The Hag's Bargain

The wind-riding hermit Grit is bound by a dark bargain with the hag Auntie Dirtha Bonebender. When the hag arrived to collect her cauldron - seven feet tall, hunched, carried on swirling dust - she muttered only "tick tock" before vanishing on the wind.

Helena's magic cracked through Grit's mental barriers, revealing fragments: a bargain, raw magic, and the sense that Grit's time is running out. The connection was violently severed, and Helena briefly forgot her companions entirely - seeing only the hag pointing at her from the desert below.

Grit struggles to answer questions about the bargain, as if something prevents him from speaking.

Warning: The hag has taken notice of Madam Helena specifically.

Session 21 progressed the thread substantially: the party crossed the desert to confront Dirtha at her shack beneath the oasis. Grit's camp was empty when they passed through. Dirtha proposed a game of bone cards, marked Helena and Aldric with summoned creatures, and vanished — revealing a vast pyramid buried beneath the cavern floor. She serves something she calls the Empty Throne.

Resolved (Session 25): The party descended the pyramid, assembled the three pieces of Dirtha's true name — Imetka — and broke her in the chamber of King Ramkheret. Whatever bargain bound Grit died with her. Her sisters, Granny IceTooth and Mother Malice, collected the body in silence and vanished.