The would-be heroes couldn't make out the sound outside the farmhouse's front door. There were no lights to be seen as the sunset passed what felt like hours ago. That was when they heard a typical sound that caused all the hairs on the warriors to stand on end.

A simple, Knock. Everyone in the hag's living room froze.

Ulrok cursed as he raised his shield and turned to face the noise. "What in the Seven Heavens!"

Louder. Heavy. Knock. Knock.

Rebecca smirked and drew an arrow to her soft cheek. "Knock. Well, that is rather polite, don't you think?" Jeremy moved to flank Rebecca's right-hand side and aimed at the door. His cheeks blushed a little when he caught the scent of lavender. Jeremy prayed everyone was too busy to notice.

"I am getting too old for this. Can't an old man die quietly in retirement?"

A shadow moved across the windows. Drovic moved his back against the wall beside the front door. "I don't know about you, but I was getting bored. It has been what? Like five minutes from our last live threatening moment." Drovic used his free hand he grabbed the handle. Ulrok moved in front of the door, planting his feed. Kalven seemed to pull out a small wooden stick, but he started to unfold it, and it became the shaft of a metal spear. Kalven handled the weapon in an L shape and used his height over the smaller dwarf. The Storyteller placed his hand into the small of Kalven and Ulrok's backs and began to sing a hymn. As the old bard finished the chant, a visible white light covered the two heroes.

Drovic winked at Rebecca, "Hey? If we survive whatever this is, how about a kiss?"

"Not for as long as you live."

"Well, when you outlive a universe, that makes me functionally immortal," he gave Jeremy a wink.

"Hey, Mr. Fancy pants, if you are immortal, then I am a fluffy elf."

"A denial is a useful tool," Kalven stated in a medical tone, "it is a defence mechanism. He is trying to avoid the existence of his death."

"Alright, who invited Sargent Buzzkill here." Kalven's face was twitching, and his upper right lip was trying to smile, but it just looked like he was in pain. The group laughed as Ulrok nodded to Drovic, who pulled the door open effortlessly. Two arrows flew between the front-line fighters and into the darkness. The projectiles slammed into the chest of two creatures; they could not make out what they were because the light given off by the dying fire did not reach passed the front entryway.

The rest of the party sprang into action as the arrows travelled. Ulrok moved up, blocking the door, and Drovic slipped into the shadows on the front porch. Rebecca started to move up to keep providing covering fire. The Storyteller began to case a light spell to cover the yard in front of the house. Kavlen is protecting and ready to stab.

The light spell took hold above the yard; there didn't seem to be anything else in front of the house. The two monsters were face down in the mud, and it looked like the arrow had created a hole straight through the being's chests. They were about six feet tall; both had on pants cut away below the knee and strangely wearing red polo shirts with the collars popped. Their clothing was not clean by any standard. Each would-be attacker seemed covered in hay, mud and waste. The smell that the creatures gave off was worse than Old Man Jenkin's outhouse in the middle of summer.

"Holy Mother of the Saints, I don't know what is worse, the smell or the look of the hag back inside?" Jeremy waved a hand in front of his face trying to find some fresh air. Drovic ignored the smell. He kneeled beside two dead humanoids and started to roll over the closest one. Jeremy survived the area from the deck; another arrow knocked, looking for more.

"How do you know it isn't still alive?" Rebecca asked.

Drovic looked up, "You do care." He stabbed the back of the head of the monsters. Then Drovic cleaned the blade in the grass before magically casting it back into one of his hidden pockets.

"You know I could fry you with a fireball right now?"

"Now I know that you care!" Drovic smiled at the older man.

The large body hit the ground, not in a thud, but more of a squish. Ulrok walked up to the corpse. He pushed in, and he could feel wetness under his boot, "Looks like one of those boar men, but only smaller."

"Then why does it smell so bad," Rebecca asked?

Without kidding or a joking smile, "Because it is dead," Drovic stated.

The face wasn't human anymore, let alone the upper half of the body. The chest looked like someone took an enormous gorilla, mashed it on top of a pair of human legs, and for good measure, merged the face with that of a wild boar. This monster wasn't your mindless zombie or "waking" in some folklore; this was more than a reawakened corpse.

Drovic, Kalven, and the Storyteller were all looking at the corpse, casting a few spells, or looking at notes when Jeremy screamed a warning. "Guys! It might be just the shadows, but look at the barn!"

"Old Friend now might be the time for that fireball," Ulrok stated, raising his hammer with a smile. As if made to order, the Storyteller nodded, sweat dripped from his face, and he pulled out his staff. A single crackle ripped the air, thunder without lighting. Two seconds later, a mentor formed out of nothing and cashed into the shadows outside the barn. The older man fell to his knee, all breath out of him. As an afterthought of the fireball, it pushed all the darkness back; everything was on fire but the stone which made up the barn.

Not wanting his friend's sacrifice to go in vain, Ulrok charged in to meet the enemy. Besides the dwarf, Kalven was a spinning twister of metal and blades. Rebecca and Jeremy fired arrows from the porch.

About 20 monsters were moaning and screaming in flames. These seemed to be slow and unthinking creations of the hags. They were a mix of corpses and animals you could find in forests from all over the world. There seemed to be an attempt to create a half-horse and half-human, but the torso appeared to flop about like a fish until Ulrok came close.

Then makeshift centaur lunged and rushed forward. The horse monster's human large tried to grab the dwarf's throat, but the height difference was not in its favour. As the front legs of the horse parts bent down and the creature tried to bite the dwarf, an arrow punched a hole through the monster's left eye. The rotting flesh had no strength to hold back the arrow, and soft, yellow and green flesh gave way as the arrow travelled entirely out the back of the monster's skull. Brains sloshed out of the newly created opening all over the dwarf. At the same time, Ulrok's hammer slammed into the horse's front leg; the bone gave about half a second of resistance to the force before the bone cracked apart like dry kindling on a bonfire. Bone shards went everywhere, causing slight metal ringing off the dwarf's finely crafted armour.

Kalven was effective beyond belief. He moved as gracefully as a dancer on stage, giving a performance they mastered a thousand times. With each step or shift of Kalven's body, the end of his spear passed effortlessly into vital areas. Each time he was splashed with gore and blood, his face seemed to twitch in a deformed smile that didn't reach his eyes. At one point, a laugh seemed to slip out of his mouth when he removed the head off a charging goat-man that was on fire from the fireball.

Drovic noticed a shadow starting to move behind the barn. He did not engage the main fighting force with the others; he needed to end this shadow. Dodging across the field of fire, blood and corpses, Drovic began to pull out a bracelet and started to turn a few sections. Once all the parts were in the order he was looking for; he began channelling mana into the weapon. The shadow creature was trapped. Drovic nodded his thanks, more for himself, the Storyteller's magic light orb and the fires; there was no were for the shadow to slip past him.

"I have a message for the Old Man in the Red Room. Tell him to leave my friends alone!" Drovic lunged. His hand grasped the shadow's skull. "Second thought, I will tell him myself."

It screamed, "How!" It started to melt away, slowly sucked into the bracelet.

"Simple, I am sending you home."

The others finished by the time Drovic walked back around the corner. Thankfully the fireball managed to kill the majority of halflings, and the fighters acted as a clean-up crew. They all gathered in front of the stone doors of the barn, and the Storyteller was in Kalven's arms, all his physical strength gone from casting such a potent spell. Ulrok was resting against his shield after washing brains out of his hair.

"I don't know about you, but I am done," the Storyteller whispered to the group.

"I am with Gramps. I don't want to fall into a death trap in the night."

"I might not be good with magic, but I can talk to the stone and close it up for a night," Ulrok chimed in.

"Do it; we will take shelter in the house. Set up some alarms and traps. Get up first light and go from there." Everyone nodded to Jeremy's words.

The blood from the battle with the hags had soaked into the oak floors and stained parts of it a deep red. They rested that night, but their dreams were not restful. The Storyteller, weak physically, set to work at reviewing the hags book.

******

The following morning the adventurers awoke to find the Storyteller packed and ready to go. It seemed to Drovic that the man had very little sleep. The book they found the night before was gripped tightly in the Storyteller's hand, or the undead they faced. The fires from the witches' corpses had finally gone out. The rest of the bodies were still a smouldering mess in the mud. Whatever Kalven had used to burn the witches melted away any trace of them.

As Drovic took his first steps outside into the beautiful dawn, the others had already gathered in a circle facing the Storyteller, waiting to hear the news he found out from the book. Clearing his throat, Drovic asked, "So, what have you learned? Do we know who attacks us? Do you know where our next step is? You know besides the mad scientist lap in that barn?" He had bluntly asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

"I think I have. It is truly unsettling if I am right and perplexing if I am not." The adventurers ate a breakfast of morning biscuits that were given out from Jeremy's supply bag, and everyone was listening to each word that came next. "I believe what the witch said was true about the Bone Keep being a space between worlds, but I think we could use it."

"Ulrok, are you ready for a trip to the underworld?" Jeremy jested, bumping the dwarf with his elbow.

"I don't know about you, boy, but I have lived a long time. However, I am not excited about ending my life so soon."

"Are you going to say what I think you are going to," Drovic asked with a shrug and a winked? Ulrok just smiled and bumped the rogue back.

"Let's rock and roll," the doors to the barn opened up, and the adventures took a step inside together.