19 Chapter Nineteen - Into Hag Valley (1/2)

I surveyed the pool ahead of me with patient eyes.

Brownleaf was back in the forest, just watching, not helping or giving advice. Presumably he knew some things, but I hadn't asked him for information, other than confirming this was the proper way.

No Hag tracks, which was not surprising, as they routinely used magic to wipe their trails clean. However, there was a clear lack of tracks approaching this pool.

Ahead of me was a small waterfall, about thirty feet up and twice that wide, spilling over scattered dark rocks as it fell down into the pool below, forming a nice depression before flowing out and further down the foothills, to join the other streams coming out from the mountain doing likewise.

It was a really good illusion.

I noticed that the sound of the waters falling didn't really match the sight of them. Furthermore, the ripples and wave action didn't play across the pool like they should, and definitely didn't have the effect on the stones they should.

More importantly, creatures weren't approaching this pool to drink, despite the ease of access.

I just dropped my hand in the water, and the wave ripples never touched my skin, vanishing the instant they hit my Null, and my Vajra couldn't feel them at all.

So, there was something in the water, hidden under the illusion up there, probably preying on anything dumb enough to get close. Meaning it was watching me right now… there.

And I was in the air, my Sword out, jumping and arcing down as the creature looked up in shock from below the surface, stunned that it had been noticed, and I came down.

The pool of the water exploded with motion and frenzied splashing. Bits of green matter were flying in all directions, fluid tentacles visible among the spray, and then, very suddenly, it was quiet, the waves of the disturbance magically wiped away.

Brownleaf was coming forwards to see what had happened, when a figure made its way out of the pool, dragging a much larger creature behind it that seemed to be made of river weeds and green flesh, its equine head bearing a Sword buried into it, and its chest ripped apart to reveal the strange, plant-like flesh beneath, oozing a dark emerald ichor of some time.

”Water horse,” he grunted, coming closer to examine the large mass of plant-like Fey.

”Guarding the way in. The water here is actually pretty slow and stagnant, and that whole waterfall there is an illusion. You can swim right through it.” The centaur looked at the waterfall with wary interest, watching as Sama reclaimed her Sword. ”I think this is where we part, unless you want to hunt Hag thralls with me.”

”This fight is yours. If you can kill the Hags, much can be forgiven after such a Feat, especially if they are the ones responsible for the madness you are blamed for.” Which is probably how the typical uncaring person would take the whole tale, conveniently sidestepping any responsible moral judgments.

Whatever. Didn't change what I wanted to do.

”Right.” Without further ado, I walked down the pebbled side of the river, my feet registering a trail that my eyes couldn't see. The centaur watched as I stepped right into the sprawling wall of the mountain before him as if it weren't there, and I vanished from his sight.

Truly a trope. Behind the waterfall that wasn't even there. I looked back and could see him there, so I poked my head back through the barrier and said, ”I can see you through there, so anything standing guard might, too. You might want to move.”

He blinked, nodded slowly at me, and turned quickly away, prancing as lightly as a deer and much more quietly, out of view in seconds.

There might or might not be a Hagstone on watch here, but if they weren't right there using it, it wasn't all that useful.

In front of me was a slow-moving flow of water with a vaguely bad smell to it, deeper than it appeared and dark in color, smelling as if something unclean had been dumped into it. Streams and rivers were actually pretty good natural purifiers at this size, so whatever was corrupting the water was probably something happening long-term.

The Coven had been here a while, and probably couldn't stand pristine surroundings.

Ahead of me was a fairly narrow cut through the mountain, worn down by constant years of flowing water, and probably was a waterfall at some point. I paced silently along the narrow trail to one side, noting the imprint of some very big footsteps, some booted, some hoofed, and some bestial.

I wasn't all that surprised when the bog zombies rose up out of the water just offshore, and surged through the shallow waters towards me.

There were a dozen of them, which was pretty impressive, all things considered. They'd been preserved and pickled, and were all brawny males of several races, most of them human, and all of them with big wide fish-tooth jaws gaping open and pale, swollen arms and bodies, looking to overwhelm, devour, and drown the little girl with the glowing Sword, probably in that order.

The first one lost its head, I moved into the second and cut it down, stepping to Cleave to the third, ducking a frantic blow with advantage of less height, hewing through it to its spine and stopping that nonsense, a nonstop dance of blows flashing as I raced through their splashing bodies, and they came apart and died behind me. Copious amounts of overkill did the job for me as they dropped behind me. If they continued moving, I glided back through the shallow waters and removed their heads.

Yes, I was going to need Final Rest as soon as possible. It had been five days since I acquired the Sword in my hand, and gave Tremble a home. Its spirit could only be infused slowly into the Weapon, a process that would take months. Hopefully I could make it a better home before too long, as there was a whole lot of stuff Tremble was ready to grow into.

If I didn't dispose of the bodies, they'd just make them into powerful undead to annoy me. They were big on that kind of stuff.

From the tracks, I knew they had ogres and minotaurs serving them. That was fine. Add undead, and probably evil plant creatures and charmed minions, and basically anything could happen.

I expected to have a lively, fun time. Leaving the rotting corpses to be disposed of by the Fey who would no doubt come to investigate them, or Brownleaf, who would know to burn them, I proceeded on.

----

Well, what a nice place for Hags. It was like they'd made it a paradise for themselves, or something.

You don't expect to find a swamp up in the mountains, but that was exactly what was going on here.

They'd widened the river out, diluting its flow, and somehow arranged the right kinds of reeds, trees, algae, and rotting muck to turn what was a pristine mountain valley in a dark and gloomy place of rot, slime, and puffing mushrooms.

Alchemy, chemistry, spellcraft, and Knowledge: Nature said that a whole lot of things had been killed to make this place like it was, a combination of sacrificial dark magic and body-rot corruption.