Welcome to Gaia! ::

The cold mountain air was still and breathless. The house was barely peaking out beneath a mound of snow. It appeared untouched, and abandoned. The undisturbed snow glittered in stark contrast to the dark dusty window still visible.

Inside the snowed in hut it was dark. Dust covered every surface and a corner of the house was embedded in snow where it had seeped in through the cracks in the boards. A tangled mound of hair and pelts laid motionless in the other corner; until suddenly, it didn't.

A low rattle shook the tangled corner. The mound, changing shape, rattled again but louder. Then louder again. The mound shed its fur and Baba awoke with a rattling cough. Breath clouded the air as she heaved and shook her way towards the dirty window. The dim light exposed the cobwebs in her hair and she was nearly grey with dirt. She quickly pushed open the window and the gush of wind stirred up the fine sediments.

Her legs creaked and cracked as much as the floor boards as she moved about in the dim. She rummaged through a box with old bottles until she found one, uncorked and drank the contents. Her breath was raspy but she was no longer coughing. She grabbed a bag and made her way out the open window.


"How long had I been asleep?" she asked no one in particular, as she assessed the condition of her home. "This did not happen overnight."

It was almost completely snowed in. She then climbed the mound onto her roof. She was prodding the snow with her foot, careful not to press to firmly. She felt something hard and investigated with her hands. Her expression looked pleased and she began to dig out the area. After a few minutes she revealed the chimney. Ice had accumulated on the top and sides.

Baba was now jumping on top of the chimney trying to smash the ice with her feet. After what seemed like a ten minutes of fruitless stomping the ice cracked and gave way. The young hag fell into her chimney as she let out a shriek. After some crashing and sounds of breaking furniture she emerged again but the home had a small warmth to it. She brushed her dirty hands on her dirty dress as she looked up a the stack to see a small rising of smoke. It was a start.

She stood back from her heap of a hut and debated weather it would be worth her while to dig it out or find or make a new one. She had done this before as a small child. Mother had a way of clearing large mounds of snow with seemingly little effort, Baba was not aware of such magics unfortunately. Her mother would have kept those secrets to herself. This hut was Baba's third home. The first time she resettled the house had mostly collapsed in on itself because of heavy snow and was not worth salvaging. She had similar issues with the second home but it was manageable until tensions mounted between he mother and the nearby settlement. They had apparently undergone some leadership changes and the new "elder" didn't appreciate her services despite having used Baba's aid in the past. The current hut was nicely settled in the middle of nowhere but not to far from mountain paths that lead to villagers to resources.

Finding another location would be difficult, and without her mothers guidance and magics, the job would be extremely taxing without considerable aid. Baba did not have the steady clients or resources her mother had and she was beginning to feel it. She was not ready to order the villagers to help her, and she could not threaten them reasonably without possible repercussions. Her contemplation about the house was interrupted by a sharp pain and grumbling sound from her belly. She squeezed her temples with her fingers and let out a groan.
"Perhaps I can think this through better on a full stomach." she gathered some things from the house and made her way to the lake.

As she fished, it allowed her to asses her situation and contemplate how and why she got here. Why had she slept for so long? While it was not unusual for her to sleep for two or three days periodically, she had been asleep for much longer this time. This had happened to a few times as a child and was usually caused by her mother. It always made her suspicious.
What had mother done now, what is she hiding from me, what is she plotting? Nauseating thoughts swirled in her mind.
Had mother come back to the house, was she out there somewhere? If that were true, why has she kept herself hidden? Did I accidentally drink a sleeping potion? Baba felt a tug, and pulled a fish from the ice hole. It was small but lively and wriggling. She firmly grabbed it by the tail and smacked it against the ice a couple times before she severed the head with a small knife.

After she had caught a few more fish she brought them back to her hut and smoked them in the fireplace. While she was eating she got the idea to look through mothers old journals. She began to tear through stacks of old books and papers that had formed a jenga style pile along the wall over the past eight years or so. Her mother often kept logs of clients and the nature of their deals and trades. That meant she sometimes needed to write down instructions or formula for specific potions, spells, and charms. Perhaps one would help her discover the spell used to save the hut from the snow.

Baba had paged through nearly fifty of her mothers journals among the 200 or so pile of reading materiel. She had been at it for hours and she had found plenty of useful information and helpful tips for efficiency and potency but not the spell she needed. She was fairly certain these journals were recorded in during her lifetime. Her mothers older journals weren't here, those were the ones she needed.
"The witch must have hid them somewhere!" Baba's voice was angry, and tired. But this didn't surprise her. Her mother often kept things from her, claimed she was inexperienced or unworthy of her more powerful magics. She huffed in frustration and sat forcefully on her cot. "If she thought I was so unworthy she would have abandoned me in infancy, not at the dawn of my powers awakening... unless she thinks I can't handle it." She contemplated for a minute.

She always felt like she had been left with more questions than answers. Perhaps her mother hadn't died but just abandoned her. Perhaps she needed to prove her worth before she revealed her deeper magics. She didn't know, and wouldn't have any answers until she uncovered them for herself. Weather her mother was dead or this was some sort of test, she was determined to not let it stop her from being the most powerful witch in history.

Baba decided, for the time being, digging out the house manually would be easier than uprooting again. She grabbed a makeshift shovel from under the house and got to work. Moving the snow would take at least three days of constant work, but her mind was free to come up with ideas of where the missing journals might be hidden. Within them she would get closer to discovering what her mothers true intentions were, and uncover powerful and dangerous secrets.

Prentice Journal
✍ entry 4
A Hagstone Message

Baba was feeling a bit peckish for companionship. Her familiar Hemlock had gone missing again. "With luck, he is dead this time and I can get another." She said to herself as she swept the floor of her hut. The spitorog had not been her first choice, but as it happens he was fitted to her. Her only hope of obtaining a new one was to wait for her current familiar to die so its spirit could possess another animal and find its way back to her.
She wondered if Hemlock stayed alive simply to spite her. It had sustained every potion, poultice, and spell she had laid on it. Hemlock's drooling stupidity was only balanced by his resilience and seemingly infinite pain tolerance.

"Perhaps it is time to look for a new one..." she muttered and pushed a pile of dirt out the door. She stepped out into the fresh spring air and took a deep breath. She felt a deep sense of connection the wild and she desired to place her feet on the ground. She never wore shoes because she thought it got in the way of her connections to the earth. The cold ground was slightly wet from snow melt and she muddied her toes.

"Hemlock!" she called out, "Heeeeemmmloooock!" a handful of birds flew off and rustled the trees. Baba was greeted with silence. She walked a few paces from her home and turned around to examine it. She pondered about where her three-eyed friend could have wandered off to. As she scanned the hut from bottom to top she noticed something odd draped on the point of the house. It looked like a leathery bit of rubish. She crinkled her face.

Baba walked around back where the wood pile and the snow were piled high enough that she could climb onto the top of her hut. She was careful to step only down the middle so as to not fall through her roof. What is that? A Bat?
She approached cautiously. It appeared to be a sleeping sailscale. It looked like it was wearing some sort of dirty pelt. She was about to shoo it off her hut when it occurred to her that it could be an opportunity to replace her worthless toad.

"Hey there little guy!" she said sweetly. "Are you cold? I have some stew that will warm you right up!" she crept forward and tried to coax him. Its body shifted and head perked up to look at her. The dirty pelt appeared to be some sort of harness. Had it been someone's pet? It was not a coincidence it landed on her hut. She would do her best to understand its origins and the circumstances of its appearance.
"Come now, come with Baba." It looked hesitant but she wasn't close enough to grab it, and any sudden movements could frighten it.

She crawled back down and went into the hut to retrieve a bit of meat. She presented it to the sailscale. It was still on her roof but was looking down curiously and was perhaps excited. "See, I have some meat for you. I will even give you a bath and clean up that old harness of yours. Come now, tell me your story." as if on command it opened its wings and glided down and landed on her arm.
Baba flinched a little. The wings were larger than she initially thought and she was unused to having a critter on her arm. She rewarded the scaly beast with the meat and slowly walked it into the hut.

The sailscale seemed satisfied with the meat and carried it up on her head. It rested on her tangled mess as if it were a nest. She didn't seem to mind as she fetched the water for his bath. She mixed it with the water from her kettle so it would be warm and she dropped some dried flower petals in it.
"See nice and relaxing." She lifted the sailscale from her head and set him next to the bowl. She went to untie him from the harness when he snapped at her. "Hey now," she scolded, "I only mean to clean you up and fix your outfit! It is practically in tatters."

It didn't give much of a fuss when she continued to remove the little harness. It had been carefully made, someone must have cared about him. "Where is your earthling?" she scratched behind his horns. "Do you have something to do with that dream I had? Why are you so far from home?" the creature answered with gentle nudges into her finger. It was too tame to be on its own. Something must have happened for it to be on its own. If the owner was dead she could try to bind it to her as her familiar.

As the sailscale rested in the warm bath bowl she pulled a bit of chalk from her pocket and drew a simple binding circle around it to test. She licked her finger and commanded the binding to activate it... but nothing. That meant that it was still already bound to another, or that Hemlock was still hopping about somewhere. Baba grimaced at the outcome. "Just a visitor then? Very well, enjoy your bath while I fix your little outfit. I have a task for you when it's done." she told the sailscale.

With some thread and needle from her pocket, she got to work fixing up the harness. She was fairly good at stitching. She had to sew her dress back together frequently. It was still in tatters, but it couldn't be helped. It was old when she got it and the fabric only holds up for so long. The harness was easier to fix than her dress. It was small but well made and the fixes were minimal. The sailscale had been drying itself by the fireplace and looked like it belonged there. "It is a shame I cannot keep you." she lamented. "Here," she presented the harness to him, "good as new, well sort of, it will do." It appeared pleased and wiggled itself in as she tied the straps.

"Now for your stay in Hotel Baba you have to complete a task for me." she pulled a hag stone pendant off the altar. "This will protect your earthling from further heartbreak, or at least help him from catching feelings. Bring this to him." She tied the necklace to the sailscale's harness and sent him off. "I get the feeling he is going to need it."

words:1,099 points:3 prentice journal entry 4/3

her grocery list
- a clear mirror to focus
- a glass jar for mixing
- something valuable to place in the jar
- achieve ultimate focus to get the perfect mix

Baba turned the box over and over in her hands. She studied each side again and again. She recognized her mother's handiwork, the sigil on it had been perfectly executed and the resin had been applied evenly and appeared flawless. She knew she was not strong enough to simply break it. Baba had to find other ways to open it, and she had other ways. She would have to find a way to release or at least weaken the resin. With the right brew, it could be done.

She gathered her sled and loaded it with an ice pick, a spade and other materials for harvesting ice. It was a good thing she didn't mind the cold. She would be on the lake for a good while. The ritual required a clear mirror. She would have to be able to stare into her own eyes while strained in an uncomfortable posture. Baba did not have a good mirror so she would make one from the ice. She also needed something else from the ice. Something powerful to act as a solution in the glass vessel.

It was a twenty-minute walk to the nearest frozen lake. She trudged through the snow slowly and regretted not obtaining a work animal. The lake was frozen over but had begun to thaw a bit. Some large cracks had formed on the ice and some parts grew thin. She proceeded with caution, no one would help her if she fell through.
She made her way out to where she knew the ice was still thick and she began tapping the ice with her ice pick. She found a patch of ice that was crystal clear. She could see straight down into the lake and the dark surface reflected back at her. Baba's eyes lit up approvingly. She worked her way around a sizable piece. Tapping the perimeter with the pick bit by bit. Eventually, enough of the ice was perforated enough for her to start hitting it with some real force. It was a laboring task and she had to be careful not to break her clear ice in half. A crack began to form and slowly spidered its way along the damaged ice. She struck the edges tree more times, and on the final strike, the ice split beyond her circle. The crack continued at a racing speed through the lake. It made a terrible sound and was loud enough to be mistaken for thunder or a tree snapping in half. Baba froze as the ice quaked around her. She quickly but steadily lay flat on the ice to spread out her body weight. The cracking continued but it was not around her area, it instead reached to the other side of the lake. Fear kept her motionless for a long time as she waited for the booming sound of the shifting ice to subside. After a long silence, she shifted back onto her toes. The most dangerous part had passed but she still needed to get the ice back home.

She wedged the spade between the pieces to lift up the cut ice. It was beautiful wet glass and the underside only had a few waves and spurs in it. She used a clamp to hold it and gently pulled it from its frozen womb. Once it was on her sled she took a closer look at it. It was not entirely perfect. One spike of ice, in particular, was rather cloudy and upon closer examination appeared to have a face. "It looks like I have found a frozen soul!" she said excitedly, "Perhaps you perished under the ice. This would be a perfect medium for the potion." She carefully tapped the base of the shard and removed it from the rest of the ice.

Once she hauled the ice home she dragged it inside to prepare. She propped it up on the counter and used a hot iron from her fireplace and a rag to shape and smooth the back until it almost looked like the lens of an eye. She then rotated it around again to paint the flat side with a coat of silver dust. The now complete mirror had nearly a perfect reflection. She had done this a few times before but never on this scale. She wiped the sweat from her brow and dried her hands on her dress. She looked closely at her reflection, she could see deep into her own eyes. "This will make finding the void that much easier." She was quite proud of herself at this point. Using a clear mirror helped her focus and find that "void" deep in her mind. A place that was quiet where she could be in tune with her mind and body and the energies around her. But she knew there was still much to be done. She focused the rest of her energy on drawing her focus circle and creating her sigils to help her concentrate.

Baba had her candles lit and her sigils complete and intensely focused on. The box was in the circle and the jar next to it. Laying out in front of them were various ingredients, most of which had been crushed or powdered. "Oh! The trapped spirit!" She had nearly forgotten to place the enticing oddity in the jar. She jumped outside to retrieve it from the sled and dropped it into the jar. She was now ready. She took a few deep breaths and stood in her circle facing the mirror.

"Open to me" she spoke aloud and drew her own sigil in the air and in her mind. With her objective clear in her mind, she dropped the remaining ingredients in the jar with the ice shard. Baba held the jar in one hand and stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. She sat with her back up straight and her legs crossed. Without breaking her gaze with the mirror she held the strained pose as she stirred. The intense staring contest with the mirror brought herself into that void deep in her mind and time melted away along with the ice. She could feel nothing but the jar. It's temperature freezing, then burning and fluctuating again and again until finally, she could not feel her hand at all. Then, all at once she looked away from the mirror and closed her eyes as she released the jar and all the focused energy from her body. The jar broke over the box and she crumpled to the floor and heaved from exhaustion. Baba opened her eyes slowly and watched a sweat drop fall from her nose onto the chalk circle. She sat up to take a few deep breaths before checking her work.

She looked at the box again. The potion had run over and down the sides of the box. The surface appeared to be bubbling slightly and parts of the resin were lifting up. She held her breath as the potion did its work. When the bubbling subsided the box looked to be coated with a glassy cracked glaze. Baba huffed out a laugh. It had been successful, and she felt incredibly proud of her magic and her potions. She felt the urge to tear up but sniffled it away. She reached out to lift up the box and the remaining resin shattered and crumbled at her touch. Perhaps now its opening would be revealed.

She placed her hand on the sigil and could feel an indent. She pressed on it and heard a click. Something had shifted inside. She held onto either end and felt it shift again. With a twist, the box split in half and she was able to pull it open. Baba cautiously peered into the container. Who knew what her mother deemed necessary to hide away from her. It could be dangerous for all she knew. Would this be another tale of Pandora's box? The contents appeared to be lifeless at least and bookish in nature. She removed the item and her eyes widened. Baba recognized it as her mother's grimoire!

"This! This is what I have been looking for!" All season she had organized her library in the hopes of finding it and here it had been in the yard this whole time! Her hands shook with excitement and she clutched the journal to her chest. "Yes!" she said in a fit of nervous laughter. Still trembling she tenderly opened the front cover only to find most of the book was missing. Her brow crinkled. "No" she said low and growling. She had put together what this meant but she did not want to accept the reality of it. Mother still had some lessons for her. Today's lesson was about sigils and removal or transfer spells. She had passed and been awarded the much-coveted tome of knowledge. But it was incomplete and no doubt to find the other parts would mean going through more of these tests.
She flipped through the remaining pages to search for clues about where the next part would be located. As she shuffled the pages one fell out. It was a handwritten note that read;
"Child of mine, If you are reading this then you have no doubt grown in skill and power. If you ever hope to be worthy enough to complete my grimoire then I suggest you expand your stock of potions."
"Well, there it is. She continues to tease me with knowledge just out of reach, even in her absence." She didn't hide the disappointment in her voice. She had a clue that the next test would definitely include more potion mixing, but the rest she would have to discover for herself.