The word sparked the interest of all the companions as they exchanged glances. Bruto spoke bluntly,
"Where are those damned creatures? It was them who stole my father’s soul here, and I have a lot of scores to settle with them..."
"Your father was not the first victim of the ghost ladies," the Elves captain sighed, "and now you are victims too, and there will be more to come."
"That’s not necessarily true." Bruto crossed his arms over his chest, "Our strength is quite formidable, as you saw with the corpse of that Medusa..."
"I do not doubt your strength, but compared to those ghost ladies, I’m afraid it is still..."
Soveris shook his head, just as the pub owner approached, pushing a cart and interrupting their conversation. On the upper level of the cart were several baskets containing freshly baked bread, cooked potatoes, and a stack of roasted wolf ribs, with a small barrel of roughly five gallons of ale beside them, while the lower level was filled with plates and empty mugs. The pub owner was a rather strong middle-aged man with black hair and a thick beard, who greeted everyone with a warm voice:
"Welcome, friends from afar, are you hungry?"
"Not so much hungry, but indeed a bit thirsty." Bruto sniffed deeply, his eyes becoming excited, "Oh, oh, oh, your ale seems really good, I can even smell the fresh malt aroma..."
"Hahaha, did you hear that, folks? Even the Dwarf praises my ale! Here, this whole barrel is for you!" The man laughed heartily, hoisting the entire barrel onto the table, "Put it on your account, Old Blackbird."
"Uh, only this barrel..." The brown-haired Elves bent down, transferring mugs from under the cart onto the table, "Any more and you’ll have to pay yourselves, fifteen Gold Coins a barrel... Cheers, friends, to..."
"To Raventown," Lancelot said softly, "may it always be free from the scourge of evil."
After a chorus of clinking mugs, everyone set down their glasses and let out satisfied sighs. Bruto took the initiative to pour ale for the others, while Lancelot tried to continue the conversation from before:
"Please, just call me Soveris. ’Lord’ sounds so awkward."
"All right, Soveris," Lancelot nodded in agreement, his expression serious as he continued, "What exactly role have the ghost hags played on this land? If we hope to leave, must we deal with them?"
"Although I cannot be sure, it’s very likely that is the case. After all, since their arrival, no one has successfully left... at least, not to my knowledge."
"Yes," the Elves nodded, "You may already know that the ruler of this Demon’s Domain, the Lich King Peyton Derrick, was defeated by a group of adventurers more than a hundred years ago, causing the fog that sealed the borders to briefly dissipate. But soon after, it revived, didn’t it?"
"The Madam Baroness at Wolf King’s Den did indeed mention it to us."
"Oh? Then she didn’t tell you what happened afterward?" Soveris frowned, "About ten years after Peyton’s revival, a group of strange old women came here. We now know that they were ghost hags, but back then they just seemed like a bunch of withered and odd humans, with an aged appearance incomprehensible to an Elf like me, and they appeared to threaten no one."
"These old women didn’t enter the town but instead took residence in the forest with their donkey-drawn caravans. Peculiar black smoke would rise from the depths of the woods, and afterward, one of the transformed ghost hags would emerge, pushing a small wooden cart through the streets, peddling their dreamy cakes. Those cakes were potent hallucinogens, sending whoever ate them to a paradise-like place where they could indulge in pleasure..."
"Hmph, a typical tempter’s trick," Alamir snorted with disgust, "They first create a desire, then demand a reward upon success, and when the price becomes too high for the victims to afford, they demand an evil deed in exchange. Once the victim is irrevocably on the path of the Fallen, they then collect the true payment—the soul, usually through murder."
"You are absolutely right, my kinsman, but we did not know that at the beginning," Soveris said with a bitter smile, shaking his head, "Instead, it was the Lich King who first sensed something was amiss. It sent envoys, demanding the ghost hags to stop providing those tools that could alleviate pain and fear—as it thought of them. But the envoys the Lich King sent never came out of that forest, not a single one, whether they were feeble skeletons or formidable Death Knights."
"Finally, on a pitch-dark night, the Lich led an undead army into the hags’ woods. I still remember that night; fireballs illuminated the forest, lightning tore the sky apart, followed by a downpour, and then everything disappeared in a thick fog..." The Elf’s voice trailed off with the memory, "But when the sky lit up again, I was shocked to find that it was as if nothing had happened—the forest that had burned at night still stood tall, and the hags were nonchalantly pushing their carts and setting out once again. I wanted to delve deeper into the woods to continue the investigation, but a strong intuition told me I had to leave at once, or else face utter destruction..."
His companions fell into a brief silence, unsettled by Soveris’s revelations—the ghost hags were far more powerful than they had thought. Each Lich was once a legendary spellcaster, and becoming a Lich, aside from escaping death, did not impede their spellcasting abilities. Considering that Peyton Derrick was also the master of this Demon’s Domain, its home-field advantage made it even more powerful; not even an Ancient Dragon might be its match.
And yet the ghost hags had prevailed under such circumstances, so what might their true strength be?
"I wanted to ask earlier..." Kalalin spoke hesitantly, "How many ghost hags are there?"
"There are thirteen of those old women," Soveris turned to look at the Scholar, "and I am certain each one is a ghost hag."
"That’s impossible!" the Scholar exclaimed incredulously, "I have never heard of such a large gathering of ghost hags, even five is rare..."
"That is the reality. If you need, I can take you to identify them one by one," the Elves shrugged and took a sip from his glass, "Another fact is, ever since that great battle, the Demon’s Domain hasn’t been unsealed for even a second, but Peyton Derrick hasn’t appeared again either..."