Returning to her journey - with that pestering old woman behind her - the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. While nothing else harassed on the way, there were a few subtle and unsubtle signs of the wells corruption as Catherine drew closer to the source.
The subtle signs being small things like an increase in dead trees along the path and an unnerving amount of silence from the forest. Not a single birdsong or animal call came from the trees.
The unsubtle signs were the actual signs people had posted up along the road saying things like “Danger!” and “Enter at Your Own Risk".
At least Catherine was sure she was heading the right way.
Catherine reached the edge of the village at dawn, the first worn and abandoned buildings coming into view silhouetted by the sun rising up from behind. Time had not been kind to the village, Catherine noted as she hitched the horse to a half-broken fence. Trudging along towards the center of town she noted the amount of decay that had occurred from generations of neglect. Buildings had collapsed, weeds were poking through the cobblestone, and there did not appear to be a single unbroken window in the entire town; the well’s curse had turned a once thriving village into a ghost town.
Eventually reaching the center of the village, Catherine found the infamous well just as expected. Its masonry was cracked and mossy with age. Scattered around it were the dropped cups of dozens of previous drinkers. She approached cautiously, picking up a discarded chalice as she stepped up to the well.
Here it all was now sitting before her, the key to her kingdom’s rescue and her return to the throne. Catherine had honestly thought it would be more impressive - for an instrument of ultimate evil it certainly looked rather ordinary. Then again, it had started out as a regular well before the curse, so that did make a bit of sense.
Catherine also wondered if there was any sort of ritual or invocation she would need to make. There was no mention of one in the stories, but magic like this could often be tricky.