Dinner for Seven

Now as you can clearly see, despite my demise, I am still very much alive. The is due to the fact that I am blessed with very dear and capable friends. After my foolish demise during the redcap assault, they managed to fight back and vanquish them. Though at a great cost. To my greatest shame and regret, my error in judgment had led to the death of Dadroz and nearly claimed Liliana’s life as well. Fortunately, the others were able to scrape together the resources needed in order to perform a resurrection ritual, saving the both of us.
 
Now this may come as a bit of a surprise, but dying and then returning to life, while a most humbling experience, doesn’t trouble me as much as you would think. Afterall this is the life I choose and thus death is a constant risk. What truly weighed on me was the fact that my mistake had caused the death of another. In order to reflect on this, I decided to spend a week in deep meditation. Contemplating the man I was and the man I needed to be.
 
Still, duty called and my responsibilities to Wolf’s Rest couldn’t wait. Thus I spend the remainder of that week searching and recruitinh capable individuals in order to help with the development. Two people that stood out were Elara, a sharp-minded newcomer who understood the importance of a strong economy and Samantha, a war veteran who I nominate as the leader of my newly formed guard detail. With Elara managing my storehouse and Samantha strengthening our defenses along with Allistan’s own guards, I hoped to prevent further tragedies in Wolf’s Rest.
 
But after a week of recovery, it was time to address Tommel’s deal. Many in the group wanted to confront Aunt Patty directly, however for the life of me I could not see the wisdom in this. Under the Pact with Keralon, her protections limited what we could do to her and she knew it. Meaning that all an open confrontation would accomplish was to escalate the hostilities between us. And as we learned earlier, she has no issue with that. And while it is still strange to say, ultimately we were lucky last time. For what if she decided to hurt us by attacking the people under our protection instead? Had she sent the same number of redcaps to attack the people of the district instead of us, how many of them would have died before we were even aware that an attack was taking place? No, better to wait and prepare for a more advantages opportunity in the future than tipping our hands in haste.
 
However Hayley and Luke’s research into the Rune Hill Coven had revealed an alternative approach. For Aunt Patty was in fact the lowest member of the coven in terms of authority. So perhaps we could appeal to another member to intervene on our behalf. And while I personally would have preferred a bit more time to prepare so we could research each individual member in order to have a better idea of how to approach each of them, we decided to leave that very day to the coven’s cottage just north of Keralon.
 
When we arrived at the cottage, I was surprised by how quaint and homy it seemed. It had a very welcoming and down to earth feeling to it. Not at all what one might suspect from a dwelling of a hag coven. Although that is most likely the idea. Unfortunately, no one was home, so we had no choice but to wait outside.
 
For a grand total of about five minutes when curiosity got the better of us. When we opened the door, we found a table laden with food, almost as if we were expected. Wasting no time, Luke immediately started drawing the symbols for a ritual in order to detect magical energies. Most likely in his excitement forgetting that it is rather rude to draw such magical runes in someone else’s home. And wile there were a few energies of note, he sadly did not have a lot of time to properly inspect them. As we suddenly noticed the temperature plummeting.
 
When we got back outside, we were surprised by the fact that it was snowing. And not just a little, but enough to turn the immediate area of the cottage into a winter wonderland. Admittedly, while I am no druid, even I know that magic that can influence the weather to such a degree was far beyond our reach at the time. Most likely signifying that the owner had returned.
 
A loud crash alerted us to the fact that two blue trolls were making their way to us. Seeing that these were most likely servants or at least acquaintances of the hag that lived here, I attempted to reason with them in order to inform them that we were not there to make trouble. Afterall, it would make for a rather poor first impression if the first thing we did when getting there was killing her allies. Especially since we were there to ask for her help. Though then again, perhaps that ship had sailed the moment when we decided to break into her home when she wasn’t there.
 
The trolls sadly were not interested in what I had to say. Or perhaps they simple couldn’t understand me. A bit hard to say I admit. Despite trying to subdue them by knocking them unconscious, their regenerative abilities made this practically impossible. Thus, Hayley was left with no other option then slitting their throats.
 
As we caught our breath, an elderly woman emerged from the forest and started to walk towards the cottage. At first, she didn’t show us much interest, but when she got to the door, she invited us in and introduced herself as mother Alma Marblehook.
 
As she sat down, we politely refused her offer to partake of the food in front of us and explained the reason for our visit. She was however not impressed by our quarrel with Aunt Patty. Noting that while bold, Aunt Patty’s action were completely in line with the deal that was made so long ago. However, she grew visibly annoyed when learning of Patty’s scheme to acquire a child for transformation into a new hag.
 
Politely stating that Patty hadn’t really respected the spirit of the deal, she offered to “talk’ with her on our behalf. She did however have a small request for us in turn. She wanted some company for diner that evening and should we join her until all the food was gone, she would help us in. Naturally, we informed her that we would be most delighted to join her for diner.
 
At first, everything was going well. The food was as delicious as it was plentiful. And while we would certainly leave the table quite bloated, it was certainly not an impossible task. That is until about halfway the food, Mother Marblehook informed us that she would like to make things a little more comfortable for her. And with a snap of her fingers, the temperature plummeted once more to well below freezing.
 
Despite the freezing cold, we bravely continued our meal. Though I did have a lot of compassion for poor Liliana who was not handling the cold particularly well. On the other side, I was most impressed by how well Luke was handling the cold. Though I did learn later that he was cheating a bit by heating the seating of his chair with magic. Still, we were able to finish the meal before Liliana completely chilled out.
 
With that, we said our goodbyes to mother Marblehook and thanked her for the pleasant evening. She in turn thanked us in kind and assured us that she would handle Aunt Patty for us. Then, we returned to Wolf’s Rest, hopeful that our troubles with hags were over. Though a small voice in the back of my mind very much doubted it.