head out into the forests and track the hounds using their pawprints and blood trails, and some hours later, find themselves deeper in the forest at the root of a huge, dead tree.
At the base of the tree is a hollow with a shallow pool of blood, and there are paw prints near the entrance. This seems to be where the brackish hounds came from. They talk about burning it, though Íosac is concerned about more forest fires (he wasn't thrilled about the goddamned fireball in his backyard). They talk a bit more, and then Aisling notices something floating in the blood at the back of the pool. She goes to fish it out with her sword, but Íosac stops her ("don't sully that blade") and uses an arrow. Aisling magically cleans it, and discovers it's a length of blue ribbon. Íosac looks shocked. "I gave that to my daughter," he says. "It was tying her hair back." The others ask how it got out here, and Íosac shakes his head. "You don't understand. It was tying her hair back today. I saw it."
He turns and starts heading back to the house, and the others follow, figuring they can burn this evil tree later. As they approach the house, though, they hear someone calling out in pain. It sounds like Keenan!
(Next time, we rewind and find out what happened at the house. It was ugly.)
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