Foxcurl stared out of her bramble cage in absolute fear. Her heart didn’t even dare to beat lest it draw the attention of what lurked and defiled outside. Thorns pierced her delicate skin, allowing blood to drip and dribble freely, but she hardly noticed.

A black cauldron bubbled and burst as it sat within the lair, emitting a foul aroma that mingled with the ever-present stretch of rotten plant matter and decay. Within the cauldron a dreadful soup cooked filled with humanoid eyes that floated and rolled, fish head almost putrescent, and screams of mortal dreams, broken and twisted. 

Meat hung upon jagged hooks about the room but they were of no beast. Limbs and body parts of people far too damaged to be recognized were feasted upon by flies, their maggots wiggled and writhed. 

What foul creature could do such a thing?

What foulness would find its home amongst such decay?

Foxcurl could tell you, but she wished, oh how she wished, she couldn’t.

Moving about the pot of horror was a hunched figure. It was old, perhaps older than the very swamps it haunted.

Bloated was its body, as if it’d died in the swamps already. Powerful legs twisted back on themselves like a wolf’s might as the figure staggered about the room. It poured more evil into the bubbling brew. Corded muscle filled out arms that were longer than they should be, almost reaching the ground. At the ends, clawed hands grasped onto the metal of the cauldron and a howl of tormented metal echoed around the chamber in protest.

Foxcurl’s innocent eyes were spared a horrifying sight as the creature’s grotesque body was bound in stained rags and hide. A grimy sackcloth hood masked its visage. Three holes tore the sack to form a grim-eyed smile. When it approached Foxcurl imprisonment, she saw that the fabric it wore was not cloth or animal hide. It was a patchwork of multi-hued skin.

Foxcurl resisted the urge to quail in fright at the sight of the Swamp Hag.

“Where is it? Where is it?” 

The Hag bemoaned in a voice of phlegm and spite. 

“Where did I put that damn thing? Ah, there it is.” 

From a cluttered shelf full of mysterious and equally horrifying contents, she retrieved a cracked and blood-smeared jar full of body parts of the masculine variety.

“Mmm, my favorite snack, full of impotency and foolish bravado. I can almost taste the screams again.” 

The hag smacked her lips as she chewed on the pride of many men.

“Thou art still disgusting as ever, Mildred.”

The hag spun about in fury as a silken voice appeared in the space behind her. Bottles and jars scattered as she flung her claws out in anger at whoever dared intrude upon her domain. 

“Temper, temper. Taketh care, lest thee breaketh the rules of hospitality.”

From her thorny entanglement, Foxcurl had the unfortunate pleasure of gazing upon the visage of that which disturbed the hag’s repast.

There stood a dream with eyes like summer and full of love. A wild mane of hair the color of a dying sun encased a breathtaking reflection. Lips of blood on tan skin. Glittering gold flowed across a body of virtue, envy to all things feminine. A sight to draw rapine eyes. Perfection was she, like a midsummer’s love, but for a single mar upon her hand. Two fingers lay vanished from her left, bitten clean off by cruel hunger.

Foxcurl was utterly terrified, more so than what the hag had inspired.

“And what does the Fair Maiden want with wise, old Mildred?”

The hag sneered as she crept around her hut with hungry eyes.

The Fair Maiden watched her prowl unconcerned, aloof even. 

“To maketh a deal, of course.”

Mildred, the hag of a hundred thousand twisted deals, stilled before a wracking laugh ripped free of her befouled throat. She howled in amusement in the Summer Fae’s face, not caring for insult.

A small frown crested the Fair Maiden’s face as madness flashed behind beautiful eyes. She waited for the hag to finish her amusement.

“Make a deal? Haha, that’s a good one. Don’t insult me to presume either of us would be that kind of fool.”

“Not even a dram interested?” The Fair Maiden asked.

Mildred snarled as she saw the trap within the words, but she now knew whatever offer the fae had, it would tempt her. The hag paced, muttering wicked curses under her breath as the fae watched.

Foxcurl dared not a whisper of movement.

With a snarl of contempt and annoyance, Mildred turned back to the nonplussed fae.

“Fine, speak your words so that we might end this charade.”

The Fair Maiden smiled in delight.

“Thither is a young wench I wanteth, a witch most fair. Draweth that girl from cold-iron and stone, but doth not killeth that lady, for the wench is mine.”

“Ha. All this for a baby witch? Forget it!” 

Hildred snarled once more. However, as she turned away, the Fair Maiden spoke once more. 

“Doth thee not wanteth to knoweth who is’t did teach that lady the blackcraft?”

Mildred froze in place as the words struck true. Names flashed through her tainted mind of witches foul and fair, but only one name bore into her with a burning fire. Eyes of melting malice peeked through twin eye holes in her skin hood towards the Fair Maiden. 

She spoke only one word.

“Who?”

The Fair Maiden smiled a smile of sharp teeth as she bathed in the cruelness she was about to strike.

“Witch Augus.”

A roar of purest anger and hate ripped free from the hag and echoed within her home. The hag grasped the scalding metal of her cauldron, uncaring of her sizzling flesh, and hurled the pot into the far wall in her rage. 

The fae watched it all unfurl with sadistic glee. 

Mildred stomped around the hut, smashing what her clawed hands could grasp, yet not once did she attempt to harm the Fair Maiden or what was around her. She paced like a caged tiger until she could voice words once more. They tore free like a wound.

“Speak then. Speak! Speak! Speak! Say your words, speak them true. Why should I give them to you? Why should I not tear and eat her young flesh?! Why should I not suck the marrow from her bones?! Why. Should. I. Not?”

The Fair Maiden spoke with a sinister calm.

“Thee shouldst not, for the maiden is mine.”

Madness met madness. Swirling and snarling.

“If it be true that thee doth do so, thee can has’t that lady booketh.”

“Book?”

Mildred squinted at the fae from behind her sackcloth. There was only one book that she could ever crave, yet she wouldn’t take the fae’s word for it. That way only led to foolishness and madness.

“What book? Speak its name, make no fool of me, fae. I make a troublesome foe, even for the likes of you.”

The Fair Maiden sneered.

“The Tome of Witchcraft, Witch Augus’ Magnum opus.”

A glint of avarice wormed its way through Mildred’s skull, yet caution bubbled there too. The one thing she desired above all else and this fae happened to know its location and some waif of a girl was its only guard?

It smelled of trickery.

“If you cannot reach the girl, what makes you think I might?”

“As I hath said, the lady is enshielf within cold-iron and stone. The wench is cunning, clever, if ‘t be true I maketh a moveth outside her walls, the lady’ll nev’r leaveth but the lady is homesick and fell. Findeth a way to leverage yon wench’s desires and the lady’ll cometh right into thy trap. Hand’th that witch over to me, alive and intact, and thee can keepeth the tome.”

“And what if I say no? What if I hunt the girl myself and take the tome anyway?”

The Fair Maiden grinned.

“Tryeth and the tome’ll be hath lost forevermore. Thee swear’th by Tatiana’s and Oberon’s names both.”

The world and Foxcurl both shivered as they spoke out loud the two names. They had made a pact into the very essence of reality. The Fair Maiden would forever be bound to uphold her end or be removed from past, present, and future. 

Mildred hesitated as she realized the Summer Fae was deadly serious and it made her even more nervous, even more aware that despite all her years and cunning, she might have walked into a trap. But for whom?

As much as she wished to step away from its gaping maw, the best traps have the best bait. So she took the chance. She stepped into the trap and hoped it wouldn’t clamp shut around her. 

“Fine. I will make your deal. One witch, alive and intact in exchange, I keep the Tome of Witchcraft with no interference from you in any shape or form, including inaction. Deal?”  

“The same goeth for thee or anyone thee contract wilt not allow harm to befall the wench through action or inaction.”

The two monsters sized one another up beneath Foxcurl’s frightened gaze, an observer to a horrid deal. If she were free, she’d flee and warn this witch, warn her of what’s coming, but she could not, bound as she was.

“Deal.” “Deal.”

The bargain had been struck and the world and black magic sealed it. 

In a blink, the fae vanished, leaving a dreadful hag in a destroyed room. 

“How to lure a child?” Mildred cackled to herself as she shuffled about the room righting furniture she had destroyed, not that it was much worse in this state. 

“Perhaps she might like candy?”

The hag plucked the swollen testicles off the floor before popping them in her mouth. Chewing them in her mouth of black teeth, she thought long and hard about it. An idea began forming inside her twisted mind.

“Homesick, huh? Perhaps a way home will draw her in?”

“Mildred shuffled her body over to a rack of scrolls, blood-stained by their former owners. Scrolls of all kinds lay on the dirty table, scrolls of power, of flight, even teleportation. The hag plucked out a scroll that radiated pure magic.

“Dimensional Passage? Pity one still needs an object tuned to the destination, useless otherwise, pah.” 

The hag tossed the scroll back before gazing out her window. 

“Mmmh, maybe an adventure might lure her. One of heroics and vengeance?”

Foxcurl followed the hag’s gaze outside to where the tantalizing sight of freedom lay. The hag’s sinister home was within a bog of endless murk and bloated pools. All manner of waterborne insects and diseases call these waters home. The sounds of monsters filled the air with their croaks and violent hisses. 

Off in the distance, close to the hag’s home, was a cluster of mangrove trees, but these soared far higher into the sky as if trying to reach out of the fetid swamps. 

However, it was not to be as these titans were dead, parasitized by the foul works of goblins. Like great leeches, their homes clung to the carcasses of the once proud rulers of the ground and sky. The poxy keep was made with no rhyme or reason. Ramshackle buildings of dismal quality stacked on top of one another as they crept up the surrounding trees. Cramped walkways criss-crossed overhead in a maze of impracticality. 

But impracticality wasn’t the only thing they had done to befoul this earth. Strung up like morbid decorations were the ruined bodies of many varying humanoids, from Inferni with their horns removed to Lepus, with ears torn off at the root. Over and over the bloodstained keep, more evil was displayed. The only solace to be had was that red-caps possess no libido besides a lust for murder and bloodshed. 

“Hmm, they’ll do nicely. A little carnage and those pesky adventurers will come running, hehe. It wouldn’t hurt to plant some rumors about dimensional magic here and there. Hehe.” 

The hag cackled to herself as she gazed at the viscous goblins beyond. Long had they nestled here, hidden as they were in the fetid swamps and preying only on those foolish to wander away from their homes and camps. Their only mistake was living next to a hag, even if they liked her stew.

The hag turned her eye back into the room to gaze straight at Foxcurl.

“Don’t you dare think I forgot about you! Nosey little spy.” 

Foxcurl screamed.