(Reyvin's POV)
I felt it long before I saw it, a veneer of light and good cheer hiding the filth and corruption beneath, a grand illusion woven over an entire area over the course of years and powered by things I'd much rather not identify.
The 'meadow' belonging to 'Auntie Ethel' spread out under me like an overly inviting lady hiding a wicked knife behind her back.
"Feeling poetic, are we?" I quipped to myself, snapping shut the grimoire I... borrowed from that one wizard, and turned my attention to something more pressing.
Auntie Ethel, who had somehow beaten me to this place despite being in the grove when I left, was talking to two rather distraught men, both of whom were feeling equally terrified and hateful of the old woman.
"Lads for all that is holy, I've never clapped eyes on your poor sister!" The 'old woman' pleaded to them, voice falsely vulnerable for anyone who knew to listen.
"Drop the act, hag." The older of the two men ground out, hand around his pitchfork "You was the last to see her, we know!"
The younger's spine was less solid however and bent pleadingly "Just let her go. Please."
Naturally, as I hadn't bothered to hide myself, Ethel immediately noticed me and looked up "Oh thank goodness you are here sweetie, I don't know what's come over these boys! They think I stole their sister! Me!"
The fake concern in her voice annoyed me, considerably.
The two men rounded on me, and their eyes understandably widened upon seeing someone wearing princely robes and armor, and looking like a kind of elf neither had seen before.
The younger one turned to the old woman, panic growing in his eyes "Stop this!" He pleaded "We- we won't ask again!"
But Ethel simply kept looking at me.
"You know." I spoke up after a few heavy moments of silence "I don't even mind you are trying to fuck these two over, it is very clever and they don't seem particularly bright."
Ethel narrowed her eyes.
"But to have the fucking temerity." I hissed and raised my right hand "To lie to my face-"
There was not an ounce of hesitation in her as she simply poofed in green smoke and teleported away.
"Seriously?" My face turned completely blank and I dismissed the fire pillar I was about to summon "Well." I smacked my lips "At least she isn't a complete idiot."
"Bloody hells." One of the brothers flinched "She just disappeared!"
"She's a hag, Demir." The elder said like it explained everything and then turned to me "Who in the hells are you?"
I merely quirked an eyebrow at that, just staring in silence.
His knee-jerk reaction was to double down but one did not reach above room-temperature intelligence without being able to realize shit talking someone looking like me was incredibly dumb, and he quickly bit down his words.
"Apologies, m'lord." He forced down instead "Hags play with their food." He looked away "She was probably playing with us."
'Hags being whatever the fuck she is.' I noted, remembering all the distant folklore about such creatures "And yet here you stand, having just threatened one. I'd almost praise the balls on you if it wasn't so damn stupid."
"She could shoot fireballs out her arsehole for all I care." The man growled "She has our sister!"
"That'd do it." I snorted.
Not caring for my comments he finished "We are going in there, and getting her back!"
"I would sincerely advise against that." I said in a cold tone.
"And what's it to you?" He shot me a glare.
"Nothing." I shrugged lazily "I meant that literally. I would advise against going in there."
Finally at the end of his patience, the stressed man exploded with "Well you can shove your-"
Only to be stopped by his brother's hand on his shoulder "Calm down Johl." He pleaded and then looked to me "We know the hag is dangerous, but what would you have us do? Leave our sister to her?"
"Not charge into an obvious mage's home unprepared?" I asked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world "The area itself is enchanted, and you want to follow the creature to its home? You and what army?"
The younger brother paled while the elder kicked a nearby rock "Fuck!" He snarled.
"We can't just leave her in there!" He said.
"Hags have that poor a reputation?" I asked, both to make them focus and for my own curiosity.
"Everyone knows that." He flashed me a confused look.
"I am not from around here." I deadpanned pointing at myself "If it wasn't quite obvious."
"They are cruel creatures, like making deals." The younger brother said while shaking his head "Dealing with one never ends well, and Mayrina, she-" He choked "She lost her husband and then started talking crazy about reviving him."
"She left home one day, and we followed her here." The now much drained older brother sighed "I just hope her child is fine."
"Her child?" My gaze sharpened "She brought a kid here?"
"No." The man gave me a dark look "She is pregnant."
The pieces fell together almost immediately as I pinched the bridge of my nose "Please, for the love of all the gods, don't tell me she decided to sell her unborn child to a notoriously evil witch in hopes of reviving her love."
Both brothers paled as the words left my mouth.
"Fuuuuuuck..." The older groaned in despair while the younger just kept shaking.
Me on the other hand?
I had gone from mildly curious and annoyed to outright livid. I was officially fucking done with this shit, my feet already moving down from the dirt path and into the meadow, grumbling curses as I went.
"What is it with this fucking place?" I hissed as my Magicka swirled "And its gods damn obsession with being shit to children?!"
The two confused brothers had just enough time to catch up to me when my spell went off, the flash of purple energies barreling through the Weave's interference and completely wiping off the hag's enchantment over the meadow, ripping her deep seeded power out like a weed, and revealing a steaming stinky bog below.
The decades or maybe even centuries of painstakingly set defenses disappeared like morning mist.
But more importantly, the high grade spatial lock clicked into place above the area, stopping any and all teleportation up to and including that of the soul based variety.
There would be no escape.
I could almost taste the creature's growing panic in the air.
It wasn't long before she made her first pitiful attempt at survival.
A group of tiny long nosed creatures wielding hand scythes and wearing bright red caps charged at us, making sheep noises of all things as they did and trying and failing to cast some rudimentary blood magic at us only to have it dispelled with the barest flickers of my power.
The younger farmer reached for his cleaver but took an unsure step back and stumbled on his ass, eyes widening in a panic.
His brother at least had the balls to stand and fight, rising his pitchfork with shaking hands and hate in his eyes.
But they were only ever meant to serve as observers.
My right hand twitched upwards, barely enough to make the movement noticeable at all, and the many now disenchanted roots in the area sprang up around the red-capped gnomes, contorting around them faster than they could notice and promptly bursting them like ripe fruits.
"Charming." I drawled and kept walking as if no interruption happened.
And yet before I could storm the rickety rotting excuse for a hut the hag called home, I felt a nearby gaze focused on me, a hunter's patient calculation though not one that was focused on the prowl, for now.
I simply stopped in my tracks, and met the source's eyes directly, expression expectant.
The two brothers knew better than to try and make me hurry, and took the chance to catch their breath as I waited for the man to realize his only option.
And like clockwork, less than a minute later a tall well built man armed with a crossbow and sporting a downright appreciable mustache stepped out of the nearby thicket "You are not from around here." He stated the obvious.
"No shit." I deadpanned, and that seemed to slightly ease his tension.
"Gandrel, monster hunter." He introduced himself with a calm incline of his head "Just my luck to have you attack while I visit."
"A monster hunter consorting with a creature like the hag?" I quirked an eyebrow "A rather creative interpretation of your title, wouldn't you say?"
"I hunt another quarry." His lip curled ever so slightly in distaste "And trading information with hags can be done, if one knows what they are doing."
"Information valuable enough to try and earn some favors by annoying me?" I quirked an eyebrow, fingers curling ever so slightly in unspoken threat.
I didn't say fight, or even slow, and he caught that fact as his eyes sharpened "No." He shook his head slowly "I owe the creature no loyalty, merely respect for its power."
"Good enough." I hummed approvingly and started walking to the hag's home "You can join us, if you feel like doing the honorable thing."
I didn't wait for his answer though as I calmly walked up the rotting steps, though I did allow myself a slight smile as I felt the monster hunter cautiously join our little procession, even if I had to slap away the hags attempts to contact him silently.
The moment I stepped into the house I felt my smile disappear under a curl of disgust.
This whole place's aura practically screamed petty cruelty and suffering, a kind of gleeful childish desire to cause pain and horror that had been satisfied over and over and over again throughout the course of centuries.
A fact that should make my following actions utterly unsurprising.
My hand lashed out, the sudden telekinetic force under my grip ripping the fireplace hiding the tunnels below out as one might pluck a flower.
"Heeere's Reyvin!" I chirped, voice tinged with contained anger.
Anger that only grew as I was presented with the truth of my 'host'.
The level just below the house was covered in 'displays' of the unfortunates the hag had fucked over, literal plaques set in front of them telling in poetic detail just how the creature had twisted their desperate requests to extract the maximum amount of suffering from them.
I did not pay them much attention for now, and looked to the 'door' hiding the passage forward, a soul shoved into the frame to power the illusory passage one merely needed to step through.
I felt the soul panic at the sight of me and to my surprise whoever was imprisoned within tried warning me against the hag, despite the image of its inevitable punishment that flashed through my mind through sheer accident.
"You are certainly more selfless than I." I hummed and promptly ripped the soul out of the passage, letting it free as I did.
First I felt its confusion, and then such elation it was almost blinding, and then the soul began dancing around me, an almost song-like laughter echoing just at the edge of my senses as I felt my spirits rise ever so slightly.
Feeling just a bit more self righteous than I usually allowed, I grinned and charged through the rest of the hag's burrow.
A group of people imprisoned under gnarled masks made to torment the mind tried stopping us but I simply put them to sleep with some minor illusion magic, not breaking their imprisonment immediately due to the connection I felt they had with the hag.
A trapped hall awaited on the other side, and after rather irritably having to float the fools following after me for a full minute we reached the hag's domicile proper.
Whereupon I saw a young woman stuck inside a hanging wooden cage, but instead of whatever relief I expected to see on her face all I found was hatred "You!" She pointed at me accusingly, tear-stricken face twisting with fury "You are ruining everything!"
Her two brothers flinched with pained looks in their eyes.
"Ruining what, child?" I asked, humoring her despite feeling the hag's expectant gaze.
"She was going to bring Connor back to me!" The crazed girl said "And now you've ruined it!"
"At what cost, I wonder." I spoke softly, even as I channeled just a bit of my psionics to focus her thoughts on the truth of her decision.
The girl looked away and I knew my previous suspicion had been confirmed.
My face contorted into a sneer and I promptly decided to leave all interactions with the failure to her brothers. Instead I looked to the hag "Come out, filth. Your skittering will not save you."
"You come into my home." The accented voice rang out, tinged with maddened fury "Ruin my plans." A puff of green smoke revealed the hag just under the cage "And then threaten me?!"
"I will rip the skin from your bones, boy!" The large disgusting hunched green-skinned creature covered in boils and welts snarled "And then grow it back just to do it all over again!"
"Cute." I deadpanned and before she could do whatever it was she was planning on, I disappeared from my spot, materializing just next to her and promptly punching her in the side of the face, sending her sprawling across the stone floor and smashing into a nearby wall.
'Really wanted to punch her ever since I first saw her.' I smirked and ignored the ear-piercing shriek of surprise the thing let out.
I felt the magic in the air stir, and suddenly five Ethels stood all around the chamber, more and more increasingly creative threats forming out of their hateful lips.
That all stopped when a crossbow bolt slammed into one of them, all four of the others disappearing in a poof revealing the truth of their illusory nature.
The hag clutched at her flank with genuine surprise on her face for once, and she glared down at the monster hunter "You fucking Gur-"
That was as far as she got before being yanked back to me, and unwilling to dirty the masterpiece that were my gauntlets any further I simply let her slam into a nearby wall, that also just happened to be a door.
She smashed through the stone and wood barricade with another pained screech, and I followed after her a moment later, taking the time to signal the mortals to deal with the caged retard while we entered what looked to be her inner sanctum and workshop.
"Wait!" The hag scrambled to get on her feet "Wait!"
"Alright." I said indulgently while considering the most appropriate kind of murder she was owed "I'm waiting."
"We don't need to be enemies!" She said, eyes maddened and breath heavy with panic "I didn't mean to lie to you! Hells, I'll even apologize!"
"You think I'm here just for that?" I crossed my arms, eyes flashing with amusement.
"Aren't you?" She twitched, her mind no doubt racing "You didn't attack me because you care about these mortals do you?" She scowled, genuinely disgusted.
A low chuckle left me at that "Oh, Ethel. You think there is some greater meaning to all this?" I tilted my head "Oh no, my dear stupid hag." Her face twisted into a snarl, revealing sharp crooked teeth "You were simply disgusting, and looked at me with those filthy hungry eyes."
She flinched away, panic growing.
"So no, your death does not come for the sake of the righteous." I sneered "Even if it would be an acceptable reason. It comes on my. fucking. whim."
A lie, but I preferred making her feel insignificant to being honest.
To my surprise, this seemed to calm her down somewhat "Wait! Dyin' is fucking painful and I'd rather avoid that" She raised her arms to stop me as I took a step toward her "How about a trade?"
"A trade?" I hummed, quickly filing away the fact she could respawn and adding that to the list of things to prevent "What kind of trade?"
"I'll give you some of my hair!" She said and quickly plucked a small bundle of disgusting oily hairs from her head "It'll make you stronger!"
"Why would your hair make me stronger?" I tilted my head.
"We hags are part fae, didn't you know?" She grinned, feeling like she had just won her life.
"Oh really?" My eyes brightened for a moment "Why didn't you start with that?" I asked, and the Mortal's Razor flashed into my hand, the light in my eyes turning cruel.
The green-skinned creature blinked in surprise, and then paled.
(General POV)
Gandrel of the Gur watched over the two brothers as they fawned over their hatefully furious sister, a corner of his eye focused on the way the elf and the hag had left during their fight, and all the destruction they left behind.
Something in his instincts told him following them in there was not a wise idea.
Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream cut through the entire cave system, completely stunning the family of farmers and making even Gandrel shiver in terror, though his training stopped him from dropping his crossbow.
He considered going in to see if the elf needed help but then another even louder scream belched out of the hag's throat.
And then she began to beg.
The monster hunter had never even dreamed of hearing those words coming out of its mouth.
He quickly turned to the farmers who were just as pale as him and pointed to the tunnel leading up "Why-" He swallowed and licked his lips "Why don't we go and wait upstairs?"
The two brothers somehow managed to run even faster than him as they hauled their sister up, and away from the hag's whimpering.
Gandrel made a quick prayer to all his ancestors, thanking them for not pulling the trigger on the elf when he first saw him. Because whatever that was, it was no elf.
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We assure you that dividends will be paid out... at some point.
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