Stonehell Session 11

Physics

Skirting Da Dragon

Chemistry

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24th of Melt
Beautiful spring weather

Gringle Farmboy
Ethex the Rogue
Emrys the Mage

The Hellseekers bought a lot of rope, and left for Stonehell.

They wanted to check out the glass orb at the bottom of the waterfall in the valley. Ethex borrowed some waterbreathing herbs from Soot and gave them to Gringle. He ate them, tied the ropes to his waist, and dove into the clear pool.

Sinking down, he felt the current pulling him towards the glass orb embedded in stone, but when touching it nothing happened. He used a the Feather Wand from Emrys to make the orb as light as a feather, and with a successful strength save levered it out of the stone with his newly purchased sword. It began floating to the top of the pool, creating a small whirlpool.

The party did some tests, and removed it from the water. They successfully guessed that it was creating an "infinite flow" situation, just as the waterfall started to dwindle. Deciding that it was a little to specific to find a good use for, and that they didn't really want the waterfall to dry up, they let it sink back down into its stone embrace.

Entering the dungeon, they decided that they didn't really want to deal with the Open Sore Orcs just yet, and decided to map out the first quadrant of the dungeon a little bit more.

They found some nitre deposits, a locked door, and a fountain, mapping as they went.

They entered a more natural cave system with glowing moss, discovering a deep well that they investigated. They felt a faint breeze pulling downward, and by dropping some moss discovered a tarp at the bottom of a 60' drop.

Deeper in the cave they found some kobolds gathering guano. The kobolds quickly led the party out, and warned them about Da' Dragon's Lair through drawings and gestures. At this point they were by the Ogre Archways near the entrance, and were thinking about leaving.

Some Fire Beetles had moved into the foyer, and with 7 of them present the Seeker's were extremely wary. They backtracked back to the kobolds and asked for help. The kobolds showed them how to rub themselves with guano. No one really wanted to do this, especially after Emrys pointed out how flammable guano is, so they let the kobolds go first. They passed through the room no problem, the Fire Beetles always keeping themselves on the opposite side of the room, to avoid accidentally igniting the guano and blowing everything up. Emrys took the chance to Ice Wall the Fire Beetles into a corner, allowing the Seekers to pass through. They had decided to loop around, and maybe harvest some nitre.

On the way to the nitre, Ethex and Emrys told Gringle about the wheel of fortune, and he desperately wanted to try it out. After two spins, he acquired blindness, cured it with a superior healing potion, and acquired blindness again. Hoping the affliction would wear off, they set up a camp with some glow moss for light to try to wait out the blindness.

1 hour into rest, a berserker broke into the room they were sleeping in. Dirty, pale, and covered in poorly tanned human skin, the kin of former prisoners was in a starving blood rage. He nearly killed the party with his first hit, an attack that was enhanced and had blast. After a quick exchange of blows, Ethex ended him with a well placed crossbow bolt. They rested again afterwards.

The blindness had worn off, and the group set out to explore a little more before harvesting the nitre. They avoided some traps, found a pickaxe, and found some strange rooms. A devilish reptilian statue in one. There was also two rooms with giant uncanny carved faces, one of them with a kobold crew enacting repairs and resetting traps.

They finally got to harvesting the nitre. With some clever uses of the Feather Wand, they loaded up their cart they had left on the surface, and returned to Stonehome.

Doc, owner of the general store, bought up all the nitre to ship to the capitol, spending all of his coin to do so. He is going to be low on cash for the next month, so players won't be able to sell anything else to him.

Skinny Dick the bartender is going to charge the Seekers 100 gold a month in order for them to keep using her inn as a base of operations.

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They also learned a little bit about a crown they had discovered a while back.

'Emrys enters Scrungo the wizard's tent with the crown taken from Elijah's head. It is of hammered gold, with crudely cut sapphires embedded into it. On the inside of the crown are Runes of Chaos. Weirdly, the runes on the inside of the crown are raised, as if they were stamped in. On the outside of the crown, the gold only bears the marks of hammers, where the stamp indents should be.

Scrungo takes a vial of clear liquid and with a pipette applies a single drop of liquid to the crown. The liquid gets gooey and slowly spreads across the crown, engulfing it entirely.

With a sizzle it evaporates into a mucosal smog that Scrungo slurps up. For a few minutes, his eyes go white, his back rigid, foam pours from his mouth. And then he is back. And he is afraid.

This is what he tells Emrys.

"The prisoners were afraid. They died down there and the guards wouldn't let them bring out the dead. So they buried them below the earth in eternal dark. If the Mother is to take them, they must be laid to rest properly.

They needed new ways to put their souls to sleep instead. They formed cults, built crypts. They tried their best. It may have worked. But something came. It bred infighting, and fed off it. It grew powerful, enough to open up a source of Chaos.

This crown is from one of those cults. But the runes, they have grown like a cancer on this, hijacking it and using it. It is dark indeed."'