The Plague Witch

The Plague Witch: Rumor has it that deep in the swamps of the eastern delta, the Plague Witch makes her home. She draws her power from the slow decay and corruption of life. It is said she was once a powerful priestess and healer, on a path to become head of her order.

Weeks before she was to be anointed the High Healer, she met the love of her life; a great hunter, trapper, and woodsman whose charge was defending the borders of the land from the horror that came out of the swamps of the eastern delta. As the High Healer is sworn to never have a lover (she is supposed to love all equally) nor bear children (all the peoples of the world are to be as children to her), the Priestess declined the position of High Healer and left the order to live in happiness with her lover in his home at the edge of the eastern delta. Within months she was pregnant, and all was well for her in life.

Until the day her lover returned form a scouting foray with a deadly wound. He had been attacked by a horrid lizard beast of the swamp, and the beast had bitten off one arm and caused many other horrific wounds. The creature's venom caused the wounds to rot and turn green.

The former Priestess sought aid in her faith, but she had left her order and not practiced her powers in some time. All her attempts to heal the wounds failed, and her prayers for intervention went unanswered. So, she turned to darker arts. Her schooling and preparation for the post of High Healer had brought her much knowledge of forbidden arts. Secret teachings, in which the healing essence of life is twisted and corrupted. But she was desperate, her lover was dying and there was nothing she could do!

So she made a terrible choice. She knew of a ritual through which the life essence of an unborn child could be channeled into a living creature, restoring and revitalizing it. She convinced herself that she had no choice; she would sacrifice her unborn child for the life of her lover. After all, if he lived, they could kindle new life. There would be children. Many, many children, in time.

So she performed the ritual in the deep darkness of a moonless night. She felt the life of her unborn child ebb and flow within her; dark phantoms visited the hut, and her belly began to swell. Suddenly, though she was only a few months into her pregnancy, her belly swelled to a fullness that was agony. And the birth pains began. But when her "child" came forth in agony, it was not a single child. Oh no. There were many, many children, and each was a grub or worm or beetle or fly. They gushed forth in a foul stream and swarmed over the body of her love. They burrowed into his wounds and crawled under his skin. He began to twitch, then to spasm.

His eyes opened. And they were the black and yellow of dead things.

It is said that the Plague Witch and her foul lover live still, deep in the darkness of the delta's swamps. No longer do they seek to defend the kingdom from the beasts and monsters of the swamps.

Instead, they, and their many, many children, are the beasts and monsters of the swamp. - Friartook