Witchlight Part 11: Another one Bites the Dust

The party’s plan was for Shadow to sneak into Skabatha’s bedroom, taking advantage of her weakness to make Shadow invisible to her. Then they’d hand in Will for a reward and kill the nasty witch.

Date: August 1, 2026

Characters present

• Farvex Dusk: human warlock
• Lionidas: leonin monk
• Shadow Claw: tabaxi cleric
• Philomena Gainsborough: centaur wizard
• Eiri: some kind of fey barbarian

Character level: 5

Mission Possible (Some Would Even Say Probable)

Before the final stretch to Loomlurch, Lionidas and Eiri took one of the kids from the Getaway gang on a little hunt. They shot a baby deer, which Philomena cooked to mediocrity. Vex pointed out that all the restaurants these days used artificial magic flavoring, and that this is what regular food tastes like. Lionidas ate his meat raw. He took the opportunity to clarify¹ that his dad was really a leonin, he’d just been transformed into a lion. His mother wasn’t actually into bestiality. The group was relieved.

The party went to bed early, because they intended to rise the same way at dawn. They slept in Vex’s card house, which he threw at Little Oak to create a Tree House of Cards². The next day, Little Oak helped them create a raft out of a large tree trunk, and down the river they went. Once they spotted the massive log of Loomlurch lying across the river, they hopped off by the bank and hid in the reeds.

Shadow approached the log, as planned. He cast an Invisibility spell on himself and climbed up to a balcony carved into the massive trunk. The door was ajar, and he slipped inside as quietly as he could. The room was much as the kids had described, containing a dusty bed, a dollhouse, and a jar of moths. There were also mechanical birds, and balconies with signs above saying “Hither” and “Yon”, like they’d found at Bavlorna’s. Inspecting the dollhouse, Shadow found a miniature woman sleeping in its bed. Skabatha Nightshade.

Shadow released the moths in the jar so they wouldn’t be the first creatures she saw upon waking, and sat still in the room after dispelling his invisibility, waiting for the hag to wake up. When she finally did, the lid of the doll house swung open on its hinges, and she flew out, growing to her full size.

Skabatha was a gangly old crone, dressed in moth-eaten doll clothes with the cracked makeup to match. She took one look at Shadow, gasped, and then seemed to forget all about him. Her weakness had been real. She wouldn’t be able to see Shadow for the rest of the day. Shadow left the way he came.

“I don’t think he’s gonna make it,” said Lionidas.

“I’ve told you, Shadow is the most reliable member of the party,” said Vex. “He’s gonna do just fine. Look, here he comes now!”

Shadow returned to the group. “Well, I did it,” he said.

“Told you,” said Vex to Lionidas.

The First Time in the History of D&D That Anything Has Gone Remotely According to the Plan

The group met up with Will in the woods near Loomlurch. He said the others were in position, and ready to distract Skabatha’s tin soldiers while they rescued the children. They’d be waiting for the signal, which was Vex blowing his pixie whistle.

“Oh, I know!” said Will to Vex. “You should hit me! That way you’ll look like real child kidnappers.”

“I don’t think—” Vex was interrupted by the sound of Lionidas slapping Will across the face with his claws. This was immediately followed by the sound of Will crying.

Philomena did her best to calm him down.

“Lionidas,” said Vex. “The next time someone asks you to hit a child—even if it’s the child themselves—don’t do it. Okay?”

In Lionidas’ defense, a crying child bleeding from both his nose and cheeks did make for a very convincing kidnapping victim. The group had initially debated making Eiri look less conspicuous to blend in, but decided her look worked pretty well with their new child kidnapper aesthetic. Vex used his brand new Alter Self spell to look slightly more evil, a bit like that snatcher dude in Harry Potter 7.

The gang rolled up to Loomlurch with Will tied up. By the side of the giant trunk’s entrance were some goblins selling candy and a snotty kobold with a giant prize wheel. Before the group checked out the tourist attractions, Vex spoke to a goblin with a caramelized apple for a head, named Chucklefuck Chucklehead, who was the most authoritative looking one. Vex told him that they had found Will, and wished to see Granny Nightshade.

The goblin looked pretty dismayed at this, but went to fetch the hag all the same. Meanwhile, the party went to talk to the kobold.

The kobold was named Snot, appropriately enough³, and the price to spin the wheel was one trinket or one handkerchief. Vex, being a magician, had ninety-two handkerchiefs and gave them all to Snot, who seemed to need them more. Snot was ecstatic. The group spun the wheel a bunch of times and got a load of random trinkets with minor positive and negative effects. One of them was a pair of interlinked wooden rings that functioned as an air freshener.

Next, they went to buy candy from the goblins. All the candy was shaped like bugs and animals. Vex ate a snake candy, and it turned him into a butterfly. Luckily, it didn’t last long. Lionidas ate another candy and grew twice as large for a minute. Then Chucklehead returned, and the group followed him into the foyer of the log.

Inside the lofty log was a round table and four chairs. The group (minus Philomena, who did not have the anatomy for chairs) sat down and waited. Before long, the nasty doll-like Skabatha Nightshade stepped through a door in the log wall and greeted them. She had her goblin people take Will away and thanked them for their help. Then she offered them tea.

Nobody in the party wanted tea. Vex said they were strictly there for business and had a packed schedule with lots of kids to kidnap.

“As for our reward, we’d like to have a curse placed on someone,” said Vex.

“Is that so?” answered Skabatha. “It’s a bit surprising, you see. Before you brought the real Will, many have tried to trick me into giving out rewards. They’d bring a child that looks like him and ask for an item from my workshop, or to bring back someone from the dead. But the curse isn’t a popular option. Are you sure you wouldn’t like something else? I can—”

“We’ve made up our minds,” said Vex. “And our target is someone you’re doubtless familiar with, and someone I don’t think you like: Endelyn Moongrave, your sister. She has wronged us, and we’d like to curse her.”

The group had debated what reward to choose while planning their approach. They’d initially thought of bringing back Philomena’s rabbit from the dead, but she figured the hag would turn it into a zombie or something. Philomena didn’t want a zombie rabbit. Next, they’d thought of cursing Skabatha herself, but that might tip her off about their intention to kill her. Finally, they’d settled on cursing her sister, figuring she’d be a more dangerous foe. Skabatha would probably be fine with it, since the sisters were known to hate one another.

But Skabatha’s eyes went wide. “My… wha—well, we don’t get along, but she’s still my sister.” Her voice grew angrier. “Who told you about me and my sisters?”

“Word gets around fast in the Feywild,” said Vex.

Skabatha snapped her fingers. “Well, it’s done. Not that I’m pleased about it. Is that it?”

“Good. Now we can get down to business,” said Vex. As he rose from his chair, so did the others. “I have good news and bad news,” he continued. “Though, being a hag, perhaps you prefer bad news? Either way, the bad news is that your sister, Bavlorna Blightstraw, is dead.”

Skabatha got confusion added to her already hefty dose of irritation, and looked stunned. “That can’t be, how do you know?”

“Well, she looked pretty dead when we last saw her,” said Vex. “Anyway, the good news is that you’re next.” He pulled out his wand and aimed it at her. “Zybilna sends her regards.”

Shadow, whose presence didn’t even register with Skabatha, fired a bolt of light at her. She had no idea what had just hit her.

Her voice turned into a creaky yell. “You think you can come in here and threaten me?!”

“Worked pretty well against your sister,” said Vex.

Suddenly the chairs came alive, transforming into monstrous, toothy blobs. As Philomena cast forth a wave of water at Skabatha, one of the chairs grabbed onto her leg with its teeth and refused to let go. Meanwhile, Eiri went into a rage and ran up to Skabatha, striking at her with his sword. She hit him back with a grimy claw, and he found himself enchanted. He could no longer tell friend from foe, and suddenly felt like attacking Shadow instead.

Vex teleported away from the chair that was attacking him and appeared on top of the table which, fortunately, was still inanimate. He blew his pixie whistle, summoning the three pixies he’d met earlier to fight, and signaling to the kids outside that it was showtime.

Shadow slung spells at the hag while dodging Eiri’s furious slashes. Lionidas stunned Skabatha with a well-placed arrow. Vex threw cards, and Philomena got off a fireball despite her chair problems. As quickly as it had begun, the battle ended, with Shadow ringing the bells of death in Skabatha’s mind, and she fell to the ground and turned to dust. The pixies mopped up the chairs as Shadow ran over to Philomena who had fallen unconscious in the battle. Thus ended Skabatha Nightshade, the second of the Hourglass Coven hags.