The fellowship continued east after finding nothing of value in the pit. The door to the east revealed a narrow hallway with a descending staircase that led to a door at the end. Jesoc pushed Arbun through the door and revealed a large room with a couple of recessed pits, another Roper eating more rocks, and a pool with a pile of skulls in the middle.

Jesoc noticed that on top of the pile of skulls there seemed to be a black sphere that looked like a Palantir. After some discussion, Arbun agreed to be thrown on the pile of skulls. Arbun landed deftly on the pile of skulls and tried to lift the sphere.

Suddenly the pile of skulls revealed itself to be a Hoard Mimic and attacked Arbun. Arbun was able to get back to the party and away from the Hoard Mimic. The party tried to lift the black sphere with Mage Hand, but they were unable to lift it. The fellowship decided that this was clearly a ruse and moved on.

The fellowship decided to try and sneak out of the room and past the Roper, but unfortunately Jesoc once again tripped over his own feet and dropped his sword as they walked by the Roper. The Roper turned to attack and Jesoc absorbed his attacks and smartly used Misty Step to get away from the Roper. The rest of the party stealthily exited the room.

The party found themselves in an entryway and decided to move through the doors to the east. As they opened the doors, they found themselves in what looked to be a shrine. At the base of the stairs the fellowship saw a cauldron surrounded by three undead Hags.

They noticed these Hags were indeed Helka, Losse, and Engwa – the very Hags they had previously defeated. They appeared to be undead and resurrected for some new purpose. The party attacked and destroyed the Hags one by one. Each hag was reduced to a pile of dust as they were defeated.

Kifak started exploring the room and discovered there were no items of note except for three barrels that contained gold pieces, Orc Teeth, and Orc scalps.

For some reason Jesoc, jumped into the cauldron and found that it contained disgusting Orc blood. Jesoc hopped out and cleaned himself off.

The party then decided to deposit a collection of dust, teeth, and scalps in the King’s bag of holding to send a message to whomever stole the matching bag. There was a short discussion about urinating and defecating in the bag but thankfully nothing came of it.

The fellowship continued on and discovered a room where the Hags rested. They found a thatched dreamcatcher above each bed. Arbun smelled the dreamcatchers and confirmed they were created with Conjuration magic as they smelt of blueberries. The fellowship wanted no part of the magic of the thatched dreamcatchers and threw them in the fire.

The fellowship ensured the thatched dreamcatchers were fully burnt before moving on. The fellowship also discovered a small figurine in each bed:

• white wolf
• white dragon
• red dragon

The party recognized that these were the same figures they had discovered in the graves in the Barrow Downs.

Finally, the fellowship discovered a small glass jar with a pixie in each at the foot of each bed. It appeared that the Hags used these for light sources as the pixies would light up when the jar was shaken.

The party heard a voice from behind them, and a small animated cauldron approached and asked what they were doing. The cauldron introduced himself as Stan and shared that he did odd jobs for the Hags – fetching things, brewing tea. The fellowship was clearly annoyed with Stan and sent him away to search for Ale.

Kifak and Jesoc then teamed up to cleverly smash open the jars and free the pixies. Before the fellowship moved on they grabbed a burning log and also threw it into the King’s Bag of Holding.

The fellowship continued exploring and they discovered rooms littered with Orc corpses. These Orc corpses where missing their scalps and teeth. They also seemed to be drained of their blood – it became apparent where the Hags sourced their spell components.

After clearing the second tower of Dol Guldur, the fellowship decided to return to the distant Orc War Chief in the first tower to ask him some additional questions.

The fellowship found the Orc War Chief in his same quarters and questioned the Orc War Chief and were again frustrated with his answers. He again mentioned that he wanted no part of the Hags plans and that the Hags were not honorable. When asked as to why he was still here, we mentioned that it was due to the duty to complete the job he was hired for.

The Orc War Chief asked the party to remove him from his bond. Eventually, the fellowship realized that the Orc War Chief was asking them to kill him.

Arbun eventually loosed an arrow at him and Jesoc attacked. Kifak was clearly disturbed by this Orc and the honour he was showing. Kifak found it was hard to hate this Orc and the duty he displayed. Kifak exited the room while the rest of the fellowship gave the Orc War Chief his release.

The fellowship moved on to the last tower and found a number of empty storage rooms and dining hall before encountering a battalion of Orcs. Kifak was almost relieved that he found a group of Orcs he could hate again and rushed into the middle of them to attack. The Orcs focused all their attacks on Kifak and he took considerable damage until his compatriots came to his aid to defeat the Orcs.

The fellowship moved north and found a Hag sitting in the midst of a pile of rubble cradling a black sphere exclaiming ‘Finally!’. It appeared that the Hag had finally found the Palantir after much digging and searching.

The fellowship recognized that this was Ninque and moved forward to attack. Kifak smartly cast banish and instructed the fellowship to get in position and prepared their actions for when Kifak called her back.

When Kifak called her back, the result was not pretty and was vicious – Kifak called her back and the fellowship destroyed Ninque and recovered the Palantir. Arbun recovered the Palantir and placed it in the good bag of holding.

The fellowship then decided to rest before making their way to Minas Tirith on the way to Cirth Ungol.

During their sleep all members of the fellowship were visited by a menacing vision. A feminine hooded figure approached slowly revealing her green eyes and pointed teeth. There was no doubt who this vision was.

Slowly the vision spoke:

“You have become quite the bother and now you have something that belongs to me”

“You have earned my attention and my wrath. We shall meet again and I shall reclaim what is mine.”

‘Petty fools. You know not what you are dealing with”

With that the fellowship awoke in a sweat with pain wrecking their limbs and tears in their eyes.”

The fellowship rested another night to recover from the damage Thuringwethil dealt in the dream world.