BOOOOOOOW!!!

If Richard had not been wearing Rosita’s Drum of the Sacred Hart {Divine} on his back, that first attack would have killed him instantly. Despite all his experience and power, the [Supreme Guardian]’s life was saved only by his preternatural intuition, and Great Spirit’s grace.

The assault arrived in the form of a laser of water Chi that was so forceful, it bounced off the drum only to cut several dozen meters into the solid wall of stone to Richard’s right. Another blast came, but Babushka’s Broom of Bereavement was in his paws once again, and that was the only free shot this Water Witch would get.

He met the second jet of water with a sweep of the {forbidden} item, and the Witch’s supreme authority over the Dao of Water was interrupted as the attack was dispersed by the broom into a harmless mist. He could feel the Witch attempt to rip the water from his body, desiccating him.

The Drum of the Sacred Hart vibrated like a subwoofer as it rejected and dispersed the foreign authority within Richard’s Aura.

Luckily, the Witch’s special kind of domain (something called a weird) was not fully established by the time Richard woke up, and the Aura of his {Divine} Drum could still bolster his own, saving him from instant death.

This Water Witch was powerful, but the Witch that Richard stole his broom from was another thing entirely. Over the years, the [Supreme Guardian] had gained a bit of a reputation as a Witch hunter, and if he wasn’t fighting her in an underground lake with innocents to protect, Richard was confident he could take her down alone.

Normally, fighting a Witch (especially within her established domain) was simply not done. It was only thanks to Richard’s unmatched armory of {Divine} instruments and {Forbidden} artifacts crafted by other Witches that he was able to suppress them at all. Even the fearsome Human cultivators shamelessly cried to the Heavens when they had a “Witch problem,” cowards as they were.

Continuing to fight in the dead end of this drift was a good way to drown, so Richard jumped on the broom like a surfboard and flew towards the openness of the underground lake with his drum raised in his right paw like a shield before him. He saw no sign of the Witch as he fled the tunnel. But that’s the way it always was with Witches; fighting them was a game of hide and seek.

As he shot into the open space, the surface of the lake was already writhing like a waking dragon, ready to devour him at the behest of its new master.

As Richard zoomed towards the top of the great staircase to evacuate Zehuda and the rest of the Spider Monkeys, he began a steady beat on the Hart Drum with his left paw.

Bow. Bow Bow Bow. Bow Bow Bow. Bow Bow Bow. Bow.

To his extreme frustration, that soggy hag had actually damaged his instrument. There was a tiny hole in the skin where the tail end of the jet of water Chi had broken through, piercing his own hide and nearly reaching his core. Richard didn’t know how he was going to repair it, because (as far as he knew) the species of Divine deer the drum was made from had been extinct for almost a century.

His anger caused all of Mt. Shasta to quake, and the Spirits crowded at his door began to panic. Most of them fled, but the powerful ones who heard the drum answered Richard’s call and came to support him in battle. Chief among them was Koshare, the Clown Kachina, followed by Kokopelli the musician, as well as the White and Black ogres.

Richard landed at the top of the stairs with a crash, spinning on his heel and swinging his broom like a baseball bat as he dispersed several more lances of water that were aimed for him and the Spider Monkeys crowded in front of the massive wooden door to the foyer.

Richard then produced (4) Kachina dolls, his pipe, and lighter from his storage ring. He tossed the dolls on the floor and swiftly blew tobacco over them. The Spirits of the Kachinas, (fed and empowered by the Great Tobacco) entered the dolls, bringing them to life. Richard finished just in time, and turned as he batted away more liquid lances with his broom. Meanwhile, the dolls quickly grew to human size.

“Please distract the Witch and keep her busy for as long as you can!” said Richard when the Spirits had fully merged with their physical forms.

The [Supreme Guardian] pulled several more wondrous items from his storage ring, and armed the Kachina’s with them:

To Koshare, he gave Gallagher’s Hammer. To Kokopelli, he gave a Bansuri {Divine} gifted to him by Hariprasad Charasia. To the Black Ogre, he gave a barrel of Gold Grade rice. To the White Ogre, he gave (3) seven-foot-long Emperor Salmon.

The Kachinas inclined their heads in respect, and launched themselves out over the lake. Richard then kicked the wooden doors open and the horde of panicked Spider Monkeys ran into the entryway. When he shut the doors behind them, two blue boxes appeared in Richard’s vision:

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~ Quest Complete! - Tick Tock Tintavil ~

* Tintavil’s body has been discovered!

* Tintavil’s killer has been identified!

Reward: If that Witch established her weird before you forced her hand, you would be enslaved as her familiar by now.

You’re welcome.

~ New Quest! - Capture the Hag ~

* Capture the Witch alive

* DO NOT LET HER OUTSIDE

Reward:

The true resurrection of Tintavil.

Full healing of all injuries sustained during the struggle.

Penalty for Failure:

I trust you have some idea how much it costs to resurrect something. Don’t fuck this up. You don’t want to see Zehuda cry, do you? I don’t.

Richard was momentarily stunned. He knew the System was powerful beyond his imagination, but he had never even heard of a single story where the System had returned a dead person to life. Sure, messy solutions were possible with necromancy, but the Quest description said “true resurrection,” which Richard had believed until this moment to be impossible. If the reward wasn’t enough of a hint, the Penalty for Failure made it very clear that the System really wanted this Witch alive.

Richard was bound by Heavenly decree to kill Witches on sight… but the System demanded this one be captured. It was highly unusual for the System to directly oppose Heaven like this, and the fact it was speaking to him in the first person was worrisome. For Richard’s entire life, the System has never used the word “I”. The hair on the Grizzly Bears back stood up as he read the second box a second time.

This is not good at all.

Richard shook his head as thoughts about the fall of Atlantis filled his mind. He had to focus. An Earth shaking roar reverberated off the cavern walls far below as the White Ogre’s Doll body was destroyed.

He didn’t have much time to evacuate Zehuda’s Clan. With the door to the outside no longer a possibility (The Witch might escape), two choices lay before him:

Send them into the Faerie Realm alone, which would be a death sentence.

OR

Send them to Master Shen’s place.

Richard blew Tobacco over the Dream Catcher to wake it up. Sleeps on Sand fluttered as it came to consciousness.

“My orders from you AND Master Shen are to deny passage to anyone who is not a Disciple of Master Shen. However, I can tell this is an emergency. If these Monkeys say the oaths I will permit them to pass, but it’s going to cost you.” said Sleeps on Sand.

“WE SO SWEAR!!” said Zehuda, kowtowing before the demanding decoration. Three hundred and thirty-two White Spider Monkeys chittered and nodded their heads, kowtowing as well.

“Very well. I know a Water Witch is here–I can feel her authority molesting the moisture in my leather. I want her hair, all of it. If you can promise to give it to me later once she’s dead, we have a deal.” said Sleeps on Sand.

“I can do better than that,” said Richard.

“The System wants me to capture her alive. I can get you the hair of a Witch that walks the waking world.”

“Good alliteration, you can communicate with capricious Catchers so casually.” said Sleeps on Sand as the hole in the center of its net grew into a portal several feet across and began to suck in the terrified White Spider Monkeys.

Another tremor shook the Mountain as the Black Ogre’s body was destroyed.

Zehuda waited till last to go through. He kowtowed before Richard, tears in his eyes.

“Good luck.” said Zehuda. With those words, he was sucked through the portal to the hidden temple that Master Shen called home.

“You’ll need it.” said Sleeps on Sand before the portal shut and the dream catcher was inert once more.