Morgause - The Witch and the Whalers

The Seltian Eastern climate is typically cool and prone to rainfall, with Corringate famous for its near-constant deluge.

So Morgause would much rather be tucked away under a canopy of leaves, or lazily stirring her cauldron, warm and content, and listening to the rhythmic patter of rainfall upon the sturdy roof of her hut.

But here she is, trekking towards Whaler’s Cove, and the only pattering is on the brim of her wide black hat, which is slowly beginning to sag under the weight of water.

She’s regretting the trip already. She’s also regretting sticking to her mantra of “skin to soil”, being the best way to foster connection to the energies of the earth. As that earth - damp earth - squeezes unpleasantly between her toes, she realises she should really just give in and start wearing boots.

Just a little further, and a simple cleansing and drying charm will fix things. You’ve done it a thousand times, you glorified washer-woman.

Whaler’s Cove is something of a mystery to her, and Morgause hates a mystery; loves a solution. Despite the rising sentiment of suspicion and belligerence that has fallen over the magic users of Selt, she’s made a decent name for herself bartering simple magical remedies for supplies with the villages in the greater Corringate region. Hexes for spurned lovers, ointments for wrinkly old maids and supple young maids alike, potions for travelling adventurers, these have been her trade.

Could do with a particularly strapping, warm-bodied adventurer right about now.

But she’s never had call to trade with Whaler’s Cove, its inhabitants notorious for their lack of notoriety, keeping to themselves, shunning outsiders. There might be a mystery there. Or they might all be a bunch of racists.

The rain clings to her already rather tight dress, and her own supple skin shivers in its damp casing. Friendly or not, she hopes she’ll at least be able to get out of the rain soon.

Few places are friendly to her kind these days - so there’s every chance that the Covers, isolated and uninformed, might be ironically more approachable. Under royal decree, citing a series of disappearance and malign portents on the Corringate coastline, suspicion has fallen heavily on the witches, warlocks, and magical fauna of the region.

Morgause tells herself she’s taken on her mission for her own sake. But the truth is, she hates to see an underdog brought lower. So it’s for the various magically-attuned denizens of this part of Selt that she’s come seeking the Sea Shroud, a fabled gem - which her dusty, rarely used tomes insist is not fable but face - believed to conceal the whereabouts of magical creatures and those that deal with them.

With more and more Witch Hunters roving the Seltian countryside, Morgause and her kind are going to need the protection. And Whaler’s Cove is believed to be the last known location of the stone.

The thin mist around her gradually peels back, and she finds her feet on mercifully shingled earth, a rich sea breeze toying with the hem of her skirts. An overwhelming reek of fish assaults her nostrils.

Here then, is Whaler’s Cove.