Shae would follow behind, extremely thankful for Maxine's skills at this time. "Think she's noticed?" Oh she's noticed...

"Just keep running!" Maxine tried to chose the way opposite to screams (as much as swampy ground allowed it).

Seeing the skull, and with it her lair, go up in flames, the hag rushes to it, and desperately tries to put out the fire, giving you all a chance to escape, chased only by some whisps for now. After a few hundred feet, the whisps, seemingly no longer coordinated, drift apart, and you are separate, but no longer chased. On the horizon, you see the black smoke of burning bone as evidence of the hag’s losing battle against the flames for now.

You are no longer considered in combat. Each of you gets 250 XP. The ladies are in a group towards the west end of the msp, derp within the swampy territory, whereas the gentlemen are down near the southeast, towards your base camp. What do you want to do?

The Professor:

Somewhat surprised that the plan worked, more or less, the Professor can only hope that the ladies found what was needed to stop the summoning ritual as they fled their separate directions.  “Not that we made a plan of where to meet again,” says the Professor to Berrus, “but I suggest we head back to the spot where we made our plan.  Hopefully the ladies will think to go there as well.”

"Running!" Shae would dash through the swamp as fast as they're able to go, allowing her instincts to lead them to go from where they came.

Grimacing in pain from the missiles berrus grunts. "Followin yer lead perfesser"     every few feet Berrus will turn and check the pursuit 

That would be Maxine's plan as well - to go back to the spot, where they all decided the attack plans.

It takes you a while, but after half of an hour, you find each other, and you quickly put some more distance between yourself and the lair. the sun is standing low, and you reckon you might just be able to reach your camp before sundown. Berrus is still keeping a glance back, to ensure you're not in any danger. As per tracks, you can't help but notice your footprints in the muddy and ashen ground, leading away to the distance, where the skull and the summoning circle were. Once you cross a small stream and enter the thick undergrowth of the nearby jungle again, a sense of safety returns.

"Let's hope they lost our tracks and hags magic is not enough yet to find the camp right away!" Maxine was talking on the go, determinedly moving towards the camp at the head of the group - it was wonderful to feel healthy for a change! "We got hags notes and a copy of the circle, that hags were trying to make - may be you can make heads and tails out of it, Professor. Let's hurry!"

The Professor:

”Let me take a look at it while my Comprehend Languages spell is still in effect,” says the Professor, his short legs struggling to keep up with Maxine’s enthusiastic strides.

While approaching the others, Shae's eyes would immediately scan them for injuries. She agreed that they should keep moving, so she'd investigate the Professor and Berrus on the run. "How do you feel?" It was obvious that they didn't get away without the hag making her mark, but she was honestly relieved that they seemed relatively okay. She was proud of them.

"Here Professor. Oh, and I think it's made of flesh." The warlock would reach into her pouch to pull out the hags 'leather' bound book to hand it over to the Professor as they pressed on. "I'd also like to ask for your assistance in identifying a pearl object once we're settled."

"I'll manage lass, till we are far enough away at least" Berrus tells Shae

Trying your best to read the journal while not stumbling in the thick undergrowth, you notice plenty of notes on the surrounding area, almost like an ethnographer. You keep stumbling over two phrases that keep being repeated time and time again: Uniting the coven, and freeing the sisters.

One sketch strikes you in particular, that of the stone amulet you gound: “Luck stone. Grung seem to think it’s divine. They won’t suspect the curse.”

As you look through the pages, you stumble across a sketch of a grung chieftain, his eyes crossed out and scribbled over. The notes in the margins read:”Needs to be greedy and ambitious, convinced he can defeat the lizards. Only way to get the blood sacrifice to free the sisters.”

Towards the end of the book, you find a name you recognise: “Koro-arak is ready. Paranoid and greedy, perfect. He’s already sending out the war parties and drenching the forest with blood. The sacrifice will soon be ready. On the full moon, the sisters will be freed and the coven united once more.”

The Professor:

On the way back to the camp, the Professor will occasionally exclaim as he reaches interesting passages in the journal..."Ah, so she is trying to summon her sisters back from some imprisonment"..."What?  The stone is cursed?"..."Hmm, blood sacrifice--she was lying to us about knowing Koro-arak."

(As an aside, please let me know what languages the Professor has been reading/speaking using Comprehend Languages.  I know Grung, perhaps Primordial with the wisps, and ??? with the hag's book.  Lizardfolk would be Draconic, I think.  He is planning to take the 'Linguist' feat next level, so it could be important.)

Berrus trails toward the back of the group, occasionally pausing  looking and listening for pursuit,  and being quieter than normal  (yes that is possible lol)

Professor, you would only know about grung for certain. The gazetteer and the scientific community as a whole is pretty certain that lizardfolk speak a draconic dialect, and you have a sense that the hag's book might be containing passages in different languages, and you think you recognise abyssal as one of them. The mephits were speaking different languages between them, so it's unlikely that it wasn't primordial, but instead something more elemental and older as a language. The spell gives you comprehension, but not necessarily the ability to determine which language it is.

The group as a whole reaches the camp after about an hour and a half or so. Brax and Bertrand are posted as guards, and quickly let you in. Inside, Thasselandra greets you. "Glad to have you back. We faced off against a small raiding force, no major injuries. We were afraid something had happened to you though…" and after passing a quick glance over the Professor's burnt forearm and the wincing steps of Berrus, as well as the harrowed look on Shae and Maxine's face, she adds "and I see it has. What happened?"

The Professor:

“it appears the Horned Lady is a Hag trying to free her sisters using a summoning ritual that involves a blood sacrifice brought about somehow by the cursed stone amulet borne by Koro-arak.  It appears she had the true chieftain killed, and it is on his body we found the real tribal stone amulet,” the Professor summarizes with uncharacteristic brevity, adding as an afterthought, “Of course, how we got this information is a tale unto itself.”

Maxine showed Professor 3 voodoo dolls: "Guess they are supposed to represent all sisters. Was laying by that circle diagram. Not sure if it just a symbol or a part of the ritual and we did not have a chance to check hags reaction to it, but might get useful too."  Getting to the camp almost felt like returning home and Maxine enjoyed every second of it. "So, what's now? Shae, can you communicate with Kam here? What does he think?"

The Professor:

”Let me do the Comprehend Languages ritual so I can translate for Gruk,” says the Professor.  “There is also the possibility that there is only one stone amulet and that the one we hold now is the cursed one, so there’s that too,” he concludes, nodding to Gruk and getting started on the ritual.

Berrus nods to Brax and Bertrand. Then to the captain on his way to sit near the fire