By Nim Burrfoot
There are times when even the heart of the group, as Finn is, can be weighed heavy in this energy draining and soul leeching land of Barovia. I, Nim Burrfoot, will endeavor to take up the pen, and jot down some notes in Flynn's journal while he revitalizes himself. I pray my words heal as much as his do.
Defeating even a third of the evil triad of this coven of witches has been a boon to our work here. Saving the children was a blessing, but at the same time, it supplied a more meaningful depth to the depravity of the hags.
We regrouped after our very divided fight and gathered in the room where two of the hags slept, and where they kept these children. After some cajoling and assurances of safety we found out that the name of the little girl was Myrtle and the boy held the unfortunate name, Freak. Even more unfortunately, he seemed to be one of what this world calls 'soulless'. Both were terrified, but the boy was the more inconsolable of the two. We managed to get him to relax a bit with the assistance of our valiant bard, as Freak was calmed by the sound of music. We got them out of their cages and, knowing we could not return them to parents who sold them of a pittance, took the suggestion of wise Myrtle and decided to bring them to Ireena. They were children of the village of Barovia anyway, and Ireena was now the Bürgermeisterin.
We searched the last rooms of this coven hive and found some jewelry that we might be able to convert to gold to assist us in our fight, but not much else. We searched every nook and cranny of the building but unfortunately we did not find the promised 'weapon of vengeance'. We considered burning the place to the ground, but felt it imprudent until the Sword of Sunlight is found. Madam Eva's credibility is dropping by the moment, and I wonder if her words are mere manipulation even more so than I did before.
It was at this time that I decided to reveal Snelb to the group and I feel that this course of action deserves some explanation. First of all, I would like to address my calculated risk. I need my friends to be aware that it was not done rashly or on a mere whim. I measured everything twice as I always do. As I saw it, Snelb could be lying or telling the truth. He could want to stay in the attic or he could want to travel to the fight with us. Assuming that Snelb had been honest with us, then we already know that he was in service to the Hags, and that he was placed in the attic by them to monitor our actions. This indicates that he is able to communicate with them from there. If he has the ability to communicate from that height, then he could do so from my pouch or from the attic. Leaving him there left him in an optimal position to continue his spying and relay valuable information to the hags. He would be in a safe location and could take whatever action he wanted knowing the outcome of the battle. However, in my pocket, he had to deal with the fact that his neck is also on the line if we are in danger. I was watching every move of the hags and their minions and if at any given moment I had any inkling that he was aiding any of them, I was ready to smash him into oblivion. I can tell you that there were two moments in the battle that I considered doing so.
Assuming that he has not been honest with us, the proper decisions get a bit more blurry, but still clear enough, I think. If he was lying about his willingness to break with the hags and side instead with us, then I needed to let his actions dictate my decision, instead of his words. His last interaction with all of us was to do a service for us to bring him back to the attic, so he either legitimately wanted to go back up to the attic, or he was trying to use a reverse psychology method to make us take him with us. If he was both lying, and wanting us to take him back into the attic, then I can think of no better reason than to bring him with us. If he was lying and he actually did want us to bring him, then he certainly played an overbalanced game to the contrary by doing something he usually requests food for in exchange, and compounding that by indicating that if we were to go back and try to engage him again, we would be forced to confront the very thing that made us reluctant to deal with him in the first place, which is the blood offering.
My options at that point were to bring him, or to kill him unfairly but as a necessity. I strongly considered both, and I confess that my failure to protect him as I should have previously may have weighed in my decision to choose the former. I say none of this as an excuse. I just want you to know that there was nothing reckless about my decision. My apology for the delay in telling this decision still stands, and I wish I had more time to handle this properly, but I then knew the lives of children were on the line, and we had already long delayed. I vow to put his actions under my responsibility then and now, and I will pay for my mistake if I am wrong about him.
The intel that we have been able to gather from Snelb is that although the coven is broken, this task is far from complete, and the good that we have done is but temporary. They can once again repair their coven at the next full moon when they can add another hag back to their group and reinforce their numbers again. We had no time to loose, but at the same time, we needed to rest now that we had children in our care.
We retreated back to the mill levels with the children and settled them in for the night, but an eventful night it was. First of all, as Tetsuo and I were gathering some food just outside the mill in preparation for food and rest, the ghost of our departed friend Ismark visited us and warned that Ireena was again in peril and requested that we aid her. We prioritized this as our next course of action. We also managed to find an unexpected but welcome surprise of assistance. For the first time since our arrival, we found help even when it was not asked for. A pile of bags had been delivered outside the mill that contained food and, more welcome, healing supplies for our Cleric! As best we could determine, it seemed that the much needed supplies were delivered by the very ravens themselves. A force for good indeed.
We bunked down together in the third floor bedroom in the mill, and wondered at the night ahead. Would we get to sleep now that we managed to break the coven? Snelb provided more insight by letting us know that the way the hags were breaking into and corrupting our dreams. They had been shifting to the ethereal and physically casting a spell on us as we slept. A horrifying bit of information to know, indicating that they have been there from the very beginning in the barn at the Death House, but also useful. Knowing their method, we knew that we could use Protection from Evil spells to break their contact with us as the nightmare spells began. We used this effectively to stop the hags that night and despite our bleak and tainted surroundings, we managed to get the best night of rest we had since we arrived, although this did not completely cleanse the curse from us. Some ill effects remain.
In the morning, we moved with all possible haste back to the village of Vallaki to turn the children over to Ireena at the church, and learn the meaning of Ismark's dire warning. The trip was uneventful, until we re-entered the city and again encountered the strange man who had been watching us with a keener eye than the rest of the town. Some of us decided to be upfront with him and speak to him directly. We probed for information and although we were upfront with him, he still seemed to be withholding of information about himself.
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