The Witch sits in the mud where the river threw her, torn and trembling, her hollow stare fixed on Emma. The golden glow under the silt steadies, pulsing like a slow heartbeat beneath the bank.
The Witch
You were never meant to be spared. Not here. Not by me.
The Witch
I was a placeholder, a skin over its hunger. A little shield for the next one it chose.
Harlan takes a wary step back from the water, his face draining of color as the meaning lands. Emma’s axe remains angled toward the river, the old warning answered at last.
The Witch
It knows you now. It marked you when you spoke to it. If I fail, it takes you in my place.
Harlan
By the gods... then the crossing was never safe at all.
The river brightens once, slow and deep under the silt, as if something below has heard its name in the threat of Emma’s silence.
✓ Quest Accepted
Survive the river crossing
“Can I offer the witches life for my own and the prayers and weekly offerings to let harlan pass if he spreads stories of the fear the creature created?”
NO (Even, rolled 72)
The golden light beneath the silt flares with a harsh, rhythmic intensity that rejects the bargain before it can even be voiced. The river remains indifferent to the trade, its hunger fixed firmly on the path already set.