Preparing the party
It was a bright day in The Hamlet with heroes ready to jump into the action. A medium length, level 3 dungeon involving exploring 90% of the rooms as the quest was chosen and the 4 heroes for the party were as follows:
Poillei the Hellion - Front-line hero to tank and dish out damage. She is great for making enemies bleed and suffer as fight goes on;
Dalyngridge the Abomination - Second in the line-up with a transformation ability to allow extra destruction of the enemies;
Bolam the Plague Doctor - Sporting a stun, the ability to Blight enemies for damage that can stack and being third in the party, he will ensure quality damage over time;
Fossard the Occultist - Finally to the healer, better than a Vestal just for how much he can heal at once, just hope he doesn't make the party bleed and suffer with a heal total of 0;
With the party selected for this dungeon came the provisioning to grab the essential gear being taken with them, to last throughout their adventure. The campfire kit was provided due to the dungeon size, but the biggest things to take were plenty of torches and food, some keys for locked chests and shovels for obstructions in the way.
The party stats and abilities and everything known about them to see what they are like and to help best pick out the party to work together and complete a dungeon. Also the provisions selected for this run.
This is what nightmares are made of
Shortly after the party arrives in the dungeon and move out to go further do they find a group already attacking them, which luckily was an easy fight to start with. Poillei works the Ectoplasm with a stun to make the fight end quicker with less damage dealt to them and along with the help of Bolam and others, they quickly dished out some nice damage to end the fight.
Little did they know, was this dungeon was filled with Blighted Giants that hit with such force. Bolam was quick to start blighting the enemies, with the others following to quickly deal the damage and avoid a prolonged fight against a clearly tough enemy but so soon in the dungeon. Not only would they appear right now but further along, multiple more Blighted Giants and stress to befall all the heroes the further they continued on.
Just have a look at that mighty critical strike against Poillei from just the one swing! 45 damage is over how much health points she has but she is strong, she survived at death's door through multiple fights and other big hits too.
All of those fights with a Blighted Giant in them is what nightmares are made of. To have so much to deal with was taking its toll and a constant rise in stress levels were coming to each hero. Luckily for Fossard, he was getting Courageous throughout a fight, but unluckily for Poillei was the Abusive trait to affect her judgement.
The other bad thing coming with constant rising of stress levels, was the fear of being so stressed out that it causes a heart attack when hit once more. Brutal is so far what the dungeon is showing and how much more the party can take is bound to show sometime soon.
What came next was why the dungeons near Hamlet have been said to be so brutal and unforgiving at times should a group of adventuring heroes not be careful.
Camp was setup to allow rest, healing and reducing the stress levels of all heroes, ready for the rest of this adventure. But it went wrong when they went to sleep for they weren't so fortunate to escape an ambush in the night, one that didn't allow the use of any items due to the surprise nature of the fight.
The formation of the party was messed up in the rush to fight the ambush and the start was needing a quick adjustment of where they stood. A blight attack was shot at the backline, at Fossard and Bolam to cause Blight on them along with the initial small bit of damage.
Dalyngridge was attack multiple times to bring his health down and at Death's Door in this fight. Suddenly it was starting to look worse for the party as the fight continued. Healing was quick to be sent his way along with anyone else who was in need, desperately trying to save the party from possible death through ambush.
Poillei was put at Death's Door and was okay through being attacked but due to having Blight on her, she was unfortunately met with death by a heart attack. Brutal way to go right near the end, with a few more rooms to explore.
It did not stop there. Dalyngridge was following in her footsteps and got done with a heart attack as well. Suddenly the realisation of Fossard and Bolam came where they had to leave with their lives instead of trying to carry on any further as their 2 front-line heroes in the party, were now gone and unable to help them complete this dungeon.
The 2 of them ran and headed back to the Hamlet to have a lengthy and slow recovery, to heal and lower stress from the nightmare just experienced and the loss of the other 2 members.
Lessons had been learned by the surviving heroes and thoughts about how they could've been victorious would come sometime after recovering. It might have been ultimately from not focusing correctly, but either way the stress they endured is something both had agreed upon as the biggest enemy this time around.
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