While traveling south away from Bartertown, our party came upon a pair of young children. They begged for water and it was clear to see they had run away from home. Water was given and questions were asked. It was not long before we realized they had come from the Gnarles Barkley, the town that until recently had a city hall with a nasty horror residing in it. The children told us they were orphans and bad things had happened to the orphanage. The more we listened, the more concerned we became. We eventually talked the children into letting us escort them home.
While standing at a distance and surveying the orphanage, we learned from the orphans that this year's corn field was not right. Not sure what to expect, the short dwarf went in search of oil while the rest of the party approached the field. As we approached, a orphan horror came running from the field carrying two small scythes and attacked. We easily dispatched the small, nasty horror only to find a second one approaching. This one too was easily slain and then a third approached. Unfortunately due to a lucky strike, I was knocked unconscious. I did not see consciousness for 2 days but the others filled me into what happened next.
Apparently my falling into unconsciousness did not dissuade the remainder of the party, as once they killed the the 3rd orphan horror, they waited around for a 4th but as it nearly killed the warrior, they withdrew to safety shortly after killing it. Not long after the fight was over, the short dwarf returned with several bottles of oil, and after a few tries, a lit bottle was tossed into the corn and the fire spread quickly, burning the whole field. That is when things went from bad to worse. Turns out the corn field itself was a horror and once lit on fire, it rose and began to attack the party! The party fought vigilantly and eventually the field fell, but not before one last burst of fire that killed Azerael.
The party rested for several days and during that time learned that children were disappearing each night. By doing a bit of investigating, we found out that the children were being drawn to a hole in the field by the promise of candy. An attempt to lure the children away from the hole by giving them candy was made but failed. Once healed, the party headed to the hole to put a stop to whatever horror lived within.
The hole itself was deep and dark and was impossible to climb, so the party went on a hunt for rope. Unfortunately the party is poor, so no rope was found. Then Charles the wizard got back and it just so turned out he had a 300ft rope ladder that he would lend us. So down the hole we went.
The first thing we found was nothing. The hole just went down and stopped. Then we found that the floor was made of wood, so we broke through. Below that was more hole and down we went. At the bottom we found a passage to a room with 4 statues surrounding a large chest with a pile of skeletons in front of it. Each statue had a pile of worms for a face. I preferred to leave the room be, as it looked very much to be a trap and I doubted it would yield anything but death to one or all of the party but others greatly wanted to know what was in the chest. A plan was hatched and a statue was moved to above ground, outside the hole. There it was broken into many pieces but that turned out to be a very bad plan. The statue began to bleed. We knew that was a very bad thing but were at a loss as to what to do about it. An attempt to put a piece in the furnace at the blacksmith's shop was made but that didn't go over so well, so we left it there to bleed and returned to the hole in order to delve deeper in the hopes of finding an answer.
The next room past the room with the chest in it was rather interesting. It was a hexagonal room with a big hole in the floor that went deep into the unknown. Wind rose out of the hole. There were 3 doors leaving the room. One went to a dead end, one went deeper into the dungeon and one was where we came from. There was also a big ring on one wall. We ventured further into the dungeon to find a room with 3 statues that attacked us, which we killed. Later we found a trapped floor that we all fell though. There was a latter to climb out but we had no way to get past it.
The decision was made to toss the 4 statues, including the broken statue, down the deep hole in the hex room and we did so. We then salvaged the chest. Later on returning we found that the statues had returned but the chest had not.
We will return to the dungeon again tomorrow.
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