The Mayor Had A Staff Meeting

Round Prints in the Snow

Past the griffon bridge, in a copse of half-frozen trees, the party made camp. Lucia wanted to press on to Donalensk to check the town and warn it. Torvald and Kaelor agreed that what they needed first was rest. Lucia and Torvald took first watch, and Kaelor was snoring within seconds.

From a treetop, Lucia saw a dim flicker of light to the southeast. She also saw round depressions, three or four feet wide, drifting off across the snow, and a dull blue glow to the northeast that vanished when she looked away. She climbed down and asked Torvald whether any beast had feet like that, and he could not say. She patted his shoulder, and he sank a few inches deeper into the drift. When he knocked on the tree with his flail handle to ask about investigating the tracks, she came down glaring. They agreed to leave the tracks until morning rather than leave the sleepers alone. She pushed him back into the snow instead of taking his boost and climbed up alone.

Eyes in the Treetops

Kaelor and Vaelan took the second watch. Kaelor saw, atop a distant tree, a broad-shouldered figure in a horned helm, its large eyes fixed on his. When he turned to Vaelan and looked back, it was gone. He said it was not the first time: he had seen it in visions, and when they killed the last hag. Vaelan saw nothing.

A Question Written in Snow

At dawn Vaelan laid out his idea. The mote from the Wand of Finding would simply wander off, so they should write the question and its answers in the snow and ask the wand to find the answer there. Lucia feared a wrong word would ruin the wand she needed. Torvald and Kaelor sided with Vaelan, and she gave way, handing it over with a muttered "I will personally hunt you down." She climbed a tree to watch where the mote went.

Vaelan wrote "is one of the hags in Donalensk" and, opposite each other, "yes" and "no". He held up the wand and asked it to find the right answer. The mote dropped into the snow and lit the word 'yes'. Lucia warned that the hag might have seen the light and know they were coming. Torvald said a firm lead beat guesswork, and they marched. Vaelan kept the wand, and Lucia admitted, grudgingly, that it was okay.

Death of Cold

They reached Donalensk in the late afternoon. A man stepped from the tall watchtower with a halberd and called, "Who goes there?" Then he told them to come in out of "this death of cold." He gave his name as Matanov, the watch commander.

Kaelor told him flatly, "Snowglen is no more," and set the vial of green goo on the bench. Matenov doubted them and feared panic in his village, but agreed to take them to the Kaput Cabbage to see whether the kegs had come there. His only oddity was a delivery a day early.

Smashed at the Cabbage

Matenov asked Zdanov, the barmaid, to open the keg room. Vaelan and Lucia went in while Kaelor and Torvald stayed in the bar.

Kaelor pressed silver on Ushakov, an old patron, who mocked him. Kaelor grabbed him and slammed his head into the table, then healed him awake. Torvald told Matenov the old man had slipped.

In the storeroom, Vaelan found the green symbol burned into the backs of two kegs, and none on the tapped ones. Kaelor carried both out into the street and smashed them. The delivery manifest and word of starage silos for grain to the southeast came from Zdanov.

Vagin, a saddler, glanced toward a hooded figure in the corner, after being interrogated by Kaelor. Kaelor cast Detect Evil and sensed fey from Lucia, and fey with a wisp of undeath from the hood. The stranger called himself Artem and offered 5,000 gold to collect a target called 'The Thorn'. Kaelor declined, as Vaelan asked the wand to show the way to the hag. Artem said he hoped they found her.

The Mote at Town Hall

Vaelan fetched the wand from storage and asked again. The mote flew out and through the town hall door. Torvald cast Aid on himself, Vaelan and Kaelor. Matenov barred the way, and Vaelan threatened him with glowing arms: stand aside "or we will go full extermination." The mote passed through Matenov's chest. They dragged him in after it, Torvald urging, "Trust me."

Wihnhilda Frost

Past a portrait of Mayor Nikitovich, they entered a council session. A woman named Cecilia was complaining about grain and a neighbour's music. The mote passed through her and struck Mayor Nikitovich in the chest, and the mayor glowed. Kaelor shouted for everyone to leave.

The mayor's hand withered into claws. They dug into their own face and tore the skin away, revealing the hag Wihnhilda Frost with a staff. She slammed it down. The locals screamed and fused into a bellowing mound of flesh, and the notaries twisted into brutes. She crooked a clawed finger at the party: "Get them, my pretty creations, and make sure it fucking hurts."