Four Fatherless Men

Megarna gazes down at the scrawny young woman knelt before her in the dingy, smoke-filled hut. 

‘You have the rare gift of prophecy child. A gift our coven needs. Tell me what you see.”

The young woman, with a certain amount of trepidation in her hazel eyes, coughs nervously before finding her voice.

“I see four men. An Elf, a Half-Elf, a Halfling and a Human. Tied together by fate.”

A scruffy black moggy hisses from atop a roughly made wooden shelf and Megarna responds directly.

“Yes, yes, I know that she’s being vague.”

And then back at the raggedy, young woman.

“Go on… And do better!”

The younger woman bows deeper over the bowl of smeared animal blood and rune-marked knuckle bones, her eyes rolling back further into her head.

“These four men, raised without knowing their true heritage, without knowing their true names or even their true Fathers. Tied together by a past they have no knowledge of and bound by a purpose they cannot comprehend… I see a war. The greatest war this world has seen in over a century. I see these four men leading armies. Armies of Humans, Elves and… Even Halflings. A war against a seemingly endless wave of red-eyed demons!”

The thin-backed, black-clad old woman leans closer, her long, yellow stained teeth bared. 

“Tell me more. Tell me how we can break their spirits? Tell me how we can most easily defeat them?”

The young woman quails.

“I… I don’t know. My visions are clouded and I can’t properly decipher all the myriad possible outcomes.”

Megarna spits.

“You’re pathetic! Useless! Your paltry gifts are barely worth the bother of recruiting you. Our last Augur was worth twenty of you.”

Eyes snapping back into place, the young woman finds a little courage.

“Your last Augur? Where is she? What happened to her?”

The old Witch scowls.

“Viccissa was her name. She was talented, far more talented than you but she betrayed the coven for her own selfish needs. Worse, she betrayed me, and so I had her hunted down by our assassins and slain.”

Something Wicked that way waits

Hunched over the round table in a small, darkly shuttered stone hovel, her wrinkled face bathed in a soft glow, the aged woman sits momentarily dumbfounded.

"You found her? You actually found her after all these years?!"

The crystal ball is fogged by the multiple dimensions between them but the hawkish visage of Sir Briefadel is still clear enough to be certain.

"Yes but she is weak and we're being pursued. I need you to reconvene the coven. Mother will soon need its protection."

Madame Megarna chews her thin bottom lip for a moment.

"It's been over twenty years since we last convened... The traitor Witch was eventually found and killed, some of us died while fleeing these lands and a few would have certainly perished since then. I'll send word out to the few I’m still in contact with, but it'll take time and I'll need to recruit several new members if we're to make up the necessary thirteen."

Sir Briefadel seems to wait for Megarna’s words to travel back but finally acknowledges them.

"You'll have some time. First I have some vermin to squash and then we're off to recruit my army."

Watching the crystal ball fade to grey, the old witch's brow furrows further and she turns to her ever-attentive black cat companion.

"Well Moggy, it looks like our retirement is over. Time to put the Coven back together."

Keeping an Eye Out.

Dirty and still angry from his seemingly wasted expedition, Sir Briefadel throws himself down onto the chair opposite Madame Megarna.
Her black cat hisses at him but he simply rolls his eyes at her.

"Have you been tracking them as I instructed? Have they managed to stumble onto anything?"

The old fortune teller gazes at the still armoured man. His pale face reminds her of both his Father and Mother.

"As you requested my Lord. Thanks to the 'Location charm' Egrow slipped into one of the horses saddlebags, in conjunction with my crystal ball, it's been easy to scry upon them. They found the Lightning tree they were searching for and, after trying to drain them of their life essence, it gave them something that's been leading them in a specific direction... It could be the pool that you seek."

Sir Briefadel's eyes darken as he leans forward.

"Do you really think so?"

The old fortune teller also leans forward until their faces are almost touching the mystic orb between them.

"I want to free your Mother just as much as you do and finding this pool and the gate hidden beneath is the best chance we have."