Our party regroups in Aquilea. Dakota was gone for this session, so it was just me and Dave planning out what we'll call the Third Expedition to Stonehell.
GWEN hires 4 expendable bodies. Their names are DIDIUS, FAUSTUS, PROCULUS, and SEVERUS. An amazon named INGRID from far-away Scythia joins us as well.
SEXTIMUS and SEPTIMUS are two fresh faces. Sextimus is a cleric - a follower of Hercules - and his brother, Septimus, is an aspiring soldier. TETTIUS and GAVROS are their hirelings. All four of them have been out of work for a few months and are eager to swing a sword and earn some gold.
DIAXUS up and quits after the last expedition, but CENTIUS and ZENO stay on.
ANTEMION and the donkey come with us, too, but they're kinda checked out.
So, for those keeping track, that means the party looks like this:
PLAYER CHARACTERS
Gwen (Witch) -- Me
Ingrid (Amazon) -- Me
Sextimus (Cleric) -- Dave
Septimus (Fighter) -- Dave
Antemion (Fighter) -- Dakota
▪ Centius, Didius, Faustus, Proculus, Severus, Tettius, and Gavros: 0th Level Fighter Hirelings
▪ Zeno, our elderly torchbearer
▪ and a donkey
We go back to Stonehell and continue to explore. Our marching order looks like this (with player characters in bold) and it matters. When we deviate from this, someone usually dies.
FRONT
|
Marching Order
|
BACK
|
||
Septimus
(heavy armor) |
Gavros (spear)
|
Gwen (witch)
|
Sextimus (cleric)
|
Proculus (sword)
|
Didius
(heavy armor) |
Tettius (spear)
|
Ingrid (torch)
|
Faustus (spear)
|
Severus (sword)
|
We find a spiral staircase in the "mines," which is odd. We go down it, and discover a square stone room with four exits. Over the next six hours (in-game time), we will explore a quarter of the first level of Stonehell dungeon - a total of 12 rooms.
Room 1. The Staircase. A cool mural adorns the walls; it depicts satyrs and ogres.
Room 2. A cave full of kobolds harvesting bat guano. They speak Greek. So does Gwen. They talk for a bit, and we discover that their leader is named Pylartes and they're actually fairly helpful. They tell us all about the orcs, centipedes, and even a dragon on this level. They also tell us that they used to work for Romans a few decades back, but those Romans are gone now. Mostly, they repair the dungeon. When traps go off, they reset them. This place isn't meant for us. Still, if we insist on exploring it, Pylartes gives us a phrase to say in Greek to the other kobolds: "Rome's grace upon you." It's also best to pay each kobold a silver coin when you say this.
Room 3. In a hallway, we're ambushed by 7 giant rats. We take no damage and kill them all handily.
Room 4. 10 more giant rats! Didius takes a nasty hit and becomes diseased. We kill them without much else for trouble, though. The rats were all gnawing on a small mountain of corpses - at least a dozen. Relatively fresh. Ominous.
Room 5. More kobolds. The pass-phrase Pylartes told us to say works! These kobolds tell us that the orcs occupy in the southwestern rooms on this level, that they eradicated the goblins, and that the brigands who died down here a fortnight ago are now the corpses which we found piled up in the other room.
Room 6. Weird stone faces with weird stone eyes.
Room 7. We find a small mountain of adventuring gear in a 'closet.' We loot it and move on.
Room 8. Tettius falls down a pit.
Room 9. A square room damaged by time and the elements. Potassium nitrate is piled up in here. Also, centipedes. Giant, save-or-die poisonous centipedes. Four of 'em. Our party broke formation for a brief moment while we were searching the room, and the centipedes punish us for it, dropping down from the ceiling and biting our most vulnerable members. Sextimus gets bitten and dies. Gwen gets bitten... and she lives! Holy shit! Ingrid finally draws steel and the centipedes are quickly butchered. Still, damage done.
Room 10. A small room with a fish statue in the middle. Septimus and Severus tap it with a 10' pole and the statue breathes out toxic gas, so they both book it back to safety. Or so they think. Our commotion caused a gang of 4 skeletons to stumble across us, and Severus is killed by one of their rusted knives.
Room 11. Before we even have time to catch our breath, it seems, we're being attacked by 4 zombies. We've apparently stumbled onto a crypt. Faustus has his windpipe crushed by crusty zombie hands and dies. Ingrid gets stuck in and deals a ton of damage, ending the fight.
Room 12. A hall with a stuck portcullis. It looks into a room with a skeleton in it. Septimus lifts the gate with his brute strength, and a disembodied voice tells us all to leave. Whatever. We realize that this room is connected to Room 1, and decide that three corpses is enough for today.
12 rooms explored, and all it cost us was 3 lives. This place is a nightmare.
We go back to camp, bury our dead, eat our rations, and prepare for the next journey down.
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