Once more the “Beatles”, Lencio, Lucky, and Hubbub the Torchbearer gone Herbalist gather together with Gerion the Dwarf and two new additions: Arche the Mage-ess and the young fighter Obelix. Their destination: Stonehell Dungeon.

It is actually Delve 6,
but Lencio has missed two of them,
so by my personal count it is session 4.

Last time, without Lencio, the group had entered eastwards into undead-territory, found some secrets and battled fire beetles, shoulder to shoulder with a group of friendly kobolds.
Once more the kobolds have proven their value, and that had an impact, as we will see.

Rugby Time

Upon reaching the valley the party noticed a bunch of mutato-weirdos playing some form of rugby. Not keen on a confrontation with cave-dwellers, the adventurers hid in the ruined temple and watched the Morlocs run around and scuffle around some sort of leathery object. They thought it would be over soon, but in fact it took 90 minutes until they disappeared into the caves. Whew!

The group left a message at the entrance: “The Beatles – Obelix was here”, and descended.

Obelix was struck by the oppressive darkness that he witnessed for the first time, while Lencio and Lucky joked around: for them this room was already home turf.

They checked the pit trap where Smiles had died and found it still open, and also still with the ladder. Using this ladder they went over to the other side to check for secret doors, finding none. But what they did find was an old pal: Antonius the Cleric (second level) was sitting there in the dark, contemplating the one-way-passage to the orc territory.

Kobold Relations

The group convinced him to come with, and Lucky suggested another go at the iron door and the undead, now that we had a cleric with us. We agreed and went westwards. Lencio pulled up the portcullis with surprising ease and Lucky fixed it open with two iron spikes.

Turning south, Obelix and Arche spinned the wheel of fortune, both getting some blessing out of it. Obelix got a re-roll and Arche a bonus on saves.
The older hands didn’t trust that wheel, and Lucky was much more interested in a new corridor that had opened behind this wheel. He and Hubbub checked that corridor for tracks and noticed a group of kobolds in the room beyond.

The group spoke with the kobolds, a good dozen of them, who were busy working on a bunch of broken statues. The kobolds suggested that they had an underground city here and that we would be welcome to visit it some time. They also reminded us of the correct way to our iron door and revealed that they had a treasure here and were hard at work retrieving it.

Lucky recognized this as a tricky moment, trust-wise, and elbowed slow-witted Lencio to suggest that we leave now, let the kobolds have their treasure in good peace and thus cement our good relations.

The party followed this advice, wished the kobolds a good day and fine luck, and went north as directed.

Wild Beasts

At the poison fountain we met four wild giant ferrets feasting on dead rats, and we went on to skewer them. Lencio was very successful in that fight, slaying the beasts one by one. Obelix was less skillful, he accidentally hit the fountain and moved the fish!

The party killed the ferrets and quickly retreated to take a rest turn until the poison gas would have time to dissipate. Afterwards we went in and skinned the fallen beasts for their valuable pelts.

Tall Tales?

Arche wandered north to the dry well and dropped a coin into it.

Lencio said “Stop that! Don’t fund the crazy people?”
Lucky agreed: “We need the money more than they!”

Arche knew of now such crazy people, and heard the tale as told by Lencio and Lucky: That in the dry well was a network of tunnels where weird mutant humans lived in the dark, wild and dangerous. Lencio and Lucky insisted that they had seen them with their very own eyes, and escaped them narrowly.

Arche didn’t believe a word of such insane stories, though.

Undead Ambush

Lucky unlocked the iron door and our shield wall moved into the corridor of the undead. It lay quiet, and all the doors were closed again, as if someone had been here to clean. Lucky and Hubbub snuck right in to listen at doors, alas, too soon! It was a trap.

The undead had just waited for such a move, skeletons grabbed Lucky and bashed in his pretty face with huge bone cudgels! Zombies tried to grab Hubbub and eat the living skin off her body, but they were too slow. The nimble Herbalist dodged their stinking fingers and ducked behind our shield wall!

Victory for Faith

A battle ensued, and Antonius stepped up: He presented his holy symbols and blasted the zombies with his faithful cry – and the monsters burned and tumbled down, destroyed by the mighty force of the gods!

An awesome display of holy power that convinced Lencio to buy a holy symbol himself at the earliest opportunity, and it inspired Hubbub to forget all about Herbalism and become a cleric herself!

Lencio, Gerion and Obelix made short work of the murderous skeletons and avenged Lucky, but it was too late for him: The brave Thief was dead.

Good bye, old friend!

A hard blow for the Beatles, especially Lencio, who had enjoyed all the funny banter when he and Lucky had argued about plans and tactics, about the right way to do things and about where to spend money.

Lucky! May you enjoy the good camaraderie of the Einherjar in the next life, as a scout of the gods!

Hubbub re-rolled her stats as a cleric, but without much luck: she suffered three negative mods, although she got the opportunity to turn wisdom into a positive, being a cleric and all.

Protection against Magic

In the skeleton room the party found a spell scroll, a pretty useful one: Protection against magic for 1-4 whole turns, making a bubble to block magic going in or out. And it was even illiterate-friendly: It could be triggered by ripping the pergament apart.

Lencio suggested that Arche should learn the spell for good, so she might be able to cast it repeatedly or even make more such scrolls.

Turn back or go on?
The party decided to go one crypt farther.
It was empty, save a golden necklace, which Lencio fished out with a ten-foot-pole.

Emboldened by this good fortune, they decided to dare one more.
This was not empty, it housed a large number of giant rats. However, their reaction roll came up 12 and they were peaceful and friendly. Lencio and Arche threw them rations and two of the rats decided to follow them like pets.

Magical Mail

Within the room there was a bust wearing a shiny, good set of chainmail. “That looks magical!” declared Obelix.

Despite everyone fearing a trap, he dared go into the crypt and retrieve the chainmail with his own hands. No trap struck him, so he was happy.

However, Hubbub reminded everyone that she didn’t have any armor, so she felt she was up for that one. Obelix disagreed: He had dared the dangerous retrieval, so he was due the armor. She could have his own mundane mail. Which she didn’t want: She wanted the magical mail!

Time for a roll-off.

Obelix rolled a 7, Hubbub an 8! But Obelix had a +1 on charisma and turned his 7 into an 8. Re-Roll!
This time, Obelix rolled a 17, and Hubbub an 11.
To Obelix went the magical chainmail, to the toxic stares of the young cleric.
“You won’t get any healing from me!” she promised darkly as he donned the coveted hauberk.
As he offered her his old armor, she refused with a scoff.

Farewell to a Hero

Enough! The party decided to leave. They shouldered Lucky’s body and carried him back up and out into the valley. This was where he had asked to be buried, at the holy shrine here, and so this was where we laid him to rest. We dug his grave and sent him off to greener pastures, leaving him his leather armor and his bow and arrows as a farewell for spiritual eternity.

Back in town we threw a farewell party in Lucky’s honor and spent all the necessary money to boost Hubbub with Lucky’s lost XPs. Thus, Hubbub and Lencio both passed the bar and joined Antonius the Cleric as fellow Level-2-characters.

Two spells won Hubbub the cleric: Detect Magic and Protection.
And Lencio’s Hit Point tally went up from 3 to 7.

Stonehell with Simpler Rules:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4 (this here)
• Part 5
• Lost in the Depth