We open on Gotrek Bouldercoat arriving in the town of Cheers (yes...) on his quest to find a rare and endangered flower. He sees Allowydd the fortuneteller upon entering the town, and he stops to ask directions. After securing lodging and hitting a dead-end with the herbalist (deus ex), he follows up with Allowydd, who said her mistress might be able to help him with the flower. When he describes the flower, Allowydd realizes she recognizes it as a flower that is used by some fortune tellers and seers to induce a trancelike state; She tells him that she knows where it can be found, and they agree to leave in the morning to find it.
Setting out into the hills and up to South Mountain, they begin to feel uneasy, and Gotrek notes that the forest is too quiet to be natural. When a strange, unpleasant odor begins to intrude, Allowydd reaches out with her sight to see if she can identify the source, and gets a glimpse of cowled figures with some sort of monster chained and doing their bidding. Even less sanguine about going forward, the pair decides to return to town, hoping Allowydd's mistress might be able to help identify the creature and the figures controlling it.
All is not well however, as they exit the forests to find the nearest farm in flames. Rushing in to see if they can help, they find the savagely mauled corpse of the farmer, and hear cries from inside the burning barn. Gotrek bursts into the building, seeking through the smoke and flames for the source of the cries, and finds the farmer's wife and child trapped in a horse stall. He extricates them, and assists them out of the barn.
Meanwhile, Allowydd has reached into what's left of the dead man's memories, and finds another glimpse of the cloaked figures as they goad their monster into killing the farmer. She helps Gotrek see to the farmer's wife and daughter, then the pair sets out for town as nearby farmers rush to stem the growing fire from reaching their farms.
Once in town, they try to discover what happened, but the woman is too distraught to be helpful, so Gotrek speaks to the local gendarme while Allowydd returns to her mistress, hoping the wizened fortune teller might be able to give some insight. Unfortunately it is not to be, as she finds her mistress in agony, her eyes a mass of blood, moaning over and over again that she was not supposed to see.
With no leads and a growing fear, Gotrek considers going to see a recently made friend, and Allowydd is left to seek answers of her own.
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