Story: Lost and Found - Village Witch #3

[nsfwords]

My first official game session playing the solo TTRPG Village Witch, this story was also inspired by the "Helping a Stranger" square on my February Valentine's Bingo card! 1,522 words, this will join the two other stories I've wrote so far for the Village Witch Game that now has a landing page HERE.

Lost and Found

Edwina studied the subtle movements of her Virgula Divina, each copper L-shaped rod held tightly in a raised fist, as she slowly stalked the understory of Llyne of Mossly Woods. She was on her first assignment as Witch-In-Residence, and her stomach felt overfilled with clockwork flutterbys. She'd been approached during breakfast by councilman Ky Telvere and tasked with finding Mrs. Fleury's dropped coin purse.
 

 

During her first week in Llyne of Mossly Woods Edwina had made a concerted effort to explore the town (no matter how hard she had to grip the rails of the rope bridges and stare straight ahead to avoid looking at the drop) and she'd met a number of the shoppe keepers and tradespeople. Mrs. Fluery was the kind, slightly flighty, wife of the Baker and apparently while out conducting her weekly errands yesterday her coin purse had slipped off of her belt and down into the shadows below. Mrs. Fluery had detailed her route to Ky, but had no notion of when the purse had come loose, so the location of her weekly household budget was just "somewhere underneath the city!"

 

Another thing Edwina had learned in the last week was precisely why Llyne of Mossly Woods was constructed in its peculiar aerial fashion. On the fourth night of her stay in the charming Witch-In-Residence cabin she'd been awoken by a clanging alarm. Brass bells pealed from on top of the central meeting hall & many of the town's menfolk had gathered on the central terrace. She'd been intrigued enough to hastily don her clothes and once presentable made her way towards the crew. There she'd found the younger men equipping themselves with copper shock sticks and discovered that the Mossly Woods were home to an aggressive species of nocturnal Ursid that made human habitation on the forest floor impossible. They were waking from their hibernation with the spring thaw and a mother with cubs had been discovered under the smithy that night, shaking the tree it was built around violently enough to cause minor damages and so a crew was roused by the bells to help encourage her to move away from the settlement.

 

That’s also why Edwina found herself with a guard during her dowsing. The young man who'd introduced himself simply as Scout also carried a long copper shock stick and seemed competent in its handling. Edwina despised the device personally, but when she'd objected, been told in no uncertain terms that it was necessary, but only to be used to drive off another Ursid if one were stumbled upon during her search. She'd also been relieved to learn that the voltage on the Llyne's models was only enough to be an effective deterrent that drove the beasts away without leaving them harmed.

 

"How much longer do you think we'll be down here Ma'am?" Scout questioned, keeping a sharp eye on their surroundings.
 

 

"I've no idea, truly. Dowsing is an excellent arcane skill for discovering the hidden and lost in our world, but it isn't necessarily a quick process. If Mrs. Fluery had given us a better indication of where she lost her purse, I'd be able to narrow our search, but apparently she walked all over town yesterday morning and simply can't remember the last place she'd had the purse on her belt."
 

 

"It really isn't appropriate for us to be down here at this time of the Spring. We're risking ourselves for one silly woman's spending change. Her husband should have taken on the weekly tasks himself if she wasn't responsible with their money." Scout grumbled.
 

 

Edwina cringed. These comments, and the way he'd pinched his lips and averted his gaze earlier when he'd been introduced to her, all spoke to a stubborn mindset about a woman's "place." Edwina personally thought her simple blouse, dove grey velvet waistcoat, navy woolen overcoat, and sensible pleated trousers made the most sense for traipsing through the underbrush, but it wasn't unusual for her manner of dress to draw censure. She'd grown hardened towards it, to a certain extent, during her training with the Arcane Order. Her preference for male dress had drawn critique from fellow students and instructors alike.
 

 

"Please stop talking so I may focus?" was Edwina's only response to his observations on the Fluery family, and she watched his face grow even tighter.
 

 

She drew a deep cleansing breath and pushed off any ire he might be emanating. She simply didn't have time for his petty opinions and bruised feelings.
 

 

They walked further on, now in a thick silence, until Edwina felt an odd, sharp, tug from the rod in her left hand. The forward facing bend of the copper moved sharply enough it actually spun the dowsing rod fully to the left point off perpendicular to their path. The right handed rod however kept pointing straight forward, following the general direction they'd been going in all morning. This was most peculiar. The rods should slowly move to crisscross over one another the closer they came to the object they were hunting. Having them pointing so strongly in opposite directions was not the result she'd been working towards.
 

 

Adjusting the rod in her left hand to point forward once more, Edwina took only three steps towards where she was fairly certain they would discover the missing coin purse, when the left hand rod jarringly pulled again and now pointed slightly behind them in her hand.

 

"Well, how odd!" She exclaimed. Nonplussed she looked over her left shoulder to see what could possibly be drawing the rod so strongly off course. What she saw was the trunk of a massive oak tree, some distance away, the base of which appeared to be several residences above. The thought of ignoring such a strong draw a second time made her gut flutter even more anxiously, so she decided trusting the rod was a better bet than forging onwards.

 

 

"Wait here Scout. I don't want to lose our heading, but I must investigate a development with the Virgula Divina."
 

 

"Ms. Stevedore, I can't let you wander…"
 

 

She cut him off with "Scout, I'm going right there, to that tree. You can still see me; I'll be less than a moment's dash away from you. Wait. Right. Here." She then drew a rough "X" on the ground where she stood with the heel of her sturdy leather field boots.
 

 

Scout stomped to stand on the spot she'd marked as she strode towards the old oak, and if his shoulders and face grew any stiffer she believed he might explode.
 

 

Growing closer to the massive tree the left rod remained fixed and steady, while the right arm dropped to her side, that rod growing slightly cold within her grasp. For now she ignored the clear sign that she'd lost the track to Mrs. Fluery's money and focused on the tugging of the active hunt. Straight as an arrow it drew her up to the tree, then around the side slightly, to a hidden hollow in the bole. It was only a little wider than the spread of her hand, but appeared rather deep. Deciding quickly, Edwina tucked the dormant dowsing rod into her waist band and reached inside. Elbow deep in the hollow her fingers felt the frayed edges of something slim and stiff. With a pinch of her fingers around the object she drew out her arm and found herself grasping the tattered edges of an old tri-fold letter. Scrawled in faded black ink was just the name "Rowen."

 

Tucking away the mysterious letter in a convenient pocket of her overcoat Edwina rejoined her unpleasant companion and resumed their original quest. Following her right hand's heading they finally discovered the missing coin purse, under the pewter shoppe, stop three according to Mrs. Fluery's accounting of her trip the day before. Edwina snatched it from the leaf litter on the forest floor and just nodded in agreement to Scout's terse "Lets head up immediately."

 

~~~
 

 

A fair while later, after parting ways with surly Scout, speaking to pleased councilman Ky Telvere, and reuniting a dirty taffeta purse with an ecstatic Mrs. Fluery, Edwina settled herself back into her cozy cabin. Over a simple luncheon of cured meats, soft cheese, and crusty bread gifted from the happy Bakers, she opened the age tattered letter. Tucked inside the fold was a small, brilliantly blue, black, and white, jay feather. Along with the simple message:

 

"Ro,

I've missed you so much, my dearest, while I've been away at the summer logging camp. Let's meet at our spot tomorrow.

Love,

Engel

P.S. I found a wonderful specimen for your collection! Please take it as a token of the love that has given my heart wings."

Oh, how sweet yet sad she thought. She'd not met anyone in town named either Rowen or Engel, had no way of knowing how old the letter might be, or if it was ever found by Engel's beloved. Likely not, since the lovely blue feather was still tucked within.

 

Whatever was she going to do with this? And why had the Arcane forces drawn her to its discovery?

~~~Notes~~~

For anyone interested - this is Edwina's set of copper dowsing rods (Virgula Divina):

Comments

[asphiandreamer]

Ahh, the worldbuilding in this episode is so good! I would die on those rope bridges haha. The mystery of the letter and the tales of an aggressive beast hiding in the underbrush was fascinating. Really hyped to learn what will develop out of the letter plot!