The Meeting (Southern Terrin Mountains)
The Spider Witch, it was rumored, just appeared and disappeared at will. One month, two months, sometimes a year would pass without a word of his presence nor a sighting of a strange shadow haunting the nearby woods. And then suddenly he was back. To the average civilian who heard these rumors it was probably quite confusing keeping track. Most of the townsfolk near the Witch's busiest shops, and whom were aware that he did exist, just assumed he was always there. Unless he wasn't. Like anyone else. And that's just how it was.
No one really knew, without extensive investigation, where rumors of his comings and goings came from. But it was assumed they were passed along from those who sought his services.
Like many rumors, these were passed around in tavern corners and between nosy neighbors but sort of slipped away into the subconscious as something more interesting came along. These rumors didn't spread very far from the existing circles who knew of them. When they did spread, it was likely to a casually inquiring someone seeking to satisfy their curiosity upon encountering a merchant with far too many shiny rare potions on his shelves in a town like this. If the secret could be weaseled out of that merchant, a vague tale with a when, where, and who that might be told, but these were often disbelieved by the more frugal and cynical of shoppers.
Even rarer was the Contact who started the rumors who actually knew the infamous Witch. And rarer still was the offer from one of these Contacts to deliver a letter requesting an appointment to the Witch on behalf of a willing customer.
As rare as it was to find the people who made up the Spider Witch's network, they could be found by the discerning individual who thought to ask the right questions. The hard part was finding the Witch himself, because though he sent letters in response to his customers and gave a date and a time and a place, his customers were often secretive in their dealings with him. And so, most willing customers who sought him out could never find the right person to talk to, and most outsiders who tracked him just to expose him eventually found themselves bound in the depths of some dungeon and sent into a permanent sleep with a well-placed bite.
It was far, far easier to find him when it was he who sought services outside his web of control.
~**~~~*~~~**~
Four weeks ago Chrollyx heard of a being whom he thought would be up to a task he'd been planning for months. Three weeks of distant observation later he'd sent the hybrid a letter requesting his services as a bodyguard into dangerous territory. A week passed and he mostly packed up for the trip. He now awaited the arrival of one 'Wave' before he struck out into the wilderness.
It was dawn, silvery gray washing out the rocky landscape. Very little stirred in the surrounding sparse woods as birds were not common in this area of the Southern Terrin Mountains, and the cool air was still heavy with mountain mist. Several mountaintops east of his current position Zantaric could be found (his main source of business here) and somewhere far below was the now empty cavern that had functioned as his Adelan Shop.
Or
boutique. He liked that word, boutique.
He stood before a wood horse cart just outside one of many rocky tunnels that into the lair he'd called home for the last six months. He hovered over an open chest set into the cart among other closed and locked boxes and crates. He was busily taking inventory of the items inside it one more time. There was a discrepancy in his stores of slimtwigs, bugglebumps, merrywort, and goofa beans that just didn't make sense.
A few chests lay about behind him, still unsealed, and a tall open barrel filled to the brim with dusty but organized scrolls sat at a precarious angle among some gravel. He had no idea how he was going to seal that one – the papers seemed determined to escape – but he'd figure something out, even if it meant wrinkling a few of them...
