Stonehell Session 14

~Investment~

~Bandit Hunting~

~Petrification~

Cockatrice from Delicious in Dungeon

22 of Sprout

Drizzle

Gringle the warrior

Emrys the mage

Ethex the rogue

Henar the scholar

Lots of talk of how to invest in Stonehome. Decision on the days activities: explore the now abandoned hideout of the Ghost Beggars, find out how their leader escaped, find some left behind loot. 

The Seekers left for Stonehell Valley and made a detour to check up on their base, as well as pay their guards and leave some food for them. They left behind their donkey, and their new retainer Fjord, to head up the southern trail they knew led to the bandit’s base. 

Once on the other side of the ridge, they found the cave entrances, lit a torch, and entered. In the first few rooms they found evidence of the flight from the caves, as well as centipedes feasting on some corpses. Delving deeper brought them to ransacked store rooms, evidently pecked apart by some large bird, which left behind some green and orange feathers. 

They managed to avoid any encounters, and expertly made their way directly to a shaft leading 150’ down into Stonehell. Equipped with a winch and platform system, but lowered. 

In raising and lowering the platform, I rolled two exploration die and both returned encounters. Emrys and Ethex were ambushed by a cockatrice, the rooster and patriarch of the flock that had moved into the caverns since the bandits’ flight. They dealt with it efficiently, bolting and roasting it with Emrys’ flame, before anyone could risk a bite from its viper’s head tail. 

Gringle and Henar, at the bottom of the shaft, encountered a doom lure in the form of Fjord harvesting glowing mushrooms. It made an attempt to flee, to lead them into the maws of some giant locusts. Acting quickly, Henar caught it and wrapped his arms about its body. Its flesh had the density of cotton candy, but oily and gaseous. It let loose a scream, draining some of Henar’s willpower. Luckily, he was able to resist its rage inducing abilities, and Gringle recovered from his surprise and slayed the creature. It melted into an oily gas and dissipated.

The party regrouped in the mushroom cavern and explored a little, avoiding the locusts and traveling through unknown locales. That is, until they reached the familiar octagonal chamber decorated to look like a desert with the sphinx Isis-Uma at the center, where they regained their bearings. 

The Hellseekers continued their pursuit of the remaining Ghost Beggars, until they reached Kobold Korner. There they chatted with the Kobolds, finding out the remaining bandits were holed up with their gold in one of the inns. After much deliberation, they decided not to stir the pot (this time) and began considering traps they could lay for the bandits in the future.

They were low on time at this point and decided to return to the winch. As they began their ascent, (they had put a 300’ rope over a pulley and let both ends fall, made someone as light as a feather, and were going to raise them back up to operate the winch) they were attacked by 7 fire beetles. Henar was most of the way up, so the party fended off acid attacks while he climbed the rest of the way to begin operating the winch. The acid began to melt the platform, but with quick thinking, Emrys tossed one of the firebeetles with telekineses into the locust chamber, creating some bug-infighting.

Once at the top, they were ambushed immediately by a hen cockatrice, and Gringle and Ethex were struck by venom. Its viper tail bit Ethex, piercing through their armor and filling their ankle with stone venom. With quick thinking Gringle used his farmboy knowledge to grapple and soothe the hen, but its viper tail was still going wild. This gave Henar an enhanced attack but it was just short of slaying the monster. In its death throes, the viper reached around and bit through the leather guarding the back of Gringle’s knee. With a twist, he broke the hen’s kneck.

Deciding against amputation, the Emrys and Henar could only watch as the stone crept up Ethex and Gringle, stopping their hearts and lungs, and gasping and sobbing, it finally overtook their heads.

Emrys and Henar abandoned much of their loot to ferry the stone-corpses back to their hideout, and eventually back to Stonehome. Luckily Soot, the green-giant and witch-apprentice immediately began working on a cure for petrification.