Expedition 29: Tall, Dark, and Hagsome

### Summary

The Captain is sick, and we determine that she is being plagued by a night hag. We storm the hags' lair underneath Alex and Alex's pawnshop, defeat them all, an escape as both the lair and the shop implode.

### Detailed Writeup

#### Part 1

Valorie led her assembled team of medics to the Captain’s manse and talked her way in to an audience with the Captain. Though Marzipan’s Detect Poison and Disease registered the Captain as only mildly sick, like with a cold, she looked like she was on death’s door. Valorie questioned the Captain’s staff who found her quite reassuring and were more than happy to give all kinds of details. After learning that the main symptom and likely source of other symptoms was an inability to sleep, the party asked to see the Captain’s sleeping chamber. In the chamber, Marzipan first investigated a ping on his detection spell, which revealed a strong sleeping draught for settling unruly political guests. After being asked for further details about why she couldn’t sleep, the Captain explained that she would fall asleep only to wake almost as soon as she began because she felt like she was being drowned or smothered. Nexrin proposes that something invisible might be attacking her while she sleeps and Tolyr recommends Marzipan check the ethereal plane. Marzipan glances into the ethereal plane and sees a tall dark figure covered in leprous sores and tumors, its lank greasy hair hanging down in front of its face. He tries greeting it at first, though it begins retreating toward the window as soon as it knows he can see it. He warns the others that there is an invisible creature in the room so Tolyr and Valorie both try casting Faerie Fire to no effect, since the creature is not invisible but on another plane. It scuttles out the window and up the wall like a giant spider, taking advantage of the special physics of the ethereal plane. Valorie and Tolyr figure out based on Marzipan’s description that the creature is likely a night hag. They explain to the Captain about what they’ve seen, then think about how to track a creature only Marzipan can see. They head up to the roof to see if the escaping creature is hiding there.

On the roof, Marzipan sees the hag but fails to pretend that he can’t. Valorie casts Friends on herself and asks what the hag might want besides the Captain’s death. The hag joins them on the material plane to continue the conversation. Valorie introduces herself as the servant of fey exorcist Nutella of Windhome who is due into port in two days, called in by the Captain who had known about the hag all along. This causes the hag to enter combat with the party, though she eventually realizes she is outmatched and returns to the ethereal plane to escape, especially since Valorie has been miming a Sending spell giving “Nutella” information about her. The hag has not considered, however, that the force damage of spiritual weapon can penetrate into the ethereal plane and so she has to plane shift away from Marzipan’s orb-enhanced spiritual spatula rather than merely slipping away through the ethereal.

Once the hag has disappeared, however, the party is frustrated. They don’t know where to go or how to track the hag, and they know that she can always return to suffocate the Captain as long as she is still out there. They consider a number of different plans, worried especially that as much damage as they can do to the hag, she can always disappear and escape. At their wits’ end, they beg incense from the Captain’s staff so that Marzipan can cast Divination. He asks the wildmother whom the hag plans to attack next, but she offers an answer to a different question, which Marzipan accepts:

*A chimney arcane with a black hat*

*Atop it a guard once sat.*

*It you broke, with my power,*

*into it, yourself must lower.*

*There you’ll find my clerics old,*

*Under where the raven was sold.*

Marzipan has a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realizes where the wildmother is sending him. He explains, somewhat queasily, that the hag must live under the pawn shop, and that he had dispelled a protective aura around the shop thinking it was a relic of another era and now unneeded. He has seen the error of his ways and is subdued, but Valorie and Tolyr are both horrified and ask him what in the world he was thinking.

#### Part 2

Knowing now where to go, they head toward the pawn shop after a bit of healing from Marzipan, picking up a surprised Jamie along the way. Valorie uses Friends to convince the twins to lead them into their basement, where they find a tunnel leading down.

At the end of the tunnel is a stone door with an inscription in Common:

*Into Darkness, wrath awaits*

*break the seal, or nought abates.*

*Beyond this door the seers sleep.*

*Let it be long.*

*Let it be deep.*

Jamie rolls aside the stone to reveal a clean-cut hallway leading to a stone staircase guarded by a golden statue of a dragon. When Jamie enters the room he depresses a pressure plate, at which point the dragon’s voice rings out in Common:

*To pass unto the seers three,*

*three riddles you must answer me.*

*Place your guess into the bowl.*

*Guess it wrong and the die shall roll.*

*So if confidence you lack,*

*Verily, verily do turn back.*

From the dragon’s hands, two scrolls drop. Their riddles read:

*What is given to you, and belongs to you, and defines you, but you use it less than anyone else?*

and

*Alive without breath, as cold as death;*

*never thirsty, ever drinking,*

*all in mail, never clinking.*

*What am I?*

Valorie finds the answers to these riddles obvious (name, fish) and writes them respectively on slips of paper which she places in the bowl at the dragon’s feet. The scrolls roll up and a third scroll descends from the dragon’s mouth. It reads:

*Two fiends bang on my door,*

*Rarely less, and never more.*

*They howl about, all wrath and flame,*

*And all that wake will know they came.*

*Their presence I cannot abide,*

*They tear my flesh and make me hide.*

*Eventually, their burning stutters,*

*Just as eyelids start to flutter.*

*What am I?*

The party initially comes up with “vampires” as an answer, but then realize that that seems insufficiently mystical for a riddle answer. They finally decide on “night,” which Valorie likewise writes and place in the bowl. This time, the scroll does not roll up but detaches and falls. The writing has changed: it is now a scroll of banishment, which Tolyr pockets. The figure of the dragon disappears.

The party continues down the stairs which wrap around the inner edge of a huge cone-shaped depression into the earth pointing downward. Smoke fills the center and in the smoke, the party can see a field of stars. Tolyr notices traps designed to damage creatures ascending the stairs and marks them, though they present no danger to the descending adventurers. They struggle to keep their balance on the narrow stairs, taking some vigor damage as they catch themselves, but none fall. At the foot of the stairs is a large hatched door which would continue further down. As the players open it, the starfield disappears.

On the other side is a gigantic silver bowl covered in carved eyes. Though Marzipan takes a bit of time to cast identify on it, thinking it must require some kind of interaction to progress, it ends up being nonmagical. Jamie and Valorie try to pick it up, triggering a magical trap. The party continues through the door on the far wall into a room covered in mystical symbols, some conjurational, some abjurational, though those seem deactivated. There are two bookshelves and a metal door on the far wall with no apparent handle. Tolyr examines the symbols, realizing that they seem to power something in the next room. He then sends Annie to stand on a conjuration circle—nothing happens. She can read the text on the door now:

*Into Darkness, groan and spit.*

*Give up hope or give up wit.*

*Beyond this door the seers sleep.*

*Let it be long.*

*Let it be deep.*

Through the door, Annie sees a long chamber with a platform running across it between two deep pits. Along the platform, about 20 feet out, she sees a hulking figure clad in green. Valorie summons 8 wolves to her side in preparation for a fight. Jamie opens the door, revealing that the figure is a massive earth elemental clad in emerald-encrusted vestments. It has a humanoid face. It heads toward the party, beginning initiative. Marzipan beats it in initiative and immediately banishes it. Valorie surrounds him with her wolves, which are taller than him, so that he won’t take any damage for the next 59 seconds and can maintain concentration. In the ethereal plane, Marzipan sees the night hag watching from the far side of the chamber, beginning initiative. Marzipan summons his spiritual weapon above the hag, alerting the others to the hag’s location. Jamie runs out onto the platform to cross to the other room, triggering the mechanism that makes it rotate. He gets across the platform and the hag comes onto the ethereal plane to meet him, saying “I am forced to answer your questions, but I am not forced to give you mercy." Tolyr, Nexrin, and Marzipan struggle to cross the platform without falling into the pits, hampered by the webs of spiders. Valorie stays on the far side, casting at range. The night hag begins opening the sarcophagi in the far room, releasing her sleeping sisters, a green hag and a sea hag. Valorie sends her wolves across the platform but only two make it. Their pack tactics annoy the green hag enough however that she dispels them. Valorie casts \*another\* summon animals, which the green hag counterspells, which Marzipan couterspells. 8 elk appear around the green hag. The sea hag dispels the elk, giving the green hag back line of sight. The green hag grins and tries to dominate Jamie, which Marzipan wanes. He rolls a natural 20 on the save, which turns the magic back on her. She fails so Marzipan has the green hag dominated instead. Jamie dissipates the night hag into mist, which floats into the third, unopened sarcophagus. Marzipan saves against the sea hag’s horrifying visage and wanes the same effect away from Jamie. Nexrin is down but a healing word from Valorie brings him back up. Valorie also uses vicious mockery on the green hag, allowing her to save from the domination effect. Marzipan turns the two hags, though it isn’t especially helpful. Jamie takes out the sea hag with one final hit. Nexrin tries to throw the green hag into the pit but fails. Marzipan kills the green hag with a toll the dead and as she slumps into Nexrin’s arms, he throws her into the pit with a “You answer questions, right? Can you fly?”

With combat over, the green and sea hags return to their true forms, shriveling into ancient wizened human women clad in rags. Marzipan casts Divination once more, risking a random answer, to ask the wildmother, “How can we lay your last cleric to rest?” The wildmother responds, “Many ways. Within the flames or beneath the waves.” The party lights torches before opening the final sarcophagus to find the night hag’s bruised and battered body. “Mercy,” she whispers. “I’ll answer your questions, do what you ask. Just let me live.” The party looks to Marzipan, who is unmoved. He drops his torch into the sarcophagus.

As the night hag is consumed by flames, the chamber begins to collapse around them. The central platform falls into the pit, so Jamie throws Nexrin’s grappling hook across the pit and holds it fast while the others climb across. He then swings down into the pit, slamming against the far wall, and climbs up to join the party. They run into the room with the bookshelves, grabbing what they can from them and stuffing them into Tolyr’s bag of holding. As they enter the room with the silver bowl, Marzipan and Tolyr notice a small human-sized iron sarcophagus hidden in the crumbling walls. Since it’s too big for the bag of holding they leave it behind. Jamie easily lifts the huge silver bowl, but it is wide and unwieldy. The party dash up the staircase but Nexrin, Marzipan, and Tolyr all fall. Jamie rushes down to administer healing potions to the downed Nexrin and Tolyr. Leaving the bowl behind, he helps his friends climb the stairs. The tunnel is blocked by rubble but Jamie clears it away so that his companions can pass, taking damage from falling rocks. They dash into the pawnshop, motioning Alexander and Alexandria out of the shop and exiting the building just as it collapses into the earth in a giant sinkhole.

Despite the minor inconvenience of the sinkhole, the expedition is nevertheless counted a success. The Captain rewards the party with 1 platinum and a good deal of renown. Foregoing his share, Marzipan asks instead for a boon: he would like the law that prevents Lin’dsey and Triumph from entering the city to be removed. The Captain explains that the law was made when Port Vrall could not trade with empire ships if an elf lived there. Marzipan replies that the empire has fallen, and that we can all be better people now. The Captain grants that since she owes him her life, she will do her best to remove the law.