I Can Still Hear Them Singing (The City of Splendors #6)

Im so tired. Spent. Thinking about how little time has passed since my last entry is mind blowing. So much has happened and yet, the skies are still dark.
 
 
So, going by the droplets of what smelled like piss I had to prestidigitate clean by the window, I suspect Flynn suddenly needed to go during his watch, similar to what happened to Ristrien. Instead of abandoning his watch, he peed straight out the window. Just a suspicion. I don't intend to bring it up.
 
What Flynn does say is that he heard footsteps upstairs and then in the doorway, saw the face of a pale kid with dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes.
 
The kid ran away and Flynn went after him, apparently shouting "Come back!" very convincingly because the kid actually talked.
 
The shouting woke up Pete and Nettie, but Ristrien and I didn't stir. Grisbi had to paw Ristrien awake and Ristrien shook me to consciousness. Naturally, I was very confused, but Flynn was talking to that kid in the hall closet. He was sickly white and had the little tusks particular to half orcs. His name was Gronn and I will quote what he said because his voice burned into my skull.
 
"Mama Ester. She wants to eat us."
 
"Veter and Matilda are upstairs"
 
"This is my home. Lived here a long time."
 
We rushed upstairs and in the room with the fireplace we found two more kids. One on the shoulder on the other, trying to climb the chimney shoot.
 
With Gronn's help we beckoned them back. They said that they were hiding from Mama Ester a long time. It was then that we realized the windows of the room were bricked over.
 
Ristrien’s theory was that when the Hag was killed the first time, the kids starved away in this bricked up room. We of course didn't tell them that they probably died a long time ago.
 
We went to the tower to try to find this Mama Ester. We looked out the window to see a green blue swirling maelstrom centered around the house. Pete went up to the tower proper, and he got a shiver up there. He could tell from the window that the fireplace room’s windows were indeed bricked up.
 
We wondered if the way to end these poor kids torment was to get them out, thus ending the cycle. It was worth a try. More and more windows became bricked up as we ran down stairs toward the door that led outside and to the ground floor. We threw open the door, half expected it to be bricked up, but it wasn’t.
 
The rain was so thick we could not even see out. Pete decided to walk out first and then immediately disappeared. We feared the worst, but then we faintly could make out his voice. It sounded far away, like he is in the tap room.
 
Nettie tested by sending her dancing light through the door. They immediately disappeared. We called to Pete, asked him if he saw them. He said he did. We called him back and he reappeared. It turned out that there was some sort of portal on the door, so that instead of going outside it immediately takes you to the ground floor. Useful, except unhelpful right then, when we were trying to help these poor whelps escape. Their hands were so cold, Zloton. I felt new resolve to help them.
 
That was when the wall caved in and a rat swarm burst forth. I didn’t want to offend Pete by immediately turning violent so I tried to put them asleep, but they were relentless.
 
Ristrien summoned what I can only describe as a wall of paper cuts, which hit them hard. She also landed a solid hit with her Eldritch book
 
Pete then let out gas that was so toxic, some of the rats literally died. Is that a spell or is that just a side effect of something he ate. Should investigate that...
 
Flynn is also a spellcaster now. Was he always one? You'd think he would have mentioned it before now, but anyway he tried to do something that felt like the spectral rat claw thing Pete did against Leaf, but he missed.
 
Nettie's rapier had more success. Naturally I missed with a ray of frost. I am consistent after all.
 
So is Ristrien. She killed the whole swarm with her next book hit.
 
There was so many dead rats, Pete started talking about making stew which I thought was an excellent idea. I was just delighted at the thought of actually doing some cooking.
 
The downside of the swarm’s attack was that the wall was now missing. We decided to worry about that later, and head to the ground floor to deal with the source of all her troubles.
 
In an effort to find the hag, we asked the children what did she like to do or what were her favorite rooms. We were told she likes cooking.
 
Yeah.
 
It goes without saying she gives us chefs a bad name, but then again, I'm kind of used to that.
 
Anyway, off to the kitchen. The fire was on. There was a stew boiling. There were eyeballs and body parts floating in it. For once, I had no interest in learning and memorizing the flavor of a food item.
 
In case it was her link to the mortal world, we decided to destroy it. I shaped the liquid in the stew into the fire. The water doused the flames for a moment before the fire flickered back on. I tried to use that fire to our advantage. I figured if I turned the iron cauldron to wood we could burn it in the fire, but as I began to transmute it, it turned back to iron.
 
Ristrien, Flynn, and Nettie heard a children song faintly from the cellar door. We figured that was where she was.
 
Pete was livid. He had finally accepted who killed the Baron. "Bitch, ain't no one invited you in my house."
 
Flynn tried to get the Unseen Servant that he apparently now has to open the cellar door. He calls it Bastion (I know), but the spell was not strong enough to open it. Something was holding the door back..
 
We opened it ourselves. The song was louder, eerie. It sounded like the kind of songs kids sing in the streets, but the context made it sound...wrong, so wrong. We put the statue of Primara down on the trap door in case someone tried to close it on us. We half jokingly/half seriously planned to stab the hag with her horn.
 
But first, we had to find her. The cellar was flooded, knee deep in a roiling liquid we assumed at first to be water. We saw no children and yet the singing made it seem like there were children everywhere. Fearing that what we sought was below, I tried to part the water.
 
But it was not water.
 
At the moment of my attempt, the singing grew louder and more incoherent. And then water became the eyes and mouths of child faces singing. Children!
 
And their voice, Zloton. May I never hear its like again. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I could only stand mesmerized at the nightmarish beauty coming from those poor throats.
 
Others had different reactions. Nettie was consumed by terror and ran out the door, teleporting her to the second floor bedroom.
 
It briefly twisted Flynn’s mind that he stabbed Ristrien deep. It seriously wounded her, but the song instilled in her such terror that she barely noticed as she ran through the door and was teleported to the third story bedroom.
 
The only one not affected was Pete. He brushed past my mesmerized form, saying “Excuse me ma'am” as he passed.
 
Yeah, I almost broke my trance I was so startled. He jumped, curled into a ball, and fell in among the faces. He belched with the power of a thunderclap, but the faces did not so much as pause in their song.
 
The faces lurched at Pete but missed. They spit a glob at him, but a spectral rat took the blow for him.
 
Kids scattered behind me as the hag chose this moment to creep from under the door and materialize.
 
"Hush little orphans,” she said, "Mama's made dinner for tonight
 
She honed in on Veter, bit a chunk out of him, and I could do nothing. The children's song held too much sway. The terror compelled me into the kitchen. I guess even in that state I'm naturally comforted by such a place. But there was no way out there, Zloton. I remember the irrational panic that realization caused. I clawed at the walls, I was so desperate for escape.
 
The upside to that terrifying experience was that the song was beyond my hearing and soon I was freed from it's effects. I went to the doorway of the kitchen to see Nettie return from upstairs.
 
I saw Pete eat one of those berries that puts him in a frenzy. He shook off something, ran after the hag, and pierced her. "Eat the end of things" he shouted, but it didn't seem like the blow affected her as much as it could.
 
By this point, Flynn had shaken off the power of the song. He ran closer and cast his spectral hand thing, but it didn’t seem to hurt her at all.
 
Ristrien made it back to the ground floor with some sort of magic dash, and hit the hag with her spectral book *hard*. The hag ignored all of us and continued to eat Veter. Then she looked confused, like she expected that to heal her. I think the spell Flynn threw at her somehow prevented her healing.
 
The singing faces lumbered up the stairs out of the cellar. I missed a frost shot at it and to keep it from chasing after me, I ran through the nearby door.
 
It teleported me to the third floor privy, so I had to run as fast as I could to get back. I made it to the second floor stairs just as Nettie made it back down to ground floor. She cast a silence field around the area where the faces were, so that we could not hear the faces song until it managed to lumber out of it.
 
It gave us a little extra time, but not much.
 
I did not see, for I was still dashing down stairs, but Pete apparently tried to bludgeon her with his war hammer to little effect. Then Flynn hit her with a firebolt, but it did little damage as well. He apparently can materialize his sword now, but in the heat of this moment, he fumbled it.
 
Ristrien had more success, of course and the hag took the full weight of her spectral book.
 
The faces moved closer, but still, thankfully, was cloaked in silence. "I'm sorry. did you say something?" Pete mocked the abomination.
 
The hag missed Flynn and then tried to charm Pete, but Pete recognized her as the woman from his dream, which I don't think pleased him very much.
 
By then, I had returned to the tavern just to see Nettie's rapier miss, Pete miss, Flynn's sword hit, doing little damage, and Ristrien hit, doing a lot more damage.
 
The child faces crept closer, but still couldn't sing. The hag clawed Pete, necrotic rot seeping through her fingers.
 
I feared for Pete. I just watched her eat a child whole. I could not let her continue. I could not hold *back*. So I did the only real magic of violence Mokuz ever taught me.
 
I cast magic missile. There was beauty in the way my own terrible aim was irrelevant. The pure darts sailed and pierced her deep. I felt a buzzing in my fingers, the way I'm sure real wizards must feel.
 
I saw Nettie's rapier miss, but it didn't matter.
 
"I'll give you something to eat! Chew on this!" were Pete's words as his Warhammer went through her mouth. Teeth went flying as she dissipated.
 
Out from her fading body, rose the light of Veter, ascending upward.
 
The others, Matilda and Gronn, murmured "thank you" and faded as well. Ristrien thinks they escaped to the afterlife; I hope she's right.
 
We looked out the windows to find them unbricked and the storm outside gone.
 
Ristrien thinks we were in a demiplane created by the hag and that when we killed her, we severed our home on the material plane to the demiplane.
 
The thing is hags shouldn't be able to create demiplanes alone, without a coven. Maybe she's a special hag? But it's more than that. Ristrien says our house might be on a Nexus.
 
That makes me wonder. Could Ristrien use her powers to create a demiplane herself? Extra restaurant space! Plus it would be an excellent attraction. Who doesn't want to eat beyond this plane of existence. Hmm, maybe she should ask that friend of hers, Carina. I believe she specializes in that sort of thing.
 
Anyway, time to take a nap. I am so tired.