Hook Mountain Massacre Players Journal

Here is the latest journal entry from one of my players

“We started cleaning up the castle, and one day a hunter from Turtle Back Ferry out of breath telling us that the river was surging and the town was flooding, and that they needed help. We left immediately riding hard all the way. On the way we saw that the river was riding but had not washed out the roads as of yet.

Arriving showed the town in chaos, with a group of children caught on a ferry, as well as people in the church, now surrounded by the flooding river trying to save the precious items inside.

We moved immediately to save the children on the ferry, with Brock jumping over with a rope. He went to tie it on when suddenly a giant snake jumped out of the river and attacked. We attacked and tried to drive it off, and succeeded in doing so although it did injure one of the children.

With the snake driven off we were able to pull the boat to shore, and get the children off, when what appeared to be a huge log started heading toward the church, then it suddenly submerged, and out came a monstrosity with a reptilian head, various spiked tentacles, some with eyes.

We started to move to attack, Devron cast a lightning bolt that just melted off it with no effect, and it attacked DT, sapping some of his ability. We continued to attack it finding that spells directed against it were mostly ineffective. We quickly found that moving in to attack it were caught up by its tentacles.

When things looked bad, suddenly the beast dropped those it had grappled and disappeared. Just after that the waters started receding and the rain let up some. We were not sure if the beast fled due to this or due to other reasons…

With the flood waters receding we helped the villagers a bit, but the mayor wanted us to go up river and check on the dam, and also many villagers mentioned “The Black Naga” a creature that is supposed to inhabit Stonevall Deep the lake behind the Skull Crossing and ancient Thassalonian structure which is the dam we were asked to investigate.

They also told us that Skull Crossing is know to be a den of trolls.

We rested up and decided to set off for the dam. Arriving showed us why the dam was called Skulls Crossing as 5 huge skulls were carved in the face, as well as numerous other smaller ones. Looking at the dam it appears that there was some recent damage with water now flowing over one of skulls. Also the recent rain showed that if we do not open the flood gates soon, more rain could cause the dam to break or overflow.

Looking at the dam we saw several lumbering shapes moving on it. We began climbing up a path leading into some caves near the dam. On the way up Devron fell taking some damage, but we brought back up by DT. At the top we found a 15 foot ledge leading into the caves.

Brock climbed up and went to anchor to rope, and a large 2 headed humanoid rushed out to attack him. Brock quickly shifted invisible and the beast was confused and ran past where he was. DT and Inara climbed up and then Brock reappeared causing the creature to come back and attack.

We quickly dispatched him, and were able to find a scroll and quite a bit of coin in his stash. Climbing up another ledge we came to an overlook of the dam, and saw a dome with skulls carved into it in the middle. There was 3 inches of water up in the top of the dam just from the recent rains.

We came across 5 ogres, 1 ordering 4 others to apparently break the side wall of the dam. With the element of surprise, we jumped in to attack the ogres. They were tired from working, and we were able to quickly overcome them with DT doing massive amounts of damage.

We approached the “skull mound” and found several windows, and 2 sets of barred double doors. We decided to have Brock climb into the windows to see if he could let us in. He easily climbed in and began exploring. Brock moved into a room with several fungal vines, from which emerged some green skinned giants. He immediately ran back out, and climbed out of the building. We saw the trolls come to the windows and then return.

We then decided to all climb in and confront the trolls. We climbed up, and then attacked the trolls. Using Devron’s fire spells, and DT’s and Brock’s attacks we were able to inflict. It was a long battle and one of the trolls regenerated his wounds and rejoined the battle but we overcame them and use Devron’s fire spells to keep them down.

Exploring the rooms we found some magical pink lacy gloves and a cracked diamond. Continuing on we found an observation room that was in one of the skulls on the dam, and a set of double doors with graffiti on them. The doors were stuck and very old, so DT went and with assistance was able to open them revealing a set of stairs disappearing into the darkness.

At the bottom of the stairs we found another set of double doors, which opening revealed a yellow scum covered pool, 4 doors, and a set of double doors with many skulls piled in front of them. As we moved past the pool to check the side doors a troll with a military fork jumped up and stabbed Devron, almost killing him.

We engaged in combat, and the troll stayed in the middle of the pool, out of range of our melee, but was taking damage from Devron’s spells, and Alana’s arrows. We finally got him to the edge of the pool where we dispatched him.

We then explored the side area, and found a scale model of the dam with actual skulls where the carved ones outside were. The jaws could be lowered show tube behind them, but nothing happened when we lowered them.

We then moved onto the double doors we found a room with 2 circles, one with an old shriveled up devil, begging for freedom. In talking with the devil he said it required 2 beings to power the circles. After some discussion Devron moved into the other circle, and felt energy being drained from him, but the dam began working enough to open the flood gates, however the devil turned to dust when it did.”