Session 23 - The Kikimora

The party heads into the village of Dubinets, looking to stay with Rada - a local wise woman that Hrefna found and spoke to. The rest of the party hung around, leaving Vadim animal companion in the nearby forest. The owner of the house offered a bath to the party, and a place to sleep. However, Vladimir avoided it, and went to the barn instead to clean himself.   In the bathhouse, Vadim and Vasilii spoke to a bannik, who offered to introduce them to a local forest spirit he knew, in return for small gift of magical berries and a few strikes with a birch besom.   There was some discussion between the wise woman and the party about what the Gaalites call the Feast of the Shawl that was coming up in just over a week. Specifically, it seems that a large number of beasts were meeting in the Kapkan' Marshes to decide what should be done about the Gaalite Faith. The party was unsure whether that meeting, which she referred to as the Rada, would attract the attention of the The Serpent-Witch they were following or not.   When the party went to sleep, Hrefna was awoken inside the hut to the feeling of someone stealing something from her. The rest of the party followed the culprit, who seems to have slipped out, with Vladimir being the slowest, since he was resting in the barn.   When the party followed, there was a disheveled woman with green haie and a swampy smell, that looked vaguely like Hrefna's new doll. They tried to apprehend her to retrieve the doll she had taken from Hrefna. However, even Vasili wasn't sure why such a spirit would desire the doll, for it was a spirit of the swamps.   The party managed to fight it off with arrows and magic, and after being repeatedly struck by the moonbeams conjured by Vasilii, the creature melted down to a husk or skein. The hostess was confused about what the ruckus was about, and the party return back to the house, and explained what had happened.