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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1635398" data-attributes="member: 143">I don't think I describe it in detail later in the story, so I'll do so here.  The stuff is called amaranth elixir, and it provides a significant bonus to strength at a cost of wisdom.  Its efficacy is based on size, but for a medium-sized human, it gives (IIRC) +8 to strength and -4 to wisdom.  The hags use it to keep their giants in line, and also in their dealings with Alek Tercival... but more on that later. Wish I could take credit, but that was in the module!  I am WAY ahead in the story (super slow week at work), so post-a-day should continue for a while. Thanks to all for posting, and keeping the story on page 1.  Here's your Friday cliffhanger (as if yesterday wasn't enough!):* * * * * Chapter 168With half of their number already under the sway of the foul hags, the situation suddenly looked grim for the companions from Cauldron.  To Arun Goldenshield, however, his mandate was clear.  The creatures before him were evil, corrupt to a depth he’d rarely felt since he had taken the oaths of service, and had gained a sensitivity to such things.  And so he leapt at the nearest hag, bringing his hammer down in a powerful smite backed by the full force of his strength.  He hit the hag squarely in the chest.  And nothing happened.  The blow would have knocked a man back ten feet, to gasp out his last seconds in agony.  But the hag simply laughed, and held up a hand mockingly to the dwarf.  Arun could see that she wore a thin silver ring, tarnished and greasy. “My pretty protects me, foolish dwarf!” she cackled.  Before he could adjust to strike again, she suddenly reached out and grasped his face with both of her clammy hands.  Arun drew back in disgust, but as he did so, he could feel his strength leaving him, drawn out by the fell power of the hag’s touch.  “I will leave you a feeble husk, paladin,” she promised.  “Then you shall be my plaything, not the toy of some dour smelly dwarf god!”Zenna watched with horror as Morgan charged straight toward her, his massive sword lifted high above his head.  Having seen him fight, she knew that she would have no chance against his strength and skill, that he would cut her down...  She felt a sharp mental prod from without, a clear attack from the hags that she angrily drove out with a concerted effort of will.  You may be able to convert that shallow fool, but you won’t get into my mind! she thought, knowing that the hags couldn’t hear, but letting the thought steady her as she calmly reached into herself and drew out the power of her magic.  For all her contempt of him, she could feel the power of Morgan’s will, even subjugated as it was to the domination of the hags, and it was considerable.  Only desperation, she suspected, gave her the power to batter through his mental defenses, and lay her spell upon him. The cleric halted in mid-charge, quivering unsteadily, his muscles twitching as his mind tried to shake off the power of her hold person spell. “Zenna!” Dannel cried, turning toward her after firing off an arrow that bounced harmlessly from a hag’s armored hide.  “I cannot hold him!” she cried, seeing the effort in Morgan’s face, and even more feeling the force of his will gathering.  The elf dropped his bow and ran toward the priest, drawing his sword as he came.  Morgan could do nothing to stop him, could not even turn as Dannel knocked off his helmet with his left hand, and with his right brought the hilt of his sword down into the back of the cleric’s skull. The spell holding him snapped with the knight’s consciousness, and Morgan collapsed in a heap on the floor.  “Damn, that actually felt good,” the elf said softly, before reversing his sword and rushing toward the hags.  Sitting on the floor in the midst of a battleground, Mole found herself unable to grasp the myriad and shifting thoughts that flowed through her mind.  Noise barraged her from all around, familiar voices that seemed important, but whose significance she couldn’t quite sort out from the babble in her head.  Something caught her eye, and she looked up to see the looming silver sculpture, the alien table with its odd angles and uncomfortable lines. You have to climb that, came a voice in her mind. Grinning, she got up and rushed to comply. Hodge, meanwhile, had started to wander off in the general direction of the west corridor, the passage from which the hags had emerged.  As he passed near one of the hags, however, a sudden look of pure rage exploded on his face, and lifting his axe he charged toward the creature.  The hag met him with a look of equal ferocity on her face, and the two combatants exchanged powerful blows.  His axe managed a shallow cut that drew a look of surprise from the haggard creature, but she in turn tore into him with her claws, opening painful gashes on his arms and torso.  He lifted the axe to strike again, but as abruptly as it had come the rage disappeared, and he found himself beclouded again by the hag’s confusion spell.Cackling to herself, the hag reached for his face. Having learned the hard way of the durability of his foe, Arun shifted from an all-out attack to a careful assault seeking vulnerabilities in this dangerous adversary.  He feinted another powerful swing, and when the hag reached out an arm to touch him again, turned his stroke and brought the hammer up to squarely strike the hag’s arm just below the elbow.  The awkward blow would have snapped the arm of any normal person, but while the hag’s thick skin and iron bones absorbed most of the impact, the way she painfully drew back told him that his blow had hurt it some.   But some wasn’t going to be enough, he knew.     Dannel charged toward the hag threatening Hodge, his magical sword flashing in the artificial light of the chamber.  As he came, he lifted his voice in song, driving back the fell cackling of the hags and reinforcing his comrades with the stirring confidence of his melody.  The hag saw him coming and turned to meet him, but even as she reached for him with her claws his sword flashed, and she drew back, bleeding from a gash in her side.  “Oh, you will pay for that, elf!” she hissed.  Dannel’s response was to sing louder, offering a chorus that promised the triumph of light over shadow as he leapt into another series of feints and thrusts, forcing the hag onto the defensive. With Morgan at least temporarily out of the picture, Zenna lifted her wand once more.  She could still feel a thin tendril of stored energy within it, but knew even as she called upon its power she knew that it was for the last time.  The acid arrow struck the lead hag on the hip, the eager magical substance burning through her ragged shift instantly and savaging the ugly flesh beneath.  The hag shot Zenna a look of pure hatred.  “Sisters!  Join with me!” Zenna wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t like the sound of it.  She started running toward the hags, knowing she stood little chance against them in melee, but without any spells left with which she could hope to affect them from a distance.  But if she could get close enough for a color spray or shocking grasp... a thin hope indeed, but in this desperate confrontation, with half of them already out of the fight, even a thin chance was better than none at all. The two hags flanking the leader turned toward the one who had spoken, and Zenna felt a tingle on her skin as magical power was drawn through the chamber into the combined force of the hag covey.  The lead hag laughed—* * * * * COMING NEXT WEEK: KNIGHTFALL</blockquote>

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