After fending off attacks from the strange puppet master in another strange place, the Witchlight Lost find themselves once again in darkness. As they emerge and rise up, they finally enter the cottage of the witch-hag, Bavlorna Blightstraw. The area they enter is a large room filled with a massive pool of swamp water. Bow tries touching it and finds the water stings his skin. Looking around, they also discover a magic mirror that leads back to the Witchlight Carnival, and rooms Bavlorna has ssemingly dedicated to her hobbies: garment making and taxidermy.
Around this time, Arawa steps outside and accidentally reveals herself to a group of frogs on the balcony, who immediately alert Bavlorna to the intruders by croaking. Small, strange frog-like creatures hop down the staircase, all around the party, and then back up to the rest of the cottage, despite the best attempts of Thissalus to stop them. The group is trying to decide what they want to do, when Bother sneaks off to follow the Lornlings. Up in the main part of the cottage, Bother finds a hall of portraits, encased in shiny frames. While she listens in on a conversation between the hag and some stranger, she can’t help but take a piece of a frame before making her way back down.
Back in the pool area, Bother tries to warn everyone that the hag knows they are there. Bow tries to hide amongst mannequins in Bavlorna’s garments, but what he thought was an ugly hat was actually a sleeping Darkmantle that awakes, attacks him, and flies out a window. Soon after, a Lornling hops down and looks expectantly at the group, inplying they should follow him. They do, and soon find themselves upstairs, facing the ruler of Hither, Bavlorna.
Inside her living room, she is speaking with a Darkling Elder, who some of the group quickly notice, lacks a shadow. The party quickly barters for their lives by declaring they came from the Soggy Court to return Bavlorna’s Big Book of Bad Blood, and ask for their lost things back. While initially enraged, blaming the party for stealing the book, they are able to assuage the hag and offer to assist her in exchange for their lost things. Bavlorna says she only has one of their things, and to get it, they’ll need to fix the pool below. It seems the water is stuck.
They head back down and Thissalus and Bow bravely dive into the stinging water. In the center well, they find a Gelatinous Cylinder, blocking the pipe and is the cause of the water being so stingey. The monster rises up and attacks the party. While it seems to initially hide in the water, thanks to Thala and Bother’s projectiles the party is quickly able to pin it down and slay it before it can eat Arawa.
They report their success to Bavlorna, who is estatic to have her “youthful” water back. However, around this time, the Darkling Elder named Charm excuses herself and leaves. In a quick conversation before she goes, the party finds out she is a traveling merchant and came in with the two smaller darklings at the shop under the storm balloon. She takes her leave and the party tries to bargain with Bavlorna about their lost things. Bavlorna reluctantly takes the group up the stairs to her attic and upon opening a locked storage room, finds one of her Lornlings dead on the ground.
The hag initially threatens to kill the group, but once again, they are able to persuade her that they had nothing to do with it. Instead, Bother points to Charm, and mentions that she didn’t have a shadow. Some kind of magic could have allowed the shadow to act independently, and easily slip into the room. As they go back and forth on possible ways and causes, Bow brings up the pig-masked thief from thje Carnival, and Bavlorna immediately declares the perpetrator to be her sister Skabatha Nightshade. She quickly gives Arawa her missing tiara back as payment for the slaying of the Gelatinous Cylinder, and tries to get the party to accept the stag head of Clapperclaw as early payment for the investigation into both the dead Lornling and her sister Skabatha. However, the party is wise to this ruse, and only accept it in return for one investigation. Reward for the second will be determined later in case it should become more complicated.
Bavlorna also returns the heart of Octavian, less out of goodwill, and more because it constantly plays a cacophony of different music loudly and she found it annoying. Thala didn’t understand this and to make sure she follows the Rule of Reciprocity, offers to kiss the hag. Everyone is grossed out as she does so. Bavlorna then tells the party to go find out what Skabatha is up to while also implying Thala is her new girlfriend.
They take their leave of the cottage and return Octavian’s heart, once again by Thala giving a kiss. This time it’s more pleasant, and Octavian is grateful for its return. He gives Thala the pipe flute he played, which seemed to play magical haunting melodies. They also returned the head of Clapperclaw, who was so excited to have it back, he offered to help them anyway he can. They agreed he would provide them passage from Hither to Thither, but first, they had once outstanding issue to fix. They need to find Telemy Hill, and get the key to free Sir Talavar, the Pseudo-Dragon/Knight of the Summer Queen. To find this moving hill, they decided to head back to the Brigand’s Tollway and see if any of the thieves have seen this mobile mountain.
