65. Suffer a Witch to Live

* The crew of *the Drunken Dragon* settle into the ship's new, bigger-on-the-inside deck cabin and pass some time in the Black Salt Springs, waiting for Alric to finish up his obligations.
	+ Wilfred dives deep into his training with Garret, getting the halfling-turned-half-elf to finally control the lightning coursing through his body to the point where he didn't risk killing someone just by touching them any more - unless he wanted to. Garret also mastered producing a thunderclap with his touch during this time, and Wilfred began the lengthy process of instilling in his pupil the moral fibre that a mage needs to make proper decisions in the heat of the moment with the powerful abilities they have at their disposal.
	+ Pyt hunkered down at the desk in his new room to write part two of his ten-part retelling of the events leading up to the end of Driscoll's war that he agreed he'd write for Mennick. This filled one side of one of the large sheets of paper that could fold into a paper bird and fly to Pyt's old band mate when the bard commanded it to do so.
	+ Clwyd continued her research into all things Weird, in preparation for the fighting to come. Though Mackerel's book of Weird notes was unpleasant to hold for a long time -- though apparently not magical, the collection of Weird knowledge within makes humanoid skin bruise and blister, their fingernails start to grow inwards, and their hair splits or falls out -- Clwyd persevered the notes regardless. Her goal was to abstract from Mackerel's experiments and findings to reverse engineer some sort of first principles that governed Weird Magic.
	+ While she was busy looking into Mackerel's notes, Wilfred asked Clwyd if she could think on ways that he might better abjure against Weird Magic and she said she'd bear it in mind.
	+ Aerendyl spent his time reading the book on Rumid the Great the party had taken from Mackerel's library.
* Eight days later, on Crawlfrost 19, the first night of the full moon week, the last of Alric's obligations could finally be fulfilled. The party and Garret travelled with Alric, the three völva, and five teenagers from the Black Salt Springs to the nearby forest and ultimately the Moon Meadow, the place the party had previous ran into a stubborn skogkatt.
	+ The party watch on as the völva go to the edge of the forest clearing, where bands of moonlight are streaking in through the pine tree canopy. The two older women then set about the moonlight, fingers playing through the white streak, while Signe, the newest of their rank held a cup beneath to catch what they produced.
	+ They were milking the moonlight, Alric told the group. And though human and un-fey these women were, Clwyd could only think that what they were doing resembled Weird Magic.
	+ When they were done Signe brought the cup forwards and Alric addressed the group of teenagers, telling them that the path of the berserker, the path their parents had walked before them, was not an easy path. The cup of moonlight the völva had prepared would help them with their first transformation, and once they have the feel of it, they should be able to transform by themselves, so long as the full moon hung in the sky - at which point Alric began to shift and change, grey-white fur sprouting over his swelling body, his face elongating, claws growing from hands and feet: he soon stood before them as a hulking tundra bear and let out a loud growl into the night.
	+ The young berserkers each drank from the cup of moonlight and shifted with less control and more discomfort than in Alric's transformation. By the end, two timberwolves and three bears stood before Alric.
	+ Alric then took to training the teenagers in their new animal forms, though he couldn't speak in his bear form. He had them fight and get used to moving in their new bodies, beating them back whenever they lost control to their new animal instincts.
	+ After a long night of training and one failed attempt to talk to the völva from Wilfred, Alric shifted back to his human form. He told the others that they now stood with two paths before them: one, the path of the berserker, and the other, the path of the animal. If they wished to return with him, they needed to reject the animals growing within them now and turn back. All but one of the bears manages to do so.
	+ Alric bids the unchanged bear goes into the forest then, to live the life they lacked the strength to turn away from. When they leave, they don't turn back to look, but some in the party do, seeing the new bear sat and watching the group as they walk back to the Black Salt Springs.
* On their return in the early morning of Crawlfrost 20, it seems the whole of the hold is out to welcome them. They cheer now that Alric's obligations had all been seen to, and the rowdiest of wakes for the dead and celebrations for Alric's safe return begins.
	+ The party and their crew are swept along in the madness. The mead hall is packed with people, with drinks of all sorts being passed out.
	+ Alric tells many stories from the raid and the subsequent prison break, downplaying his own achievements while hyping up everyone else's. Aerendyl jumps in on the storytelling too, and Wilfred augments the experience with some liberal castings of various magic spells.
	+ Pyt befriends some horn players and gets gifted a curling sheep-horn ocarina that he's quickly made to drink out of like a funnel.
	+ The party later spills into the hold's communal baths and then into various people's homes in the evening.
* The next day, Crawlfrost 21, they all awake hungover.
	+ Aerendyl eventually goes outside, meets Alric, and gets him to prepare rations to last 9 people one week.
	+ Alric tells the elf that if the party wait until the end of the full moon week, the völva will be able to prepare a drink of moonlight for him to take with them, so that they might make use of his transformation even without the full moon above.
	+ The group agrees to wait for the week, thinking that the time wouldn't hurt them at this stage and they'd be best off with all the assets they could amass together for the hunt that was ahead of them.
* On the day of Crawlfrost 26, the group are at last all set to depart from the Black Salt Springs. They have rations prepped for one week, Alric has instructions on how to get them to the tundra's unfrozen lake, and so they depart.
	+ Each day they set off at 9am with Aerendyl casting *Wind Walk* on the group. They make haste, stopping only so that Alric can note important geographical markers -- few though there are -- and keep them on the right track. By 5, their spell has ended, the sun is setting, and the already-low temperature is plummeting further. Rather than push on to cover negligible distance on foot, the group camped out in the comfort of Pyt's drum-yurt until the following morning when they started again.
	+ Each day they covered roughly 560 miles by travelling in this way, unprecedented speed for Alric, who had only ever trekked these lands a time or two before, and always on foot.
	+ After four full days of travel, in the mid-morning of Crawlfrost 30 they arrive at the edge of a massive lake, unfrozen despite the tundra all around it. Under the scrutiny of Wilfred's *Detect Magic* spell, the waters gave off a faint whiff of primal magical energy.
	+ The lake was truly massive in scale. They chased the horizon over the top of it for another hour in their wind forms, but Alric kept their heading true and eventually they saw it: a temperate, flourishing, sub-tropical island around the size of Bisquay.
* The group landed on the shore of the lake's island. They regrouped and decided to scout on in wind form, following one of the island's rivers through a forest and up the mountain. Doing so, they find the source of the river to be a beautiful lake ringed by soft sand and a scattering of palm trees. At the lake's edge, next to a small pier, sat a squat, charming hut.
	+ Through *Detect Magic*, the air now thrums with primal magic. What was a whisper back on the icy shore is now a shout here.
	+ When Pyt knocks on the hut's door, the answer doesn't come from within by beside the group, from the shoreline.
	+ A woman forms up out of the water, as if she herself were made of the lake's water. She walks to the group casually, saying she hadn't heard word of petitioners. But when Clwyd asks her to clarify what she means, the woman grows guarded instantly.
	+ The party begin the discussion hedging a lot, and the woman is soon enough openly on edge.
	+ She asks Pyt, 'can I have your name?' and his response of, 'sure, it's Pyt,' is enough to move the discussion along, for he'd just agreed to give over his name to a fey creature in her place of power.
	+ Brandishing a shining mote of light in her palm like a threatening weapon, the woman bids the party enter the hut so they can discuss the real reason they've come - since she's deduced from the island's nymphs having not spotted them that they'e capable folk and because nobody travels to such a difficult-to-reach island without a purpose.
	+ The woman brews herself tea and dances around the group's lines of inquiry, giving away little more than the fact that a feud between witches rages in the lands around the great lake's waters. When she deems they've asked enough without offering anything in turn, she presses the party to tell her what it is they want.
	+ The party go back and fourth through Wilfred's Telepathic Bond spell, unsure if they should be honest or not.
	+ Eventually Pyt tells her that the party have to kill the other four witches in the coven, but they'd rather not have to kill her too. He manages to appear quite persuasive as he does so, and she immediately perks up. She demands he say the same thing again in the Binding Tongue and he does so. Immediately then, she relaxes, and eventually begins to laugh.
	+ She says they may call her Anemone, and explains that she has been held prisoner by the other two factions of witches, used as a source of power or a way to end their fighting should one particular conflict ever go too far, forbidden to ever leave the island without their escort.
	+ If the party truly intent to hunt the other witches, then perhaps Anemone could help them. She'd already acknowledged that they were capable, and she had all but given up hope of ever freeing herself from the shackles the coven held her in.
	+ Aerendyl reveals that the party are bound by their deal with the River King to hunt the coven of ice and snow. Anemone is shocked to hear the River King's name, apparently knowing of him.
	+ They hash out the details, with Anemone agreeing to help the group with information and her advice on the condition that they don't harm her and that when this is over and the other witches are dealt with, she can freely enter the River King's domain and become a fey of rank in his fledgling court.
	+ Since Aerendyl needs to confirm this deal with the River King, the group leave the hut. Anemone tells them that 'so long as you harm no nymph here, you are welcome on the island.'
	+ That night, under the light of a phasing moon, with the group watching on around him, Aerendyl is contacted by the River King. He accepts Anemone's terms, on the condition that she'll be willing to lend her strength to Aerendyl thereafter, when called upon as a member of the River King's court.
* The next morning, Crawlfrost 31, the party return to Anemone's hut. They tell her what the River King demands and she agrees. Thus the deal is struck, and the party find themselves allied with a witch in their hunt to kill the other members of her coven of five.
	+ She explains that the witches all former nymphs, fey creatures with a symbiotic relationship with an aspect of nature. Anemone herself is a former naiad, a nymph of fresh water - streams, rivers, waterfalls, pools, and lakes. The others are Tiphorea in the Pines, a former dryad (tree nymph) that now lives in the heart of a fast forest out in the tundra; Phigalia, the Mother of Trolls, a former oread (mountain or rock nymph) who lives in the middle of a mountain range; Nephele of Clouds, the original cloud nymph, for whom the rare cloud nymphs as a whole are now named; and Orphne, the First of the Lampades, the naiads that bond with the River Styx in the Lower Planes.
	+ The coven is split into two factions: Tiphorea in the middle of her vast forest, with Orphne allied with her and living in a cave system, the mouth of which is found in the forest; and Phigalia in her mountains, with Nephele living at their peak.
	+ The coven connection the five witches share manifests itself at all times. The other four exist in the back of Anemone's mind, like little bundles of emotion. She knows precisely what direction they are in, understands their emotional state, and has a good idea of the current distance between herself and them. The understanding of their emotional state and how far apart they are become more precise the closer they are to her.
	+ As she's details the capabilities of the witches, Anemone tells the group that the real strength of the coven comes from their centres of power. Fighting them in their homes, amidst their minions, will be difficult. To that end, she suggests doing it as little as necessary. She thinks the party should choose one of the factions, forest or mountain, and go there to fight the two witches separately, one then the other - bearing in mind that the second witch will know once the first has been killed. Once the first faction is dealt with, the party should return to Anemone's island with haste. The other faction will be in shock, and they'll need to come to Anemone to form their coven link to go about their next steps. During this time, the party could still catch them off-guard and away from their lairs, but it will mean they have to fight them linked in a coven trio -- and the witches will undoubtedly compel Anemone to fight for them as well.
* The crew of *the Drunken Dragon* settled into life on Anemone's island, readying themselves for the fighting to come.