Sunday, November 06, 2022

Dream of a Witch House

• We stayed in the freehold overnight to rest and recuperate, sleeping in a bit
  • We wake to not-sunlight; a multicolored light that shines through all the windows, regardless of direction
  • Beyond the windows there is not the city of Atlanta, but the Dreaming landscape of Atlanta
    • Willow's Heart is a tall tower, ornate like it was spun from sugar
  • I open the front door and see Griff, who is about to head off hunting, but he tells me it can be dangerous around here, there are no safe paths
• We have made plans to check out the witchy looking cottage through one of the doors, and we stick to it
  • The doors are large and carved of marble
• We go through the doors and it seems to be late afternoon (4:00pm), getting close to sunset
  • According to our phones, we're in Bad Säckingen, Germany
  • We exit the doors into a massive, old world kitchen that some of the gang reckon is Germanic in style, and is old enough that it wouldn’t still be intact without the intervention of magic
  • There are boxes and containers that are modern (labels in German) and the quantity would indicate there are multiple people living here
  • There are multiple ovens
    • One has a roast of some sort going
    • Another that is not in use has a sort of shrine setup on it, and it contains the bones of a facedown human figure
      • Agnes is pretty sure the bones are of a boggan and have been here for a couple hundred years
      • The shrine looks like a memorial to the dead boggan
    • Before the doors shut, the energy of the Dreaming permeates the room some, making the walls nearest the door look like gingerbread and smell of it
    • Aoife informs us it's a dormant freehold
• While investigating, a young, attractive red headed woman (late teens/early twenties) comes in carrying groceries
  • When trying to cast flicker flies to calm her down, she freaks out and casts a blast of hellfire at me
  • So we fight!
  • There are several women, some of whom cast magic, and are probably all magically made young, healthy, and strong
  • A woman who we presume to be named Morgana, based on the name one of them called out, comes busting out of the cellar
    • She appears middle aged, so is probably quite old, and scatters an armload of bones out and raises three little girl zombies
    • They zombies, when animated, are clad in spun sugar instead of flesh, much to her surprise
    • Morgana was definitely a true mage (Verbena Barabi)
  • We defeat them!
• Agnes and I go to inspect the oven altar, and in disturbing the ashes find a necklace made of white gold and amber (almost list frosted gingerbread)
  • It turns out that it's the necklace Moira saw in our vision
  • Agnes takes the bones of the boggan
• We search the bedroom and find books of shadows under each bed, which we take
• We go into the cellar, which is a roughhewn cave that the house has been built atop
  • There is an altar just covered in child bones
  • There are two tunnels
    • We go down the left one and start feeling nauseated, as the space seems to distort, the walls are made of flesh, and it's just a bad time
      • This is something we should definitely come back and cleanse
    • We go down the right one, which has inexpertly had chain link fencing installed to keep a singular 10 year old boy pinned in who they've clearly been fattening up
      • Under the key ring for the lock on the gate is an old, ornate key (which should go to the door
    • The boy's name is Lucas Bueller, who was lured away from a group home in Zurich
• Agnes and Aoife take the kid to the nearby town and drops him outside of a police station
• I deal with the last two unconscious witch cannibals (by drowning the reflecting pool) and then I pull all the bodies back into the house
• Moira and I rig up the place to burn up and set it to blow as we go through the door back to the courtyard
  • I rig up a bunch of pyro and Moira uses Pyretics and the inferno cleanses the freehold and burns away the Cauls (the flesh tunnel)
• We make it back to the house and take some much deserved rest after a very exhausting 2 hours, as it's just noon
• Moira investigates her necklace, and it seems to protect her against the elements amongst other thing
  • The Gingerbread Ember: This necklace of white gold and amber almost seems to be made of frosted gingerbread. The largest gem of the necklace flickers with a flame trapped within.
    • Power: The wearer of this necklace is immune to natural cold, heat, and most flames, and automatically soaks an additional four damage from any supernatural frost or fire. A bubble of comfortably-warm air surrounds them out to their arms’ reach, even in the most intense heat or cold environments. At command, smaller embers fall behind them every few steps, glowing for up to a day to lead them back along their path.