Old Mother Goosegog Steps Out

“Mother Goosegog, there’s been another one!”

“Hmmm?”

Green light shone from the cauldron, playing across the old witch’s haggard features before dancing weirdly among the dark shadows of her hovel.

“The sickness, it’s taken another – Ben Reedsmith!”

Mother Goosegog looked up and fixed her beady eyes on the young girl, all breathless and flustered from running through the woods, before her.

“A strong man was Ben… So it’s not just the old and infirm now…”

She sighed and grunting with effort, straightened her crooked back as best she could before hobbling over to a dusty bookshelf. Without needing to be bid, her young apprentice joined her and together they heaved out a large tome, battered and worn from centuries of use. Clouds of dust glittered in the green light as it landed on a rickety table.

“Here child look;” she turned some brittle pages and jabbed a claw-like finger at a certain faded passage. “It’s as the almanac foretold: ‘A great plague shall crawl from the swamps to claim all that live in the Manlands.' It ain’t going to stop here…” She sniffed. “What do the priests in the village say?”

The young girl tutted. “That it’s a judgment on all those who fail to attend noonday service and forget to pay their tithes to the templehood.”

“Huh, I thought as much! Next they’ll be saying that it’s us witches fault; you mark my words young ‘un.” She coughed, hawking up a great gobbet and spitting it into the fire. “Last time that happened, half my sisters were turned to ashes before the fever died down – I need to nip this one in the bud.”

“Um, how do you mean to do that?”

“You’ll hate the answer as much as I do my girl.” She clicked her fingers and out from under a cupboard squeezed a fat grey cat. She bundled the creature up in her arms, regarding it solemnly. “Trevor was as sleek as you like and black as midnight when we last ventured out…” She sighed deeply and scratched a fluffy ear. “There’s only one place that a cure for this sickness can be found…”

“Er, yes?”

“Fetch my winter cloak young ‘un, we’re going north...”

I treated myself to this smashing witch and cauldron set from Heresy Miniatures and am rather pleased with how they came out. I know I already have a witch  - a beefy barbarian type - but I have plans for him when I get my hands on the Forgotten Pacts supplement...