B/X Stonehell Dungeon, Session 13, August 28, 2021

 Dramatis Personae:

Benji Boggins, Halfling, accompanied by his war dog, Kiwi 

Isabella diSarono, Thief

Norton, Magic User, probably uses a red Swingline stapler as a focus. 

NPCs:

Gort of the Shining Force, Cleric

Buffalo Head, Fighter

Mik Enkopolo, Torchbearer and Caddy 

It appeared Banfiz needed a vacation, and was nowhere to be found, so the party was down a magic-user. Fortunately, the Bog Standard is a busy tavern, and before too long Izzie and Benji spotted a likely sucker ally for their upcoming delve, in the form of a magic-user named Norton. To say that he was mild mannered and meek was a gross understatement. How could such a person survive the dangers of dungeoneering? Would he prove to be made of sterner stuff?

To break in/haze their new recruit, they decided to explore more of the valley leading to Stonehell. This area is comparatively well-travelled and picked over, making it safer than the dark depths of the dungeon. After leaving an offering for Coal the Black Bear for luck, they noticed a cave entrance no party member had yet explored, and took this as serendipity. Izzie reconnoitred, saw nothing amiss, and also descried the outline of a chest in the shadows. Beckoning her companions in, she remembered too late that caves, like the rest of the world, exist in three dimensions. It was then she looked up, but too late. Clinging to the ceiling was an unholy combination of crab and spider, which is called a crab spider, because spider crab was already taken. Spider crab, spider crab, does whatever a spider crab does. That was for Stacy’s husband Jan. But I digress. The spider crab plummets at the characters, surprising them utterly. In retrospect, this was the crab spider’s first mistake. It was cut to pieces on short order. Finding just random coppers in the leaves strewn about the cave, the party pressed on deeper. In the next cave they found some moldering furs, rusted weapons, and two giant centipedes that tried to kill them, as giant centipedes are wont to do when you disturb their nests. The centipedes lunged at the interlopers, poisoning Izzie, leaving her collapsed on the cavern floor, frothing at the mouth and dying. Fortunately, the group had antidote on hand, and snatched her from the jaws of death. Next, Norton showed his mettle: keeping his limited spell-power in reserve, he pulled a blade from his brace of daggers, and skewered one of the centipedes, killing it instantly, and the next fell in short order to the blades of the company. Further along, they found a cave with gypsum deposits that shone beautifully in Mik’s torchlight. It could certainly be mined and taken back to town, but the party decided black lung was a worse fate than whatever awaited them in Stonehell’s night-haunted halls. 

The party descended to Level Three, reckoning that they had sufficient firepower to deal with any trouble they might find. 

The delve started uneventfully enough, uncovering a dwarven rec room complete with a wrestling pit, which yielded a few saleable tankards. Izzie them got hit with an arrow trap in the hallway which prompted her to slow the proceedings down to look for traps. They found none for the rest of the delve, enabling more wandering monster checks, which unfortunately all came up negative. 

They came across another room that was home to two giant tarantulas that tried to make a meal out of the PCs, their poison laying low both Kiwi the war dog and Izzie, but the party had made sure they were well supplied with potions of Neutralize Poison, and the whole dying part just didn’t take, much to the disappointment of the spiders. Norton unleashed his Magic Missiles, having saved his power till it was truly needed, and this was certainly the opportune moment. They careened unerringly into the carapace of a foe, dealing heavy damage to the giant creepy crawly. Benji did solid work with the hammer Kneecapper, finishing off the last of the two bugs with a mighty blow. In spite of the mere scattered coins found in the room, Izzie and Norton turned the encounter into something vaguely profitable, with Izzie harvesting the tarantulas’ poison glands and Norton preserving them, yielding saleable items. This was very ecologically sound, as the used healing potion bottles were recycled to contain poison. It’s the circle of life. 

The party then ventured west, where they heard singing coming from a room. Rather than barge in, they knocked, and were asked politely to come in. What awaited them was not a heavenly chorus, but a nest of foul Harpies! These monsters immediately accosted the party with their bewitching song. Kiwi, Mik and Norton were ensorcelled with a charm, and now regarded their companions as enemies! Things were about to get very, very dangerous. 

Fortunately, the party’s heavy hitters were unaffected by the song, and charged in to attack, dealing damage to the Harpies. It was not enough to brea the charm though. The Harpies then retaliated by having Mik the torchbearer run away, plunging the room into total darkness, effectively blinding the party! Harpies can of course, see just fine in the dark.They then ordered Kiwi and Norton to attack their companions, but the attacks were poorly aimed in the darkness. It was well that Norton had expended all his offensive spells already, or he would have unleashed them on his allies! The Harpies then tore into the heroes with claw and bite, landing flurries of blows on the blinded delvers, knocking some of them unconscious. Things were looking very grim indeed: your humble author was a expecting a TPK at this point. However, the Harpies had not banked on the prescience of mind of one Isabella diSarono, bearer of the sword Lightbringer. She invoked its power, bathing the combat zone in light. Reinvigorated, our heroes struck back, and one of the monsters fell. This  slightly disrupted the Harpies’s song, allowing some to break free of the spell and join the fray. This eventually turned the tide of the battle, and all but one of the Harpies were slain, with one surrendering. She gave the party intel on the dangers of the level. More to the point, the Harpies were bedecked with expensive jewelry, pillaged from their previous victims, which our heroes promptly relieved them of! 

The room across the hall from the Harpies was empty except for a giant boulder, covered in runes hovering in mid air. It could be easily pushed a round, maintaining a constant height above any surface. The party thought the dwarves would be interested in it, and reported it to them on their way out of the dungeon. The dwarves were intrigued, and promised to go down and lock the room up securely, keeping the stone for further study. They also provided the PCs with a key to access it as needed for their own research. 

At that, the group called it a delve and returned to town. One near TPK was enough for one day.