[centre][h2]Allies in the Dark - The Gray Hag[/h2][/centre]
[hr] 
[sub][i]Year 30AA, late winter, Ha-Dûna...[/i][/sub]

“A-are you sure this is a good idea, Burud? Y-you know what they say about her, a-after all! Oh, there’s gotta be another way!”

“Shut up, Murtagh! The Dûnans are paying for what they’ve done to us - to this whole country. You know as well as I do that this is the [i]only[/i] way.”

“B-but is it, though?” The two were, in truth, beyond lost deep inside a forest to the far east of Scawick, almost beyond the Tordentind Mountains. They had been travelling for a full two weeks to get here - three days ago, they had reached the border of the woods. At this point, they were certain some sort of terrible charm had been cast upon them to throw them off their trail. They were, after all, chasing a legend - a local myth said to be dwelling in the deepest, darkest middle of these ancient woods.

A witch. 

Burud kicked away a snow-covered, rotting stock and stepped over a frozen root. Murtagh had never seen a man so determined - fueled by a need for vengeance, he was an unstoppable machine, trekking through these endless woods for days on end, when all energy should have been spent weeks ago. Murtagh could hardly keep up. Then, as Murtagh had to keel over to take a breather, he noticed one of the roots on the ground looking slightly more twisted than usual.

“Hey, Burud? This root’s a little weirder than usual.”

There came a wet spit from up ahead. “They’re all weird here - these are cursed woods, after all. Nothing’s normal here.”

Murtagh squinted at the root. “No, no, you don’t get it… It’s… It’s pointing somewhere.” He knelt down to inspect the root’s direction. Burud sighed up ahead.

“Alright, I’ll play your game… What’s it pointing at? The trunk?” Burud stepped over and shot the root a lopsided view; at that moment, he also noticed that it seemed to, quite literally, gesture in a certain direction. “Well, I’ll be damned…” The root pointed off the beaten path, in a direction that not even the local fauna had seemed to step in - there weren’t even signs of critters having ever made a path through the snow in that direction. “... Could this be it?”

“What were the directions?”

“‘Go into the woods and keep walking until the forest itself shows you the--... It was pretty obvious now that I think about it, actually,” Burud confessed. Murtagh scrunched his nose. 

“Well… After you, chief.” With that, the pair placed the first pair of feet in the snow which had laid untouched all season. Almost immediately, the woods shifted, as though the scenic view they had been shown for three whole days had been just that - a view. The old trees grew eldritch and overgrown, and the bark grew wicked faces which seemed to glare or grin at them as they went by. The sounds of birdsong and wind in the branches had disappeared completely - the silence was deafening. 

Murtagh jumped suddenly, scaring Burud into drawing his axe. “By the gods, Murtagh, what’s wrong with you?!”

“D-d-d-d-did you hear that?!”

Burud held his breath and looked around. Murtagh’s eyes darted in every direction. “Did I hear what, exactly?”

“Th-th-there was a laugh - a laugh on the wind. S-s-s-sounded like a ghost!”

Burud groaned. “Kid, there’s no such thing as ghosts! It’s your own mind playing tricks on you, I bet.”

Murtagh then jumped again, Burud grabbing his shoulders controllingly. “Murtagh. calm down!”

“THERE IT WAS AGAIN! Oh, Burud, I can’t do this. I can’t, I, I--” [i]SMACK![/i] The younger man shut up as Burud’s palm clapped him hard across the face, then he stiffened with obedience and fear as his superior grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face in close. 

“Man yourself up, you squirt! We’ve come too far to piss off now! Listen to me - there is [i]nothing[/i] out there. Now… Let’s--”

“B-b-b-but I hear it, Burud! As clearly as I’m hearing you, and, and, and-- OW! Stop hitting me!” 

“Then stop fffffreaking me out, you shit!” Burud spat back. “Calm yourself down -right- now, or I’m gagging you with your own balls - do you understand?”

“B-but--”

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

Murtagh nodded carefully and Burud let go of his collar. The two shared a mutual stare for a few seconds before a sudden scent caught them both by surprise. It was smoke - smoke with a faint hint of herbs and meaty flavours. The two widened their eyes and one another and quickly set off into a sprint. The scent grew stronger and stronger as they ran, their nostrils filling with the scents of applewood cinders and venison stew. Jumping over one final stock and rounding a corner of thickly growing trees, they saw it - a hut, centered in a clearing that somehow was darker than the woods around them. Inside flickered a flame in the hearth, and the two quickly realised how dearly they longed for proper shelter. They scurried over to the wooden door and, after some back and forth about who got to knock, Burud gave the planks a gentle bang.

“Coming,” came a frail voice and Burud and Murtagh frowned at one another.

“She sounds ancient,” whispered Murtagh.

“Well, according to the stories, she’s been around for centuries - way before we came.”

“Three hundred and forty-eight years, just about - give or take a decade.” The wooden door slid open, revealing a face so twisted by age that neither Murtagh nor Burud could be certain of whether she was wrinkly or bark-skinned. Her eyes had long since passed the definition of what could be considered hollow - unless one squinted hard, it was hard to tell whether she had eyes at all. Her nose stabbed at the air like the beak of a long-dead crow, with warts popping up all over it like the forest floor in the mushroom season. What little hair she had left hung in strands that could better be described as webs, looking as though they had been holding onto her skull for many lifetimes. The smile she offered them didn’t have a single tooth, and the gums looked to be rotting away in her mouth. It would be accurate to describe her frail frame as more bone than both skin and flesh, and her dress was a collection of moth-eaten rags haphazardly wrapped together with stinking animal furs. The witch studied their expressions with quiet amusement before posing with surprising energy for her appearance. “I know - aren’t I just the pinnacle of beauty?”

“How in the gods’ names are you so--” Murtagh swallowed the rest of the sentence as Burud punched him in the throat. 

“So ugly?” asked the witch with a shrug. Murtagh nodded through his gasps for air. Burud groaned from the depths of his lungs. The witch snickered. “No, no, no, I love it when people ask - they’re always so afraid that it’ll be, y’know, ‘offensive’ or something, but it’s actually a fun story! Come in, come in! I’ll tell ya.” She herded them inside and went over to the kitchen table, where a fresh wooden tray of oatcakes sat steaming. She gestured for the two to sit down on each their small tree trunk stool next to a small saloon table. She stepped over with uncanny agility and put down the tray, taking a biscuit for herself and sitting down on a stool opposite of the visitors. Burud looked at the tray with skepticism, but helped himself to a biscuit as well as the witch’s gestures grew too intense to ignore.

“You knew we were coming?”

The witch scoffed. “Of course, I knew. I’ve known you two were coming for the last three days. Truth be told, i thought you two would give up.”

Burud swallowed his cookie bite and frowned over at Murtagh, who had also helped himself to a biscuit. “We would have arrived sooner. You’re not an easy woman to find.”

“Pffft, come now - I think the trees were actually quite helpful in showing you where to go. Not their fault you two can’t take a hint.” She then burst into a cackle that neither Burud nor Murtagh felt they could participate in, not even politely so. The witch then immediately stopped laughing, her eye twitching slowly. She sat in silence for two seconds exactly, not enough to be awkward, but just enough to be uncomfortable. Then, as soon as she had frozen, she thawed, her toothless smile returning. “So, anyway, I had this rival, right?”

Burud put down his biscuit. “Look, lady, we don’t have all--”

“Shushushush, let me tell my story, alright? Basic courtesy, son.” 

Burud groaned. “In all honestly, lady, we’re not here to--”

“And zip!” As the witch waved her hand, Burud suddenly began to scream in agony. Murtagh dropped his biscuit and looked on, white as a sheet, as Burud’s teeth became like plaster, twisting out of his mouth and digging themselves into the meat of his lips like thread on needles, sewing them shut as blood gushed into his mouth and down his throat. The man fell down on the floor and clawed at his mouth for the pain to stop, only worsening the damage as nails and fingers tore at flesh and skin that was never meant to be exposed to this sort of treatment. Murtagh’s breathing was as quick as his heartbeat, and the witch let out a soft “prrt” through her lips.

“Alright, while the whiddle bebby cries himself to sleep on the floor, do you wanna hear my story, my boy?”

Unable to do anything else, Murtagh nodded slowly. The witch clapped happily and grinned from halved ear to whole ear. “Great! That actually means a lot to me - I don’t get visitors very often, so it’s nice to talk to somebody, y’know. So anyway, I had this rival, right? Used to call her the Wicked Witch of the East, or between you and me - the Wicked Bitch with the Broad Side - heyooo!” She paused for applause that never came. “Anyway, we had a fight, because she was a bitch and I hate her, and we did some mean shit to one another - I mean really mean shit. Come on. Come on, ask me what kind of mean shit.”

“Wh-wh-wh-what kind of m-m-m-mean shit?” stuttered Murtagh as he constantly shifted over to the still-screaming Burud on the floor. 

“Ho, boy! Strap in, ‘cuz that was a reeeeaal bad year everyone involved. Think we levelled, like, six villages and burnt down a whole forest or something. Oh, and she made me like this. Can you believe it? Around two hundred years ago, I was the most beautiful girl in all the land - now I look like something some deviant dug out of a grave to have a last little round with on a lonely night.” She shrugged. “Pretty crazy, right?”

Murtagh swallowed. “Wh-wh-what happened t-t-t-to the other witch?”

“The bitch, y’mean? Oh, I killed her.”

“K-killed her?”

“Killed her dead.”

“Killed her dead?”

“Dead, deadiddy, dead-dead. Made her tongue twist backwards, run down her throat and lick her lungs to shreds from the inside. That felt so good.” She offered the crying Burud a glance. “Okay, I’ve told my story - let’s hear yours.” She snapped her fingers, and in the flash of a second, Burud’s mouth went back to normal, his wounds healing as though they had never existed. Immediately, the warrior pulled out his axe and scrambled to his feet.

“What in the demons’ names are y--”

“And back you go!” sighed the witch with a roll of the eyes and waved her hand. Once again, the hut filled with Burud’s screams as his face pruned like drying meat, his eyes shrinking into mere raisins and his tongue turning into a stiff stick of jerky. After a while, one could only hear him wheeze.

“NO! You’ll kill him!” pleaded Murtagh as his mind finally snapped and he scurried down off his stool to help his comrade. An invisible force stopped him, however, and he was forced back onto his stool, trapped there by an unseeable chain. The witch shook her head slowly.

“Relaaaax, I’ve got him. This is my field of expertise - I make dying take time. If I wanted I could make him live like this for, oh, I dunno, years. He’d need help to eat and drink, of course, but you could give him anything as, y’know, he wouldn’t be able to taste much with a tongue like that.” She shrugged. “Or, y’know, you’d need to done none of that, and I’d just let him thirst and starve until I felt like he’d suffered enough - he wouldn’t die unless I said so, of course; he’d just thirst, and thirst, and thirst and starve, and starve and starve, until he could no longer remember what it’d be like to have a full belly or a wet throat.” She stood up from her stood, stepped over to Burud’s wheezing, dried up corpse of a body and squatted down. “Now, when I turn you back, will you be a good boy?”

Utterly defeated, Burud wheezed something that sounded affirming. The witch nodded.

“Good, because if you even think about doing something stupid again, I will have your skin peel off so slowly that you’ll be able to feel every fiber snap loose from the muscle beneath - and I don’t think I’ll remember how to reverse [i]that[/i] spell.” With that, she snapped her fingers, and Burud’s body instantly returned to its normal state, though the man remained on the floor, eyes devoid of hope and fervour. 

“B-Burud?” whimpered Murtagh, unable to look over due to the invisible force. “BURUD?!”

“Ugh, you two are so noisy!” complained the witch as she sat down down on her stool. “Come on, why do you think I served you cookies? Eat more, talk less.” She had another biscuit and offered Murtagh a lopsided frown as she chewed. “So, never asked, why are you actually here?”

Murtagh swallowed. “W-w-w-we need a curse.”

“Pfft, obviously.” She rolled her eyes as though Murtagh had just told her that water is, in fact, wet. “Well, come on, give me the details - who, what, when, where?”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-Dûna.”

“Ha-Dûna where and who?” the witch asked impatiently.

“Ha-Dûna,” said Murtagh again. Upon seeing the witch’s confused squint, he elaborated, “L-l-like, all of it.”

“All of Ha-Dûna?”

“Y-yeah.”

“As in all the lands, the people, cows, pigs, chickens and grain?”

“All of it.”

The witch blinked skeptically to herself before raising both eyebrows and bobbing her head from side to side. “Phew. That’s a tall order, kid.”

“T-tall order?”

“Too tall. Much too tall for old Resla.” She shrugged. “You’d have better luck asking the gods for something like that. At best, I can give you an afternoon of raining frogs, but that’s about it… And even that would be an ordeal.”

“Th-then… A, a Dûnan village?”

“Better, but I gotta clarify for ya that curses, well, they’re stronger the fewer people they affect. So if you really want someone to pay, I’d recommend aiming for a certain family or even just one person. I [i]could[/i] hex a village for you, of course - poison the wells, sterilise the men, give the children lead poisoning - no biggie. But that’s not exciting enough, is it? If you two came to me, then I think you have it out for a certain someone who’s done you a lot of wrong.”

“... Yes… There is one,” came Burud’s exhausted voice. Murtagh realised the force no longer was gripping him and rushed over to help him.

“Burud! Are you alright?”

“Alriiight! One person - now it’s getting hotter.”

“One family - if she goes, so will her family. Her ilk must be wiped off this world for good.”

Resla grinned her toothless grin again. “Oh, I like the sound of that. Give me a name and I’ll figure out the rest.”

Burud sat himself up weakly and looked the witch in the eyes. “Hilda. Hilda the Leoness.”

The witch pursed her lips and quietly tasted the name on her lips. “Hilda, Hilda, Hilda… Sounds familiar - can’t quite put my finger on it, but sounds familiar. Eh, I’m sure I’ll remember when I check up on her. Alright. How would you like her cursed?”

“Make it slow - as slow and as painful as you can.”

“Emotionally or physically painful? Or both, maybe? She sounds evil enough that we can include both, right?”

“Both. Both is good.” 

Resla rubbed her bony hands. “Alright, I think I have some ideas. I’ll need a little something from you two, though, for the curse to become as potent as possible… And I’ll need some payment for the service.”

Burud sat up a little stronger, supported by Murtagh. “What do you need?”

“Well, for the curse itself, I’ll need a good sacrifice. Does this Hilda have a child, by chance?”

Murtagh looked uneasy, his eyes shifting over to Burud. Burud, on the other hand, looked dreadfully determined all of a sudden. “Yes. She has many, actually.”

“Oh, good! That’ll make things so much easier. Tell you what - if you could get your hands on one of them, we’ll just use that. Otherwise, I’ll have to ask you to head into the Prairie to fetch a leon or to bring me the head of a ranglefant or tongue of a drighina, and, well, out of those four options, a child is just so much easier to get, y’know.” She snickered to herself, ignoring the terrible weight of the conversation which seemed to be crushing Murtagh and, to a lesser extent, Burud. 

“And what… What’s the fee?” asked Burud warily. The witch snapped her fingers.

“Oh yeah! Almost forgot - hand to remember stuff when you’re almost three fiddy, y’know.” She held up her hand and pointed at her ring finger. “One from each, please.”

Murtagh’s breathing quickened again. Burud grit his teeth together. “Our… Our fingers?”

“Ring fingers, specifically. A lot of power in exactly that one. Most people think it’s useless, but it’s actually that one finger that holds the most power in the whole hand, seeing as it’s just left to gather strength on its own, almost never being of use to anyone. Being cast out and seen as hopeless by others makes you powerful - self-reliant. Like me!” She giggled to herself before immediately shifting to a colder mask. “So yeah, that’s the price. Hand over your fingers and bring me the child - after that, I can guarantee you that Hilda will never be at peace ever again.”

Murtagh and Burud looked at each other again. Murtagh’s quivering lips told Burud everything he needed to know, and the senior took his companion weakly by the colour and brought his face closer to his. “Remember all the people she’s killed, Murtagh - how she’s spat on our people for decades. Our own flesh is a small price to pay for justice.”

“W-we’re talking about killing a child here, Burud… We’re talking about killing a child and giving up our limbs in the process.”

“One limb, Murtagh! One tiny finger in exchange for the juiciest vengeance we could ever have.”

“A child, Burud--”

“HER child, Murtagh!” The younger man grew quiet. Burud’s eyes have an intimidating darkness in them, one that no moralising speech could pierce no matter the gravity of this heinous act. “Her ilk is no better than herself. They will grow up to become slavers, raiders and rapers, butchering our people and allies throughout the realm for decades to come. Come on…” He placed a hand on his heart. “... Do it for Wenya.”

Murtagh’s eyes opened slowly and began to fill with tears. “Don’t you fucking mention her name to me. Not here. Not now.”

“They killed her, Murtagh. Those two Dûnans killed her and Hilda defended them like they had beaten some dog in the street as part of some sick game. I bet she took part in the murder herself.”

“Shut up…” wept Murtagh. Burud drew him closer.

“... This is our chance, lad. She will fucking pay.” A minute passed where the only sound was Murtagh’s silent sobbing, his tears dripping down onto Burud’s face. Eventually, he hulked a louder sob and bobbed his head up and down. Burud nodded back, taking his axe from his belt. Still weeping, Murtagh pulled off his right glove and put it between his teeth, laying his ring finger down on the tree trunk stool. Burud looked him in the eyes to see if he was ready, and upon receiving a nod, brought down his axe. The finger was lopped off in a single strike, and Murtagh rolled back, screaming into his glove through biting teeth. Burud took off his own glove and hesitated slightly as he held the axe over his own finger. He frequently looked back to the witch, who had by now placed her head neatly on the balls of both palms and left it to observe the situation with a toothless grin.

“Oh, don’t let me distract you. Go on,” she giggled. Burud closed his eyes and hefted his axe.

“Oh! Keep your eyes open - don’t wanna split your hand or anything,” added the witch quickly. Burud sucked in a breath through the nose and, opening his eyes in a split second, brought down the axe. The finger hopped right off, leaving a quickly growing pool of blood over the stood, with more running down his palm as he slowly lifted up his hand. His body pumped him so full of adrenaline that he could hardly feel it right away, but he was nonetheless compelled to groan painfully and gasp for air, clutching his hand to his chest. A slow clap brought his eyes back to the witch.

“Bra-vo~! Solid effort by the both of you!” She tossed them each a length of linen, ripped from her own rags. “You two are really desperate for revenge - I like that; nothing beats a good vengeance story, in my opinion.” With a giddy gait, the witch hopped off her stool and collected the two fingers. She then crossed the room and deposited them into a clay jar. “Alright. The pact is sealed. Bring me the child at your earliest convenience, and we can begin.”

Burud finished helping Murtagh wrap his hand and pushed himself to his feet with great effort, the shock of adrenaline almost paralysing him. “W-will we find you here as we have today?”

“Yup! But don’t worry - next time, I’ll let you waltz right in as soon as you arrive. Would you like anything for the road, by the way?”

The two Scawicks supported each other with grips around their shoulders and shook their heads in unison. The witch shrugged. “Alrighty! Then I wish you a safe journey home! Toodles!” With that, she snapped her fingers, and the two suddenly found themselves standing at the border of the woods, a mad cackle haunting them faintly on the wind. Murtagh could barely stand, and soon fell to his knees in exhaustion. He was about to cave forward into the snow, too, but Burud caught him.

“Murtagh. Murtagh! Stay with me!”

The young man gave Burud an exhausted glance. “What have we done, Burud?”

The elder was shaken, but tried to maintain his determined facade. He did his best to help Murtagh back to his feet again, and the two slowly started making their way back towards home. “What was necessary to get our justice, brother.”

[hider=Summary!]
Burud and Murtagh from Scawick wanna curse HD real bad, so they go see a witch. The witch lives deep in a dark forest and it takes them forever to find her. When they do find her, they see that she’s ugly as shit - like, even for being 348 years old. Resla invites them in for cookies and tries to tell her lifestory. Burud gets impatient and, as a result, Resla tortures the fuck out of him. Scared shitless, Murtagh listens to her ramble. Then, after she’s rambled, she asks them what they want. She restores Burud to normal, and he immediately tries to attack her. She tortures him some more and says he gotta act like a fucking guest if he wants any help. So he does, and says he wants HD cursed. Resla, the witch, says no can do - too much, and then explains that, while she could potentially curse something that big, it’d be like spreading butter over a huge piece of bread; however, if they were to spread that butter over a crump, then that’d be a whole lot of butter. So the Scawicks settle on one target: Hilda - specifically Hilda and her family, saying they want her and her ilk to suffer the most painful and drawn out agony there is. Resla agrees, and says they gotta get her one of Hilda’s children for the curse, as well as offer one ring finger each as payment for the service. They agree, and after some back and forth about the whole moral implications of all this, eventually offer her a finger each. Resla applauds them and sends them on their way to find the kid. The post ends there.
[/hider]

[hider=MP!]
Gibbou: 5MP/5DP

1MP - Give Resla the following title: Queen of the Blackwoods I: This character may manipulate the perceptions of anyone who gets too close to her home deep in the Blackwood forest (location to be disclosed).

End: 4MP/5DP

Qael: 5MP/5DP
2DP - Give Resla the following title: Master of Curses II: This character specialises in curse-related magic, empowering spells that employ mana and sacrifices to cause chronic suffering onto others.
End: 5MP/3DP
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