Stonehell Session #2: All along the gatehouse

Below is the latest session writeup for our Stonehell Labyrinth Lord campaign…written by RJ.

Warning: There are, of course, spoilers for Stonehell below.

So there we were in front of the gatehouse before the famous Stonehell. I am in a party with Bambi, Chastity, Pedro, Hope, and Donnick. We are discussing the best way to approach the gatehouse (a lengthy discussion of course) when Bambi decides to go to left side of the gate house where part of the wall is torn down. She comes back and states that we can go thru that way.

[Chastity, eh? I didn’t realize that the dwarf had switched virtues from Charity to this.

P.S., RJ is notorious for poor spelling and getting names wrong…all the time. This one time…at D&D camp…the DM shared some info with RJ about the City of Spires that only his character knew and RJ’s character told the party about the City of Spiders.]

After another lengthy discussion (I do believe that some of my party at the time had taken one too many nips at the ale barrel before we left) we decide to take a look on top of the gatehouse. I go up the wall and I steady the rope for Bambi. We look out into the canyon and see a man made cave at the end of the canyon, two more man made openings on either side, some ruined buildings (one more or less intact), and corpses of trees. There is a switchback leading to the top of the box canyon and a pool at the bottom where the waterfall comes out at. There are some deer drinking from the water.

[Yikes! Corpses of trees…the party better look out! There are a bunch of undead treants beyond the wall!!! I better get started on stating these new horrors up.]

I start to look for any entrances to the gate house on top but there is a lot of debris. Bambi finds some murder holes where the gate leads thru and we hear Hope yell out “I found some treasure, how much is 6,000 pounds of metal worth?” There appears to be a short discussion with Hope about pig iron not being worth anything. However she does appear to be determined and tries to yank some of the metal bars from the portcullis loose.

[I think Hope’s naiveté score jumped from 15 to 18 this session.]

After not finding an entrance in to the gate house we climb down, get our rope and hook, and let the party know what we saw. After another discussion we decide not to go thru the gatehouse but around to the left where Bambi went thru.

As we come to the other side of the gatehouse, we see two doors. We go to the first door and the party asks me to check for any traps and open the door if I can. I believe the party is under the impression that I am good at these things, yes I have had training but I am not a thief. I catch thieves and yes I do know their tricks but to know your prey you must think like your prey, at least what I have been taught. Anyway, I digress, I don’t see any traps and try to open the door but it is stuck. Pedro comes over and kicks the door in.

[Hmm…looks like a thief, walks like a thief, picks locks like a thief, and smells like a thief…but not a thief???]

There is a corridor straight ahead with a opening to the right. As we walk in we see a door on the left; Pedro states “We always go left because left leads to safety.” He then turns to the opening on the right side. We see another door, I check it for traps and try to open the door, it is stuck again and Pedro comes in and kicks it in.

There is a lot of dust in the room and cobwebs. There are shelves on three sides of the room with nothing on them. There is also a chest, the party suggests I look at it and see if I can open it, again I am thinking of telling them I am not a thief but I don’t think they will get it. I bring out my tools, more confirmation in their eyes yet again, but I do open the chest. Nothing inside the chest, no false bottoms, or hidden catches. Pedro decides to pick it up and throws it against the wall. It breaks and nothing is in the rubble. The party looks at Pedro disapprovingly, because he destroyed a potential valuable and has announce our presence to whoever may be around.

Bambi is checking the shelves; she needs a boost to get to the top. I help her out and she climbs to the top. It doesn’t look that safe to me. She pushes something off of the shelf and it appears to be a dead rat. As she was leaning over the shelves start to collapse and she comes down on top of them. She has part of shelf imbedded in her side. Hope comes up and gently pulls it out and lays her hands on her. Hope chants to the Golden Dragon in a loud voice, and a golden glow surrounds her and Bambi’s wound closes.

[Hmm…Bambi gets hurt and loses a few Hit Points from climbing around rickety shelves and Hope quickly comes to her rescue. I wonder if Todd would have been quite that quick if he had been here and playing Hope. ;)]

We leave the room and continue down the south corridor; it opens up and there is a door on the left and a spiral stairway to the right. I check it again for traps, didn’t find any but the door is stuck again. Pedro kicks it in and we are in a room with a single broken chair. We look under the chair and nothing is there. We search the room looking in the corners but don’t find anything.

We come out and decide to look at the other door in the original corridor, never leave an enemy behind you I guess.

Again, I search for any traps and find nothing. I can’t get the door open again and Pedro kicks that one in as well. Inside, there are five ghosts around a dormant fire pit, talking, and with a ghost fire going. There are bones, armor, and weapons lying around the room. Pedro comes out and explains that someone should talk to them, the party looks at him like are you crazy, and some discussion about going around the room begins. There is a discussion between Pedro and Donnick about hazard pay and whether this counts as it or not. Pedro then takes it upon himself to go in and talk to them, “Excuse me, hello?”

There is no response from the ghosts and Pedro goes in. Donnick follows him mumbling “hazard pay”, they go around the room along the wall. On the far wall there are murder holes that show the tunnel thru the gatehouse. The ghosts do not move and I think that Pedro may be smarter then he looks by not grabbing any of the items on the ground. He comes back out of the room with Donnick and tells us there is nothing there.

[The party, or Pedro in this case, did not disturb anything in the room…other than some dust. Did they miss any treasure? Any baddies? Would the “ghosts” have attacked if stuff was disturbed? I guess we’ll never know…unless the PCs go back.]

We head back to the spiral staircase; Bambi goes halfway up and listens. She doesn’t hear anything and we all go up together. When we get to the top there is a small cooridor and the other way opens up to a room. There are some pegs with clothes on them, Bambi is pulling at them and as she pulls on the second one three flying bugs come out of it, about a foot long, and a wing span of two feet. We attack them, Bambi and I with our bows and the rest of the party with their swords and maces. One hits Hope and latches on, as we finish off the other two; it starts sucking on her blood. She drops to the floor, rolls over the bug, and squishes it. Not a pretty sound.

[Stop, drop, and roll! Squish!!! I bet Hope wishes that she still had her one Cure Light Wounds for the day.]

There is another door at the end of the room and Pedro kicks it in. To the right are some stairs leading up to a trap door. I don’t know how I missed it but I did. Also, there is a hole in the ceiling; Wow what a terrible job of searching I did. There is another door at the far wall. We head over it all of us avoiding the opening for some reason.

[Okay…so the astute reader may have noticed that no hole was found in the roof of the gatehouse but there appears to be one in the ceiling here. Now, either the DM had partaken of perhaps one too many pints prior to gaming (who could pass up a cask of Bell’s Two-Hearted?) or perhaps he was just changing things up a bit. Regardless, there is a disconnect here that must be reconciled…is there another level of rooms between this ceiling and the roof…is the hole somehow magically hidden on the roof…mundanely hidden, perhaps even trapped, and the exploring PCs simply avoided stumbling into it…is there some extra-dimensional portal…just what might it be?]

At the door, I find no traps but it is stuck for me. This time Chastity smashes the door in. There are hand cranks on each side of the room. We try and see if they work to open the portcullis but they don’t budge. There is another door at the far end of the wall again.

Again I search for traps and I don’t find any; damm I am good at this by the way. This time Bambi pops the hinges on the door and opens it. We hear a buzzing sound….

[And that is where we ended the session…]