More Questions than Answers

After the battle we took stock our surroundings. The bandits seemed unprepared for an assault and none of them had been wearing the dragonscale armor that Rolf had worn. Zarruk and Po began searching the camp for loot while Dru and I began interrogating our prisoners. We woke one of them and started questioning him, Dru taking a very aggressive approach while I adopted a more passive, friendly tone. The bandit told us his name was Jasper. He said Rolf was involved with the Court of Eleven in Stiljabyr on some level, and had been spending a lot of time away from the group over the past six months. He presumably would go meet with Rezic to get his orders from the Blue Flame. According to Jasper Rolf kept a lot of secrets from the group, including enchanting their armor to appear as dragonscale. As soon as he died the enchantment broke and the armor returned to its original form.
 
As we were questioning him we heard a noise, and a young woman emerged from the forest into the camp. She had long black hair and fine clothes, and a large tome strangely similar to my own spellbook. Dru, Zarruk, and Po went to meet her and she introduced herself as Shiara Dussal, a traveler. I was suspicious based on all of our previous chance encounters, and tried to see if she might be hiding something. My insight from Silvanus didn't detect the presence of a fiend in disguise, but I could detect a strong magical illusion aura around her and asked her to drop whatever disguise she had cast on herself. Reluctantly she dispelled the illusion, but not much about her appearance changed. It seemed she simply used the spell to conceal the dirt and stains of long travel. That calmed my fears somewhat, but I still felt somewhat mistrustful of this chance encounter. Dru on the other hand was jolly and welcoming as ever and asked if she was hungry. There had been a large pot of stew in the center of camp, and he went to taste it and see if it was fit to offer our new friend. From the look on his face after tasting it, however, it definitely was not. Dru and I went back to questioning Jasper, who claimed to have no knowledge of what was in the stew. Looking at the cauldron, it radiated a definite evil aura of some kind of foul magic, but we were unable to gain any more information from our prisoner. I decided to cast identify on it and see if I could find out what was going on.
 
Shiara joined Po in searching Rolf's tent, and discovered that the chest in the tent had a magical aura around it. When they tried to open it they were hit with a blast of energy that sent them flying back. Not to be deterred, Po used his mage hand to open the chest, standing behind it this time. As he held the lid open a disheveled figure came scrambling out of the chest, babbling about climbing stairs and screaming. Po called us into the tent, and I left my ritual to join them along with Zarruk and Dru, leaving Mirielle and Tharra to guard the poisoner. The figure turned out to be none other than Egert! As we gathered around him a symbol appeared on the chest, a white skull and triangle, and a voice began speaking. "I see where Bane did not choose wisely. I choose the dead and win. All things must die, even gods! The reaper is coming for you!" Po slammed the chest shut and we exited the tent.
 
Upon leaving the tent, however, we realized that Mirielle, Tharra, and the prisoners were all gone. I tried to use a spell to speak to them telepathically, but received a reply from another voice saying "We have them". The voice claimed to be Jasper, or one who had taken the form of Jasper at least. Its true name was Emeline Evil Eyes, and was presumably one of the hags. It taunted us trying to get us to follow, saying we'd know where to find our friends. The ghost Sustar appeared next to Dru as I was talking, and he confirmed that the hags had indeed infiltrated the bandits and had captured Mirielle and Tharra. Dru was obviously upset with the spirit not telling us the extent of the hags' powers or plans. Sustar said the hags couldn't just be killed; to defeat them we would have to banish them back to the feywild.
 
I finish casting identify on the stew and discover that it was made of human body parts and seemed like part of some sort of sacrifice. There was also a tinge of something like the obsidian material we had encountered so often with the Blue Flame. Just as I realized that the fire itself was extinguished and replace with blue flames, and six figures appeared at the edge of the camp. Among the figures were Lilith, Damon, Sibil, and an ilithid (presumably Rezic). At the same time a spirit creature in the form of a giant wolf appeared beside us.