A Grandmother's Love

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## Granny

Her true hag form revealed, Granny wasted no time at all walloping into the party, and wallop she did. She slashed at Kiira and Ahsatan, dealing tonnes of damage with her gigantic claws. Realising the threat, the party played a lot more defensively, with Ahsatan using her shield spell and Carric using his cutting words to block some of Granny's other claw swipes. Pissed off at the blue eladrin, she turned her attention to Carric, but Ahsatan summoned her demonic friend to block her path to him. In response, she managed to grab the demon and squeeze it in a tight bear hug, crushing it out of existence. Granny then continued to make her way towards Carric, recognising his fey essence. She slashed him with her claws and knocked him down immediately, before grabbing his body and fireman lifting him over her shoulder to be taken somewhere else. As the entangle spell faded, freeing the other giant, the two giants began to grab members of the party in their meaty hands, presumably to be taken to the same place as Carric was headed. Ven and Mirik were palmed, but thankfully Kiira managed to take down the giant grasping Mirik. The giant holding Ven walked over to the other party members and in a fit of frustration swung at Kiira using Ven as a weapon. Thankfully, Kiira managed to dodge out of the way, leaving Ven with only mild whiplash. Mirik sneakily healed Carric back up, which Granny did not notice, but she did however focus the shadows of the lair to end Mirik's spirit guardians spell. She then pulled out a strange shell from her bag and crushed it, releasing a heavy wave of thunder towards the other party members.

Carric teleported out of Granny's grasp and ran off, before casting Fey Hypnosis on Granny and the giant. They both failed the save, and became immobilized. Ven was freed from the giant's grasp, and Garkuk and the other hobgoblins finally arrived to the fight. The group decided to gather round the two foes one by one and simultaneously whack them in hopes that they could fell them both in a single turn, as hitting them would break the hypnosis spell. The giant thankfully went down with ease, but after hacking and slashing at Granny, she was still standing. Surrounded by foes on all sides, she sneakily teleported away from the group and focused the shadows of her lair to form a giant ball of pitch black smoke between them and her. Kiira dashed into the smoke to find that she could not see and that it was rather painful to breathe in. Ven rushed after her to try and convince her to get to safety, but Kiira ignored him and kept running, eventually making it out onto the other side. From the large chamber, the tunnel curved round to the left, where she could hear a strange whirring sound starting up. The cloud of smoke quickly dissipated, allowing the rest of the party to rush through.

Turning the corner, Kiira saw something rather strange. Granny was sat atop a gigantic floating deer skull like a motorbike, using its antlers as handlebars. A strange blue energy glowed from the mouth of the skull, jettisoning it forwards down the tunnel away from the party. It was too fast for the party to catch up unfortunately, but Ahsatan had a plan. She could thunderstep to get an 100ft boost and catch up to Granny, who must have been low on health. Ahsatan rushed round the corner and sprinted towards where Granny was flying to, but the tunnel curved at a bad angle so that Ahsatan lost sight of Granny. The tunnel opened up into a giant chasm, which Granny flew over on her "hagmobile", but the party could not cross. Kiira and Ahsatan rushed back through the cave to get to the main entrance, which is where Granny was headed, but she was nowhere to be seen. Angry but slightly relieved, they headed back to the group.

Investigating the lair revealed a strange magical stone that appeared to be for charging up a magical implement, and a bunch of shelves with bottled oddities. Ahsatan took a few of them, including a handful of shells that Granny had used one of earlier. Carric also found a map of the Plainstead Valley, where a symbol of a bandore had been scribbled up next to Sheaflund on the map. With nothing else of note to be found and the hobgoblins rescued, the group began their journey back to Grimmholm in the blistering heat.

## Homeward bound

Arriving back, Grimmholm appears largely unchanged other than a bunch of tents off to the North of the town forming a giant refugee camp, presumably where the residents are now staying. They find Zaldran who thanks them for their hard work, but asks for any items they found to be handed over. He reveals that this mission was also a trust exercise for the party, as he wanted to see how genuine they were about working with him. He also revealed that the scouts were actually looking for a special item that would be useful for him in the near future, and maybe the party could have it as a reward. The party handed over their found items, which included the mysterious eye and the hag items Ahsatan had picked up. Ven, who had pocketed the wreath on the chair, kept quiet about his item. Zaldran said he would have the items identified and then handed back if they were deemed safe to use, but seemed to indicate that there was an item missing. After a tense conversation (both in game and out lmao), Zaldran moved onto his next point. He had another job offer for the party. When he took Grimmholm a few days ago, he had agreed with Thelanzer Industries that they would take Gravenham for him and then the two could have dominion over the two main towns of the Meusewood. When Zaldran marched over there with his army however, Thelanzer had turned on him and basically told him to go away. With the situation in Gravenham seeming rather dour, Zaldran wanted help reclaiming the town before Thelanzer could do too much damage; but he needed help. He said he would explain the situation more later, but the job offer was there if the party wanted it. He also said that he would like Ven to help run the first-aid operation for whenever they do break into Gravenham, as he expected there to be a lot of casualties on the inside. Ven accepted, and Zaldran let the party leave to mull over their proposition.

They travelled back to the farmhouse in private, and Ven said his goodbyes to the party as their paths were diverging. Before he left, he slipped the wreath into Carric's pocket, and headed on his way to wherever. The party, now alone, thought some more about the job offer, but they knew that they were going to accept it...