Where: On a rise beside the road west, at the end of the second day’s travel from Tser Pool Encampment — roughly two days short of Vallaki.
Status: ⚔️ WE ARE HERE, MID-BATTLE. Session 7 begins at the top of the round.
First seen: Session 6, at dusk, with a full moon somewhere above the clouds.
The place
A windmill leaning on its rise like a thing trying to turn its face away — onion-domed, sails in tatters, windows dark with grime, vanes turning without wind. And rolling off the whole place, warm and sweet and wrong: the smell of herbs and freshly baked pies.
Mark this well: behind the mill, at the forest’s edge, stands a henge of old standing stones. We have seen carvings like that once before, on the menhir that knew Fëanor’s family.
What happened here (so far)
We fell back to the road so Fëanor could get his magic eyes on — and five minutes into the ritual, Granny came down the road with her cart. The pleasantries lasted exactly as long as it took Sirius to hear the muffled screaming from inside the cart. Then:
- Granny ran — faster than any old woman has ever run — shrieking at the mill: “Bella! Ophelia!”
- The cart held a woman bound and gagged in a net of silver, who begged us not to cut her free: “I am cursed. The net is silver. It’s stopping me turning.” She was bitten; the moon above the clouds is full; the net stays on at her own insistence until dawn.
- Her partner — a werewolf born, not bitten — is captive inside the mill. “If you can save him…”
- The mill door burst open on three hags, Granny’s own warped purple face among them — the thing called Morgantha: “You shouldn’t have poked your nose in, dearies.”
The fight hangs mid-swing. Osric holds the doorway and has paid for it in blood and one private horror; Sirius stands wreathed in black raven wings, feathers dripping from his eyes; Lily has been told it is unwise to attack their best customer; Ireena is at the roadside screaming for us to run. Nobody is running.
Open questions
- Can five of us kill three of these things?
- Can we get the werewolf out before the moon does its work?
- What are the pies made of? (Nobody wants the answer. Everybody needs it.)
- Why does a hags’ mill sit beside a henge of holy stones?
The full record: S6 field notes · S6 recap.