Déjà Vu

Historian: Caleb. Date: 05/19/2025

TLDR – We meet the Medusa, who turns out to be a lovely man from Bumfuzzle named Thad. He made a deal with a witch to get stronger so that he could hunt down a wolf that’s been terrorizing the area, but was turned into a Medusa after drinking one of her potions, and ended up only being able to scream for a week after an encounter with Quasit, leading to a conundrum with the townsfolk here. We go off to see the witch, with a brief detour as Astranna tries to manhandle a brooding Henrietta and is launched thousands of feet into the air, only to be impaled on a tree for the second time in a month. Gwyn gets an update, and Alphie makes a terrible deal. Newton also makes a deal, with unknown consequences.

• Date: 24 Lionnir 777 AR – 25 Lionnir 777 AR
• Anna gives the recap! We pick up outside the Leaping Lizard Tavern, and decide to do a little surveillance. In one window, we see a hedgehog person who appears to have gotten up on their tiptoes to peek in, and is now stone. We also spy two other doors; a side entrance on the right side, and then a back door that might lead to a kitchen area. There are balconies, but no fire escape. We float ideas. Newton suggests setting the tavern on fire.
• Jericho uses Augury: “Why did the Medusa do all this?”
  • His vision begins to swim, and he sees what appears to be a small cabin in the woods, with a dead elk with its guts splayed out in front of it in a very ritualistic manner. He’s seen this type of fortune-telling before. As he looks around, he sees the meat is being cooked over a fire by a woman of sorts, with darker flesh, sticks and twigs in the hair, and a long nose. He hears a cackle, and then there’s a shifting, and he sees a rocky outcropping. He hears yelling, and then he sees the flash of a familiar furry otter creature cross his vision, and then he’s back with the rest of the party.
• Jericho tells us that one was weird. We ask him to elaborate.
  • “I saw what may have been a witch, wizard, hag, hard to tell – my bet’s on witch – doing haruspexy, an elk, gutting it and reading the entrails for info about the future, cooking parts of it. She was laughing, and then uh, the kid, the otter kid we just met was standing above like, a stony outcropping.”
• He thinks the Medusa is here because the kid interrupted something he wasn’t meant to. Astranna suggests the kid might be helping the Medusa, because if they really wanted to they could turn him to stone pretty easily. We decide to head back out and talk to him.
• Clancy sees us and asks if we’ve done it. We tell him not yet, and ask him a couple questions – if he goes for walks in the woods (occasionally, not that often), if he recalls seeing someone in the woods cooking some elk meat (no), if he’s familiar with any local wizards, witches, hags, etc (he doesn’t think so, but his uncle can pull a coin out of his ear). Alphie senses his emotional state. He’s generally happy, a little confused.
• We realize, at some point, that the otter in the vision was probably Quasit. We head back to the town. Henrietta asks if one of the statues is an egg, and roosts on it to find out. This is a mistake. Eventually, we make a plan – we’ll try to talk to the Medusa through the door, and split into three teams; two people to a door, so that no one is alone. The teams end up being Jericho and Alphie at the side door, Gwyn and Newton at the back door, and Astranna and Anja at the front.
  • Newton scrambles up onto Gwyn’s back and assembles a fishing pole in his hands. When she asks if he has anything to defend himself with, he uses the pole to fish a knife from Alphie’s belt. Everyone is very impressed.
• Astranna knocks on the door, and at first gets no response – she calls out that they just want to talk. A voice asks how many people are out there, and she tells him six people, and reiterates that they just want to talk and find out what happened. He says he didn’t mean to hurt anyone.
  • “I got lost in the woods, ran across a woman, a witch I think, I… well… there’s been a wolf that’s been terrorizing the area, I was wanting to go out and hunt it, it ate our entire cattle herd. I asked for something from the witch, I know it’s stupid now. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that she turned me into a monster. I came to this hamlet looking for help, but on the way here I was walking through a bit of a rocky patch trying to stay hidden, all of a sudden this otter ran into me, shot me with something. I could only scream when I tried to talk. I was screaming, they were screaming, they tried to shoot and stab me.”
• We find out he’s Thaddeus – Thad, for short – and he’s from Bumfuzzle. He asked the witch to give him strong skin so he couldn’t be hurt, and maybe some powers so he could take down the wolf. She agreed and gave him a bunch of vials he could drink – each would give him a new sort of power. He chose a green one, and now he’s like this.
  • She wants the wolf’s pelt within a year, or he will have to give her 10 years of service. He made this deal a few weeks ago.
• He tells us the otter was saying something about “not enough energy”, and when he saw Thad he went, “ah, scary!” and hit him with a weird ball thing, and then he could only scream for a week. Astranna asks about the wolf. He says he hasn’t seen it yet, but some of the hunters did say it was big and black, and tricky – it caught some hunters in their own trap.
• He tells us that when he gets scared, people turn to stone around him. He thinks maybe it would help if he keeps his eyes closed, but he doesn’t know. He agrees to tie some tablecloth around his eyes for us, and eventually calls us in (Jericho uses Inquisitor to assure that he can’t see anything). Inside, we find a fairly abandoned tavern with stone statues, mostly with people holding weapons. At the center of the tavern, with multiple layers of tablecloth on their head, is the Medusa.
• We ask where in the woods he met the witch, and he says she was a few miles to the north of here, in a spot of trees right near a small watering hole. He was stopping by to get a stag, and took down an elk, but she came up to him and told him this was her land, and that he couldn’t be hunting her elk. She agreed to give him some meat if he helped her take the elk back, and though she looked a little strange, he thought he should help her. We ask what she looked like.
  • “Grey skin, long nose like a carrot, really ruddy, raggy hair, lots of leaves and stuff inside, her bones were really protruding from her skin. Really big, especially in her hands, really meaty.”
• Jericho asks if there was anything odd about how she dressed the kill, and he says she really didn’t get much into it – she started gutting it, and was looking at how the guts were. She was going a little slow – he’d usually go a little faster – but otherwise he didn’t see anything unusual. Anja tries to fashion him a more comfortable blindfold, and gets 2 hero points.
• Jericho asks to put a hand on his shoulder (he allows it), and says we’re gonna see what we can do for him. He asks if he can put a map on the table and leave, so Thad can mark where he met the witch. He agrees, and we leave for a few minutes before coming back. He asks if we think we can get her to turn him back, and Jericho says probably.
• Looking at the map, Newton says he’s been to that spot about two years ago – it didn’t really have great fishing. There was no witch there, then. After some back-and-forth, Thad agrees to come with us, and we get ready to set out. Astranna asks to take his hand, and guides it to her shoulder, volunteering to guide him. She then runs off to reacquire Henrietta. Anja tries to guide Thad, but Maple is extremely displeased about the snake.
• The party spends a good amount of time trying to coerce Henrietta down from the statue. She will not leave her egg behind, even with promises for other eggs. Eventually, Astranna apologizes, and tries to use her coat to scoop Henrietta up. There’s a blast of violet fire that sends Astranna 3k feet up in the air.
• A lot of shenanigans follow – Astranna tries to use her coat as a parachute, but isn’t able to slow herself down meaningfully. Jericho tries to get a cloth as a stretcher, and fails to get onto the horse, but is able to use a psionic point to lift the blanket onto it. Newton is able to get onto the horse, and calls out to the others for help, but has no one to help stretch the blanket taut. Alphie calls out to Henrietta to help Astranna, and gets 2 successes.
• Not wanting to crush her friends, Astranna tries to aim into some trees to slow her descent… and is impaled again, losing a health block. Jericho goes back to fetch Thad, and Gwyn tries to help her down, with B1 because she’s done this before. She gets her down successfully, and both she and Alphie try to carry Astranna. Gwyn is alerted to a new update being available, an anti-falling system. After some panic, she accepts it… only to find that it only helps her.
  • After the update, Gwyn seems faster – everyone else seems slower! She doesn’t seem to be getting tired at all, and is figuring out where to go without the map.
• Astranna resumes guiding Thad (and does so terribly). As they draw close to the watering hole, Alphie checks to see if Astranna is okay – she insists she’s fine, and that they’re basically here, anyway. We come to see a hut, its light on and the door open. Humming drifts out. Outside the door is an absolutely massive dead elk. Jericho reads a wind change in its guts.
• Granny Cracklebones greets us, and invites us to have a seat around the fire. She tells us she granted a wish of Thad’s. She requested the pelt of a renowned wolf in exchange for a small selection of potions. Jericho explains to her that some people got turned to stone, and asks for help undoing it. She asks if he’d like everybody turned from stone, and he specifies yes, the condition they were before they got stoned.
  • “A retraction. I often don’t do those, Jericho, but perhaps I might make an exception for a fellow oracle.”
• She says she’s seen some interesting things in the future – she’s read about Levinia Rocca, his prison guard friend… former prison guard friend. He asks what she’s up to these days. Granny says that that’s privileged information, but they could rope it into a final deal. She asks what we’d be willing to give for the retraction, and tells us she lacks someone to share this place with.
  • “Perhaps, though, Jericho, you can help provide something more lively for my home.”
• He asks what she means, and her eyes flicker to his pocket.
  • “You have a companion. One simple rat for so much magic.”
• We pause to think up a different deal. Alphie panics after thirty seconds and offers up the elder-blood dagger, which Granny accepts very quickly and snatches up.
  • “Now, at first light, when the purifying rays of the sun hit both the statues and Thaddeus, they will be returned to their original states.”
• Jericho gets the feeling she’s not lying, but that we severely overpaid. She offers us mutton for the road, but he says he’s not hungry. She asks if he wouldn’t like to know about Lavinia, and he offers up a dragon tooth, which she declines. He tells her he appreciates her offer, but he thinks he must move on. She and Jericho bow to each other.
• As we turn to leave, Newton is whispering with Granny. Alphie tries to sense Newton’s emotional state – there’s nervousness and some desperation, but also hope. Jericho tells Newton he trusts him, but to be careful. Newton pulls away from Granny and nods. They seal the deal, and shake hands.
• We leave, traveling a ways away before we rest. As the sun rises, bits of scales fall away from Thad, replaced by fur underneath. Newton nervously looks at his fishing rod, and the camera flies out, pushing in on Granny Cracklebones holding the dagger in front of the fire and cackling maniacally. She pulls the dagger across her own flesh and allows blood to drip into the fire.
• Everyone gains +3 hp and a level-up.