The Great Basilisk Dilemma

Naazim Al-Zahir, one of the many unique looking human from a country I have never treaded through, gave word he wished to hunt down some dangerous reptiles with the terrible ability to turn their prey into living stone statues, and then consuming these humanoid effigies. I choose to travel and aid in his hunt, hoping to redeem myself from my excursion and near failure with the goblins. We are joined by a rather intriguing halfling called Eldon Leagallow, and another strange human, Marius Blackmore. The little one, Eldon, has come in contact with one of the beasts and informed us of it's terrible gaze. Perhaps, we could avoid a fight by trapping the creature rather than meeting it head on, limiting the peril of facing it's gaze. We discussed what tactics we could use to accomplished this, after visiting the wondrous, mystical "lady" within the enclosed waters behind Glennahaven.
 
I was able to pick up tracks of at least two of these beasties, and they led us to a cavern hidden by foliage next to the river south of Glennhaven. It seemed we were not the first group of adventurers to track and take on these creatures, but my concern for these others was peaked when I noticed their trail only entered the cavern and did not exit it. We entered slowly, Using Marius' ability, we are able to light the passage within slowly, and immediately discover a stone effigy of one of the men that entered. Taking care to not meet any of these creatures eye to eye, we attempted to have both of them turn one another to stone...but met with no success. We attempted to blind the creature with Marius' ability but we found no success there either. Unfortunately, our position was given away and the fight ensued. We manage to defeat the beasts, thanks to Eldon and his blades finding the soft-bellies of these reptiles. After they were felled, Naazim suggested the stomach acids of the Baslisk should be able to break down the stone flesh of the poor humanoids trapped in that form. I went to work on harvesting the organs and other parts of the creature, Amberlune would be proud, I wasted little. We hung the stomach sacks to dry and continued to explore the cave.
 
Further within, in a large ditch, we found the nest. Several eggs, unhatched but for how long is uncertain, and a few recently hatched reptiles as well as slightly larger younglings. From there, we found 3 more statues of petrified humanoids as well as a large inner grotto filled with water. I returned to my compatriots and told them of my findings, and was immediately disappointed to hear their first reaction was to kill the younglings and smash the eggs. I felt my lady's protest within my heart, I would not harm these young ones, nature would take it's course with them, as it had with their adults we had found. But until they reached adulthood, until their instincts took over and in their eyes, we become prey, until that time, I would not raise my sword against them. I was rewarded by my lady, and my compatriots decide to leave the younglings to the their own devices for the time being. We moved into the grotto.
 
As we neared the waters to inspect another statue, a worm like creature emerged and immediately engaged us. This creature was completely different from the former reptiles, this creature also turned you to stone, but not with it's eyes, but with the secretions of flesh when struck. To our despair, both Eldon and Marius were petrified but not before dealing some blows. The killing blow was dealt by Naazim, his arrows proving deadlier then our blades. Naazim's idea regarding the stomach acid was our only hope of returning our compatriots to flesh. I went to work on the worm and pulled it's stomach from it's corpse. With no notion whether or not this would work, we coated our friends and to our great relief, both Eldon and Marius were returned to us with little damage from the acid. Now with the confirmation of this unrefined process functioning, we set to work on freeing those men we found. Four men were released and a fifth lay beneath the water, though the men were unaware of this fifth man.
 
It was no man at all, but a mimic disguised as a statue; nasty creatures, mimics. We dispatched the foul beast quickly with the aid of the men we released. We then found their true fifth man, their employer, a noblemen by the name of Jimithi Farfelkugel, waterlogged and bloated at the bottom of the grotto. The men we released took his credentials and signet ring and promised to return to his family with the grim news, they offered us what gold he had on his persons as well as his blade. We returned to camp and informed the Knights of the Elks of all the occurred and the location of the nest. May Amberlune watch over those younglings and give them a fighting chance to grow into formidable creatures, than the hunt is fair.