Session 16: We Hags Three
General Summary
Topping the stairs to find three foul-looking hags stirring a bubbling, noxious pot of ... something ... the adventurers fan out. Initially, they are unwilling to make the first strike, as so far all the hags have done is recite poetry and make vaguely threatening statements, though Fallenbridge must be verbally restrained from reflexively casting Shatter.
Dolan, though, is tense, and so when the hags drop their illusions of 'beauty' (twisted, pocked features such as they were) for their true forms (terrible, bloated horrors with bursting pustules) he acts swiftly, releasing bolts from his crossbow that strike hard and true. But even he isn't swifter than the physics of vision. Percy is struck dumb by the horror of the hags' visages, and then laid low by the Death Glare of the one called Grandmother Weeds.
The hag calling herself Auntie Eels tries to freeze Dolan with paralyzing spell, but Dolan twerks off the effects. Mother Gloom, however, seeing that another archer is about to enter the fray, turns Ruhst into a duck.
Meanwhile, back in the Eagle's Swain aerie, Kelpip has been studying ancient scrolls in the aarakocra library. He has gotten lucky and found a number of references to the warlord Grillax, from whose tomb the adventurers took Percy's vorpal sword ("Snickety snak, snickety snak!"). Deeply engrossed in the tales of old battles on what is now the Whispering Grasslands, Kelpip doesn't notice that the other patrons of the library have wandered off, leaving him alone in the dim silence.
Well, almost alone.
An old foe steps out of the shadows: the fae called the Vile Barber. He has healed since their last encounter, and his bloody grin is even wider than before, if that's possible.
"You are the one they call Kelpip," the Vile Barber says. "My master wishes me to bring you alive. But I was not told that you needed to be in good condition." And with that the creature snicks open a barber's straight razor, moves inhumanly fast to press the blade against Kelpip's throat, slashes, and then is gone back to the shadows.
Kelpip, for his part, yips out a cry for help, quickly unspools some rope from his pack, and just as quickly climbs up that rope into an extradimensional hole that he conjures from sheer, reflexive fright.
Back on the island of the Ghost Temple, Ruhst the Duck flies to Trajinous hoping that she will understand his plan ... which she doesn't, because he's a duck. So, Ruhst instead flies to Little Sister, who is also airborn, hoping for at least some cover from whatever might be coming at them next.
Trajinous rushes to Percy's side and pours a potion down the barbarian's throat. Then she tries to call up the will-o-wisp/plasma ball thing that is her spiritual weapon, but Mother Gloom speaks the words of the summing backwards and the casting is negated. Little Sister, meanwhile, feeling that she is more powerful here in the presence of the temple, grabs Ruhst the Duck by the neck and uses some of that power to transform him back into Regular Ruhst ... still held by the neck.
"However you want to roll," Ruhst tells her, choking a bit.
Fallenbridge now indeed does try to screech out a Shatter spell, but it, in turn, is nullified by a counterspell spat out by Grandmother Weeds. Fallenbridge's beak snaps shut in shock.
Dolan drops his crossbow in favor of a bow and fires off two more deadly shots, while Fenris leaps forward to gnaw and harry Auntie Eels, but as vicious as the wolf can be, he can't knock the hag off her feet.
She, however, dips fog up out of the putrid bubbling boil of the pot and those mists reform in front of Dolan as a hideous, nightmare version of an orc. But Dolan's will is too great for that. He has faced his nightmares too often in his dreams, and he waves his bow through the shadow figure and it disperses.
Grandmother Weeds tries to paralyze the now-conscious Percy, but Percy, too, is able to twerk off the effects. The barbarian staggers to her feet and stumbles toward the witches, primed for slaughter.
But that puts her in line between Mother Gloom, Ruhst, and Little Sister. The hag clenches her teeth together and a crack of thunder peals out as a lance of lightning strikes all three, though Little Sister turns, protecting Ruhst's body with her own and thus taking the brunt of the electrical damage.
Percy isn't so lucky. Still bleeding from the eyes from that first death glare, she now falls to the ground, smoking, struck down by the witch's lightning.
Back in the shadowy library in the aerie, Kelpip begins frantically sawing at the rope leading into his extradimensional space as the Vile Barber swarms up and into the reverse hole. Kelpip slashes at the fae with the dagger, but the barber is too quick, and Kelpip takes some slashes in turn. Thinking fast, he cancels the spell, sending both combatants to the floor of the library, and then he's up and running for the door, calling on his magic to make his feet move even faster.
In the shadow of the Ghost Temple, Ruhst fires off a couple of arrows from mid-air, while still smoking from the remnants of the lightning blast, and while still being choked out (inadvertantly) by Little Sister. The arrows strike home even as Trajinous has another spell cancelled even while hurrying to Percy's side again.
Little Sister drops Ruhst, who lands neatly on his feet, and launches herself at Auntie Eels. She lands beside the hag and Fenris, her wings transforming into her silvery longswords.
Fallenbridge, not knowing what to do now that spells seem to be failing left and right, throws a dagger, which strikes true, but then he is struck, in turn, by the horror of the hag's terrible forms and begins to shiver in fright.
Dolan ... still has arrows.
But the witches still have their weapons, too. Auntie Eels pulls her own eye out of her head and it turns dark as midnight, and Dolan feels gulfs of nothingness begin to permeate his soul.
But he twerks it off.
Grandmother Weeds glares at the affrighted Fallenbridge and the bard keels over, a look of terror in his glassed-over eyes. And Mother Gloom lashes out with another lightning bolt.
But the witches' time is coming to a close.
As is, back in the aarakocra city, Kelpip's. The scholar makes it to the door of the library. He can see the glorious light outside, can see the people moving about in silhouette. He opens his mouth to shout for help ...
... and then the Vile Barber steps from the very shadows, his toothy grin wide, and with two 'swicks' of his blade, one of which takes off an ear, sends Kelpip into unconsciousness. The last thing the gnome hears before he hears nothing more is, "Now you'll come quietly to my master."
On the island, Ruhst pours a healing potion down Fallenbridge's beak, and Trajinous, Little Sister, and Fenris lay into Auntie Eels all at the same time. The hag falls to blade, tooth, and bolts of holy light.
Dolan turns his arrows to Grandmother Weeds, who leaps forward, clawing with talon-like nails, even as Mother Gloom does the same. It becomes apparent, now, that if they are not three, then their magic is all but naught.
And so the witches fall, the last two struck down by Trajinous' un-opposed prayers of power.
With the ending of the witches and the spilling of the bubbling pot, the banyan forest falls as well, fading into a greenish fog as it collapses, and then being swept out over the lake and into nothingness. As the air clears and twilight comes, the air is crisp and clean again for the first time in five years ... and for the first time in five years, stars shine down on the Ghost Temple.
Examining that temple (and wishing they had Kelpip's brain with them to help) the party determines that the pillar of blue light in the temple gazebo is, in fact, a teleporter. To where, they don't know. But Little Sister says, "This is god magic. I won't be able to come with you. But I'll stay here and guard the way."
Uneasy at this, there is, in the end, no choice, but the adventurers do decide to wait until morning, both to get a good night's rest and to give Kelpip a chance to catch up, if he decides to do so.
In the morning, after a refreshing breakfast, the Thieves ready themselves to enter the Ghost Temple ... whatever that will bring.
The party bids a (hopefully brief) farewell to Little Sister and traipses through the teleporter ... and into a hidden grotto somewhere deep in the mountains, where a glacier-fed stream winds past groves of willows. They see, in one such grove, an entranceway flanked by two stone statues of aarakocra: the true Ghost Temple.
Only one problem: everyone but Little Sister entered the teleporter. But not everyone emerged. Fallenbridge is nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, in a copse of woods somewhere in the mountains surrounding the aarakocra aerie, a tied and bound Kelpip regains consciousness to the smell of breakfast, as well.
"Good morning," says a handsome, plate-armored human man sitting at the fire. "Time for some breakfast. And then we'll wait for your companions to bring us what we want, when we'll happily make a trade: you for that. Easy as peas, yes?"
From the shadows, the Vile Barber cackles its dark laugh.
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