The flagstone path was nearly reclaimed by the Hexenvald, disappearing beneath the weeping branches of willow trees at the edge of a still pond. Small, round windows peeked out from the hillside like unblinking eyes, and a stone chimney exhaled a steady plume of grey into the twilight. Inside the grotto, the ceiling stretched impossibly high, defying the humble proportions seen from the exterior.
Every surface was claimed by candles. They hung in iron lanterns, perched on carved cubbies, and lined the shelves in a flickering, waxen army. Upon closer inspection, the wax was not smooth; tiny, intricate runes were etched into every wick and pillar.
A woman stepped from the shifting shadows. Short and round, she moved with the restless energy of a hummingbird, her black robes swishing against the floor. Her hair was tucked neatly into a floral handkerchief. This was Silence—though the name was a clear irony.
“Well, I suppose you’ll be staying with me tonight,” she chirped, her voice grandmotherly as she immediately began pressing baked goods into the adventurers’ hands. “Just for tonight, mind you. I have work to do, but Mother Mab is a friend, and the business in the forest has been… unfortunate lately.”
As the party settled, Sturmberg remained on edge. He watched the thick smoke curling from the runic candles. Having survived villages where incense was used to dull the mind, he looked for the haze of a narcotic, but found only something strange and unidentifiable. Beside him, Zara narrowed her yellow eyes. To her, the smoke wasn’t drifting; it was working. She watched as wisps of grey vapor moved with intention, nudging ladles and tidying surfaces like invisible hands.
Lucia, clutching a borrowed grimoire with a mix of awe and guilt, stepped forward.
“Thank you, sister,” she said with a respectful nod. “This is very generous.”
Silence paused, a bemused smile on her face. “That is kind, deary, but we are not sisters. I know of your order, but I follow no faith beyond my own. Everyone finds their own path in the Hexenvald. I have found mine here.” She leaned in, her eyes sharp. “Tell me, what brings you here? Have you met my other sisters?”
“We seek the Stanengeist rubies,” Lucia admitted, trusting the woman’s hospitality. “And we have only met Astrid and Mother Mab so far.”
Silence’s expression darkened slightly. “Quite the quest. I’m sure some elves got you involved in that. Be careful; they always have their own motivations. If you seek the Stanengeist, look toward Weatherstone. That is where such paths begin.”
They spoke of the others in the woods. Silence spoke fondly of Astrid, the “lovely girl” in the treehouse, but scoffed at the mention of the witch Zora by the lake. “A boorish woman,” Silence muttered. “Thinks herself more powerful than she is. Pride will temper her soon enough.” Then, she mentioned the tower to the northwest. “Emmaline lives there. Mysterious. Dabbles in darker things than I care for. But enough of that, it’s time you all got some rest.”
Despite their protest, Silence sushed her guests to sleep and no one dared question here. Still, they party had a restful evening under her watch.
The Morning Trade
While the others slept on cots in the grotto, Rudever prepared to leave Astrid’s treehouse on the far side of the lake. His mind was full of the stone singing he had just mastered, but he lacked the tools for his craft.
“I need an instrument,” Rudever said, eyeing Astrid. “Something for the singing. You took my horn, after all.”
Astrid chuckled, rummaging through a chest of trade goods. “I have one. It’ll cost you three silver.”
The druid didn’t hesitate. He handed over the coin and received a small, well-kept brass hunting bugle. He clipped it to his belt, the metal gleaming against his travel-worn gear.
“I find the pan flute excellent myself,” Astrid suggested, “though the fiddle works best for most things. Come back if you want more pointers, Rudever. There is always a bargain to be had.”
Rudever made the trek around the eastern shore, arriving at Silence’s grotto just as the morning rituals concluded. He found his companions eating fresh bread and mulling over yesterday’s excitement.
“Found some new magic, did you?” Lucia asked.
“Stone singing,” Rudever said, patting the bugle. “Dwarven magic, mostly.”
Sturmberg grunted, a flicker of curiosity in his eyes. “A non-dwarf singing the stones? Little curious where she learned it. Some of the priests back home might call that blasphemy, but the builders… they’d just be amused.”
“Fortunately,” Rudever smiled, “I don’t make a habit of hanging out with priests.”
The Leaning Tower
The party turned northwest after breakfast, eager to meet the rest of the witches of Hexenwald. It wasn’t long however, that the forest growing gloomier with every mile. The trees here were choked with ivy, and the air felt heavy. Before them rose the tower. It leaned at a precarious, impossible angle, overgrown with thick roots that seemed to be the only thing holding it upright. Despite the daylight, a faint, sickly glow emanated from the highest window.
“Are we sure about this?” Rudever asked, looking at the rickety ladder that led to an exterior spiral staircase.
“Silence said her sister lives here,” Lucia replied. “We should be polite. No surprises.”
Lucia called out into the stillness. “We come in peace! We spoke to Silence! We are just travelers!”
Zara attempted to help, letting out a low howl intended to be friendly, but the lingering smoke from the grotto seemed to have dulled her senses. The howl came out as a distempered, high-pitched whine that failed to carry.
The light in the upper window flickered, but no one appeared.
“We’re coming up!” Lucia shouted, stepping toward the ladder.
Suddenly, a sound drifted from the deeper woods behind them—not the wind, but a low, haunting groan. It was a sound of agony, or perhaps the mindless hunger of the restless dead.
Zara turned, sniffing the air, but her nose was still clouded. “I can’t tell what it is,” she hissed, her fur bristling.
The groan came again, vibrating through the damp earth. The party stood between the leaning tower and the encroaching shadows of the Hexenvald, the peace of the morning shattered by a voice that didn’t belong to the living.
The groan from the forest floor was wet, haunting, and unmistakably dead. At the base of the tower, the party huddled for a tense heartbeat.
“Have you guys heard any groans like this lately?” Lucia whispered, her hand tightening on her staff.
“I don’t think we’ve seen zombies lately,” Rudever replied, though his voice lacked conviction. He looked toward the dark eaves of the woods. “Does that sound like a zombie to you? I know Faust exposed you to plenty of skeletons, but this… this feels different.”
“I think it’s safer up the stairs,” Zara hissed, her wolfish instincts screaming that being caught in the open was a death sentence. “We’ve announced ourselves. Let’s move.”
Torbin, acting as the party’s shield gallantly took the lead. He tested the rickety ladder with a heavy boot before leading the climb, helping each of them make the precarious transition to the stone spiral staircase that wrapped around the tower’s exterior. They climbed for dozens of feet—five stories of dizzying height—until they reached a window that looked structurally sound.
They scrambled inside and froze.
The room was a singular, massive octagon. Against each of the eight walls sat a stone throne, and upon each throne rested an armored skeleton, its bony fingers wrapped around the hilt of a longsword.
“Uh-oh,” Rudver muttered.
Lucia stepped into the center of the room, her eyes darting between the silent guards and the ladder leading to the ceiling.
“Does this configuration mean anything?” she asked, racking her brain for lore. The armor was Alderlander in origin—ancient, worn, but still formidable. She remembered tales of a powerful necromancer who had once ruled a stronghold deep within a forest, a wizard who had died while obsessively researching the secrets of immortality.
“Do we want to hobble them?” Sturmberg suggested, eyeing the skeletons with dwarven pragmatism. “Maybe take a leg bone off each of them, just in case?”
“Very disrespectful,” Lucia countered. “And based on our history, bad things happen when you disturb the dead. Let’s just be quick.”
Before they could move, Lucia reached out with her arcane senses. She was immediately flooded by a well of dark, pulsing power. This wasn’t just a ruin; it was a focal point. Someone was working powerful magic directly above them.
Suddenly, a sharp, authoritative voice sliced through the silence from the upper floor.
“Whoever that is—cut that out! I am dealing with sensitive things here! I will come speak with you in a moment!“
The Queen of the Tower
The party waited in a silence so thick it felt like the stone itself was listening. After several long moments, a trapdoor in the ceiling creaked open.
A woman descended the ladder with practiced, fierce movements. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with a high forehead and sharp, beautiful features framed by a massive halo of pale blonde hair. As her boots hit the floor, the effect was instantaneous: all eight skeletons rose to their feet in a synchronized rattle of bone and steel, taking up defensive positions.
The woman claimed one of the stone thrones, sitting with the regal poise of a queen holding court. The skeletons settled into a ceremonial guard stance around her.
“You have intruded upon my place of study,” she said, her eyes scanning them with clinical intensity. “What business do you have here?”
Lucia stepped forward, trying to mask her nerves. “We come from the village. We visited Silence, and she suggested we see you. We mean no ill intent; we’re questing for the Stanengeist rubies. We just wanted to introduce ourselves before the festival.”
At the mention of the festival, the woman—Emmaline—seemed to soften, if only slightly. “Questing for the Stanengeist? I once sought its power myself, but I have learned of other things. There are other ways to find power.”
She fixed her gaze on Lucia and Zara. “I had heard travelers had come to the village. Have you by chance encountered an old woman riding a massive wolf?”
Zara’s face remained a mask of stone. “No,” she lied, her distrust of this necromancer overriding her honesty.
“I haven’t either,” Lucia added, her voice pitching slightly higher in her overwhelm.
Emmaline watched them for a moment. If she saw through the deception, she didn’t show it. Instead, her expression turned bitter.
“I was not the first of my family to come to the Hexenwald,” Emiline said. “My sister was a researcher here. She discovered this tower first. But then, her letters stopped. I paused my own quest to find her, and lo and behold… I found her slain. I believe Mother Mab is behind it.”
The party exchanged a quick, worried glance. Mab, the silent protector who had saved them, was now being accused of murder.
“Mab grew jealous of her power,” Emmaline continued. “Or fearful she would discover the secret of the Hexenwald. I have spent years trying to decipher my sister’s coded research. Mab knows what causes this forest to be such a font of magic, and I will not leave until I know too. The other witches are too afraid of Mab to help me. But you…”
She leaned forward, her blonde halo catching the faint magical glow of the room. “I would take you into my employ. Fifteen silver coins each. The task is simple, and there is nothing untoward about it.”
“What kind of task?” Lucia asked tentatively.
“There is a dolmen—a collection of monoliths—in the heart of the northern woods,” Emmaline said, gesturing toward the trail beyond the tower. “I need you to go there.”
The Dolman and the Deception
As the party moved away from the tower, the oppressive air lifted, replaced by the natural sighs of the forest. However, the atmosphere within the group remained tense. Zara broke the silence, revealing a troubling memory: she had seen Emmaline before, and the necromancer had referred to the party as “scapegoats.”
The group weighed this against their knowledge of Mab, who had protected them from the restless dead—the very same kind of magic Emmaline seemed to command. Despite the suspicion, the pull of 15 silver coins and the promise of information regarding the Stanengeist rubies led them to the dolman.
The dolman consisted of three massive megaliths supporting a flat stone table. Beneath it, a nest of leaves and animal bones suggested someone—perhaps Mab—had been using the site as a makeshift shelter.
Sturmberg and the others carefully cleared away moss and debris, revealing ancient runes. Lucia and Rudever analyzed the etchings, discovering a sequence for an invisibility ritual. The cost, however, was steep: it required the blood of a witch, willingly spilled. Lucia quickly copied these runes into her book using charcoal, securing a powerful (if dark) addition to her repertoire.
A Window into the Past
Sensing that digging blindly was a fool’s errand, Rudever channeled his psychic energy to cast a spell giving him visions into the past. The spell was volatile—a magical feedback loop caused him physical pain—but the images that flooded his mind were transformative:
- Mab through the Ages: He saw Mab and her wolves guarding this spot for centuries. In the deepest past, she appeared as a young girl, no older than Astrid, with a single wolf pup.
- The Ancient Burial: Centurires ago, a group of solemn witches gathered at this site. They were burying a body and a small silver figurine (an idol).
- The Fallen Sorcerer: The man being buried was a powerful sorcerer who had commanded an army of the undead. He had been struck down in a massive battle against a coalition of knights, warriors, and witches.
The witches concluded the burial with a blood sacrifice upon the stone, causing the disturbed earth and the dolman itself to vanish from mundane sight, hidden by the very invisibility ritual the party had just rediscovered.
The vision changed everything. Emmaline’s story about her “slain sister” began to crumble. It became clear that she wasn’t looking for a lost relative; she was hunting for the ancient sorcerer’s power and the silver idol buried beneath the stone.
The party now stands at a crossroads:
- Dig for the Idol: Risk disturbing an ancient evil and earning Mab’s eternal enmity for the sake of the artifact.
- The Double-Cross: Lie to Emmaline, take her silver, and provide her with “inaccurate” information about what lies beneath.
- Consult the Guardian: Summon Mab to hear her side of the story before making a move that could permanently alter the balance of the Hexenwald.
As Rudever recovered from his vision, the group realized that while the sister might be dead, the true threat in these woods is very much alive—and currently sitting in a leaning tower waiting for her “scapegoats” to return.
The Decision at the Dolman
Following Rudever’s vision, the party reached a consensus: Emmaline cannot be trusted. Realizing that the “silver idol” buried beneath the stones is likely an artifact of significant power (and potentially the source of the forest’s magic), they decided to keep its existence a secret.
Sturmberg, ever the pragmatist, pointed out that 15 silver is a suspiciously high price for a task Emmaline claimed was “safe.” The group agreed to speak with Mab first, hoping to hear her side of the story and perhaps offer her a “filtered” version of the truth.
Zara attempted to signal the wolf-witch with a powerful howl, supported by Rudever’s bugle. Despite their best efforts, the forest remained silent. Whether Mab was ignoring them or simply out of range, the party was left without their guardian.
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