Stonehell Session 22

~ Quiet Travels ~

~ The Witch's Temple~

~ Necromantic Delights ~

22nd of Cold Frost, Imperial Year 525

Raging Blizzard

Vesper the young necromancer

Solstice the foundling bandit

Emrys the Mage

Klang Fletchwind

The session began catching up on some downtime. Solstice, with help from Blacksmith Bernie, made a mold for Saint Dunstan's Bell, in order to reforge it. Vesper did some prayers to her censer filled with spores, and got a huge success. She has been blessing corpses as she travels through Stonehell, so something is definitely going to happen. Either a mycelial animated corpse jumping in to save her, or perhaps an opportunity for resurrection.

The Hellseekers set off for Stonehome through a thick blizzard, pushing through the night and making camp at the abandoned gatehouse. Some rats got into their rations. I think they're going to set up another FOB soon.

They made quick progress into the Quiet Halls. I kept rolling 6's on my dungeon events, so for the first 30 minutes or so absolutely nothing happened while they traveled to the temple they had located last session.

Before heading in, Vesper cast Detect Magic and identified 7 skeletons bursting with necromantic energy. The party spent a long time debating a plan, and I rolled events every couple minutes to keep things moving. Lucky for them, I was on a 6 streak and they took their sweet time.

With their plan in shape, they marched into the Temple of Sorcha the Witch Bitch. Deciding to do the ambushing, the 4 of them dashed vials of Holy Water against the motionless skeletons. 3 of them were immediately melted, but Solstice's charge was nearly unharmed. What followed was a quick battle, making use of Holy Water, a casting of elemental Wall of Flame, and Telepathy on a golden flail mounted in the statue of Sorcha's hand. With the skeletons dispatched, the party secured the room and gathered up their loot. Luckily, the bell did not need to be used.

At this point I was a little worried the session was going to go super smooth, but the dice pulled through for me.

I rolled the event die, and I rolled up a skiff encounter.

The players were now trapped in the temple. Frantically trying to come up with a plan, Solstice began stumbling around the edges of the room looking for a way out. Luckily for the party, there was a secret door. They bolted through it.

Through a tight and twisting corridor, they entered an old, rotten, priest quarters. A brief respite. Digging through the garbage, Vesper recovered a magic scroll. She shortly found out that it was in fact a cursed scroll, and was struck with a magical blindness, and took some WIL damage. It was at this point that the party heard marching footsteps of skeletons, and a high pitched voice, telling them to drop their weapons and surrender. 

Malfreces Nul, an old necromancer covered in sores and a rotten hole for a nose, leading 8 skeletons to intercept interlopers in his domain. The party tried to negotiate, but he wasn't having it, and sent his skeletons through the doorway. Vesper, in her blindness, failed to cast a wall of flame, and paid for it in arrows. The rest of the party was caught dumbstruck as the skeletons swarmed them, hammering them with blows from rusted swords. Malfreces attacked with a Fear spell, spurring Klang to dash away. Vesper attempted to run, but in her blind dash ended up crashing into some skeletons.

Solstice was the one holding Saint Dunstan's Bell, and rang it. A shroud of warm golden air filled the room, burning away the undeath. With the way cleared, Emrys took his Feather and touched Malfreces' hauberk, turning it heavy as stone and pinning him to the floor.

Malfrece's cast Cause Light Wounds on Emrys, but the Mage shook it off, and bound and gagged the prone necromancer. The fight was won.

The Hellseeker's interrogated the necromancer, learning of his lair's whereabouts, some lore about the Duke of Bones, and the fact that new acolytes serving Father Chaos were attempting to recruit him. Deciding to let him live (possibly to their detriment) the party let him go and made their way back to the surface.

An uneventful hike back to Stonehome, they fenced their loot and went to the Great Witch Cannora to try to cure Vesper's blindness. With her downtime roll and an investment of 200 gold, she secured an unguent that would cure her eyesight over the next week.