Fresh off a mission to recover the Mask of the Sorceress from the Lost Dungeon of the Demon Cultists, Alpha Company makes its way south through the High Forest to convalesce at the Meadmaker Inn. An evening of good eats, good brew, and good games ends with a new provisional team member, swashbuckling rogue Wallace T. “Tango” Francis.
A conveniently located and inventoried popup boutique alleviates the party’s spoils in exchange for several uncommon magic items.
Alpha sets out south to rendezvous with the caravan for its next mission. At an intersection with the major route into Llorkh to the east, they come upon a couple of stricken wagons. The first is a mobile library curated by Xalver as anyone in the caravan might realize. The second wagon is a mobile brewery destroyed along with its Charlie Company spellguard occupants. Hounds, apparently mid-feast on the slain spellguard, attack from the surrounding forest.
The hounds are no match for Alpha at all, nor would they have been a match for the slain spellguard. A cadre of Llorkh town guard, lead by Zekiel, jog up to the scene followed immediately by battalion commander Vesper Othuro here to investigate the whereabouts of Charlie Company. Xalver and his kobold assistant Bock unexpectedly pop out of a smuggler compartment concealed in the floor of the mobile library.
The Llorkh guards reckon the wagons were assaulted by basilisks operating from a fort to the north as recently reported by local hunters. Not that it would interest a bunch of do-gooders like Alpha Company, but basilisks fetch a 100 gold piece bounty. Tango and Xalver debate the abstract value of books and brush up on basilisk knowledge which omits any predilection for knocking down breweries, but it does mention a stinky potion for reversing the effects of petrification brewed from the most disgusting parts of the basilisk. Xalver offers the party a couple of valuable greater restoration scrolls that will accomplish the same task without all the stench. Lizardman cleric Ssatschia and filthy cleric Snory determine that the spellguard are beyond revival so Snory spoons up with the least degraded of them to speak with dead. They learn that several valuables are missing and the perpetrators of the attack were in fact bandits, casting much suspicion on the conveniently arriving Llorkh guards. Vesper Othuro reckons Alpha Company will have to get to the bottom of all this, whether the trouble was caused by bandits dressed as guards, bandits dressed as basilisks, or basilisks dressed as bandits dressed as guards. Once the scene is secured, Alpha Company detours north to see what’s what.
Not far up the road Tango finds a camp of friendly hunters. Larry Gamestalker and his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl were the same hunters who reported the basilisk(s) to town guard Zekiel. That checks out. They would not mind coming along to the fort to observe the Alpha fools try to take on a basilisk, but their request is declined.
Miles farther north the party arrives at a smallish appearing structure in some disrepair. Rogue Tango sneaks up to the entrance and sees a camp inside, some candid statues, some barrels, oh, and a little baby basilisk. He reports back to the waiting party for some tactical brainstorming. Kenku wizard Scram knows exactly what to do, but his unfortunately-cast summon of demons goes wrong and his death is feigned instead. Snory drags him off to a tree for an hour while the rest of the party scouts around the back of the surprisingly small edifice.
Ssatschia reckons a lot of the structure is below ground and extends well beyond the building walls. A dire wolf charges in, interrupting the exploration. With Ssatschia’s blessing, Tango and dragonborn fighter Nala attack the creature. Moth reaches into her bag of tricks hoping for some dire wolf parity but instead retrieves a weasel. Sensing Moth’s disappointment, the determined weasel fatally bites the dire wolf.
The party continues around the structure to a convenient window. Ssatschia peeps in and finds himself gaze-to-gaze with one of three baby basilisks, but he fortunately gets away with it. The party hastens back to awakening Scram, tightly swaddled by Snory until calm. Tango suggests using Snory’s animated zombie as a distraction to aim the baby basilisks away from the entrance. The zombie abides, leading the baby basilisks toward a far corner. The party successfully assaults the baby basilisks with the zombie’s unwilling bravery forever commemorated in statue form in the corner. The basilisks are collected for later gland extraction and bounty collection.
Tango, intending to block a door in the floor, inadvertently sets off three simultaneous crossbow traps. The party elects to explore the cellar, convinced that the mother basilisk would least likely be below a seriously trapped door. They descend into a granite cobblestone corridor lit by magically continual flames. Around the first corner they find an octagonal room with barrels of provisions and potable water.