In our last session, things went a little sideways as the group was heading to continue their explorations and pursuit of the evil happening in and around the Mélyen Hills. Some stealthy scouting led to an encounter with a hole, a slug monster, and some orcs. This, in turn, led a trip back to Borsod to get the group back to full strength (in the form of healing potions obtained from Trinu, Borsod’s witch). Returning back to the palisade in the hills, they found it destroyed, burned to ash. The path towards the site of the ogre farmhouse was well worn as though dozens had traveled that way, perhaps the former residents of the palisade. That’s where we pick up after the break.
This write-up is from Rachel. Todd was missing and Bridgett joined us. There are potential spoilers for Necromancer Games module, Aberrations…although heavily modified as usual. Also, as usual, my GM comments are in [brackets and italics].
We made it back to where the palisade had been on the 13th of Merchant. After we checked out the rubble, Cailana scouted ahead to check out the area where the ogres’ farmhouse and barn had been. After she made sure it was clear, she summoned the rest of us to come back with her to look around the area. We did not find anything of interest except that it looked like someone had cleared the rubble to uncover the stairs down to the cellar. We briefly discussed seeing if anything had changed in the cellar but decided to continue on to the mine instead.
[I was actually a little surprised that the cellar was left unexplored, er, un-re-explored. It means the group is unaware of why the cellar had been accessed.]
We stayed on the trail (where the barefoot human tracks were) as we headed toward the mine. At one point the trail split, with one direction heading toward the mine and the other veering off a bit. The human tracks were on the part heading toward the mine so we took that path. Cailana spied some tracks on the other path but could not tell what kind of tracks they were or for how many people.
[It was more that the path to the mine was much better traveled. With all the rain that happens in the valley, tracking has been difficult, especially gleaning a lot of specific information. Both paths look to have been traveled relatively recently with the mine path traveled significantly more.]
When we got to the mine opening, we decided to circle the hill it was in before entering it. There were no tracks around the hill (except going into the mine entrance) and there were remains of a couple dilapidated shacks behind the hill.
We started to enter the mine after Faelan and Stelisto cast darkvision on themselves and Raspin. The tunnel had an unnatural orange mist in it and the air was fetid. As we moved forward cautiously, Raspin spied a couple dug-out holes 8-9 feet up in the walls, one on either side of the passage. Stelisto climbed on Raspin’s shoulders to check out the holes and was grabbed! A squid-like creature with 1 ½ -foot long tentacles latched onto Stelisto’s face and pulled him halfway into the hole. Another one shot out of the other hole and tried to attack Raspin but missed.
Stelisto was able to push himself out of the hole and dropped to the ground, where Raspin crouched and covered them both with his shield. One of the squid-like things lunged out of its hole but Faelan was waiting for it and took it out quickly. As its body fell to the ground, we saw that it was not really like a squid – it was more humanoid shaped but had tentacle-like long “fingers” coming off its hands.
Serena healed Stelisto and moved up to toss a flask of oil into the hole that presumably still had one of the creatures in it. Stelisto climbed up and tried to open the flask but the creature lunged at him and startled him. Stelisto backed out of the hole with the flask, we opened it, and he dribbled it into the hole before tossing it. We threw a lit torch in the hole after it and Stelisto quickly backed out as the flames spread. Stelisto checked the other hole and found that the tunnel went up after going back a little bit. We did not want to spend the time following the tunnel right now, so Stelisto came out and we kept moving down the passage.
We found the remains of a mine cart against the wall and the passage curved to a rickety wooden door that was shut. Raspin opened the door and found a passage going straight ahead, one heading right, and one heading left. From the passage ahead, a big slug-like creature with tentacle-like arms reached out and attacked Raspin but missed. There were six of these creatures but we all moved in, fought, and took them out without too much injury to our group. As we looked at their bodies a little more closely, we noticed that some of them had almost human features. One of them had almost a face around its maw, one had a tentacle that looked somewhat like a human arm, one of their bodies almost looked like two legs fused together. We did not find anything else in the cavern where they were other than a lot of stalagmites and stalagtites.
We moved down the passage to the left of the door we came in—it opened into a cavern with a big pile of bones, refuse, bodily waste, and other muck. There was a pool of water and thicker fog beyond the big pile. As we moved a bit into the cavern, Stelisto spied a bottle in the pile of garbage and pulled it out, causing the pile of garbage to shift and spread a bit. Cailana and Stelisto heard water dripping and some clomping steps approaching from the fog and quickly warned the rest of us. Raspin was already backing away from the garbage pile, a bit freaked out by all the bones visible in it. [He has a phobia of bones from a prior encounter with a ghost and a large pile of bones.]
A very large frog creature with tentacle-like arms came from the pool and jumped onto the garbage pile with a croaking roar. It grabbed Stelisto but Faelan smacked its tentacle/arm and it dropped him. We heard more croaks coming from the pool and thicker fog so we retreated back into the passage. A few of us made it through the door before the frog creature tried to push into the passage. It got further in than we thought it would, but fortunately it could not come all the way in. We all made it through the door and shut it.
We huddled in the passage and discussed waiting a bit for the large frog to leave so we could go back in and check out the passage to the right of the door. Stelisto went to the door to see if he could hear any movement inside and was surprised when it opened. A frogman with a spear attacked him and moved to the side of the door. Two more frogmen with spears attacked Stelisto and he was knocked unconscious. A fourth frogman jumped out into the passage. He wounded Raspin pretty badly but Serena patched Raspin up so he could keep fighting. Unfortunately, Raspin slipped while attacking the frogman and stabbed Serena. Faelan then tried to heal Serena but Metsä’s blessing somehow became twisted and it wounded both Serena and Faelan. Despite these difficulties, we took out the last frogman.
[Some fun critical failures. Raspin, of course, slipped in all the blood that had been spilled in the corridor. I suggested that perhaps the spell may have “backfired” as a result of the corruption of this place.]
We gave one of the healing potions from Trinu to Stelisto, reviving him. We left the mine and moved a bit away from it to heal and regroup. Faelan healed Serena enough for her to heal the others. Neither Faelan nor Serena was able to heal Stelisto’s last wound sustained from the frogmen, so we gave him the 2nd healing potion from Trinu. We decided to find a place to rest for the night before going back into the mine.
[That’s where we ended for the night.
I’m not sure the group really knew what to expect in the mine or if they were really prepared for the warped abominations that they came upon. At least now they know. Of course, on the other hand, if there is some organizing force or leadership for the things at the mine, they are probably now aware of the group’s interest in the mine.
Things could get interesting…not that they weren’t already. 😉
Beer Log: Beers shared this session using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- Angel City Brewing Pinot Fresa: More beer from Bridgett and RJ’s trip to California! All the beers this night were courtesy of them! Strawberry is hard to do in a beer. Pretty well done for strawberry and a bit tart. Not spectacular but good. A hit.
- Dry River Brewing Azula: A wild ale with a nice fruitiness and a bit of tart. Good and a hit.
- Dry River Brewing Lady Roja: A very tasty saison. My 2nd favorite of the night. Solid hit.
- Phantom Carriage Broadacres with Mixed Berries: A berliner weisse with berries. Like the Phantom Carriage the previous week, this was my favorite of the night. Not quite as good as the Cranberries & Spices but still very good. A really solid hit!
- Cascade Brewing 2016 Sang Royal: Tart, jam, and wood. Cascade yumminess. A hit.
