Betty & Burt Baxter's Story

Betty & Burt Baxter's Story

teenagers rescued by the Deputies in session #16

Betty & Burt Baxter are teenage orphans scraping by on the margins of Blood Ax, foraging deep in the wild woods for rare herbs, roots, and mushrooms to sell at market or trade for a hot meal. Their once-sturdy boots are patched with twine, and they sleep where they can—haylofts, empty sheds, and mossy stable floors—living by their wits in a world that's lost the thread of mercy.

Before hard times, the Baxter family owned a modest apothecary in Green Creek Shrine. Betty and Burt learned much of their trade at their mother Belinda’s skirts, helping mix remedies while Bill Baxter negotiated with passing miners. But when the mining camp shrank to a rusting ghost town and strange lights began to flicker from the old Green Creek Mine, hope withered like last season’s herbs. One cold gray morning, the Baxters awoke to find the front door yawning open—Bill had vanished without a trace. No signs of struggle, just muddy footprints on the stoop and a swirl of mist drifting in from the mine’s direction.

Belinda was never the same. Within days, still sleepless and haunted, she walked out one starless night, following the spectral lantern-glow toward the mine. Betty glimpsed her silhouette in the doorway, pale in the flickering light, but could not call her back.

Left alone and shunned by superstitious neighbors whispering about curses, the twins left town before the snows fell, joining a kindly neighbor’s wagon east. Now, in Blood Ax, they trust only in each other, still searching for rare cures—and answers to the mysteries that tore apart their lives.