Witchlight Part 7: Bavlorna's Bane

The party had just taken the boat to Bavlorna’s hut in the middle of the lake, with the intent of killing her dead. Between sessions, the group had found a replacement for Johan’s player.

Date: June 20, 2026

Characters present

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

Character level: 3

The Death Knight, or: Lord of the Edge

The party parked the raft and took the stairs up to a hatch in the floor. They opened it and entered. The inside of Bavlorna’s hut reeked of rotting wood and stale water.

“This place stinks,” said Vex. “I’m glad I don’t rely on my sense of smell to navigate. It would be awfully difficult in such an overwhelming stench.” He looked at Lionidas, who was just standing there. The room had a gross, stale pool in the middle, the same one Philomena had seen in her vision by the waterfall. But they had no time to inspect it—suddenly they heard a heavy stomping coming from behind a door barred with a broom. They all silently readied themselves. Philomena and Shadow hung back, ready to cast spells at whatever waited behind the door. Lionidas stood closer, having walked straight toward the noise and through the pool, luckily stepping on a giant lily pad. He was ready to pounce the moment Vex opened the door. Vex took the broom off and prepared a dramatic entrance, but Lionidas was a bit too eager and jumped straight into the door as Vex opened it, sending it swinging open with a loud thud, and Lionidas to the floor.

The room wasn’t much larger than a closet, and inside stood a person clad in a black suit of armor, holding a greatsword.

“I see you’ve prepared yourself for battle, Bavlorna,” said Vex.

“Uhm, what?” responded the armored person.

Lionidas tried to smell them, but could only detect metal and the room’s general stench. “I smell a witch’s cauldron,” he said.

Philomena and Shadow, upon noticing that the planned surprise attack and been all surprise and no attack, came closer.

Shadow pointed at a symbol resembling a set of scales held up by a skeletal arm on the mysterious person’s armor and said “I recognize that, it’s the symbol of Kelemvor. A god of death, but a good one. Much nicer than his predecessors.”

“That’s right,” said the armored person, their voice muffled by their iron helm, “I am The Death Knight. I’m here to hunt fey.”

“Your name is The Death Knight? Is your first name ‘The’?” asked Vex.

“Uhm… yeah.”

“Or do you have a real, normal name too?”

“…no?” said the knight, in the least convincing way possible.

“Alright, one more time,” said Lionidas. “What’s your name?”

“Fine, it’s Eiri,” said Eiri, The Death Knight.

The party forgot to introduce themselves until the next scene.

Vex continued, “Did you say you were hunting fey? Like… all of them?”

“No, no,” answered Eiri. “Just a few. A hag, at the moment.”

“Bavlorna,” said Vex.

Eiri proceeded to elaborate on how she got there. She’d been at the Witchlight Carnival where she met Kettlesteam. The two of them overheard Mr. Witch and Mr. Light’s conversation about the Hourglass Coven. Then Eiri had walked into the hall of illusions, and discovered a bullywug in one of the mirrors. It lured her in, bringing her straight to Downfall’s Soggy Court. Why she was actually hunting the hag, she kept to herself.

“How come you were stuck in a closet that was only barred by a broom?” asked Vex.

“Oh, so that’s why the door wouldn’t open,” said Eiri.

The group discussed among themselves what to do next. This Eiri—The Death Knight—didn’t sound like the most trustworthy fellow. But everyone they’d met had warned them of the danger of facing Bavlorna head on, and they could really use the help. They agreed to join forces with Eiri for now, and if she proved that she meant business, maybe she could tag along to take down the other hags as well.

Vex blew his fey whistle. Philomena and Eiri reacted with pain.

“Aha! You’re fey yourself!” said Vex.

“If Bavlorna didn’t know we were here before,” said Lionidas, “she sure does now.”

Vex realized what he had done. “Let’s rush her before the element of surprise is gone!” He hurried back out and through another door in the pool room. The others followed.

Murder Her to Death Until She Dies

On the other side of the door was a staircase. There was no floor beneath it, and they could see the lake far below between the planks. A buzzing sound came from the top of the stairs. Vex poked the steps with the broom, breaking two of them. Then he hurried up the stairs to find a door blocked by a nest of wasps.

“Guys, there’s wasps up here,” he said.

Eiri walked up the stairs; “I’ll handle it.”

The others hid in the pool room while Eiri fought the entire nest of wasps. They couldn’t sting her because of the armor, and eventually scattered, though Eiri managed to slice some of them in half. Once it was safe to come out, the rest of the group followed up the stairs and into a kitchen. The very same kitchen Vex had seen in the waterfall vision, and that very same woman in iron boots was there. But she wasn’t chopping sausages this time. She was making an awful racket trying to catch two vultures.

“Well, don’t just stand there!” she said as they entered. “Help me catch these vultures! They flew in through the window and are taking all the food!”

The group looked at each other and shrugged. Vex caught one vulture, and Lionidas caught the other.

“Ah, thanks for the help!” said the woman. “I’m Bloodtoe. Who are you?”

It was at this point that Vex realized none of them had introduced themselves to Eiri. Now they all did so, and to Bloodtoe as well. They explained that they were there to return Bavlorna’s book, which was partially true.

“I don’t think Bavlorna deserves getting anything returned to her. She’s a real hag,” said Bloodtoe.

“Oh, good,” said Vex. “Because we’re actually here to murder her to death until she dies.”

Bloodtoe’s face lit up. “That’s great!” she said. She explained that she’d made a pact with Bavlorna that made her unable to hurt her, but otherwise she’d have been happy to help. She also shared Bavlorna’s weakness with them, though they already knew, and told them that the hag herself was just in the other room. The party thanked her and opened the door supposedly leading to Bavlorna.

They saw a living room with two armchairs and a coffee table. A gray woman sat on one armchair drinking tea, but the group paid her no mind. They were all focused on the hideous creature hunched over in the other chair. While more human looking than the bullywugs, the creature still resembled a toad. It had an oafish, flat face with bulging eyes and a wide mouth, stretching all the way across the head, full of tiny razor-sharp teeth. Its clothes seemed to be made of some kind of fungus, and it had gray, crinkled, and dry skin. It was Bavlorna Blightstraw. She had two tiny copies of herself at her feet. She spoke with a nasal, croaking voice:

“Yeeees? What misery brings you here?”

“Oh, uhm, hi,” said Vex. He hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to talk to a hag. “We’re on a… miserable quest to return this book to you. We think it was stolen.” He handed the book to Bavlorna.

Quietly, Eiri spoke to Vex: “you just gave away your only bargaining chip.”

Bavlorna seemed to have overheard, and said “Indeed, there’s a clever one.”

“We’re not here to bargain,” said Vex. “We just wanted to return your book. We found it in a shop so we assumed it was stolen. I hope whoever stole it took good care of it, and that it’s not vandalized or something. Would be a real shame if someone had added anything strange to it.”

Bavlorna opened her book and looked through it. The last entry on her book’s shit list was thus:

Vex, Shadow, Lionidas, Philomena, and Johan; for killing Bavlorna."

Vex smiled an annoyingly smug smile at Bavlorna and stood confidently with his arms crossed. Bavlorna’s awful face warped into an even more awful scowl.

“What’s the meaning of this?! You think you can come into my house and threaten me?!”

“Yes,” answered Vex. Then he drew his wand. At once, all hell broke loose.

Bavlorna’s guest ran out of the room. Lionidas dashed at Bavlorna, making counterclockwise pirouettes along the way, and relentlessly clawed at her, but missed. He roared a most terrifying lion roar, but she was unfazed. Shadow cast a spell, but she made her saving throw.

Vex tried to cast another, but found himself teleported into an empty void. He’d paid for his monocle at Wondrous Wares with a moment of his time, and this was the moment. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Those darkling shopkeeps were in league with the hag, no doubt. After a few seconds, he returned, but his unexpected disappearing act had thrown off his spellcasting.

Philomena was afraid to hurt Bavlorna, but eventually cast a spell after Vex threatened to throw her out the window if she didn’t help. After all, this was a dangerous fight that they had planned for quite some time. It didn’t matter, because Bavlorna and her lornlings brushed off the Color Spray like it was nothing.

Bavlorna cast a pale, sickly ray of magic at Shadow, and it was almost enough to bring him down. But Lionidas’ pirouettes seemed to have made an actual difference:

“No!” Bavlorna croaked miserably. It was pitiful, but the party wasn’t fooled. “Stop spinning the wrong way! You’re spinning my head around!” She sneezed repeatedly. Clearly, she was allergic to people running widdershins. Then her voice shifted to a raspy growl: “You think you’re so clever! But a weakness doesn’t mean you’ve won. You still don’t stand a chance!” She bit Lionidas in the arm and latched onto it.

Eiri slashed Bavlorna with her sword—the only one so far to do any real damage to her. Vex spun around where he stood, and with each rotation cast a spell at Bavlorna. He cast until he ran out, but the hag just shrugged them off. Bavlorna turned to him.

“You! You Zybilna-loving bastard! I’ll get you!” and she fired off two rays of cursed magic at him, both hitting. It was enough to knock him unconscious. As he fell, the magic of the feywild affected him. It was the same magic that had reduced the leader of the band of rabbit brigands to a pile of bones, but it had a different effect on Vex: he stood right back up again, with a single hit point to his name.

“I have the power of Zybilna on my side!” he shouted.

Bavlorna gasped and began to run away. Philomena raised her staff to strike her as she passed, but Bavlorna pleaded with her:

“No, please! Spare me, or you’ll never get your behind back! Let’s make a deal!”

“Your deals all suck!” shouted Vex. “Remember, Philomena, what her deal did to Jingle Jangle.”

Bavlorna was crawling away, holding up her hand to defend herself from Philomena who wasn’t convinced by her arguments.

“I can also bring back that which you didn’t know could return to you,” said Bavlorna. Philomena’s eyes went wide. “I’ll return the life of one meek little creature. In exchange, you can never mention Zybilna again, and never help anyone free her as long as your heart beats.”

Philomena would later reveal that she used to have a pet rabbit named Wish when she was little. It had escaped and run away once, and Zybilna had brought it back to her. Wish had lived an extraordinarily long life for a rabbit, but one day, Wish simply vanished¹, for good this time. Now, Bavlorna was offering to bring it back. Philomena lowered her staff. The others shouted at her not to trust the hag. She thought for a moment, and made up her mind. Due to a very high insight roll, she decided not to trust Bavlorna, and swung her staff at her.

She missed.

Bavlorna got up and ran through the kitchen door, cackling all the while. Lionidas ran after her and clawed her, finally hitting. Vex teleported in front of her. He plucked a spectral card out of thin air.

“Is this your card?” he asked, and he threw it. The card lodged itself deep in her forehead, and she fell to the ground, dead. It was the ace of spades².

Heading Number Three

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d actually pull it off, well done!” said Bloodtoe.

Once the group had caught their breaths, they looked through the rest of the house. They found a room full of taxidermied animals. Philomena appeared shaken, and looked frantically around the room.

“You think she’s stuffed your behind?” asked Vex.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” said Philomena. Then she saw what she had been looking for—on a small table in the corner of the room was a taxidermied rabbit. It stood on a wooden board with a plaque on it that said “Wish”. Philomena picked it up and burst into tears. The rest of the group tried offering words of support, but they were all terrible at it and they didn’t help at all.

Once Philomena had calmed down and felt a little better—no thanks to the party—the group went up to the top floor of the cabin. There was a large locked chest, which caught Shadow’s attention immediately. But as he approached it, a ball of light illuminating the room appeared, much like the floating souls they’d met by the well. It asked where Bavlorna was, and Vex said they’d killed her. He thought the ball of light would be happy to hear it (the others certainly would’ve been), but instead it got angry and attacked.

Lionidas and Eiri slashed at it, but it didn’t seem to do much. Shadow’s spells were also ineffective. Vex, on the verge of unconsciousness, found a door and teleported through the keyhole. On the other side was a shadowy shape rummaging through all the loot in the room.

“I come in peace,” said Vex.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” said the creature.

“Deal.”

On the other side, Philomena became the hero of the battle, destroying the ball of light with a Thunderwave, which hit Lionidas as well, though he was mostly fine. There were also some incredibly dry plants that seemed to move, pointing towards a watering can in the room. Shadow used it to water the plants, and they thanked him by giving him the key to the chest. Inside was a strange marionette puppet and a ticket to the Witchlight Carnival signed “Isolde”.

On the other side of the door, Vex had realized that the battle was over, and unlocked the door. As he did, the shadow creature rushed past him, carrying a small roll of sewing thread it had taken from the room, and jumped out the window.