The Hag Exploration

**The Hag Exploration** was a task undertaken by Farah, Yfnebar, Nesston, Tingus, and Lucius to hunt down the hag that had haunted Farah, and moreover to wipe the stain of her presence out of our land.

We set out from Ulrok to the east and slightly north, following information Farah had given us about the last known direction of the hag.

**71.51**

 We camped here for the night at the intersection between beach, forest, and grassland. As we checked the area out, we heard faint sounds of digging coming from underneath the ground. When I burrowed to investigate, the noises stopped.

During the night, I was attacked by a sabertooth tiger. It nearly mauled me to death before we slew it. This is likely not the cause of the underground noises, but those who travel here should be wary of any further tiger activity.

Nesston nearly destroyed the beast with a fireball, setting the surrounding area on fire and causing a small blaze to burn. This intersection will not likely have very much natural presence at all for some time. It's all ash.

In the morning we finally noticed a worn path leading us eastward, but slightly northwards into 72.51, which we learned was used by the hag.

**72.51**

As we continued on the path, a drastic shift in the surrounding environment occurred. We began to smell death, the trees progressively wilted to a point where it looked like the dead of winter. The plant growth in the area appeared to be all dead and decayed from a lack of light or water.

In the distance, we saw a lone novel nestled in between trees, although the trees looked as if they were moved to hide the small hut.

We spread out and allowed Farah to challenge the hag, threatening her with the loss of her soul bag. The hag proceeded to use some sort of illusionary magic to imitate a flock of crows all around Farah. In addition, the hag uttered a shriek, clearly torn by Farah's ultimatum.

We then heard something moving underneath the ground-- perhaps the same thing as before, perhaps not-- and a giant beetle arose in front of the tent. Right infront of Raoul - putting the monster infront of the hovel door and  nearly knocking him over in the process-  a giant Beetle arises from the dirt. The beetle's natural armor was solid grey and its extremities had a green hue to them. His face was spiked with two large prutruding horns. The beetle also had long, slender legs that were armored as well. The beetle was much larger than an average humanoid, perhaps four times over.

The battle raged on. The hag had a familiar that flew above the scene, but every once in a while swept down to spit poison breath at our group. It was very effective.

The hag seemed to be hiding behind the beetle as a tactic, as if she wasn't capable of withstanding the blows herself. She ducked out of the hut once to cast some sort of necromancy that fired a ray of disease. The hag also used its claws to strike fiercely at Farah, again shrieking angrily while doing so. It appeared to be very angry over the loss of its bag. The hag seemed to be resistant to Nesston's spells, but took extra damage from Lucius' divine blows. The hag also seemed to be capable of casting a magic missle spell at will. The hag was eventually slain by a mighty blow from Lucius and Farah.

The hag's hovel had little in it aside from five bags made of flesh, seemingly sealed somehow, as well as a plethora of vials containing various fluids. On the hag's corpse there was a stone, that Farah used to cure herself of the lasting effects of the haunting.

We eventually returned to Ulrok, but the hag's hovel and the effects on the land around it still remains. Little is known about what the process of regrowrh will be.