So, at Brian’s suggestion, the other Brian allowed the not attending Kharn and the unconscious Kaladin to switch places (in mill, within melee) and hit points (full and out).  That helped.  And evidently, the Brian’s had had an email conversation about unleashing his heirloom power.  Time stood still as his father’s image appeared to him.  It told him that in order to unleash his true power, he needs to eat whatever he found in his pocket watch.  In there he found a centipede-like larva which he dutifully ate.  He began to radiate goodly light with faint traces (rays?) emanating from him.  However, Ambrus saw something different.  Once we pieced it together later, he saw the image of a Mind Flayer although he didn’t know what it was.  Regardless, Zolton transformed, got extra hit points, extra Int, and several powers.  Among which were True Strike and Vicious Mockery at will, a 10d10 physic blast cone that also stunned, a tentacle grapple, and a brain munching big attack as well.  Needless to say, a game-changer.  He charged into combat and missed.  Everyone else did their things.  Loki fired from the window and while he hit often, everything was half damage.  Kaladin’s fire fists also did half damage as did Ambrus’s sneak attacks.  Only Lord Q’s pact blade did full damage.  Meanwhile, the hags continued to break out high-level spells including a 6^th level Eyebite that took out Lord Q but thankfully she lost concentration the next round, an upcast Hold Person that targeted 4 but only Kaladin missed the save which caused him to fall from the sky, and several upcast Lightning Bolts that wreaked havoc.  (Kaladin one-shotted again)

We were losing people left and right and not doing much to the 3 of them until Zolton got Granny with that physic cone blast and put her on the ropes.  She became the focused target and was dropped soon after by a raven swarm of all things.  Next to go down was one of the daughters.  That last daughter disappeared with a handful of hit points left.  All told, we used 5-6 Good Berries so there was a lot of unconsciousness, death saves, rescues, and 1 hit points.  Someone finally made an Arcana roll and we determined they were traveling to the Ethereal plane.  Zolton got 2 tuning forks (focuses) off the two bodies.  The 3^rd hag never reappeared and we had no way to follow her.  Later, Ismark said that two girls with those names had disappeared years ago from the village.  Their whole families were killed and they were gone.  (Dan: So a pyrrhic victory since we know that one hag is enough to restart the cycle in a few years) The first order of business was to get a short rest but then everyone had a long list of “but firsts”.

The children’s cages were opened.  Zolton cast Detect Magic and found that the evil barrel was magical.  He used his Mage Hand and pulled out a small minor demon.  New initiative, however other than a noxious cloud with an easy save that everyone made, it didn’t do much.  Out in two hits.  We searched.  The hags had magic pouches and magic gems but they were evil nontransferable things that were no use to us.  So, they were burned with a the of their stuff.  We did find a pile of gold.  The kids were from the village but after a brief debated on whether to take them back home or press on, it was noted that we were a day from the city and a week from the village.  We decided to press on and hope they could get back home with the new priest we were supposed to be getting.  Eventually, we got that short rest.  Most wanted to burn the place down but since it was evening, it was decided to stay the night in it and burn it in the morning.