Everyone else roll Initiative and we'll see how bad this ends for you

Initiative: 10. 

Initiative : 16

Initiative 9

Night Hags Initiative

10

15

21

(I have a bad feeling about this...)

As the hags bent their will upon Kazri, twisting her memories and emotions with sinister intent, Rhogar stepped forward, his eyes ablaze with righteous fury. The very air around him began to crackle and hum, a palpable energy building as the smell of ozone filled the space. Rhogar's presence surged like a storm, igniting the atmosphere with raw power.

In an instant, the hags recoiled, their malevolent spell unraveling as the fury of the dragonborn shattered their dark influence over Kazri. She blinked, momentarily disoriented, as clarity returned to her mind. The hags, sensing the shift in power, exchanged nervous glances; they had underestimated Rhogar's resolve.

The two hags lingering at the back understood the threat that Rhogar posed. One of them, her voice a chilling whisper laced with venom, spat out, "You will regret this."

As she spoke, their two forms began to dissipate, shrouded in a thick mist that swirled with a dark, malevolent energy. The air crackled with tension, and the shadows deepened around them. "We will return," the second hag hissed, her voice a cold, haunting promise. "And when we do, we will haunt your dreams, dragging forth your darkest fears."

With that, the two hags vanished completely, leaving only a lingering sense of dread in their wake. Rhogar stood firm, his heart racing as the echoes of their threats faded into silence.

The closest hag, her gnarled fingers still clutching at the promise of Kazri's memories, was so consumed by her greed that she failed to grasp the danger approaching her. Rhogar strode towards her, each step echoing with determination, his breath a simmering ember of wrath. DC 16 Dex save 3

Chill and Krom are up

Chill snapped up his crossbow and took steady aim (BA) at the remaining hag and then let off a shot.

Attack: 26 Damage: 20

"It is you and the other hags who will regret your actions!" Krom says with a firm voice as he points at the remaining hag. Focusing his energy, the dwarf conjures a spectral ram's head that immediately charges toward the hag with a burst of arcane energy.

Action: I use 2 charges of the Ring of the Ram to attack the hag
Attack: 8 Damage: 16

The hag shrieks in pain, her voice raw and shrill, as the lightning strike sears across her body. Her form convulses, momentarily illuminated by the crackling energy. Just as she reels from the jolt, another blow comes—swift and silent. A crossbow bolt fired by Chill whistles through the air, embedding itself deeply into her shoulder. The force of it jerks her back, dark blood seeping from the wound, staining her tattered robes.

Before she can recover, a spectral ram charges forward with brute force, its massive frame slamming into her. The impact sends her reeling backward, her brittle bones cracking audibly under the force of the blow. She crashes into the towering shelves behind her, the wooden structure shaking violently as jars, books, and arcane trinkets tumble to the ground. Glass shatters, scattering shards across the floor, while the pungent scent of strange potions fills the air.

As she staggers amid the debris, her breath ragged, she locks eyes with you. In those cold, gleaming eyes, there is fury—but also a flicker of fear. Her lips curl back into a snarl. “You will pay for this,” she spits, her voice laced with venom. She pauses for a moment, her grin widening as though remembering something. “Know this—the drow gave their memories easily. And there are others ahead of you.”

A wicked cackle escapes her lips, a sound that crawls under your skin. Even as her body flickers and fades, dissipating into the shadows, her laughter lingers. Her voice echoes one last time, an ominous warning that sends a chill through the air.

"Sleep well... you have not heard the last of us."

Then, she is gone. The room falls silent, leaving only the shattered remnants of the battle and her unsettling words hanging in the air.

You stand alone in the den of the hags. The shimmering doorway you stepped through only a short time ago still hangs in the air behind.

Unfortunately for the hag, if ever her gaze landed upon Rhogar before her departure, the dragonborn is smiling toothily and replied coldly and confident in turn, "See you soon, indeed." Though far less confident, Gorrah manages her own teasing wave at the fading hag. After all was said and done and the group is given a moment to fully assess the state of things, chuckles and says, "Ahh Night Hags. One of these most troublesome creatures. At least for those without the will and cleverness to deal with them, or... enough to lose to make bargaining with them palatable." He turns to the party with a grim look on his face.

"But make no mistake. Those that bargain with hope in their hearts see it soon crushed in the hours and days that follow such an encounter. Their spirits broken, their souls possibly corrupted, and in time, well... Even death may not turn out to be nearly as much as a mercy as one might expect in such a scenario." He expressed. "But enough of all that! We still need search the room. But now we can search with confidence that at least this room exists somewhere on the... material.... wait..." Rhogar cups his chin and looked thoughtful for a moment, before his eyes went wide. "Now that is a troubling reminder." Without further elaboration, Rhogar races to the far corner of the room to start looking among what remained of the shelves, desks, and so on on for either things of interest or writings that might provide a clue to their main objective.

Gorrah, who had unfortunately been forced to take wing from all the frantic movements of her scaled steed, shook her head and flew off back through the portal, perhaps intending to keep an eye on things from the other side.

-Investigation: 8. 

Half-way through the search, Rhogar remembers to break out the Wand of Magic Detection to aid in his search, but only allowed that one fleeting moment to distract him.

As silence falls on whatever this place is, Kazri is silently pondering what just happened, stunned. How did she fall so easily for such wicked creatures? She asks herself. She should be guarding he colleagues, and instead she was the one that needed to be saved. She removes her helmet, and sits on a bench to reflect. Oli sensing what is happening, goes next to her.

"Good riddance," Krom mutters as the last hag vanishes from the room. The dwarf walks towards Kazri and gently places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Don't be too hard on yourself lass. Those hags caught us by surprise with their trickery, that's all. Overthinking won't help."
He gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Come on, let's help Rhogar and Chill with the search."
The dwarf begins scanning the room, moving to assist Chill in his efforts. As he works, Krom asks Rhogar, "I don't know much about hags of this kind. What did they mean by haunting our sleep? Was it just a threat, or can they actually do that?"

Chill shakes his head.   "Where did they go? " He questioned.  If we teleported here did they teleport away?  Where is this den and where they now? " He asks has he also started to search the room for anything of value or the clue they seek. 

Investigation 31

"What kind of organizing system is this?! Cursed Hags and there-...Hm!? What was that?" Rhogar pauses what had thus far been a futile search and looks over a shoulder back at Krom. "Haunting? Ah, yes! Uhm... well, yes, to be frank. And to answer your question by extension, Chill, it was not teleportation, so much as them slipping into the ethereal plane. A cowardly act, but, uhh, a wise one given their... *sigh*... circumstances." He grudgingly admits.

"I had hoped, no, I... I 'thought' this room was in a dimension detached from the, uh, ethereal plane as to prevent such a tactic, forgetting in my... Well, it's embarassing to admit this. But forgetting one of Brother Vixix's most important lesson about how certain planes interacted." Rhogar looks askance, rubbing his neck and smoothing back the dorsal along it. "But too late to cry over spilled rum as I've heard some dwarf say. What's done is done! I'll, eh, spare the lesson for now regarding other planes, but know that odds are they are still watch us. Waiting if not for the moment we go to take our rest, then perhaps to try and isolate one or two of us should we not exit the portal in the most ideal manner." He explained before looking off in some random and relatively empty spot in the room with a wicked grin and a predatory gleam to his eyes. "But if they are wiser still, they would heed my advice earlier and return to Gehenna. For if we meet again, they will not be nearly so lucky."

You begin to search the den and it doesn't take long for Chill to move enough stuff on a shelf to find writing on a wall. An inscription in Draconic is written on one the walls of the hags’ den reads “Second, summon a flame in the palm of your hand.”

As you ransack the hag’s den you find a platinum needle (1 gp) stuck in a pincushion, a pink quartz figurine of a rabbit (50 gp), a silver necklace from which hangs a crow’s-foot pendant grasping a peridot (500 gp), a potion of invisibility in a stoppered vial made from a witch’s fingerbone, and a potion of longevity in a hollow gourd that bears a child’s face locked in a scream.

A number of other odd assortments and trinkets are found on the shelves and around the den.

A massive bubbling cauldron. Inside it is a disgusting mixture of who knows what.
A small collection of caged rats.
An overflowing jar of teeth.
Eyes of various creatures.

A drum, covered in a mysterious skin.
An Ogre or Giants severed toe.
The still beating heart of some unknown humanoid.

A set of giant steel manacles that look like they could hold a giant.
A petrified gazer.

Seven jars filled with blood. One of them has recently been emptied.

A cyclops’ eye that has a bite taken out of it.
A back scratcher made from a severed bony hand.
A pin board of insects found in the swamp or Underdark, like strange beetles.
The preserved, leathery head of a dwarf.

A strange jar of cultured jelly. Upon closer inspection, you find it is a tiny-sized ooze in a jar.
An eyeball in a tube of yellow viscous fluid, sealed with a cork. The eye moves and looks around.

A cracked hand mirror, which always shows a shadowy figure to be standing behind the one looking in it. Sometimes, the figure moves.
A child's patchwork doll, missing a button eye and stained in blood.
An origami figure of a stork. It has a faint conjuration aura to it.

You also notice the shadow of a rat on the floor, which moves as a normal rat would. However, there is no rat, not even an invisible one when Gorrah takes a closer look.

"Apologies for the moment of weakness, but you are right Master Krom. We must move on." Kazri puts her helmet back on. Upon seeing the shadow of a rat on the floor, she turns on the lantern again, and checks to see if there are anything invisible in the room.

Perception: 8

Kazri shines the lantern around but it reveals nothing invisible. 

"Good find, Chill," Krom says as the tabaxi uncovers the inscription on the wall. His frown deepens as he listens to Rhogar’s explanation of the hags' capabilities. "I see, so they weren’t bluffing. Well, we’ll deal with them if they're foolish enough to come after us."
Krom grips the handle of his warhammer tightly and points towards the spot where the hags vanished. In a booming voice, he says "Leave us alone, or  face the All-Father's wrath!"

He then surveys the eerie collection of items scattered around the hags' den with a look of disgust. "We shouldn’t take anything from here. Most of these items have an unsettling aura I don’t like one bit." Scratching his chin thoughtfully, he adds, "I’d suggest burning this place down, but who knows what kind of things might be unleashed by doing that."
Krom, gestures toward the portal,  "Now that we’ve found what we came for, we shoud leave this place."

Chill filters through the odd assortment of things in the various shelves. 

"All we really wanted were those words.  Why does everything have to be so difficult?"

He takes nothing after noting the words on the wall.

"I agree with Krom.  This place gives me the creeps. We have what we came for.  Let's go."