The Witch Owl

The second of High Sun, 1493, late afternoon into evening

A wheedling voice echoes up from the floor below: ‘You’ve killed a lot of people - friends of mine - but it’s not too late: we can break bread together and find a way to resolve our differences without anyone else getting hurt.’

You had fought your way up through the windmill, and now found ourselves standing in a low room beside two massive, grinding millstones. The Miller, Elgin, had entered the building from the ground floor with a posse of fervent townsfolk. Above you, ‘She’ waited, the creature which this strange cult seemed to worship. You were caught between rival threats, and rather than surrender, you chose to fight your way through.

Heading up, you encountered the creature in the attic, a woman, seemingly transformed by a curse, her form protean, shifting between human and something other: a kind of owl-like monstrosity. The floor was littered with filth and detritus, including the bone from some large creature, picked clean of meat. This Witch Owl was shedding filth and feathers, and radiating a raw, uncontrolled magic; you intuited that this corrupting energy was likely what had bought the townsfolk under her sway, and had perhaps transformed the creatures in the cellar: Lord Skittering and the amorphous mass he called ‘It’.

The Witch Owl seemed unable to speak, but the sounds it made were like an uncanny echo of some poor man’s last, horrified words: ‘…what… What in the hells?’ The creature launched from its nest, raking claws and beak as it passed, flying from one of the gaps in the mill’s thatched roof. Enid disguised herself as the creature, assuming its place in the nest, while Den launched himself, arms flailing, into empty space, his outstretched fingertips slipping through the Witch Owl’s plumage before seizing hold of her taloned legs. He dangled precariously in space, preventing the creature from flying away.

Below, Illyad and Burley faced off against Elgin and his crew. The miller had, like his fellows, daubed his face with owl-like markings made from a floury paste, though his were much more elaborate, covering his entire forehead and plastering down his hair. He bellowed a command and Burley, still under the influence of the tainted bread he had eaten the day before, fled from the building. Illyad retreated upstairs.

A pitched battle commenced, as you attempted to shoot the Witch Owl from the sky, while fending off the attacks of the townsfolk. Enid’s ruse slowed them briefly, but crazed villagers eventually knocked out Fetherfew. Den was shaken loose by the Witch Owl, drifting to the ground with the assistance of the Featherfall spell, while Burley hurled throwing axes from the ground. Illyad roused Featherfew with a healing potion and he leapt to his feet, before sending an arrow arcing toward through fleeing monster; at the furthest point of his bow’s range, his mind still reeling from the blows he had sustained, the shot would surely have gone wide, were it not for the True Strike spell he imbued it with. The Witch Owl fell from the sky, the curse dissipating as it plummeted.

As the Witch Owl’s influence lifted from the townsfolk, you explained to Elgin all that had occurred while he was under the creature’s influence. He was horrified, both at his own actions, and the brutal remedy you had brought to bear. He grieved for his fallen friends and neighbours, and for another man, who he called Dunk, who had been the victim of the Witch Owl. He was mystified by his wife’s transformation, suggesting that it had come upon her suddenly only a tenday ago. Pebbles searched the nest and uncovered a silver locket, inside which was a scrap of paper bearing the name Jennifer.

Burley offered to help bury the slain townsfolk, and the now human Witch Owl, and you all helped. You chose to rest for the night in the town’s stables, rather than venture back into the mill. On the way there, Den found a statue to his ancestor, Tom Hurtle. The plaque below read:

Tom Hurtle, Giant Slayer

1380-1445

Favourite Son of Wicklow Mill

Depicted here in his triumph over the Femorian Tyrant, wielding his famous weapon The Flatiron.

Sculpted by F. Boggs

The statue depicted a halfling in a heroic pose, one foot placed atop a gigantic misshapen head. Curiously, though the figure’s right arm was thrust aloft, as though brandishing a weapon in triumph, but its hand was empty, appearing as though something had been removed from its grasp.

In the stables, you found the body of a slaughtered horse, one of its legs removed and, you presumed, fed to the Witch Owl. Burley recognised the horse’s bridle and saddlery as bearing the marks of the Rangers of the Reach, a group of elite woodsman who patrol the depths of the Reaching Woods - Burley’s mentor, Manny Reedfellow, had been a Ranger, before leaving to start a family.  You then rested overnight, drawing the long day to a close.

The third of High Sun, 1493, early morning

When you woke in the morning, you encountered some fresh faces - Abigail, the daughter of the missing Dunk, and Hokrun, a grizzled and badly injured Orc, who identified themselves as one of the Rangers of the Reach. Abigail explained that they had journeyed to Wicklow Mill after she had lost contact with her father Dunk; while Hokrun recounted his run in with the Witch Owl, the evening before last, which had sent him plummeting from the top of the windmill. Hokrun begrudgingly acknowledged your success in lifting the curse form the town, and admitted that had it continued unchecked it may have spread throughout the region, however he felt your methods had been cavalier and brutal. Pebbles asked him if he had ever encountered anything that caused him fear, and Hokrun spoke about a creature rumoured to lurk deep in the Reaching Wood: The Grendel.

With Elgin’s permission, you searched the belongings of his wife, Mina, to try and understand the curse that had afflicted her. You found a journal, in which she recounted a recent affair, with someone that she called ‘My lady with the dancing hair,’ whose ‘kisses refresh me like a draught of cold, clear water’. The romance was a passionate one, conducted in secret; Mina wrote of rendezvouses by the old well. Near the end of the journal you found an intriguing entry:

‘My lady has promised me a boon. She has gifted me a poppet, and told me that I merely need to confide in it my dearest wish and she will see it made true.
The doll is pretty, like my lady, and has an enchantment to it; she calls it our go-between, a carrier pigeon of whispers and sweet nothings.
I feel that my lady desires of me a wish for her affection, but I already feel assured of her devotion. Indeed, the deliciousness of her adoration has roused my hunger for more…’