Hardcore Heroes: Episode 32

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== Synopsis ==
Near the ruins of Brass Valley, Malakai and his party face the challenge of moving their cart without horses. Kain's suggestion to smoke out their enemies is dismissed due to uncertainty about the basilisks' resistances. After various spells, including Stoneskin and Clairvoyance, Malakai spies on Baron Song and a cave with a mysterious sword, though he fails a saving throw and feels watched. They are soon attacked by a hill giant, who is ultimately defeated after a fierce battle. As they prepare to rest, they are threatened by more giants and must hide. The next day, after some rest and preparation, they venture into a mine, dealing with basilisks and discovering treasures. Their journey ends with plans to visit an old friend in Redport after an uneventful exit from the caves.
==Recap==
=== Thursday, 1509-10-20 ===
Near the ruined town of Brass Valley. After a day of healing Malakai memorises his spells. Party now faces the problem of having to pull their cart out of the hills themselves since their horses are now lawn ornaments. 
Kain proposes trying to smoke the beasts out, but other two reject the idea due to them not knowing what resistances a basilisk might have. He also mentions Flaming sphere spell as something they could use in the tight underground space, but Malakai doesn't seem to like the idea. 
Malakai casts Stoneskin on Kain and then he casts Clairvoyance on Baron Song's throne room. There he sees a large table beset by soldiers, Kel Hanes and presumably Baron Song, eating.
Next he casts another Clairvoyance on the cave of the shadow beast. There he spots a rather fancy looking cobalt coloured sword which he takes his time to memorise to best of his ability. Then the saving throw comes and this time he fails. The feeling like he's being watched and scrutinised overcomes him, but in a moment of defiance he says “Now we’re on even terms” out loud to the surprise of rest of his party. 
The party questions him, but he shrugs them off not mentioning that the creature apparently penetrated his defenses this time. 
Then out of nowhere a distant thud catches the attention of both Kain and Van, then another. Alerted they run into cover with Malakai following fairly nonchalantly and a confused Jeeves taking cover inside the carriage. 
The footsteps slowly come closer and eventually a hill giant comes into view, brushing aside trees like saplings. It was apparently about to go to the hill before it noticed the cart, curious it walks up to it, squats down and tips it over like a toy. Van seeing this pops out of his Tree spell and runs at the giants back in a surprise attack. 
Van misses his first attack and the giant grabs him. Multiple attacks pepper the giant humanoid from rest of the party members which only seems to piss it off. Next round though a surprising amount of damage forces the giant to flee with Van still in his hand, but while he does so he squeezes Van for 15 life crushing damage. Next round Van manages to stab himself free from the giants grasp which forces the giant to fall on all fours screaming in pain while he runs and hides in nearby tree cluster. The party catches up to them with Kain understanding that the giant really is just rolling around in misery and pain from all the wounds they've done to it. Malakai finishes it off with another Magic missile barrage. 
Van meets up with them while magically patching up the fairly serious wounds. Malakai shares with him in the now mutual feeling of it not being too great being carried off by a giant, but they laugh about it. He also commends him for going in so brazenly to save their carriage driver. 
The moment is interrupted by more similar giant footsteps off in the distance which forces them to run back and hide anew. Van gets Jeeves and carries him off into the woods. While they're running a wail echoes throughout the forest and Kain understands the words that follow, the giant's mother swearing that she will avenge her son's death and find every last human in the hills, crush their bones, grind their skulls until nothing is left.
As they're running Kain also warns them of nearby wolves and tigers, keen on not being found by giant while they're fighting some random animal. 
With Malakai's spells dry they decide to find a thicket, Malakai gives Jeeves his staff for whacking any approaching enemies and readies to be napped. 
5 minutes after spell has been cast they hear giant footsteps again, multiple giant footsteps. They seem to come closer for a while, but then come to a stop. The giants talk for a bit and then sounds of wood breaking echo across the forest accompanied by a cheer. Finally the group goes into a full on run, but apparently away from them as it gets quieter with time. Kain hides his bow and covers himself up as much as humanly possible while Van apathetically just sits in the underbrush.
Eventually Malakai wakes up, party informs him of the turn of events and that their carriage likely is kindling now. Spell memorisation takes a little over 3 hours so the others meanwhile play some chess and kill time. Van gets Stoneskin on himself and finally Jeeves after 4 hours crawls out of the underbrush, somewhat reluctant to hand over the magical staff by now. 
Invisible Malakai goes to explore the carnage with the dragon skull inconspicuously missing. He comes back to the rest and informs them of his findings or lack thereof, Jeeves looks horrified about them not having any need of him now, but Malakai jokes that he's going to need to learn to use that short sword now. Buying a new carriage doesn't seem to worry the rest of them though. 
They ponder where to sleep now and Malakai promises to buy Jeeves one of those fancy cushioned carriages, perhaps even equipped with 4 horses. Kain suggests an off-road carriage. 
=== Friday, 1509-10-21* ===
Night passes uneventfully and Kain together with Jeeves make breakfast for everyone. 
Van equips himself with both poison protection and fire resistance and heads down into the mine first intent on luring the beasts out for Malakai to fireball them. Carefully he sneaks in and then throws the continual light stones as far as he can, making sure that he would see the basilisks coming. Van continues angling so that he cannot be surprise-turned to stone, occasionally sounds echo through the cave, but nothing comes out. Party grows tired of waiting so the other two wander down to the cave and with Van still 50 feet ahead and Jeeves 50 feet behind them they start delving into the mine. 
They throw both light stones in each of the forks, but see no basilisks there. Slowly they continue to edge deeper and deeper, extremely wary of each fork, sending Van to check them out. 
With Jeeves watching their rear they walk deeper into the mine system until they begin hearing breathing, before Kain can decide whether it's asleep or just chilling Van pounds his fist on the wall and challenges the basilisk to a fight. Nothing seems to happen so they decide to go further in and just deal with the basilisk. 
The hallway opens up in a giant cavern and Van lets the others catch up, but as he steps into it the basilisk lurches out of a hiding spot, all 3 of its attacks hitting the stone skin. From deeper in the cavern the other beast comes as well, but it seems to be unable to get past it's mate. Malakai slows the basilisks and then peppers the former beast with missiles while Van tanks another set of blows. More magic missiles force the engaged basilisk to flee while the other one that came from deeper in the cavern also turns around and hobbles off. Sword attack slays the first one and the whole group chase the other one forcing it to fight a shadow troll, then it turns around to come after Malakai who manages to slay it with 2 Magic missiles just before it can get to him.
Finally they take a breather while Van and Kain gauge out the basilisk eyes. Scared of the possibility of more of these deadly things in the mines they slink out of the cavern. At the fork they startle Jeeves who's still alive and well so off they go to their hiding spot in the forest, prioritising healing over looting whatever the basilisks had been guarding. 
Satisfied with how their incursion went Van settles down to Nap with Malakai and Kain keeping watch. 
During their watch Kain is standing in the forest, his eyes closed in case a basilisk jumps him when suddenly he notices sound of snorting somewhere nearby, he informs Malakai of it who doesn't have his eyes closed and sees a grizzly bear lazily approaching the blind ranger. Informed of this Kain opens his eyes and approaches it, trying to pacify it with bear sounds while the animal just pushes him around and tries to find whatever food he has on his belt. Luring the bear off by throwing food away from them doesn't seem to work so next it goes to plunder their supply pile that Jeeves had left.
This prompts Kain to attempt to scare it off, but this gets him slapped in the face with a claw. Malakai having been ready for this to happen Levitates the bear up 15 feet which NOW gets the bear to fear them. Malakai throws rocks at it until he runs out and Van awakens to a floating grizzly bear getting stoned to death by whatever the wizard can find laying around. 
Everyone seems to take pity on the animal except Malakai, but they talk him into lowering the bear down. Van tries to speak to it using Speak with animals spell which reveals that the bear has been cursing them out for probably close to 30 minutes. 
He inches closer to the bear to heal it which gets him slapped for the trouble and then Charms it. Now friendly to him the bear still urges Van to go kill the other monsters and eventually when the bear is finally lowered down lunges at Malakai which forces both Van and Kain to put an end to the unhappy animal who dies with a “I trusted youuu”.
After some arguing finally everyone else get some sleep as well.
=== Saturday, 1509-10-22* ===
Night passes without encounters. Everyone readies their spells and make their way back into the mine with a complex system of a blind Van going first, Malakai throwing light stones in front of him to scout ahead and Kain keeping rear, then repeat they move like a caterpillar. 
Back in the larger cave they come upon 2 hatching basilisks. Van warns everyone else of them so Malakai very carefully edges into the room, almost catches a glimpse of one and then has an even closer call with the other, but in the end he manages to Magic missile them and not turn to stone. Van slays one with the sword and then Kain the other. 
Van ponders for a moment whether it'd be worth to take out their eyes instead of just stabbing them, but cautious Kain does the job for him. 
They spot some corpses in the corner which Van goes to loot, however Malakai doesn't spot any magic items. They manage to find 10 things of value and then go to explore deeper, however the mine appears to stop about 30 feet in. 
Rest of the day is spent exploring these mines, but no more monsters nor treasures are found. 
The art objects they found consist of 34 precious metal god statuettes with gem eyes. Chest set made out of onyx and a red stone with gemstone playing figures. Holy symbol of Voraci. A  pair of silver plated hunting horns that look elven in nature. A rolled up piece of canvas of a person Van doesn't recognize. Fancy sword and a scabbard. Matched king and queen crowns. 
After a long and arduous day in the tight mining halls they finally exit the caves, and meet up with the eternally worried Jeeves who seems eager to go back to Limestone or any other civilized place. 
Somewhat disappointed in the lack of magic items Malakai proposes they should visit their old friend Zinley in Redport. It would be close to the ruins of Talon as well which makes for a two birds one stone situation. 
The road to Limestone would take a whole day so they head out after a short rest.
=== Sunday, 1509-10-23 ===
Party makes it to Limestone.
== Experience and changes ==
*Dates are extrapolated from a previous mention of an exact date.
Category:Hardcore Heroes Episodes