Session 004: Eye of the Beholder

The party fights the beholder. Fuego’s liberal use of fire magic quickly ends the fight, which also burns and scorches several party members; Thea in particular mourns the temporary loss of her eyebrows. Rylan cuts into the beholder in search of a fabled stone while Bryn takes notes, and Ruinfea keeps one of the beholder’s eyes.

Outside the party examines the corpses, finding that each carries a bottle of explosive liquid along with a magical item; the party collects a Wand of Web, a Ring of the Ram, a lute of healing, and a stone of brightness.

In the tunnels, the party finds themselves face-to-face with two baby beholderkin. The babies take a particular liking to Rylan, who call him "daddy" while clearly mimicking children's voices. This makes him very uncomfortable. Jii is able to mimic the beholder from earlier while Fuego figures out how to banish them back from whence they came, and the beholderkin are sent back. Evading a gelatinous cube, the party finds new horrors in the tunnels: statues and a sarcophagus graffitied with blood, and a ruby red stone gradually filling with eyes from. . . somewhere. The Great Mother herself threatens Littlegrove and all Hilan, until Rylan convinces her to simply go away.

At this moment the party is interrupted by another adventurer, a dwarf named Hetzel Sophson looking for a family heirloom: a great axe named “Gramma’s Hammer”. She, too, decides to join the group, and the party grows larger.

Examining the chamber, a secret door is discovered, leading down into yet more tunnels. Here, the walls seem to be made of living flesh. Jii licks the walls, but is saved from permanent adverse effects by Rylan and Bryn. They stumble upon yet another ritual, this one performed by a cloaked figure standing over a chasm. Rylan and Jii kill the summoner, but the ritual is complete and an avatar of the Great Beholder Mother ascends from the depths. The group fights the beholder, but things go wrong when Jii is exposed and the monster eats him. Rylan sacrifices himself and is swallowed, but before he and Jii can be killed he cuts his way out through the beholder’s side. The party makes a haphazard human chain to rescue them from plummeting into the void below.

Once everyone is safe, they head back to Rylan’s house to rest and plan their next moves.