The Green Hag

Session 8 of Tomb of Annihilation

The PC's:
Adran, Wood Elf Bard (Valor) 4, Entertainer and Bagpiper from the cold northern forests, Zhent
Angry Agatha, Half-Orc Barbarian 4, Harper, bodyguard and long time associate of Sembian Sam - Distracted in a ruined plantain plantation
Rainy Day, Cat Person Monk 4, Chultan native - Distracted in a ruined plantain plantation
Sembian Sam, Human Rogue 3 (thief), Ranger 1, archaeologist, Harper
Shaun the Kobold, Cleric (light of Kossuth) 4, Criminal from streets of Port Nyanzaru, Zhent
Varis, High Elf Wizard 4 (evoker), acolyte of Oghma

Associates:
River Mist and Flask of Wine,  quite capable cat person sister  and brother who are associates of the Zhentarim, hired by party as guides for a share of treasure found on expedition.
Vorn, a Shield Guardian found in the jungle now under the command of Varis, who promised to eventually return the shield guardian to Wakanga O'Tamu in exchange for a spell book.

We were down to four players this week, missing the barbarian and the monk. Had been concerned with scaling the enemies in past weeks, fear I've had a bit of a light touch and not quite challenging the party when they came to blows with various denizens Chult. Reading the description of the green hag in Mbala with her flying monkeys and flesh golem, I decided that if the party ended up confronting the hag there would be 2 flesh golems and a whole flying horde of monkeys. As it turned out, the hag ended up confronting the party - the hag (and I) were somewhat overconfident that the party had run down their resources in a night battle with a tribe of pterafolk.
Vorn is a challenging addition. A party containing a wizard is pretty much going to be told where to find this mighty robot of destruction in the jungle, and fairly near to the goblin village where its control amulet is found. The wizard getting to let the guardian take half his damage and then the damage Vorn is able to do with two attacks per round, and then regeneration making up for taking the extra damage, means the wizard/robot duo is quite a force - much more powerful than the fourth level of the wizard would suggest. The kobold also picked up a griffin figurine of wondrous power in Matalo, so now the party has two magic construct minions to aid them in battle.

We had left off the previous week with the party climbing the Mbala plateau from the west as they returned from the Mistcliff Mountains on their way back to Camp Vengeance. With Rainy Day and Agatha's player's being absent, figured they had taken sick from spider poison in the last encounter and decided to hole up on an abandoned plantation while the rest of the party continued on to the ancient capital of the fallen kingdom of Mbala. Turned out it was quite fallen, little remaining but abandoned plantations and mounds where huts and wood and thatch buildings had once stood. No people, only occasional pterafolk spotted ominously flying about at a distance from the party. Eventually they made their way into what was clearly once a larger settlement, with only a hut near a collapsing gate next to the trail up the plateau from the east still standing. Outside the hut the party encountered a strange old woman, somewhat suspiciously existing as the last remaining resident of Mbala. She did offer the party soup, and suggested they help her with the pterafolk that kept eating her flying monkey friends (the party also noted a large tree full of the beasts near the hut). They agreed to help with the pterafolk, being themselves no friends of the creatures. They found they were still being observed by the pterafolk as they approached the cliff on the south side of the plateau where they were said to live. On the way, they noted a large swamp (the Aldani Basin) to the east, and across it a substantial floating earthmote the catfolk guides identified as a feature known as the "heart of Ubtao."
After stumbling around atop the cliff the party noted the pterafolk were flying out of a cave below them in the cliffside. They thought about returning at night, and then noted a cave chimney atop the bluff that led into the back of the pterafolk den. Sam quickly returned from his exploration, there was some concern that the tiny cave entrance would not admit passage to Vorn, which the party thought would very much limit their ability to take on the whole tribe of pterafolk. They hoped to catch them asleep and overwhelm them with surprise. Using a jar of magnificent pigments, Shaun the Kobold was able to create a pit directly into the back of the cave; however, the party was still being observed and the pterafolk in the cave received warning of the party's attempted ambush! So as Sam, Shaun, and Adran dropped into the cave to confront the pterafolk, Varis, Vorn, and the catfolk were attacked from above by pterafolk out of the sky. A battle on two levels then took place. In the course of it, both Adran and Varis dropped and all the party members took damage, Adran summoned wolves using a charm granted by Saja N'Baza which helped a great deal at the start of the fight, Shaun also brought out the griffin figurine to help in the fight, and the party narrowly prevailed over 20 pterafolk. Varis had the good fortune to roll a 20 on a death save and he was able to leap back into the fight at an opportune moment, and Shaun similarly healed Adran to give him a chance to get off a shatter spell. to severely disrupt the remaining pterafolk in the cave. The party then decided to take a short rest before heading back to the old woman's hut, which they arrived at just before dawn.
Since the woman was actually a green hag who hoped to eat at least a couple of the party members, and as she had been observing them invisibly during the fight, she thought they'd been battered enough that her two flesh golems would make short work of them. She was wrong - I think the party got at least two critical hits against one of the golems in the first round, and the monkey distractions - had two monkeys on all the PC's and a whole swarm on the cat folk - were quickly dispatched by a flare of divine radiance out from Shaun the Kobold (the fires of Kossuth incinerated the monkeys and damaged the flesh golems). Sam and Vorn had magic weapons to affect the golems, and Varis and Shaun still each had enough spells left to have an impact. Adran, unfortunately, fell quickly to a couple blows from the flesh golem that they party wasn't concentrating their initial fire against. In desperation, the hag tried to take out Shaun the Kobold but Shaun survived the hit and hit back; when the hag turned invisible and ran away Vorn charged after, found her with blindsense, and pummeled the remaining life out of her.
The party then rested, and in a thorough search of the ruined town the following day found the hag's small treasure stash hidden in a well.
They then proceeded down the trail to the east off the plateau, passing a pyramid of skulls just below the level of the town. Shortly thereafter, the party again fought off an attempted ambush by spiders, and finished their trek to the bottom of the bluff, where we left off until next time.