The Treasure of Lady Hellion Hacke

General Summary

The fabled treasure of hellion hacke has been saught after for many years, but our heroes have something the others did not - a map!
When they arrive at the island, they find the smoking caldera of a volcano, with a mining shaft built into the base. The shaft rose through the mountains, and when they reached the top, they found Hacke's treasure - and the skeleton of the dragon she died fighting!
Unfortunately, taking the treasure animated the dracolich, and the party was forced to flee in the shaky minecart, leading the enraged dragon skull on a chase through collapsing tunnels and over bubbling lava pits!
But the mine tracks were degraded after so many years, and the party realized that instead of winding toward the bottom, their route would lead them out the side of the mountain! Thinking quickly, they devised a parachute from the mining supplies, and ejected from the mine-cart just as the dracolich blew through the mountainside behind them. But this impact was more than the ancient skull could handle, and it blew apart into a thousand pieces, smoking debris falling around our heroes as they floated to safety.

Created Content

Greentext recap by Cameron
So there we were: finally in sight of the miserable pimple of land, pissfarted out of the depths by angry rocks, where Lady Hellion Hacke - called by some the greatest pirate ever - supposedly worked her crew to death stealing a dragon hoard, almost didn't survive the minor issue of the actual dragon, then hung up her pistols and left the booty there for the claiming along with her enchanted sail.
(By "we", I mean the ship's surgeon, a dwarven life cleric, the lookout, a human death monk, and me, ship's alchemist with some minor eldritch powers.)
We drop anchor and row out to the island. Place is a barren pile of rubble, but fortunately it's foggy as shit and we can't see much of it, except the winding climb above us, which is only briefly interrupted by an old landslide that our surprisingly nimble dwarf climbs past to let a rope down.
At the top of the path is a tunnel with a minecart track leading off into what I guess is supposed to be darkness; we follow it inward and come to a spot where some volcanic activity has turned an uphill jaunt into a vertical ledge. Out of an abundance of caution I blast the rock below it, which gets the attention of two giant carrion worms; out of an abundance of needing to punch something the monk charges one and gets paralyzed for his trouble. I blast them both, pushing them out of tentacle-flailing range, which pisses the other one off enough to try to take a bite out of me; the dwarf intervenes before it can do more than paralyze me as well, the monk punches his to death, and the live one scurries back underground.
One more dwarven free-climb and a long uphill walk later we're looking at some joker's idea of a thrill ride where rather than cut a ledge into a sheer face the track curves out over the void. The monk tiptoes across it, the cleric does the world's slowest one-dwarf trapeze act, and I just teleport because I'm not too old for this shit yet but I intend to get there someday. As a prize for making it we get to slog it uphill some more, and despite a rousing shanty those of us without dwarven constitutions are getting a little tired when we reach the end of the line. Volcanic caldera, minecart with a Big Red Button, giant gilt-rimmed chest, even gianter half-buried dragon skeleton, no big deal.
We quickly determine that the button probably makes the cart go and the chest, while not trapped, is way too heavy to move, so we start looting it. We've stowed a variety of magic items and about half a standard shit-ton of gold when, yep, the dragon skeleton wakes up. Turns out being robbed blind, beaten to within an inch of your life by a human, crushed by the last of your hoard which she didn't even have the heart to take with her, and left to rot for who knows how long will piss a dragon off enough to give death itself the finger. Figuring that discretion is the better part of valor, and knowing when not to get eviscerated is the better part of discretion, we valiantly hoof it to the cart and pound the go button.
Someone blessed with an abundance of foresight rigged it with a magical booster and we're careening out of the caldera before the dracolich is entirely out of the ground. It is rather large and legendarily piqued however so we're approaching that ridiculous curve over the void when it catches up and its fell presence terrifies the shit out of the monk, who stops hanging on the handbrake like a smart person with a rudimentary understanding of natural philosophy and leaps for the go button. Fortunately the dwarf and I are both stronger of stomach and quicker on the uptake, so he tackles the monk, I throw my scrawny frame on the brake and we make it past the curve with all the wheels still on the rails.
Despite really not fitting down this tunnel and losing its wings and front claws in its mad insistence on taking a bite out of three perfectly innocent grave-robbers, the dracolich is gaining ground and summoning what are presumably wights of long-dead pirates. I have the wherewithal to cast magical darkness over the cart, so one of them misses its jump and bounces off, and the other, despite accidentally hitting the dwarf once while flailing blindly, whiffs it twice more before I have time to charge up another two very pushy blasts and send it flying out of the cart as well. Unfortunately the dwarf does catch a whiff of the dragon's grave-breath and suddenly he's also looking a little worse for wear.
Our tranquil little climb from before is now a stunt ramp, so we stop hammering the go button long enough to duck and cover and somehow don't wreck on the jump. The dracolich has lost its back legs as well now, which unfortunately hasn't discouraged it, so I figure that if I can blast a regular creature backwards then blasting a huge one should push us forwards, and we need all the forwards we can get. I make a little crack in its face and we're still mercifully out of snacking range.
Unfortunately we're rapidly approaching the end of the line. Which, if you recall, was halfway up a goddamned mountain.
So there we were, blasting out into the wild blue yonder, far enough above the waves that the fall will pre-tenderize us for the hungry fishes, barely clinging to a minecart that's charging one last magical boost, followed by a very angry dragon skull. As the cart starts to fall away - towards the ship, where it'll make an impractically large hole if it lands - we gather all the treasure we can and cling like idiots to the enchanted sail. I give the cart one last pushy blast, which spins it around in midair right as the boost kicks in. Turns out that giving death the finger is not enough to save your pre-cracked skull from being obliterated by a huge hunk of speeding metal. And now we're drifting lazily down towards the ship on our makeshift parachute, because outdoor sports are a fun way to wind up a day of defying death.
And that, kiddies, is how we stole the legendary treasure of Lady Hellion Hacke.

Report Date

26 Jan 2024