The Old Bonegrinder

I barely know where to begin this tale… we lost Elaine. How? You ask…
 
Well, sit with me and let me tell you this tale… of the Old Bonegrinder, a coven of hags, and a young woman from Faerun who died protecting the children of Barovia…
 
We were to pass by the Old Bonegrinder on our way to Vallaki. I was hoping that we would be able to just slip by without gaining the attention of Mother Morgantha or her daughters, but of course, we had no such luck… not to mention that Errki had eaten their pies and so we were bound to get dragged into something with them. I’ve found myself wondering a few times if I would have been better staying around the Vistani camps and performing in Barovia… but there just wasn’t anything to do.
 
I wanted adventure, and I’ve found more than I was originally bargaining for when I walked up to the new group of adventurers in the Blood of the Vine…
 
But anyways, I am getting sidetracked…
 
We were set upon by a horde of starving people… those addicted to Mother Morgantha’s pies but who don’t have the money to buy more, so they slowly go insane until they die and become wendigos – at least that’s what the others have said. I always avoided the pies because I don’t like Morgantha… she gives me the creeps.
 
Trevor and Errki made a barrier around the bridge and Elaine and Brynden burned anyone who approached. It was horrible. The flames and the writhing screams… If I hadn’t been so busy fighting for my life and the lives of my companions, I would have been sent right back into my nightmares of my earliest memory.
 
We finally made it to the field in front of the Old Bonegrinder, where we stopped to rest for the night. Half of us were injured, and the rest of us were exhausted. Bedrolls weren’t even beginning to be unrolled yet when a beautiful woman approached. She was gorgeous… but there was something about her that felt like an illusion or something… she was almost too perfect.
 
As I figured, it was one of the hags… things went sour when Mother Morgantha and her other daughter showed up.
 
I don’t recall exactly what was said, but ultimately, any conversation was stopped short when a lightning bolt shot out from Trevor and hit Morgantha and one of her daughters square in the chest. Trevor, the bloody idiot, was wearing the cursed necklace! If he does that a couple more times, it will kill him… as it is, there is nothing that we can do to remove it…
 
All hell broke loose from that point… Errki took off for the windmill, saying that he was going to go save the children who are being kept in there. The rest of the party attacked the hags and I desperately tried to keep them alive.
 
Elaine sealed her fate when she dealt the deathblow to one of the daughters. Morgantha focused in on her with blind, single minded hatred. Elaine fell unconscious, and I was able to heal her in time to bring her back, but it was all for naught…
 
Brynden charged the hag, who was standing over his sister’s prone body. Right there in front of his face, he looked into his eyes and said that she was going to take that which he loved. Then she reached out and grabbed Elaine’s face. We all watched in horror as the life drained out of her and her body collapsed to the ground. Lifeless. Dead.
 
Brynden’s scream of denial is one that I shall never forget for as long as I live. Everyone is upset, but I am concerned for Brynden… I have seen what happens to those who lose their family when they are old enough to remember, old enough to fight it. Old enough to lose and understand that they weren’t strong enough…
 
The hags are all dead. As I write this, I am keeping an eye on Brynden. We are in the Old Bonegrinder now. Errki freed a group of young children from the clutches of the hags, and their wendigo guard.
 
The children all ran off towards Vallaki. I find myself daring to hope that they reach the city alive.
 
Oswald and Errki have gone below into the cellar… I believe that they are constructing a coffin for Elaine. I do not know what the funeral rituals are in Faerun, but this seems like it would be something she would have liked… to know that because of her actions, a score of children have been saved from the horror that is being ground up into meat pies…
 
Wait… something is happening… I can hear a great noise approaching from the north. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to stop now… hopefully I will be alive to write another entry…