Our heroes find themselves in a clearing surrounded by three hags. Two of them they recognize from the battle in Cian. The third, another green hag, they haven't seen before, but surmise she might be the one whose house they burned and who enchanted Brébhinn a long time ago.
Brébhinn confirms it, staring the hag down. This, then, is Missy Rot. She reaches back into the circle of adventurers. "Someone give me a weapon? Preferably something light and sharp?"
Aisling hands Brébhinn her sword, and the elf spins it expertly. "Good," she whispers, and flings a little ball of lighting at the hag.
She misses, but the battle is joined! Aisling starts playing her drum, hoping to counter any enchantments that the hags might lay on them. Keenan flings a firebolt at the night hag (and misses, which would become a theme for all of the NPCs). Fearg flies into rage and charges the other green hag - Sally, if the heroes remember right. He lashes out with his war hammer, but misses (see?), and Sally points a bony finger at him. "You just hold still," she snarls, and Fearg's muscles lock up.
Missy starts pulling magic together, but Zook was waiting for this, and counters the spell. Clara does what she does best - she runs at Missy and punches her repeatedly. Dara takes a more preventative approach - she casts a hold spell on both Missy and the night hag. Missy shakes it off, but the night hag does not.
Brébhinn charges at Missy and slashes at her, but can't land a solid blow, even with Missy stunned from Clara's attacks (in fairness, she's badly out of practice). Missy vanishes and then reappears behind Dara and slashes at her. Aisling gives up on the countercharm (the hags don't seem to be using that kind of magic anyway) and throws a cloud of daggers on the paralyzed night hag, and Zook counters another lightning spell from one of the green hags. Fearg shakes off the hold spell, but so does the night hag!
Zook tries to call up a bunch of magic missiles, but one of the hags counters it ("see how you like it, gnome!"). Sally pulls the "turn invisible and then claw the hell out of someone" tries, but then manages to set herself up to throw lightning and Zook can no longer counter it. A lighting bolt rips through Zook, Keenan, and Fearg, but they manage to remain standing!
Clara, however, isn't so lucky - two rounds of magic missiles from the night hag fell her. Dara throws some healing magic at her and Zook and Keenan lock eyes, nod, and turn their attention back to Sally. Zook hits her with a witch bolt, crackling energy coruscating over her wrinkly form, and Keenan lines up his shot and unleashes burning hands. Sally screams and falls, burning, and the heroes feel the hags' magic fade slightly - with one of them dead, the coven is broken.
And they seem to know it, because Missy turns back towards the night hag and screeches "to the hells with this, Granny!" She vanishes, and the heroes turn their attention to the night hag.
The night hag hasn't gotten to be this old by taking on fights like this, though. "I'll see you," she says, and fades into the Ethereal.
The heroes all take some breaths, and Brébhinn hands the sword back to Aisling (who casts mending to clean it). The sky fades from bruise-purple to blue, the trees change from the ugly, fibrous things to...well, trees, and they notice a piebald vulture-like bird sitting on a branch change into a tiny person with wings! The pixie is holding what looks like a human eyeball, pointing at them, and as they watch it gives a nervous smile, shrugs, and starts to fly away.
Aisling starts reading a spell, but Zook is faster. He flings a magic missile at it, and in an instant nothing is left of the pixie but a bloody smear and a single wing. The eye rolls to the ground, and Zook picks it up. Dara shudders, and shares a look with Brébhinn; both of them just felt someone walk over their grave. What is this eye?
It looks human, maybe dipped in lacquer or resin. Zook remembers that hag covens will sometimes make these things, allowing them to see whatever the eye sees, and that they have some vulnerability through them, but isn't sure if it still works, since they killed one of the coven. Aisling takes the eye in her hand ("ew") and casts identify, learning that destroying it will harm the hags.
That's all the heroes need to hear! They put the eyeball on the ground and Fearg hits it with his hammer. The heroes immediately hear a screech from the trees, and see Missy Rot stumble out of the woods, blinded. Zook and Aisling throw magic missiles at her, and she falls dead. Brébhinn takes her head, just to be sure ("sorry, you'll need to clean this again").
Figuring that they need a rest before moving on to Osclaimid, the heroes start walking, and soon find a clearing with a big boulder. They sit in its shade, make a fire, rest, and then start moving on, hoping to reach Osclaimid before dark.
But after several hours of walking, they emerge into the same clearing. "Did we go in circles?" Dara wonders, but she knows the land well enough to know they haven't. They've walked straight and they should have left the forest and made it into the wetlands of the east, but here they are. Is "Granny" still screwing with them? Or is something else wrong?
Aisling plays a welcoming song, hoping to draw out whatever it is that is messing with them, and as she finishes, the bushes part. A silhouette of a person no bigger than a gnome stands there, and asks if he is, indeed, welcome. "If you mean us no harm, for we mean you none," says Aisling.
"Oh," says the figure, "we're past that, I'm afraid. But if I am welcome, I shall enter your camp."
"You're welcome, then," says Aisling, and an exact duplicate of Zook steps forward and sits at their fire.
He asks for food and drink, and they give him bread and water. He takes it, but is clearly a little disappointed. "What stories, then, have you?" he asks. "I wish to hear stories of the Feywild."
Aisling plays the song of the elf-maiden who lost her feeling and wandered the woods, since it's on everyone's mind. The not-Zook nods. "A good story, well told," he says. "What else?"
Zook stands up. "I heard a story about a band of adventurers who went looking for some missing babes, and found them sleeping in a field of flowers, enchanted and dreaming of the Feywild. The adventurers argued about whether to wake them and bring them home, or to leave them in blissful sleep. They wound up fighting over it, but eventually decided to bring the babes home."
The not-Zook nods again. "Yes, I know that story. Good, well done." He sits forward expectantly.
Clara clears her throat. "Well, I remember we used to tell stories about a maiden who was wed to a man much older than she was. And she went picking flowers to avoid her new husband, and she found herself in the Feywild, and she stayed there for the day but when she went home, fifteen years had passed! She saw her younger sister, now a woman, and she rushed home hoping her husband had died, but there he was, even older but still alive. And then the next day, she went picking flowers again, hoping to find the Feywild and come back another fifteen years later when he'd surely be dead. And I heard two different versions of this story, one where she the faeries took her away and just kept her and one where she kept looking every day but never found them, and the old man lived another twenty years!"
The not-Zook smiles. "I prefer the second one," he says, "that sounds more like the Feywild." He looks expectantly at Dara.
"I don't know if I know any stories about the Feywild," she says, "but when I was young I used to dream of being a beast, of running in the woods and following my senses, and everything was bright and vivid."
The not-Zook seems to understand, but doesn't smile. He looks at the others.
"I don't know any Feywild stories," says Fearg.
"I was such a story," says Brébhinn, "so I don't have much to add to Aisling's."
"Oh, I've got one!" says Keenan, excitedly. He proceeds to tell the story of how the party learned of Breasel, who killed a treant (whereupon the not-Zook's placid expression cracks, just a little, and he seems momentarily angry) and made it into weapons, but they took the weapons to the site of the treant's death, and there a banshee-like creature erupted from the stump and cursed Breasel, turning him into a fomorian! And then they killed it, burning it and letting the house fall on it.
The not-Zook nods. "Good. Justice was done." He stands and stretches. "Well, I thank you for your welcome and your stories. Have a good night." He walks out of the camp, but the heroes hear animal sounds from the trees and feel a distinct sense of dread.
"Is this because we killed that pixie?" muses Zook, and suddenly the trees come alive with chatter. The not-Zook appears again, sitting on a branch.
"THERE! YOU ALL HEARD IT! I HEARD THEM SAY IT!" He points a stubby finger at Zook. "You murdered Fallow Spark in cold blood!"
"He was helping the hags," replies Zook, but the unseen faeries assemblages murmurs in a distinctly incredulous way.
"He was ensorcelled! Enslaved with magic and spider-silk! A simple thing for any of you," the not-Zook gestures at the spellcasters, "to dispel, and yet you brutally slew him instead!"
Zook tries to plead his case, but Clara nudges him. "Don't think we're debating our way out of this," she says.
"What can we do?" says Aisling.
"What if we kill the last hag?" says Dara.
The not-Zook lights up. "Yes, if you were to kill the very last hag-"
"No, no!" cries Aisling. "The last hag that we were fighting just now, the one they called 'Granny.'"
The not-Zook snaps his fingers. "Damn. I suppose you do know your Feywild stories." He looks up at the trees. "What do you think? Should we allow this as recompense?"
The unseen faeries don't seem convinced, but then a familiar voice rings out. "I know these adventurers," she says. "They're not bad people. We should let them do this." They look up and see Perclan, the pixie they met months ago who told them that Zook's father, Zeb, was dead.
The not-Zook nods. "All right, Perclan," he says. "You will find and kill-"
"Wait," says Aisling. "There is something we have to do first. We're going to Osclaimid to inform the family of our companion of her death."
"You've promised this?" says not-Zook. Aisling nods. "All right. When you leave Osclaimid, you will find and kill the night hag called Granny Snowmelt." The heroes agree. "Done." A crack of thunder and a flash of lightning, and then the trees are eerily silent.
"I guess I'm traveling with you a while longer," says Brébhinn.
"Yeah, sorry about that," says Aisling. "At least you get to kill another hag."
Brébhinn nods. The party decides they'd like to travel through the night and get the hell out of this clearing. They break the forest line near dawn, and can see the wetlands in the distance. Osclaimid awaits.
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