The New Adventures of Thundina Seong! Completed May 4

[Ealli]

Chapter 9: Red Haze Shadow

Flickering shadows engulfed the party where they stood outside of Sasha’s tomb. In the blink of an eye, the light of the everburning torch was reduced to a mere pinprick and the surrounding darkness provided its own black light. Thundina felt some intangible force pulling her attention to the presence of something down the hallway. Quick glances around her friends revealed that her vision was only good to about ten feet and that everyone else was also aware that something was out there.

“Cyron, do you think you could give us some light here?” Thundina called.
“Can’t,” came Cyron’s reply. “I don’t have any light available.”

Before Thundina could ask for clarification, she staggered from a wave of vertigo. As it passed Thundina felt relaxed, bold, giddy; in short, she felt drunk. No more wasting time on Cyron, there was something to discover and maybe something to conquer. Putting one foot in front of the other, Thundina stepped away from the party and into the shadows.

Just as soon as she lost sight of her friends, Thundina spotted a large spider emitting shadows in the middle of the hallway. She took the final steps towards it, stumbling a little, only to have the spider take a swipe at her with one of its legs. The hairy leg swept over Thundina’s head, only because the stumble was driving Thundina down already. She retaliated with a sweeping cut at close range. Ashlyn soon took up a flanking position opposite Thundina with the Sunsword hovering over the creature, ready to stab down.

From back where the party was, a scream was cut short to be followed by the meaty sounds of two chunks of something smacking to the floor. “Owww,” Krel cried out, “Romann, what are you doing?”

Halas stepped up to Romann, whispered to him, “This is the end of you, for such a shocking act.” Halas stabbed Romann, the rapier pricking Romann in the arm and drawing a trickle of blood.

“Halas, no,” Cyron protested. “Romann is not feeling himself. You will stand down.” To make certain that Halas terminated his attacks, Cyron wrapped Halas in his own mind, causing Halas to freeze up.

Romann was enraged at the presumption of Halas to betray their friendship and turned his greatsword on Halas. The first blow crushed Halas’s chest while the second blow battered the bloody body further. The crushed form of Halas slipped to the ground completely motionless.

Krel waved a wand at Romann, “I’m sorry to do this my friend, but you need to stop.” Romann froze in place, like Halas had when Cyron enspelled him.

The dual threat of Thundina and Ashlyn spooked the creature between them and it vanished. The shadows vanished too, though a boundary of darkness was just off to their side. Thundina struck at the space where the spider had just vanished and then continued her strike on and out the far side of the space with the guisarme’s head running harmlessly over Ashlyn’s armored foot. Thundina then flicked her guisarme up. Ashlyn looked surprised at the wild strike and asked Thundina, “Were you attempting to attack me?”

“What?” Thundina asked innocently, “Just because you are so holy and make everyone feel judged by the gods, doesn’t mean I would ever try to get rid of you.”

“You are a Lightbringer, Thundina, you took an oath.” Ashlyn scolded gently, “I am going to bring the Light into the shadows.” Ashlyn strode into the shadows in search of the badger-like creature.

Thundina considered a moment and decided that there was something about the creature that just annoyed her to no end. As soon as she took a step into the shadows, she could feel the draw of something. Following the draw to its center, Thundina found the creature crouching by a corner. Thundina silently stalked up to it taking that it would not attempt to grab her with a hairy leg again.

Ashlyn came out of the shadows from the other direction and again took up a threatening position on the creature. As soon as Ashlyn appeared, the creature vanished again leaving Thundina in normal darkness and Ashlyn in the unnatural shadows. Frustrated at the target vanishing again, Thundina lashed out at the only target she could still see, missing Ashlyn badly. Ashlyn walked deeper into the shadows without a backward glance. “I’m sorry, Ashlyn, I didn’t mean it,” Thundina shouted after her before muttering to herself, “I’ve had enough of chasing after that thing through the shadows. The others can handle the situation for once, or flush it back here.”

The absurdity of the situation caught up to Thundina and she laughed. The laughter soon gave way to dread and she attempted to flee. The soft force urging her into the shadows to track down the creature at the center became a hard force preventing her from taking even a single step away from it. This too was hilarious and Thundina resumed laughing even harder.

The edge of the shadows shifted slightly and sobriety returned to Thundina. The sudden onset and sudden departure of a drunken state worried her and the numerous screams from that time which had pretty well died away worried her more. Once she had stepped in to the shadows, she could feel that gentle force pushing her back towards where she first encountered the creature. Thundina moved orthogonal to the force as much as possible looking for where the party had started.

Blood covered the entire area, in splatter patterns around two corpses. Grim had been cut in half, he had died fast at least. Halas however looked to have died more slowly and brutally. Thundina considered the violence and the losses. Grim had been a fine boy for the brief time Thundina had known him, his death was truly a shame. Halas, on the other hand, was not a fine boy and Thundina did not mourn his death at all. There was that one little problem about how he had supposedly hidden the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, but maybe he was lying about that like he lied about everything else. Too much blood and too many screams, it was time to get out if at all possible. Thundina scooped up Halas’s pack with the intention of taking it out of the castle. Before she could take a step towards the stairs, another wave of vertigo caught her. Beginning to feel giggly, Thundina also recognized that this was an external effect and refused to give in to it again. The vertigo passed without leaving inebriation behind.

Thundina began walking with the force and in the direction of the stairs out. She passed Ashlyn, Romann, and Cyron on her way forward. She could only quickly glance at them, but Romann and Cyron were covered in blood, additionally flecks of foam were all around Romann’s mouth while Ashlyn was looking a little tipsy. The field of force brought Thundina to face the creature once more, just shy of the exit to the stairs.

The force was a gentle push so long as Thundina moved towards the creature and even as she moved around the creature, but attempts to move away were met with a much firmer force that prevented any retreat. The only way out for Thundina would be to defeat the creature. Her heart began racing as she prepared for battle, wishing furiously that she could have some assistance in the battle. From the shadows, Cyron stepped forward dropping his holy symbol back to his chest as he took up a position on the far side of the creature, not quite flanking it, but something easy enough to remedy.

The raised up on its back legs and lashed out at Thundina with hairy legs. Thundina dodged the first leg entirely. She deflected the second leg up and away harmlessly with her guisarme but deflecting the leg then left Thundina exposed as two more legs came crashing in at waist level. The breastplate absorbed the majority of the blows, but Thundina knew she’d have bruises there in the morning. The spider landed on all its legs again and surged forward to grab Thundina in its mandibles. As it tore away a chunk of flesh from Thundina, it pulled something else out as well. To Thundina, her weapon seemed heavier than it had ever before and the armor weighed on her shoulders more than usual.

Thundina slipped to the side so that she was directly across from Cyron and brought her guisarme down towards the spider. It watched the guisarme closely and the shadows seemed to gather around it as the spider watched until the creature began tracking Cyron as well. The instant not all of its attention was on Thundina, Thundina’s strike connected with the cephalothorax. The creature writhed at the massive gash and Thundina only regretted that the shadows had prevented her from going after something intimately vital. She wasted no time in quickly flicking the guisarme again and again.

“Come on Cyron,” Thundina shouted, “let’s finish this!”
“Dammit, Thundina, I’m a cleric, not a fighter. The Blessing of the Sovereign Host be upon us. Err, and by us, I mean you and me, I’m a little leery of letting Romann have divine guidance on his sword at the current time. You won’t repeat that to him, right?”

The spider scuttled towards Romann, who had neared the battle. Again the spider rose on its hind legs and pummeled its target with four legs before landing and biting. Shadows trailed from the bite wound back to the spider’s maw and Romann staggered a moment before retaliating with a powerful blow that split open the creature’s head. The force that had been pushing Thundina towards the creature vanished and the unnatural shadows which had surrounded the group rushed into the creature. The pinprick of light from the everburning torch flared back to its normal pale glow. Even that little bit was reassuring.

Thundina made eye contact with Romann to congratulate him on finishing off the spider, but he was not looking her way. His eyes were darting back and forth as he was laughing manically. He spotted Cyron and took a step forward with his greatsword raised high. Thundina snared one of his legs and pulled it out from beneath him, dropping Romann heavily on his back. She then hopped back another step so that even if he rolled over, she’d still be out of the reach of the greatsword.

“Over here, you oaf.” Thundina taunted as Romann fell. “Pick on someone your own size and leave Cyron to tend to the wounded!”

Romann climbed to his feet and ran towards Thundina. She was set to deflect any strike, but no attack came. Whatever insanity or confusion was whipping Romann into such a blood frenzy faded as he came face to face with Thundina. Meanwhile Cyron reported from back outside Sasha’s crypt that Ashlyn was beyond help in another pool of blood.

A quick count of the bodies told Thundina that Krel was missing. “Krel, where are you? The battle is over, it’s safe to come out!”
“When the pressure shifted the second time, he stepped into the shadows following the pressure flow,” Cyron said and pointed in the direction that Krel had gone. “I haven’t seen him since then. He was using his wands, but I haven’t heard anything recently either.”

A little ways into the catacombs they found Krel’s unmoving body. He had suffered multiple blows to the head but was still holding a wand, looking like he was ready to use it.

“A warrior’s death.” Thundina proclaimed. “I mean, I know he wasn’t a warrior, but as deaths go, this was a good one. He died opposing a vicious creature in defense of his friends. So why do I feel so terrible?”

“Ah, Thundina, there you are,” Romann interrupted, “I need your help with words for when I describe this fight to the villagers. Would you say I crushed the spider or was it more that I smashed the spider? Or maybe squished? Hmm, squished doesn’t seem to invoke the right proportions though.” Romann wandered away again musing on how to wow the villagers with his combat prowess.

“If you’re feeling responsible,” Cyron counseled, “you shouldn’t. Krel, from everything I heard, joined the quest for his own reasons, and you didn’t contribute to his death. That was all the fault of the spider, and the master of this castle. Umm, but I think we need to be leaving, those vampire spawn should be on their way back soon.”

After collecting Krel and bringing him back to the staging area, the remaining group noticed how there were four corpses but only three people to carry. Thundina made the first suggestion, “I guess we leave Halas here. Worst case, stick him in one of these empty crypts.”

“We can’t leave Halas here!” Romann decried.

“Bringing Halas back may be of a good plan,” Cyron mediated. “Tomorrow we could then Speak with Dead to learn where he hid the Symbol.”

Thundina drew a long knife and grabbed Halas by the hair, “We only need the head, right?”

Cyron closed his eyes a moment before replying, “No. The body needs to be mostly intact.”

“Okay, so we bring back Halas. I guess Grim is the one who gets left here. He was such a nice boy, that’s a shame.”

Romann had been playing around with some of Halas’s gear and rejoined the conversation, “Why don’t we put one of the corpses in the Bag of Holding?”

----------------------------------
Chapter 9 to be concluded in a couple days.

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 9, part 2: Matters of the Dead

Once back in the burough, the trio of survivors visited the church to give rites to those who fell in the battle. Thundina retrieved Orning’s papers and Ashlyn’s holy symbol and put them with the other Lightbringer symbols that needed to be returned to the guild headquarters in Korth. With the last of the Lightbringer expeditions being put to rest, Thundina had to consider what the loss of everyone who had shared her goals meant.

Of all the people Thundina had met since leaving Thronehold, it was Ashlyn she had respected the most. A competent warrior who had been chosen by the Sovereign Host, she had been willing to give her life to save Thundina once. Thundina idly turned Ashlyn’s holy symbol over and over in her hands wondering what would inspire someone to act like that. She was having trouble thinking of anyone that she’d be willing to do that for. As the last of the funerals ended, Thundina tucked the holy symbol away.

Later that evening, after Romann had gone to bed, Thundina was finally able to get Cyron alone. “Cyron, what in the name of all the Sovereign Host happened back in the castle?”

“Romann was not in his right mind,” Cyron repeated dejectedly. “You know he would never strike me intentionally, but you saw the greatsword wounds.”

“I saw the wounds, but didn’t want to believe. Did Romann really kill Ashlyn, Grim, and Halas?”

“It wasn’t Romann’s fault. I think the creature exerted some sort of control over Romann, and over you, Ashlyn, and Halas too.”

“Aren’t you at all disturbed by what he did?”

“I mourn our lost allies, but it was the spider thing that killed Ashlyn, Grim, and Halas just as surely as it was the spider that killed Krel.”

Not entirely satisfied, Thundina let the subject drop. She was still disturbed and upset by the encounter, but couldn’t articulate her problems or any further objections.

The next morning, both Romann and Thundina were complaining of continued weakness. The bite wound from the spider wound had not healed. Cyron attempted a Lesser Restoration only to discover that the damage was more severe than that spell could handle. A full Restoration restored Romann, but that was the last of the diamond dust and only one had been prepared. Some of Halas’s and Ashlyn’s equipment was bartered to Bildreth for additional diamond dust. Once resupplied, the party visited the church where Halas was still laid out waiting for burial.

“I will be able to ask three questions to Halas,” Cyron described, “What do we need to ask him?”

“Where the Symbol is hidden, of course” Thundina listed. “I dunno what else. Wait, didn’t you once say that you didn’t actually know how to activate the Sunsword?”

“Didn’t I ever mention how to activate the Sunsword?” Cyron was surprised.

“Not, that I ever recall, and I have good memory.” Thundina insisted.

“Okay, although we should clearly specify ‘Holy Symbol of Ravenkind’, and I think ‘bond’ is a better word than activate regarding the Sunsword.”

“If that’ll please you. Does magic really need to be that precise?” Thundina said with a look of boredom. “We still get a third question.”

“Ask what he knows about the castle or Strahd, I’d say. Whatever it is, it’ll be the lowest priority incase we need clarification on one of the other questions.”

“Ask about Strahd, I really don’t believe he ever had been into the castle before he came with us. So cast your spell already.”

Cyron sank into a deep concentration over the body of Halas while Thundina paced about the room. Ten minutes later, Cyron gestured everyone to gather round to begin the questioning.

“Halas, where is the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind hidden?” Cyron asked the corpse.

The corpse of Halas groaned and answered in a raspy voice, “Hidden safe and sound, buried in a box beneath the town.”

“Halas, how does one bond the Sunsword?” Cyron continued.

“Pray to your gods for salvation,” came the reply from the dead.

“Okay, third question then. This is the one about Strahd.” Cyron looked to Romann and Thundina.

Thundina was frowning, “I didn’t like that first answer. It’s too general. Ask him what building the symbol is nearest to.”

Cyron mentioned, “We could ask him what building it’s in instead of what building it’s closest to.”

Thundina shook her head, “He could have buried it outside of a building though. I don’t want him getting the last laugh.”

Cyron nodded and turned to the dead Halas one final time, “Halas, to what building is the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind nearest?”

“A house made of stone,” croaked the corpse.

“Well, that’s that.” Cyron said. Then musing on the stonework of the town, “I seem to remember the shack Halas was hiding in was made of wood, but most of the houses here are made of stone. I think the first place to search would the be the Kolyanavich manor.”

Thundina and Romann looked to each other before telling Cyron, “Well, if you really want to talk with Ismark, you’ll be the one who does.”

At the Kolyanavich manor, an angry Ismark answered Cyron’s knock, “So, you’re back again. Where is Ireena now?”

While Cyron stammered, Thundina cut in, “Why are you asking us about Ireena?”

Ismark continued scowling, “A day and a half ago she ran off to join you. Where is she?”

“We haven’t seen her since you grounded her. We’ve respected your wishes on Ireena.”

“First time you’ve respected anything,” muttered Ismark. He then sighed, “Will you please find her and return her here then please. I’ll ask Urik to assist you.”

“Of course, she is a dear girl, we will find her,” Thundina said, then added, “if only for her sake.”

Ismark began to close the door, but Cyron stopped him to fulfill the purpose of the visit, “We have learned from Halas that he hid the Symbol near a house of stone. We would like to around your grounds to see if he hid it here.”

“Very well,” Ismark sighed. “Just so long as you find Ireena.”

The manor grounds were nicely kept up; Halas had not hidden the Symbol in the Kolyanavich manor. The party took to the inn to ask the nature of Halas’s movements. After a brief debate on who would be most effective at gathering information, Thundina declared that it would obviously be her since everyone loved her. When Cyron objected and attempted to use Ismark as a counter-example, Thundina shushed him and repeated that she would be the one who was most likely to learn what was needed to learn. The villagers the party talked to reported that Halas had spent most of his time between the town square and the church, but had been furtive and keeping mostly to himself.

The party began by searching the town square, but the only disturbed dirt looked like it had been done by the mole-like creatures from when Thundina had first ridden into town. The church basement was likewise clean, and while several of the graves had been filled back in, not the one that had originally held the Symbol. The party decided it would sweep abandoned stone houses, starting on the outskirts nearest the church.

The house nearest the church was both made of stone and abandoned. Thundina looked around inside, but found nothing. Then, looking around the yard outside, she found a suspicious pile of dirt. Digging out the dirt, she found a small steel box hidden in the ground. Thundina noted how oddly sticky the box was as she pulled it out just a moment before her hands began to shake and the box slipped from her grip.

“Ooh, I feel weak,” Thundina mumbled. “It’s coated in a contact poison. What a bastard. I feel like I could faint. Let’s see what I can do before that happens.”

Thundina checked the box over three times before being satisfied that there were no other problems and popped the lock on the first try. As she opened the box, a puff of orange vapor flew out. As Thundina coughed, she fell backwards away from the box. Cyron stepped forward to see what the problem was, but Thundina waved at him.

“No, keep back,” Thundina coughed and crawled away from the box. “That bastard burnt othur! Gods blast him, do you have any idea how much gold he must have spent trapping this box. If it weren’t so expensive, I’d ask you to Raise him so I could kill him.”

When Thundina felt that the vapor had dissipated, she peeked into the box again. In the bottom of the lead lined box was a steel raven-symbol. After inspecting the symbol for any further poison, Thundina took it out of the box. She then collapsed in another fit of coughing. Romann and Cyron attempted to tend to Thundina, but the poison was in her lungs and they could do nothing but wait and pray that she’d be fine on her own. After a minute of coughing, Thundina spit out an orange-tinted phlegm mass on to the ground. Her breathing calmed and she climbed weakly to her feet.

Cyron hovered anxiously around, “Well Thundina, what do you have there?”

Thundina opened her left hand to find Ashlyn’s holy symbol. “I don’t remember grabbing that,” she said somewhat abstractedly. The right hand was the prize she had grabbed from the iron-lined box, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. Thundina offered it to Cyron, “I think you’ll be the best one to handle this.”

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 10: An Encounter Too Soon

Thundina slept soundly after finding the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. She sank into her bed relieved that it was time to rest. The dual poisons of Halas had left her weak and exhausted. In the morning Cyron had promised he’d have enough Restoration prepared to make her whole again.

After breakfast and after Thundina was twice being sprinkled with diamond dust, the party went to pay a visit to Sir Urik. He had a small house near the edge of town and when they arrived, he invited them in. He said that he’d need a couple minutes to get all his gear together, but he was essentially prepared having heard from Ismark the previous day about Ireena’s disappearance. The four then set off towards the main entrance of the castle.

When the castle loomed large and the trees were about to give way for the final approach, two rough figures stepped out of the woods to stand in the middle of the road. Thundina smiled to herself; these brigands had chosen about the worst possible place to take up their banditry. It would also be a very welcome change from the horrors of the castle. One was ugly with wrinkled skin, short bristly hair, and a pug nose while the other was dressed in hide armor and had kind of a feral look to him. If she could just get close enough to take them by surprise with her reach, maybe she could finish this without any hurt to her or her friends. Before she could slide close enough, Urik ruined her plan without seeming to realize what he was doing.

“Ho there travelers, who are you?” Urik called.

The feral one responded, “Can you feel the curse that consumes this land?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Thundina asked somewhat confused.
“There is a curse in this land and it disrupts Nature for great distances all around. At its center is a creature called Strahd. Do you know anything of it?”
“You’re standing right outside his castle, maybe you could ask him about himself. He’s kidnapped a fair maiden from the village.” Thundina replied, thinking that they’d provide an excellent distraction to Strahd while Ireena was being rescued, “But as for disruptions to Nature, I know nothing.”

“This valley is filled by a strange mist and the trees scream,” the feral one said. “Listen to the trees.”
“Trees don’t scream, silly,” Thundina laughed. “Have you been eating bad mushrooms?”
“I eat many mushrooms.”

“Thundina, don’t you recognize what he is?” Cyron exclaimed, “that’s a druid. You can see the holly sprig. If he wishes to destroy Strahd, like we do, I think we may be able to make common cause.”

“All you want is for Strahd to be defeated and Nature’s Treasures restored, right?” Thundina asked the druid who then nodded, “Yes, excellent. Then let’s go do the Strahd slaying.”

The druid introduced himself as Ivo Milinkovic and the pug-nosed man as Talor. Thundina introduced herself and her brave companions. They set off across the bridge to the castle keeping careful watch of the arches overhead. They should have been watching their feet for one of the planks cracked and gave way beneath him. Romann was quickly by his side and pulled him back onto the bridge.

As the newly expanded party entered the castle, Talor turned and screeched. A giant bat flew to him, hovered a moment whipping the party with wind from its large wings. The bat then landed by Talor’s feet and crawled to him and Talor scratched its head. Thundina immediately reacted, “What the hell is that? Why are you consorting with a creature of the night? Are you in league with the vampire?”

Talor appeared somewhat shocked at the charge, “No, no, my bat has traveled with me across the continent. It’s a good bat.”

“Alright, but I’m still upset that it messed up my hair. Do you have any idea how long I spent this morning trying to get it right?”

Romann looked at Thundina, “Your hair looks like it always does.”

“I know,” Thundina said somewhat depressed, “I said trying, not succeeding.”

Upon reaching the first chamber, Thundina immediately veered left to take the stairs up to what she thought was either the study or the library. Too lifelike stone statues stood on the landing, but she could find nothing more unusual than the detailing. She led her party up the ten-foot wide stairs continuing up. A fine red carpet ran down the middle of the next room to the back of a high-backed throne facing the far wall at the far end of the room. As soon as she spotted the throne, Thundina realized that she didn’t want to be in that room at that time. She turned and tried to usher her friends back down the stairs and away.

A voice boomed out, “Do you seek an audience with the lord of the castle?”
Thundina called back over her shoulder, “No, not today, thank you. We’ll just be going.”

The voice boomed out again, “Karavashta!” Strahd stood up from his throne and began walking down the red carpet towards the party. He looked different from how he had appeared before. He looked hairy and he was hunched over. He flicked a thin long tongue out a grotesque mouth. Thundina could hardly believe this was the same vampire she had seen so composed standing in the light a few days prior. She lost sight of him as he neared the end of the room.

“He’s trying to cut us off by going down the other stairs, move it!” Thundina shouted at her party. When they wouldn’t move back down, she pushed her way past them to encounter the two statues having come to life. They were attacking Talor’s bat and looking likely to cut off the escape route. Thundina engaged the statues distracting one off the bat.

“Why am I not surprised? That’s it, I’m smashing every statue in this castle from here on out.”

Strahd reappeared on the stairs above the party. Urik and Romann formed the front line but Strahd’s attacks quickly left them weak. Ivo summoned a dire wolverine behind Strahd and directed it to grab on to the vampire. The wolverine latched on and pulled Strahd down momentarily before the vampire turned himself gaseous and drifted back towards his throne. With vampire distracted, and the statues destroyed, it was time to retreat.

Strahd struggled with the wolverine but sensed that he had repelled Thundina and her party. He shouted, “Thundina, I gave you your life once before. Take it now and leave.”

Thundina while directing her friends down the stairs shouted back, “Release Ireena, you fiend!”

Strahd chuckled menacingly, “I will never release my bride.”

Thundina made it out of the castle. The last little distance, Thundina needed to direct some of her friends who had been hugging the walls trying due to a lack of light. Outside, Thundina counted up the survivors. Ivo was missing and no one seemed to know what happened. Thundina asked, “Was he really a brigand all along, working for Strahd to lure us to our deaths?” No one seemed to believe it of him, but still he didn’t come out. After waiting a minute, the party decided they needed to put more distance between the castle and themselves.

Within the castle, Ivo realized that at the beginning of the combat he had dropped his everburning torch. As he ran back up the stairs, Strahd finished dispatching the summoned wolverine and growled, “I told you to leave.” He swept down the stairs to loom over Ivo. Ivo had snatched his torch and tried to flee, but Strahd grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Strahd slammed Ivo into the wall and lifted him off his feet. Ivo struggled against Strahd’s grip, but couldn’t free himself. The vampire sank his fangs into Ivo’s neck and drank deep.

The survivors regrouped in town. Even though the day was still early, they huddled in the inn. Romann and Sir Urik were both pale from the touch of Strahd. The party asked Sir Urik to remind them of what he knew of the castle. He sketched out the rooms he had seen. Though there was some worry that the back stairs would take them too close to the throne room, the party ultimately decided that was the only way to reach the very top of the castle.

The next morning, Cyron used Restoration on both Romann and Sir Urik to dispel the vampire’s draining touch. The party snuck back into the castle and snuck up the back stairs. With the clear ideal of reaching the peak, the party bypassed each landing and quickly passed out of Sir Urik’s zone of previous experience. Facing the stairs at the next landing was a painting of a noblewoman – a striking but cruel looking woman. Thundina could see a similarity to Ireena in the painting. More important than the painting on the wall was a statue in the corner.

As soon as Thundina had stepped on the landing and reached for her pick-axe, the painting shrieked. The piercing shriek caused Thundina to freeze up. Sir Urik pushed past her looking for a threat and several arrows whipped past from Talor to stick in the painting with no noticeable effect. The statue animated into a whirling mass of chains and advanced to Urik. The whirling chains shredded his flesh and Urik cried out in pain. More arrows flew past striking the statue beneath the whirling chains. The chains moved closer to Thundina. She could see how to dodge and protect herself, but she was still rooted in place.

Thundina struggled to move. The first contact with the whirling chains had drawn lots of blood and she wasn’t certain if she could survive a second contact. From the corner of her eye, she could see the desperate attempts to destroy the statue. Romann had broken free of the magical compulsion which had rooted him and a single blow from his greatsword sheared through the whirling chains and shattered the underlying statue. Romann then tried to slash the painting apart, but it resisted his efforts. Sir Urik stepped up to the painting, took it off the wall, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it for good measure. Behind the painting was a small safe set into the wall.

The spell holding Thundina in place had dissipated and she stepped up to the safe in the wall. She quickly popped the safe open and pulled out a selection of royal finery. Holding the jewelry, Thundina asked Cyron, “Is it magical?”

He meditated over it a moment before replying that it was not.

“Well, that’s a shame,” Thundina said. “It’s very pretty and should still be worth a tidy sum anyway.” Thundina smiled broadly; finally she was being so justly rewarded.

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 11: Fighting for Every Inch, Twice

From behind the nearby door came cries for help. The cries were a deep male voice rather than the Ireena, but rescuing a prince inspired Thundina more than rescuing the sister of the burgomaster anyway. Thundina picked the lock on the door and entered into a plush sitting room. Several fine plump chairs and several stuffed bookshelves lined the edges of the room, lit by a trio of barred windows. Thundina padded through the room to the door on the far edge from where sounds of pounding could be heard.

Thundina snicked open another lock and opened the door. Immediately inside was a tall, dark, and handsome man with a sturdy breastplate and silver cloak over fine clothes. A pale green flickering everburning swatch of cloth surrounded an upper arm casting dancing shadows across his otherwise gentle face. The dark stranger asked, “Are you here to rescue me?”

Thundina replied, “Possibly? Who are you?”
“I am Jessuf Rezinus, a nobleman from Breland.”
“Nobleman, like a prince? Is there a reward for your rescue?”
“No, I’m not a prince, merely noble, and I doubt there’s a reward.”
“Hmm, unfortunate,” Thundina sighed, “What were you doing here?”
“I had come to arrange to sell some land to the Baron of Barovia, but negotiations seem to have turned sour and he locked me in here.”
“That’s what happens when you deal with vampires; you get nicked.”
“What are you doing here, if I may ask?”
“We’re rescuing a maiden-fair and slaying the vampire Strahd.”
“Do you think I may join you, Strahd has impugned my honor.”
Thundina looked Jessuf’s shaggy black locks over approvingly before stating, “Sure, come along. Um, is there anything of interest in this room?”

Thundina cased the sitting room quickly and pulled out a scroll which she handed over to Cyron and prepared to leave. Romann was staring intently at one corner of the room insisting that he had heard a kitten mewing. Cyron swept the room for magic, with most of the room not pinging, but in the same corner Romann was fascinated by, Cyron saw a wriggling fungus, but solely with his magic sight. The fungus did not attack and no one could find it without Cyron’s Detect Magic, Thundina eventually declared that it was time to leave. She locked the door behind once the party had filed out.

Thundina lead the adventurers once more up the stairs, carefully checking each step on the way. Thundina spotted a couple of splatters of blue ooze which soon became a trickle rolling down the stairs. Shortly after that Thundina caught a whiff of fresh air, but that was quickly replaced by the odor of vinegar. Thundina made it out to beneath the sky; she felt like she could touch due to the low clouds of the overcast sky.

She stood on the open parapet and looked around. The blue slime had collected in pools in a couple places around the parapet with tiny pale slugs crawling from pool to pool leaving streaks of the blue ooze behind them. All around the parapet stood bushes resembling fleshy anthropodal bulbs. A walkway led from the parapet over to another tower which emanated a bloody red glow. Above the parapet loomed an even taller tower.

Thundina pointed our her observations, “This looks like where we should find the devil with the Hellheart locket, because over there is the adjoining tower and I bet that glow is the Dayheart. And this,” Thundina slapped the tower by the stairs, “is the tallest tower; we’ll need to make it to the top of this too eventually.”

Talor hopped over the railing, drew his bow, and began scanning for enemies. Nothing moved to attack him and he did not move to search out the enemies. Meanwhile, Thundina turned to Romann and Cyron, “Do trees count as statues?”

“What?” Romann asked.
“Do you think these weird trees count as statues? Should we chop them down here and now or are they actually going to remain non-animated?”

Jessuf coughed interrupting, “What was that about a devil and a locket?”
Thundina answered, “Up on the high parapet there is supposed to be a devil wearing a locket. We need the locket to destroy one of Strahd’s protective elements. Maybe its across the way, let’s go.”

As the party approached the tower, the glow of Dayheart intensified. The Dayheart looked like a giant uncut ruby floating over a large open pit. The red glow reflected off four eyes up a spiral staircase off to the side of the Dayheart. The blood-red glow of the Dayheart only enhanced the naturally red eyes. Two additional vampires dropped right in front of the party from overhead. Startled, Thundina felt like she was standing back on her heels, but she was still able to make a couple quick, light cuts at each of those vampires. The one that landed next to Thundina slipped past her guard. The claw scrape was not as painful as the tearing of the soul that accompanied the scrape.

One more vampire misted into the area, standing right before the Dayheart. He was dressed in a fine chain shirt with a flapping scarlet cloak. He drew a blood-red bastard sword and charged into the fray. One of the vampires had already been forced to revert to a Gaseous Form and begin to retreat up the stairs, but the remaining vampires seemed to grin evilly at the arrival of their commander. Their resurgence was short lived before Cyron flooded the battlefield with holy light and the three minor vampires fled.

The scarlet vampire struck at Romann, stabbing him in the shoulder. The sword became a deeper blood-red as energy flared from its tip down the blade and into the vampire. With the vampire concentrating on draining Romann, Thundina snuck behind it and ripped its legs out from beneath it, dropping it face first into the stone floor. When the vampire struggled to its feet, Romann rapped it hard leaving it more vulnerable to everyone else’s attacks. The vampire disorientedly swung at Thundina, but she easily blocked his blade with hers and then ripped its feet out from beneath it again.

The vampire stared up at its four attackers and decided not to open itself to another round of free attacks and so stayed down while attempting to flail at Urik. Urik stepped on the sword and brought his gleaming silver blade down on the vampire. The scarlet vampire turned into mist and began drifting directly upwards. Thundina tossed a stake to Romann and both began running up the stairs.

Three-quarters of a turn up the stairs, the stairs changed to longer, shallower steps. The glow of the Dayheart no longer clearly illuminated the tower and Romann was forced to stop and begin shouting for Cyron to bring light. Thundina made it a short ways into the darkness and caught side of a crimson cloud sliding under the door past the collection of coffins in the room. She came to a sudden stop though when she spotted a horrifying creature lurking in the room. It was like a pile of skin which had been sloughed off but now had been reanimated and was shuffling about.

Thundina stared at the sack of skin, waiting for it to attack. Urik came panting up the stairs with a sunrod out and escorting Romann. Romann stood too close to the side of the stairs and the monster attacked from the landing above. Thundina took a quick swipe at the creature and then sprang up the rest of the steps to get behind it. As she stepped on the top stair, a wave of life-draining energy burst through the entire room. The wave barely paused Thundina as she pushed through unharmed. Glances back at the rest of her compatriots showed they had suffered no harm either.

The creature had briefly grabbed Romann, but Romann squirmed free. It then turned on Thundina and snatched her. She had dropped her guard a little thinking that it was paying greater attention to her compatriots below. Thundina held the creature in place long enough for Romann to destroy the creature.

No sooner had the animated skin horror been shredded, than three coffins opened. The three vampires that Cyron had forced to turn stood up from their coffins. Thundina kept one distracted while Talor pumped multiple silver-tipped arrows into the vampires. One by one, the vampires were put down and staked. However, while trying to get into position against the last vampire, Jessuf walked too close to the iron door and set off a pit trap. He quickly slid out of view.

Foot steps on the stairs from below indicated that someone was coming up. Thundina turned to tease Jessuf for taking her job of finding traps and then missing the end of the vampires, but it was not Jessuf striding up the stairs. Thundina found herself standing face to face with Strahd. He snarled, “I cannot allow you to destroy my treasure.”

Thundina defiantly stared back, “If you had just paid us in the first place, we wouldn’t still be having this trouble.” Strahd locked his gaze on Thundina but she stood firm and repulsed his intrusion from her mind.

Romann moved from the coffers and began descending the stairs to meet Strahd. Thundina scampered up and over to take a place by the door to gain access to the room with the scarlet vampire. Talor stood by the open hole next to the iron door, glancing down at the hole like he was considering jumping. At the appearance of Strahd, Cyron quickly moved to Romann’s side and laid a Death Ward on the fighter.

Strahd began casting a spell, and Cyron shouted, “Fel-draining Magic Missiles! Brace yourselves!”
With all her concentration on the lock on the iron door while balancing over the pit in front of the door, Thundina muttered, “What in the name of Dol Dorn is fel … augh!” Thundina winced as the Magic Missile tore at her soul. Everyone had been hit by one missile.

Jessuf came jogging up the stairs, “I’m alright. That chute dumped me outside, but Strahd never stripped me of my dimensional hop boots, so I was able to pop back inside. Are there any vampires remaining? … Oh.”

Romann and Urik advanced on Strahd, each making it past the vampire’s defenses to scratch it. Strahd caught Romann’s glance and overwhelmed his will. “Romann, assist me in killing these intruders.” Strahd’s will so completely Dominated Romann’s will that he moved against his friends. Jessuf was quick to act and immediately reached Romann to slap a Protection from Evil on Romann to hedge out the vampire’s will, at least temporarily.

Romann pressed the attack with Strahd retreating down the stairs step by step. Each step down, Strahd fired a spell off at Romann to incapacitate him. Jessuf and Cyron each stayed right behind Romann breaking Strahd’s enchantments. A pair of Scorching Rays from Strahd knocked Romann out, but Cyron caught Romann and healed the wounds. Strahd Blinded Romann, but Jessuf removed that through targeting a Dispel on the magic. Romann’s heavy blade time and again smashed through Strahd’s loamy shields to draw raised red welts on the otherwise pale skin.

Thundina popped the lock on the iron door and hopped over the pit and into a small room which had a simple iron coffin with a vent in the top as the only furniture. She began inspecting the coffin and discovered both a lock and a trap. With Thundina in the scarlet vampire’s mausoleum, Strahd called an offer to the party, “If you spare my servant, I will spare your life. Your lives.”

Urik immediately charged Strahd, shouting, “Never!”
Romann closed once more on Strahd and struck while cleverly declaring, “You never said anything about yourself.”

Thundina concentrated on the lock first so that if the battle turned sour, she could risk the trap to get at the vampire inside more quickly. Strahd spoke once again, “The deal stands for the rest of you, I must kill these two.” Thundina had heard defensive sounding spells from Jessuf and Cyron, but she couldn’t figure out what Talor was doing. He would bear watching once this battle was resolved.

Romann continued roaring defiance, “Strahd, you got another thing coming!” The heroic strike cut Strahd deeply, leaving the vampire very battered. Thundina disabled the trap and threw open the iron coffin. Inside the scarlet vampire lay. It begged, “Please, spare me. Get back.” Thundina raised a stake, smiled malevolently and answered, “Here’s my answer.” The stake struck the heart of the vampire true and it crumbled to dust, leaving behind significant treasure.

Strahd limped back five feet to get beyond Romann’s reach and snarled, “I will return in one minute. Enjoy your final breaths.” Strahd vanished in a flash of light.

Thundina scooped up the emeralds, blood-red bastard sword, scarlet cloak, chain-shirt, ring, statue of three-headed hound, bag, trio of potions, and even the dirt from the scarlet vampire’s coffin, stuffed it all into her own haversack and various bags and leaped the pit once more. “There was no locket, we need to find that devil and quick. If the Dayheart is still active when Strahd returns, we’ll be trapped and I doubt we’ll be able to penetrate this far again if we can’t confine Strahd to the night.”

The party dashed down the stairs and onto the parapet. They began sweeping through the bushes looking for the devil. Hidden in one of the ooze pools, obscured from view at the stairs by the shrubbery, was a dark shape. The party surrounded the pool and Thundina poked at the shape. The shape surged up from the ooze pool: a heavily armored and barbed female, all spiky and radiating malevolence and Talor named it a barbed devil. A small golden locket hung from her neck.

Thundina asked the barbed devil, “Hand over the Hellheart Locket, and this can all be over.”
The devil stepped back and called, “By the terms of our contract, Treena, I summon you.” She got a somewhat far look in her eyes as concentrated.

The party responded quickly to the devil’s distraction and attacked ferociously. The onslaught disrupted the barbed devil and she screeched, “You and your do-gooders, ruining my garden! This’ll teach you to be good.” A burst of unholy power spread from the creature causing minor headaches all around. The wriggling slugs ceased their random walks and began converging on the party.

Cyron called upon the Sovereign Host to Bless Weapon the arrows of Talor. Thundina, Romann, Jessuf, and, Urik harried the barbed devil to the edge of the parapet while squishing any slugs which got underfoot. The barbed devil vanished and reappeared. The four turned and dashed across the parapet following it. Jessuf arrived first.

While he was off balance from the charge, he swept up into an embrace by the barbed devil. She pressed him close, impaling him on her spikes. One of the remaining slugs had crawled up Cyron’s leg and into Cyron’s mouth. Cyron managed to pull it cough it out and throw it to the ground and even stomp on it, but it still lived and managed to crawl its way right back. The barbed devil tightened her grip on Jessuf which produced a loud cracking of bones. The devil dropped Jessuf and he fell limply to the ground. He looked alive, but only barely, and no longer carried the heroic aura he had previously. The barbed devil turned on Romann and Thundina, nicking both and filling their minds with fear.

Cyron continued choking on the slug, bent over, and growing blue. Talor dropped his bow, drew a battleaxe and said, “Just hold still a moment. You won’t feel a thing.” He swung the axe with all his might, perfectly skewering the slug while not touching Cyron at all. The slug absolutely exploded from the vicious strike. Talor calmly put away his axe and picked up his bow again.

The fear in her own mind overwhelmed her and Thundina dropped her guisarme in a panic and fled from the barbed devil at top speed. She reached the edge of the parapet and gazed down at the dizzying drop below considering if the devil or the drop were more frightening. At her side, Romann seemed to be making the same calculation. From behind came the triple twang of three shots in quick succession followed by the loud crack of a massive form smashing to the ground. Thundina turned to look back and saw the barbed devil down with a trio of arrows which had penetrated deep into its chest. The fear no longer held Thundina and she could see the Hellheart locket ready for the taking and the first real victory against Strahd. They’d have to act rapidly, Strahd was certain to return any second.

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 12: Friendly Contact

Thundina dashed back to the fallen barbed devil to scoop up her own guisarme and the locket the devil had worn. Thundina flipped open the blood-red heart-shaped locked suspended on a golden chain to gaze upon the face of a handsome bearded devil. Thundina began running across the walkway towards the Dayheart while calling out, “Cyron, there are no instructions in here. How do we use the locket in destroying the Dayheart?”

The entire party reached the adjoining tower and Thundina looked questioningly at Cyron and Jessuf. Both shook their heads to indicate they did not know anything about how to break the Dayheart. Thundina shook the locket at the giant crystal, “Look, I’ve got this locket, so you’re supposed to break now.” The crystal and the locket beat in unison with red glows, the Dayheart looking even more like a heart than it already did.

Talor muttered, “Maybe, I don’t know, I’m going to try this.” He fired an arrow at the Dayheart. The arrow deflected harmlessly off the giant floating crystal, but both the Dayheart and Hellheart Locket briefly flared red together.

Thundina narrowed her eyes, “Fine, you don’t want to play nice, we’ll play rough.” She whirled the Hellheart Locket in a circle and smashed it to the floor. The locket disintegrated as it hit causing the Dayheart to flare strongly a bright red. That light was matched only by the red light from the crushed locket. The glow faded leaving behind the bearded devil from the locket. The devil looked down upon Thundina and spoke in a gravely voice, “How can I serve you, mistress?”

Thundina shouted and pointed to the Dayheart, “Smash that!”

Strahd came striding up the stairs near the Dayheart, shrieking and screaming, “What have you done? Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

Thundina and her devil were using their polearms to hack at the Dayheart while Talor was throwing flights of arrows into it. The first hits from bearded devil put a small crack in the Dayheart near the top. Each hit, from guisarme, glaive, or arrow, caused the Dayheart to shudder and slowly widen the crack. Strahd moved against those who were attacking his Dayheart, draining the devil of its energy, banishing it.

Thundina looked shocked that her minion fell so quickly before Strahd. “That was my servant, my minion. We could have been great friends. Why, Strahd?”

Thundina and Talor retreated up the stairs away from Strahd to continue their attacks on the Dayheart. Romann and Urik interposed themselves between Strahd and Thundina to keep him away from the demolitionists. Strahd’s form began melting. His jaw elongated and his skin spouted fur, while he continued to shriek. Strahd then barged through Romann and Urik anyway and Thundina barely caught Strahd’s claws on her guisarme. She then laughed and dodged her way down the stairs, past the protective wall of warriors.

Talor retreated further up the stairs and away from Strahd and called to his bat. Thundina didn’t catch the bat’s name, but it soon landed on the edge of the landing by the pit. The bat began leaning out over the pit and slamming against the giant red crystal, further exacerbating the slowly growing crack. Cyron had run back to the devil’s parapet to heal Jessuf. Jessuf created a Spiritual Halberd to assault the Dayheart and then both set to healing themselves and Romann.

Strahd once again pushed past Romann and Urik, ignoring them like they were inconsequential pests incapable of hurting him. Thundina again deflected Strahd’s attack and put the warriors between her and the vampire and then continued to chip at the Dayheart, expanding the crack inch by inch. Strahd looked up towards Talor and Talor realized there was no one between himself and Strahd. Talor’s arms changed into giant bat-like wings and he leaped across the open pit and flapped his way down to the lower stairs.

Romann hefted his greatsword and challenged Strahd, “I will not let you near Thundina.” The strike penetrated Strahd’s loamy earth defenses and plunged into the vampire’s flesh. The combined relentless assault of Romann and Urik was slowly wearing Strahd down, threatening to force him to abandon his defense of the Dayheart, but Strahd once again brushed past them to chase Thundina.

When Thundina again eluded Strahd, he howled in rage and slowly reverted to his elegant form. He then called to the sky, “To me my children of the night.” He then turned to the intruders and growled, “Sleep, sink into a Deep Slumber.”

Thundina wobbled on her feet and then sank to the floor. Romann, Cyron, and Talor’s bat had all succumbed to sleepiness as well. Urik quickly shook Romann back awake. Strahd took a step over to the bat and whispered in its ear, “You should have been on my side, now I need your life force.” Strahd raked his claws across the bat, drawing energy into himself, restoring himself.

Thundina felt a sharp prick. She roused from her sleep and the pain intensified where she had felt the prick; a trickle of blood on her left arm gave visual evidence of the wound. She didn’t remember taking such a wound. She bounced to her feet and looked at the Dayheart. The crystal had fractures running through it, and the crack reached nearly from top to bottom. Thundina lined up her target and struck directly at the crack. The crystal shattered. It dropped down into the pit, falling from sight.

Strahd screamed once more and filled the space around him with fog. Thundina pulled out one of the alchemical sunflashes provided by the Lightbringers and hurled it at Strahd. The flask hit Strahd and splashed its daylight and fire. As it struck Strahd, the sound of a trickle of water like a fresh running creek filled the area. Thundina moved down the stairs and back towards the exit, “Well Strahd, it’s been fun and all. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

Strahd began imposing his will on several of the party members. Those in the mist were completely unable to put up resistance to the suggestions. Jessuf and Talor were simply told to leave the castle with Talor taking the direct way out by jumping off the walkway and flapping his way safely to the ground.

Once everyone was outside, Cyron spoke, “I don’t think anyone else saw this because you were all already on the stairs, but the consistency of Strahd’s fog changed at the very end. It sent out tentacles like they were questing to drain life. I can only thank Balinor for giving me the speed to keep ahead of those tentacles. Without him, I surely would have been consumed.”

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 13: Let’s Make a Date

Back in town, Thundina took pieces of the treasure pulled from the scarlet vampire to Bildreth. Sir Urik and Cyron came along as well. As soon as Urik entered, Bildreth perked up, “Ah, Urik, my old friend. What are you doing with these outsiders?”

Sir Urik gruffly replied, “They’re good people. I’ve been working with them some, they genuinely oppose Strahd.”
“Ah, well, then, perhaps I can extend them a modest discount.” Bildreth smiled slyly.

Thundina and Bildreth bartered over exchanging some of the trinkets and jewelry from the scarlet vampire for diamond dust. Thundina consulted with Cyron to measure out enough doses to fix all the negative energy the party had suffered. While waiting for Bildreth to measure out all the little diamond dust doses, Thundina wandered the shop, running her hands over some of the various weapons. She stopped in front of a guisarme with an unusual blade.

Urik came to stand beside Thundina, “See something you like?”
“I think I like that guisarme.” Thundina replied.
“Silver, good for fighting vampires if you can also infuse some magic into it.”

After Restorations to fix the drained energy from the vampires, the party decided to take the rest of the day off. While Jessuf and Cyron were studying their holy texts, Romann once more bragged to any townsfolk who would listen about his latest exploits. For once quite a few townsfolk seemed genuinely interested in the destruction of the Dayheart, although a few muttered that the outsiders were likely to bring Strahd’s wrath down upon the village.

After the crowd dissipated some, Romann walked over to Thundina, “Did you see all that? They all loved me.”
“Most, yes,” Thundina nodded. “There were a few who were less than pleased. I was watching them.”
“Going to knife them?” Romann winked at Thundina. “If you know what I mean.”
“Yes. Not right away, but it might come to that.”
Romann looked a little shocked, “You’re joking, right?”
Thundina smiled, and laughed. “Of course.”

Sir Urik found Romann and Thundina lounging in the inn. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to assist you tomorrow. I’ve heard from Madam Eva and she has asked me to come attend to her. You deserved to know.”

The next morning, the party, sans Urik, set out to Castle Ravenloft. Thundina and Romann discussed the direction to try in the next approach. Thundina sketched out what they knew and recommended trying to find the secret door in the dining room.

“Dining room?” Romann asked, “when were we ever in a dining room?”
“Our first visit to the castle, when we were still on friendly terms with Strahd.” Thundina replied.
“I was kind of distracted I guess. Say, didn’t we search that exit at that time?”
Thundina thought a moment, “Orning poked around, but we didn’t really search.”

Thundina quickly located a secret door, poorly concealed. She flicked the switch and pushed open the door. The hidden chamber was stark and bare, illuminated by thin slashes of sunlight poking through the arrow slits all along the outer walls. A narrow corridor led out of the room first to a high domed room with more arrow slits, and then to a stairwell running up and down.

Thundina led the way up the stairs and pried open the door on the first landing. Cobwebs and dust filled the hallway, tickling Thundina’s nose. She turned to her companions, “Anyone feel like plowing through all that?”

After a rousing lack of responses, Thundina decided that since she was going to be in the lead and she didn’t feel like getting covered in cobwebs, the door would simply be closed again and the party would continue up to the next level.

The stairs opened up to a wide walkway aside the keep, still damp from the previous day’s rain. The walkway atop the wall extended only 10 feet in one direction, but in the other ran towards the tall tower, but gave no entrance. Three sets of double doors led back into the castle from the open-air walkway. Thundina stopped at the first one and began working at the lock. Cyron cocked his head as if listening to something.

“Does anyone else hear that song?” Cyron asked.
“Hmm?” Thundina replied as the lock yielded to her nimble fingers. She swung the door open to reveal the room. The opening of the door caused a puff of dust to suspend in the air making the room look hazy. A large table filled the middle of the room, covered by an old rotting table cloth and dusty place settings. Also on the table was a moldy cake topped by a small figure of a woman in a dirty white dress.

More important than the unoccupied table with its forgotten wedding cake was another figure in the far corner of the room. The ghostly figure wore ghostly court minstrel attire and held a ghostly lute. The creature struck up a horrendous screeching on its lute, dazing Thundina, Romann, and Talor. Jessuf dashed into the room brandishing his halberd, ready to attack if the creature moved forward. Meanwhile, Cyron, having recognized the incorporeal spirit as a crypt chanter, knew that he needed to silence the song quickly. He glanced towards the open door, sizing up the likelihood that closing it behind Jessuf would cut off the song. Instead, Cyron stepped into the doorway, called for Jessuf to get out of the room. Cyron raised his holy symbol before him and concentrated through it, sending holy energy flooding into room. The crypt chanter fled from the holy energy, straight through the wall and out of sight.

Cyron sighed a breath of relief as the others snapped out of their reverie. “That could have been bad. The song of the crypt champion is very dangerous.”
Romann shrugged, “I kind of liked it.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Thundina said.
“There’s another song I’m hearing. Does anyone else hear it?” Cyron mentioned next. When everyone shook their heads, he continued, “A local folk tune, sounds like it’s being sung by someone not undead.”
“So where is it?” Thundina asked.

Cyron indicated that it was coming from the next room over. That suited Thundina fine as she was eager to investigate the next room anyway. The next door had a sturdier lock than the previous, but it opened just as quickly to Thundina’s gentle ministrations. As the door opened, the singing Cyron had mentioned swelled for all to hear – a sweet song of a young lady singing about love in the spring. Several wardrobes stood around the room, overflowing with fancy dresses. On the far side of the room two heavy red curtains covered the entrance to the back half of the room. Thundina padded over to the curtains. Romann and Cyron moved to follow and were quieter than Thundina would have expected out of a fighter and a cleric, but still she waved them to be still and quiet. She then peeked through the curtain and spotted the young lady who was singing. The lady had blonde hair, to Thundina’s surprise, and was completely nude sitting in a large, ornate, iron bathtub.

Thundina moved to slip through the curtain, but Cyron grabbed her arm. “What do you see? Should we be entering as well?”
“Stay here, I’ll scream if I need any assistance,” Thundina slipped through the heavy curtain and next to the tub. “Who are you and what are you doing in this castle?” Thundina said putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Eeep!”
Thundina looked into the now terrified girl’s eyes, “Wait, are you Gertruda?”
The girl nodded and Thundina kneeled down beside the tub, “Your mother has been distraught. Her child has gone missing, and she doesn’t know you’re up here in the castle.”
“I hate my mother,” Gertruda declared. “Besides, Strahd is so romantic. I’m happy here.”
“You do know that he considers Ireena his wife.”
“What? No, no, he loves me. That’s why he is so romantic. He gave me all those pretty dresses, and he treats me to such wonderful banquets.”
“He is a vampire, a monster. I’m sorry, but Strahd is evil and has already chosen his love of eternity.”

“Hey, Thundina, is there a problem?” Romann called from the other side of the curtain and began to pull on the curtain.
“No! I didn’t scream, you don’t need to come, so just stay there.” Thundina shouted back.
Gertruda wrapped her arms around herself and sank down into the tub slightly further, “Who’s out there?”

“Come child, you need to return to your mother. She’s been crying her eyes out, missing you.”
Gertruda splashed the bath, “I am not a child. I will be twenty in less than two months.”

Thundina counted quickly on her fingers to count out the months and came to a startling realization, “You’re older than I am. Very well, you’re old enough to make choices on your own. But, as someone who hasn’t seen her mother in three years because she thought she hated her mother, I really think you should go home to your mother. Now, what’s on the other side of that door?”

Gertruda considered Thundina’s experience and said, “I guess you’re right.”
Thundina looked around the room, “Do you have a dress in here?”

When Gertruda shook her head, Thundina went back to the red curtains, and asked the duo from Cyre, “Is there a red dress in that near wardrobe? Hand one through please and see if you can pack up a few other dresses.”

Once Gertruda had toweled off and dressed, she and Thundina returned through the curtain to meet the others. As soon as Romann saw Gertruda, he began gushing, “Fair lady, your beauty amazes me. Never have I seen something so fair as yourself. Let me introduce myself. I am Romann Ardell, and, not to be too immodest, I am something of a hero. I have fought my way through this castle to rescue you. I have stared down Strahd to come to your aid.” Romann took Gertruda’s hand to give it a kiss.

Thundina tapped her foot and rolled her eyes, “Are you done here yet? Let’s get going back down to the village.”

Romann transferred Gertruda’s hand such her hand rested on his arm and he escorted her out on to the walkway. As they walked, Gertruda giggled and whispered into Romann’s ear, “I thought Strahd was romantic, the way he’d come through a secret passageway behind the fireplace in my sitting room, but you’re so much more romantic. I hope you accomplish your goal of killing him.”

Back in the village, at Gertruda’s house, Romann knocked on the door. Gertruda’s sobbing mother came to the door and spotted her daughter. “Oh, my precious Gertruda, you’ve returned!”

Romann, with Gertruda still on his arm, said, “Ma’am, I would like to take Gertruda out tonight for dinner.”
“My precious baby Gertruda? No, she must be kept safe!”
Thundina put a hand on the mother’s shoulder, “Gertruda’s older than I am, have you ever considered letting her train with weapons? I’ve been wielding a sword since I was about six. Gertruda isn’t a baby anymore. You might want to repaint her room while you’re at it.”
[OOC: "Interior design, how do you role-play that?"]

Jessuf asked Talor, “Do you think Gertruda is now going to start dying her hair like Thundina?”
“I don’t dye my hair.” Thundina protested to Jessuf.

“Ma’am, you have nothing to fear,” Romann said again. “We will only be having dinner over at the inn, I can protect your daughter. I am, after all, a hero.” Romann gave his best, brightest smile striking up a heroic pose.

“Mother, look at all the nice dresses Romann carried for me.” Gertruda begged her mother. Cyron began pulling out the various dresses he had packed up back in the castle. Romann took one and held it in front of Gertruda’s mother, “Yes, I can see why Gertruda looks so pretty in these dresses. It definitely comes from her mother.”

Gertruda’s mother blushed a moment before snatching the dress away from Romann, “Fine, but I expect her back by nine.”

Romann bowed to Gertruda, “My dear, until tonight then.”

As the party departed the village on the road up to the castle once more, Romann turned to Cyron, “Cyron, that is how you get the girl, eh. Sometimes, to win the girl, you need to woo the mother as well. Stick with me and I will teach you all the ways of romance.”
Cyron sighed, “Of course, sir. That all makes sense now.”

The room beyond Gertruda’s bath chamber was immediately obvious as her bedroom in the castle. Heavy red drapes hung over stained glass windows. A large canopy bed with silk and a head board carved with a “Z” stood dominating the room. Thundina resisted the urge to jump on the bed and proceeded to far set of doors. Those opened into a sitting room. The rolling wave of amber light from a blazing fire gave a cheery glow to the sitting room. The blazing fire popped and crackled from its heat as dark plumes of smoke funneled up the chimney. A polished poker stood gleaming by the fireplace while a large gilded painting of Ireena hung over the hearth. Two heavy plush chairs were placed in front of the fire. Ancient tomes sat on polished bookshelves lining the walls.

Jessuf walked over to near the fire while Thundina investigated the bookshelves. “Romann, you said something about Strahd coming through the fireplace. We’ll never get through it with this fire going, we’ll need to Make Water to put it out.” A rushing stream of water flowed from Jessuf’s hands quenching the fire. Jessuf began investigating the fireplace looking for the latch to open the secret passage. Thundina, satisfied that none of the books were of interest, had come to stand by the fireplace. Jessuf unable to find any entrance took a step back to announce his findings. Thundina grabbed the poker and gave it a tug which caused a large section of the back of the fireplace to slide away soundlessly.

“You only grabbed the poker because it’s shiny.” Jessuf told Thundina.
“I do not only grab things because they’re shi...,” Thundina began a retort before exclaiming, “Ooh, look, money!”

Behind the fireplace, a small chamber was now visible. At the back of the chamber stood a squat wooden chest surrounded by around 150 coins in silver and gold. Two sconces on the wall above the chest perked everyone’s interest as well – one sconce with an unlit torch while the other torch was clutched by a corpse laying beside the chest. Thundina rushed forward to the chest and began looking over it. She found evidence of Ungol dust on the chest and stopped the distribution mechanism of it. However, after opening the chest, Thundina was disappointed to find that the chest was empty. She gathered up the coins, and put the torch into the sconce to trigger another secret door.

The corridor beyond the secret door was filled with cobwebs again, but Romann quickly burned it away and the party proceeded further down the corridor. From there the party entered a large chamber with a rope hanging down from above. Thundina looked up along the rope up into the dark hole it descended from, but could not see the end.

“So, do we pull or do we climb, or what?” Thundina asked with a hand on the rope.
Jessuf said, “We could tie another rope to this one and then pull it from back behind those doors.”
“Sounds good,” Thundina said. “Then, if nothing drops on us, we can try climbing.” She spliced her rope to the one hanging and ushered the party back.

The party pulled Thundina’s rope tight and then gave a yank to pull the original rope. A loud, deep, mournful bell tolled several times after the yank on the rope. The melancholy tolling attempted to seep into Thundina’s soul, but neither she, nor any of her friends were affected. Looking back into the chamber, Thundina saw a pair of human-sized spiders with strange tuning fork-like antennae on their heads. The spiders spit strands of webbing at each of Talor and Thundina, entangling both, however the webbing was quickly cut away by Jessuf and Romann. Thundina advanced on one of the spiders.

One of the spiders skittered forward and grabbed Thundina while the other skittered and latched onto Talor. The spider grappling with Thundina was an expert at such close quarter fighting. It wrestled her down and began injecting a venom. Thundina attempted a trick she had recently realized which would have broken the spider’s grasp, but it wasn’t fooled. Thundina struggled to push the spider away and only just managed to hold the spider at bay, but she could not break free. Suddenly, the spider’s head went flying by Thundina and she was able to free herself. Romann was standing over the combat, ichor dripping from his sword. He offered Thundina a hand and pulled her to her feet.

“Thanks. What about the other spider?” Thundina said.
“You should have seen it. The spider had Talor in its grasp when Jessuf delivered a near perfect strike dealing massive damage to the spider. I have no clue how it survived,” Romann said. “On the whole, it didn’t I suppose, he finished it off with a second strike.”

“Is this a dead end, do you think?” Jessuf asked while cleaning his halberd’s blade.
“Seems like it, but I’ll take a quick look around,” Thundina said and walked around the edge of the room, lightly running her fingers along the wall. A quarter of the way around, she stopped, “Huh, that’s odd.” Digging at the recess which had caught her attention, Thundina found and threw a switch which opened another secret door.

Thundina gasped at what she saw. It was one of the most wonderful sights she had ever seen. Strahd’s plundered riches filled the room – weapons and armor, statues and tapestries and more buried in piles of gold, silver, and platinum. Then her heart nearly skipped a beat when she spotted a central object of her quest, a large book, black as night, sitting a little to a side on a pile of gold.

The party set to scooping up all the various pieces of loot ultimately culminating with the black book, the Tome of Strahd. Holding the Tome, Thundina said, “We should take this out into the sunlight and read this. I don’t think we want Strahd being able to drop in.”

For the second time that day, the party returned down from the castle to the village below. They took over Halas’s old shack since no one else was using it. Thundina set the book on the ground between herself and Cyron and they looked at each other.

“I heard what happened the last time you read a book,” Cyron said, “I’ll understand if you don’t want to read this one.”
“I’m not scared,” Thundina said. “I want to know how to take Strahd’s defenses away from him.”
“Let me look through it,” Cyron insisted. “I think that my greater religious knowledge means I might spot something of importance, plus clerics are trained for dealing with dark books.”
Thundina sighed, “Fine, just give us a full report. I’ll be counting the treasure. Hmm, yeah, this’ll work out just fine.”

Thundina had just finished sorting the treasure and counting the coins when Cyron announced that he had finished reading the book. Cyron said, “Basically, there are three fanes we need to visit: the Ivlich Swamp fane, the Svalich Forest fane, and the Lysaga Mountain fane. In addition each fane has a saint and a fane-servant. Madam Eva is called the all-knowing and is one of these servants. The other two are Zelenna the green disciple and Anya the drowned. Strahd became a vampire after Tatyana rejected him in favor of his younger, handsomer brother Sergei so Strahd killed his brother. There doesn’t seem to be anything else too horrific in here.”

Cyron finished speaking and then jumped as a vestani had whispered in his ear, “Madam Eva asks everyone to come to the Tser Pool tonight.”
Cyron responded, “I thought she had left the area.”
“She has returned. You must come tonight.”
Romann protested, “But what about my date with Gertruda tonight?”

As evening fell, Romann went to Gertruda’s house to pick her up for their date. They walked to the inn, arm in arm, chatting idly. Romann told of the great treasure he was receiving as his share from the castle’s loot and Gertruda was quite impressed. They entered the inn and Romann pulled out a chair for Gertruda to sit. Cyron quietly sat in a corner watching Romann.

Thundina huffed at seeing Romann actually go through with the cockeyed idea of taking Gertruda on a date and so stalked upstairs away from the common room. She stopped in front of Jessuf’s door and pounded on it and shouted, “Jessuf!”

Thundina could hear the sound of scrambling from the other side of the door. Jessuf flung open the door and asked worriedly, “Is something wrong? Is there an attack or is someone hurt?”

Thundina grabbed Jessuf’s hand, smiled sweetly, and said, “I’m starving. Let’s have dinner.”
Jessuf drew back a moment and stuttered, “Uh, uh, okay. Why do I have a really weird feeling about this?”

Thundina smiled broadly and held to Jessuf’s arm as they walked down the stairs to the dining area. They found a table and ordered dinner. Thundina asked Jessuf to talk about his background and history and fished for compliments, but Jessuf was so nervous and shocked that the story was stilted and Thundina didn’t receive nearly as many compliments as she was expecting. It was a relief to her when Romann and Gertruda left and she and Jessuf could end their dinner. She retreated to her room to grab her armor and check over her weapons in preparation for whatever would come up while meeting with Madam Eva.

The party traveled out to the Tser Pool and was met there by a single vestani. He led them into the woods to where they had previously encountered Eva in meditation, “Madam Eva wishes for the connection to be broken tonight. Needless to say, should you fail tonight, her life will be in dire peril.”

Around the clearing, the vestani were ready for a battle. Dozens held crossbows and they were joined by a hill giant and a pair of ogres. Sir Urik was directing them to cover behind rubble in preparation for a fight. Cyron walked over to the vestani who seemed to be in charge and said, “I am ready to begin the ceremony, where's Madam Eva?”

-----------------------
Chapter 14 and maybe Chapter 15 too has a high likelyhood of being delayed a week or two due to other deadlines.

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 14: Ill Met by Moonlight

The vestani shook his head, “Madam Eva is not present tonight. From sundown to sunrise, you must hold the vigil. She has instructed us to assist you in any manner. Is there anything we can do before the vigil commences?”

Thundina paced through the woods, getting a feel of the surrounding land. Twilight began to darken the forest and Thundina’s eyes began their faint glow as she looked around in the dark. She heard Jessuf from back by the altar, “It’s getting awful dark. Maybe we could light some bonfires to illuminate the area.”

Jessuf directed the vestani and their monstrous allies to setting up and lighting five fires, spaced around the clearing which represented the fane. Thundina returned just as the fires were lit. She looked at the spacing and positioning and commented, “That’s a fairly regular pentagram. But shouldn’t the altar be in the middle of the star?”

Jessuf looked startled at the implication, “It wasn’t intentional. That’s just what was needed for full coverage.”

Cyron Consecrated the altar and settled down to begin his vigil, warning the party to not disturb him under any circumstances. The other party members spread out around the clearing, ready to reinforce the vestani positions wherever trouble began.

About an hour into the night the trouble began, but quietly. The first indication that Strahd had begun his assault on the vigil was when Talor suddenly stepped back and drilled an arrow into the back of the vestani nearest him. Thundina and Jessuf hurried over Talor. Thundina attempted to knock Talor’s feet out from beneath him, but due to her cautious approach she wasn’t able to hook her guisarme around his leg. Talor retaliated by firing a volley of arrows back at Thundina, but she anticipated each arrow and was well out of its way. Jessuf laid his hand upon Talor’s head and spoke firmly, “Dol Arrah, Protect from Evil this warrior. Be free of Strahd’s domination.”

The frenzy which had gripped Talor passed and he grunted, “Thanks. I can’t believe I attacked the party.”

Jessuf shook his head, “Oh, it’s far worse than that. You were utterly pathetic in your attempts.” Jessuf grimly skewered Talor with his halberd, devastating Talor. Talor attempted to retreat and sic his wolf onto Jessuf, but each step drew another hammering blow from the cleric. Once more the party exploded into action, with the ogres joining in the efforts to restrain Jessuf. Each time they tried to grab him to restrain him he would rap them hard and they would give up the attempt. Finally Urik arrived from the far side of the clearing, huffing with the exertion, and laid a firm hand on Jessuf placing upon him a ward Protecting from Evil.

Thundina and Romann were standing next to Cyron. Impatient, Thundina grabbed the everburning torch that Cyron usually carried, stuffed it into her belt, and began stalking towards the forest, “Come on Romann. Let’s take the fight to Strahd, wherever in the forest he is. I’m not going to wait around here for him to turn our party against itself one by one.”

Romann watched Thundina move towards the forest, delaying his movement, confident that he could catch up. A line of afflicted vestani skulked out of the woods away from the concentrated might of the party. Romann however was able to charge over to the nearest and immediately cut it down. The new vestani allied with Strahd and the vestani loyal to Madam Eva began trading fire. The good vestani, healthy and sheltered by low walls, slowly whittled the ranks of the evil vestani. In addition, each boulder hurled by the hill giant would crush one of the afflicted vestani.

A gnomish ranger stepped out of the forest and drilled an arrow into the hill giant. Talor took a small step to give himself a clear line of fire and launched several arrows back. The gnome crumpled immediately, and forgetfully.

Romann was about halfway down the line when the one of the killed vestani rose back to its feet with a groan. Most of the party reinforced Romann to deal with the zombie vestani. Thundina would trip a zombie vestani which allowed Romann to deliver powerful, crushing blows to it. Jessuf filled with holy light and turned several of the zombies, causing them to flee into the darkness.

With the minor elements all dispersed, a gate of light opened in the middle of the clearing and Strahd stepped through, just outside of the Consecrated circle. A ravening, slathering vampire stepped out of the woods on the far side of the clearing again while a feral looking vampire in hide reinforced the zombie vestani.

Romann shouted, “Strahd! I’ve been waiting for you. I swear I will drop you this time!” He rushed back to Cyron and interceded himself between Cyron and Strahd. Thundina took up a position next to Romann forming a wall against Strahd.

Jessuf waved them away saying, “I will deal with this one. I feel a weird sort of kinship with him and like it is my responsibility.” Jessuf launched a Searing Light against the vampire.

The vampire snarled, “Ah, another delusional hero who thinks he has a chance against Lord Strahd. I have seen despair, I know the darkness that is Ravenloft. You are damned, only death awaits you here.” The vampire looked to the sky and followed with his gaze the descending arc of a lightning bolt onto Jessuf.

Jessuf called upon Dol Arrah, “Know the power of the Sun!” A second strike of Searing Light struck the vampire. The light burned the vampire and it screeched and turned into a cloud of gas.

Strahd smiled at the cluster of adventurers who had formed a wall in front of him. He threw a Fireball centered on Cyron, blasting those who opposed him. Thundina saw the blossom of fire open in slow motion. She leaned way back, nearly flattening herself to the ground and watched the blaze pass over her. The blast buffeted Romann, the cloak he had taken from the scarlet vampire flapping wildly in the wave of fire.

Romann then stepped forward and dealt a pair of devastating blows in quick succession. Thundina moved into a flanking position against Strahd and hooked her guisarme around Strahd but he resisted her attempts at pulling him to the ground. He responded by launching a series of Magic Missiles at each of his attackers.

The ravening vampire was running towards Cyron throw a hail of silver arrows from Talor. As it tried to rush past Talor, Talor stepped to the side and back and unleashed another storm of arrows and the vampire stumbled and became a cloud of gas misting past Cyron.

The vestani closed in on Strahd, surrounding him. Romann smashed Strahd again and Thundina knocked Strahd to the ground. On her follow-up strike, Strahd caught the silver head of her weapon, unharmed for the rich loamy earth smell. Strahd laughed, “Foolish girl, this is my domain. I grow tired of your insolence.”

Thundina smirked, “I can tell you’re tired. You’re laying there on your back.”

Strahd considered his options and concluded that practically no action could be safely executed with both Thundina and Romann ready to exploit any weakness. A gate of light opened up around Strahd and pulled him away.

Jessuf dispensed healing around for those who had taken Fireball wounds. Then Jessuf and Talor stood around staring at each other, counting down the seconds that Strahd’s domination was hedged out. After a few minutes passed and neither felt the urge to resume attempting to kill the other, the party relaxed.

As morning broke over the fane, a rippling wind rustled through the trees and Cyron had a vision of green leaves. The party asked if they could visit Madam Eva now and the vestani escorted the party to where Madam Eva had hidden herself. Thundina thought that the forest seemed brighter, but then she decided that it was probably just because of the sun rising.

Madam Eva appeared younger and smaller. She looked up as the party approached, but did not crack a smile. Thundina approached and asked, “Can you tell us the location of the other two fanes? We know their general placements, but Lysaga Hill and Ivlis Marsh both look to be large areas.”

Madam Eva shook her head, “No child, I cannot tell you that. There are secrets I may not share. One that I may share is that there is a relic buried under the altar of the fane that you may recover.”

Thundina yawned widely, “Sorry, been up all night. I guess we’ll recover that relic, go to bed, and continue wresting the fanes from Strahd’s control, unless you can add anything more…”

That evening the party proceeded up to Lysaga Hill on the unanimous agreement that denying Strahd the rich loamy earth would be a major amelioration in the difficulty of striking him. Looking around the ruins of the monastery on Lysaga Hill did not immediately reveal an altar. As Thundina passed near one of the ruined buildings she heard Talor calling to his wolf, “Come along boy, there’s nothing here.”

Thundina popped in and saw the wolf digging at the ground. She looked quizzically at Talor who responded, “Found some footprints, but nothing else. My wolf refuses to leave now; I haven’t had enough time to fully train him I guess.”

Thundina walked over to the wolf and knelt down to take a good look at where the wolf was digging. “Ah, it’s a smart wolf,” Thundina said and pulled a well concealed handle, opening a door giving entrance to a cavern below.

The party climbed down a ladder into the cavern and began exploring. At a ledge leading to a twenty foot drop, the party spotted the altar down the drop. Standing by the altar was a tall woman who cursed at the party, “Who are you? You shouldn’t be here. Get out.”

Thundina called back, “Are you Zelenna? I am Thundina and my party and I have come to break Strahd’s connection to this place. Work with us.”

The woman shrieked back, “None shall have control of this fane! Leave this place, it is mine.” Four creatures covered in horns loped to join her. A noxious ichor oozed over their black skin. They flexed their hands with long twisted claws and gnashed their razorlike teeth causing clicking and screeching as the claws and teeth scraped against each other.

Romann and Jessuf leaped down the drop, crashing horribly to the ground before charging on towards Zelenna. Thundina gracefully hopped down, landing gently, calling out, “Wait for me. Don’t kill her too quickly, I want to actually get a chance to sneak attack something.” Zelenna was dead from Romann’s and Jessuf’s blows before Thundina arrived.

The horned creatures and the party formed lines across the cavern to skirmish. The party fairly quickly overwhelmed the creatures from the combination of greater offensive power and access to healing from Cyron behind the lines.

“Great, could you guys see about setting up some defenses while I prepare for the vigil?” Thundina asked once the fight ended.
“When did we decide that you’d be holding the vigil,” Jessuf protested. “And why are you always bossing us about? I’m getting awfully tired of it.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask to be the leader, it was thrust upon me when Tourg fell in battle. I’m here on a mission and have recruited additional help as it became available.”
“We should have the one Strahd is least likely to be able to dominate hold the vigil, that would be me.”
“By what measure?! You’ve been dominated once, I’ve never been dominated. You know, I don’t think he’s capable of it against me.”

Talor spoke up out of the blue, “I support Thundina’s position.”
Jessuf again protested, “It’s not fair. I should be the one to hold the vigil.”
“Life isn’t always fair,” Thundina said coldly. “Besides, why are we still discussing this?”

Cyron intervened, “Maybe I can mediate.” Jessuf nodded and Thundina said exasperatedly, “Ah, Cyron, the voice of reason. Let’s hear it.”

Cyron went into a meditative trance and when he came out of it said, “In my heart, I believe the gods will favor us if Thundina holds the vigil.”

The party arrayed themselves around the entrance in the best defensive formation they could come up with as Thundina began the vigil over the mountain fane. Thundina sank into a deep trance. Over and over she heard her name being called out, but she attempted to push that to the back of her mind while focusing on the feelings of earth and mountain.

A hideous mass of glowing spirits drifted into the cavern by the party’s defensive position. It gibbered and howled unintelligible words which still managed to convey the promise of undying torment and mind-numbing terror. The sheer wrongness of it overwhelmed Jessuf at once and he fell upon his blade rather than look at the hideous creature any longer. Sir Urik charged forward and took a swipe at the creature, his blade passing through its incorporeal body. He wiped at his nose and found his hand completely bloody. Sir Urik collapsed before he could swing again with blood seeping from his nose and the corners of his eyes. Cyron desperately held his holy symbol before him, pulsating with light. The howling spirits closed in on him, passed through and Cyron fell lifeless. Romann and Talor arrived from outposts just in time for a circular blast of bluish energy from the creature to take them both in the chest and they writhed in pain. A second blast and their pain intensified and overwhelmed them. Time seemed to slow as the mass of spirits floated down to Thundina. It whispered “Thundina” in her ears over and over, twisting her name into a mockery. She could feel its hate of the living, and its madness at the sane. It reached out to her to destroy her mind, but Thundina held firm on the vigil.

Thundina’s next breath brought the odor of rich loamy earth and a feeling of the land. She realized she was shaking and took a breath to calm down before opening her eyes. Cyron was at her side, staring at her intently, “You’re back, we were worried there for a while.”

Thundina gasped and caught sight of Romann behind Cyron, “I saw you die. There was a hideous mass of spirits, it cut right through the party. What’s happening?”

Cyron shook his head, “No, it’s been nothing but peaceful all night long. You started shaking and muttering half an hour ago and Jessuf thought he heard voices maybe an hour ago, but otherwise very boring. Perhaps you should tell us more of what you saw.”

Thundina shivered at the memories, “No, it was nothing. No, I think … I think we should leave Lysaga Hill and go find that swamp fane. Two down, one to go.”
-----------------------------
Chapter 15, which we're hoping will see the final defeat of Strahd, will probably be available in one week, a few days behind the normal schedule.

 

[Ealli]

Chapter 15: Lord of Ravenloft

Later that afternoon, the party set out for the Ivlis Marsh. The fog of the previous day had coalesced into darker clouds. A light, cold drizzle obscured vision and made for a somewhat miserable trek through the swamp. Talor confidently ran through the marsh looks for signs of the Swamp Fane while the rest of the party trudged behind. The drizzle increased slowly into a steady rain.

Several hours later as the light was beginning to fade, a stretch of dry land jutted out ahead of the party. A pair of willow trees and a pair of fallen stone columns formed a natural gateway to the land. A hag of awesome fetid ugliness, crazy and foaming at the mouth stood in the gateway and screeched, “No! No agent of Strahd may set foot on my land.”

The mere sight of the creature so disturbed Talor and Cyron that they were barely able to hold themselves up right. Romann sloshed his way through the remaining marshy area to close in on the hag. It gave him an Evil Eye and he felt his heart flutter before he resorted to a dazed babbling. Thundina charged in, nimbly holding her footing even through the slippery muck, and brought her guisarme down across the hag. Talor labored to draw his bow and let fly an arrow. The arrow struck the hag who then collapsed.

Cyron pulled himself to the land and asked, “Talor, what do you know about this hag?”
Talor wheezed as his wolf pulled him up out of the marsh, “Uh, it’s a hag.”

Cyron took another close look at the still dazed Romann and ultimately decided that Break Enchantment would be the best method to end the effect on Romann. Romann came to and gave Cyron a hearty smack on the back as thanks for the assistance.

Talor spoke up again, “It’s getting pretty close to night fall. We should set up some fires.”
Thundina replied, “We’re in the middle of a marsh in the middle of a rainstorm. Where do you expect to find fuel for the fire?”
“I know a thing or two about surviving outdoors. We can look around, although I’m going to need assistance in carrying it back.”

Thundina and Talor began exploring the swamp nearby. Talor led the way, leaning heavily on his wolf companion and panting as heavily as the wolf. He would point out trees which looked alive but would burn as well as any dead wood. He would spot a moss-covered log in the muck that was not yet thoroughly soaked and Thundina would wrestle it free of the mud. In all they gathered enough wood for four fires to burn through the night.

Jessuf began the vigil at sunset, though none could observe the setting for the rain storm had intensified further into a torrential downpour. Thundina meanwhile kept near a fire to keep out the cold of the rain. She swept her gaze as best she could, but the sheets of rain prevented her from seeing out beyond the little patch of land which was the fane. She walked out to the edge to get a better view and to breathe in fresh air. The roaring fires were turning the rain into a sticky steam and while the wood burned well, it also gave off great black plumes of smoke which smelled of rotten eggs and burned the lungs.

Thundina reached the edge of the fane and splashed a foot into the water. The rain had raised the water-level and the outermost edges of the fane were now underwater. She paused to listen. The hissing of steam off the fires behind her contrasted to the great plopping of rain into the marsh in front of her. A crackle of lightning seemed to have an echoing cackle left behind. Thundina sensed they were not alone in the swamp any longer.

Thundina sloshed over to Cyron’s position, making a squelch as she approached. Cyron looked up, his long whiskers dripping with rain, and said, “Stepped in a puddle, did you?”
“Stepped off dry land. The marsh is flooding, we’re losing fane. Worse, I get the feeling that there’s something out there.”
“It’s Strahd. He’s been watching us since just after sundown.”
“Why doesn’t he attack? What is he waiting for?”
“It’s the flooding of the marsh that holds him back.”
“He means to let us drown in a flood? Seems an awfully risky plan, unless he knows more about this weather than we do.”
Cyron shrugged, “It’s not that he expects us to drown; it’s that the flooding has left us as an island in the middle of a river. The flood waters run all around us, and vampires cannot cross running water.”

Thundina laughed loudly, “Strahd, defeated by the weather, how special.”
Romann rushed over and roared, “Strahd? Where? Come out Strahd, face me like a man!”

Throughout the night the river flowing through the Ivlis Marsh continued to rise until the water was lapping at the edges of the fires. The rain stopped shortly before dawn, but the sky continued to roil with black clouds. As dawn came so did the sound of a trickle of water like a fresh flowing creek and Jessuf looked up. The party waded away from the Swamp Fane through water which was up to Thundina’s waist in some places.

With the three fanes under the party’s control, it was time for a renewed push into the castle. It was time to take the battle to Strahd instead of dodging him and defending against him.

At the castle, Thundina consulted the map she had been sketching as the party had explored Castle Ravenloft. She pointed out to her companions her best understanding of how the various rooms and towers connected together and where she thought they could still find more stairwells.

The first place she led her companions was to near Gertruda’s former quarters. Past those quarters they found a long hallway with six niches each with a suit of armor. The castle roof down that hallway was exposed and lightning flashed overhead. Long low moans emanated from down the hallway. On the second flash of lightning a ghostly figure emerged from the nearest statue. The ghost was a human woman in armor with a raven emblem. She waved one hand to the party and chanted, “Blessings to you. Why do you come to this castle?”

Thundina stepped forward to answer, “We are here to slay Strahd. I am Thundina Seong, may I ask who you are.”
The ghost answered, “I am Lady VayRalen, once an ancient protector of this castle.”
Sir Urik bowed to Lady VayRalen, “Lady, I do not know you, but I too am a Knight of the Raven.”

Lady VayRalen spoke again, “You keep good company, Thundina. Is there anything I can do to assist you?”
Thundina responded, “Can you tell us how to get to “Where hellish magic made” or to where “Dizzying heights all loathe to climb”?”
Lady VayRalen, “I am afraid I do not know much outside of this hallway.”
“Have you seen Ireena recently? She was recently kidnapped by Strahd.”
“I have not seen any other humans in the castle for many years.”
“Then, do you know where Strahd keeps any riches?”
“Being dead, my responses are limited, you must ask the right question.”
“What can you do for us then?”
“If you wish to become a Knight of the Raven, I can sponsor you and initiate you. One requires a Knight sponsor to become a Knight of the Raven.”
“I have known Sir Urik for several weeks now, and I’m afraid I have no interest in becoming a Knight of the Raven.”
“Then I can warn you that the other statues in this hallway may soon be animated by other spirits, less friendly than I.”
“I thank you for your warning Lady VayRalen,” Thundina concluded and led the party to another set of stairs to attempt to find their destinations.

The next room explored had a large oak desk buried under scrolls, tomes, and ledgers. A large blue carpet with edges of stone grey spread from the door to the desk. A pale man sat at the desk scratching at a ledger next to a name tag which read ‘Lief’. He glanced up startled as Thundina barged into the room. He rummaged around in the desk eventually drawing a greatsword from one of the wide drawers and began swinging the sword around while flicking a forged maggot-white tongue. Three gaunt skeletal deathlocks stood at attention by the desk. As battle began, each deathlock threw a pair of Magic Missiles at Thundina. Jessuf moved around the desk and engaged Lief. Thundina then slipped around behind Lief and whispered into his ear, “Nothing personal, but it’s been too long since I’ve encountered a soft and squishy foe.” Thundina’s blade lodged painfully next to Lief’s spine; he did not die a quick or clean death.

Once the deathlocks had been quickly crushed, Thundina inspected the desk. Lief had been running the castle’s accounts and had a small pile of money which Thundina scooped up. She yawned as she glanced through the piles of mostly worthless musty financial records stretching back hundreds of years. From the accountant’s office, Thundina found a hallway which moaned with sadness and despair linking the office to Strahd’s throne room.

The throne room had a door which led to a balcony with two smaller thrones over the chapel. A tight stairwell wound down into the chapel. Broken stained-glass windows littered the floor sending sparkles of color all around the chapel. A dead body lay next to the altar, reaching out towards a silver raven statuette on the altar. Thick dust covered the floor, altar, and even the corpse.

Sir Urik spoke with a fond remembrance, “Ah, the altar of Castle Ravenloft, where I took my oath as a Knight of the Raven. If you wish to become a Knight, you would need to hold a vigil here.”
Thundina rolled her eyes, “No, Urik. No, I don’t think I’ll be becoming a Knight of the Raven.” Thundina spotted a wide stairwell on the far side of the chapel, “Sir Urik, I thought you had said there wasn’t any exits to the chapel…”

Up, and up the staircase wound without break or landing. The tower climbed 300 feet, looming over any other tower in the castle. The top of the tower was a ruined mesh of girders and the landing at the very top had little in the way of walls to keep any occupants safe. A dark shaft pierced the middle of the room descending out of sight as cold air wafted back up. The party squeezed to near the wall to allow Cyron to pass to the front. When he reached the top he pulled out the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind and pronounced, “The Symbol pulses; this is where we needed to bring it.”

The next eight hours of perching on a narrow stair with wind gusting through the top of the tower and a draft whispering up from below frustrated Thundina. There was no place to sit other than the hard stone steps and no shelter from the wind. Eerie sounds drifted from deep below while the whistling of the wind through the tower set her teeth on edge. She was quite pleased when Cyron announced that he had bonded the Symbol and they could return down to the chapel.

Thundina took out her sketched map and pored over it again, “I just don’t understand. We seem to have exhausted basically all the places a stairwell up could hide and the prophecy on where to bring the Sunsword does seem to indicate near a tower top. I’m not sure where to go from here.”
Jessuf looked over the map and pointed to the section with the room where he had been held, “Wasn’t there another floor between here and the top?”
Thundina counted while thinking before answering, “I don’t recall. We can go check it out.”

Just below the devil’s garden the party found a level not listed on Thundina’s map. A dead redcap and several dead shocker lizards lay in the shadows near a door. In the room beyond that door a great black cauldron bubbled. Spacious tables covered in glass jars with strange bits of creatures suspended in colorful liquids lined the walls. A large book on a podium stood next to one of the tables. A man in a long flowing brown robe with a glowing green staff reached into a pouch and pulled out a fistful of gold coins. He tossed the coins into the air and all the light vanished except for the red glow in the warlock’s eyes.

Thundina whipped forward to pin him near the wall so he couldn’t retreat step by step around the room while slinging spells. A hidden door opened and a woman in a stiff white shirt and stiff white pants stepped forward to sling an Eldritch Blast at Thundina. Cyron called for Daylight to counteract the Darkness on the gold coins. Jessuf moved to engage the brown-robed warlock and was greeted by another secret door opening and a woman in a grey mask unleashed a fiery blast at Jessuf. The blast simply rolled over Jessuf harmlessly as the sound of a trickling brook could be faintly heard.

Thundina stepped behind the brown-robed warlock and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, running into Thundina’s blade in the gut, running up. Thundina smirked at the startled look on the warlock’s face, “They say the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – straight up and a little to the left.” As Thundina pulled her blade back the warlock collapsed. Thundina flicked her blade out to the right attempting to catch the warlock in the stiff white shirt, but she was still standing back from the secret door so the guisarme harmlessly bounced off the door frame.

Talor drilled the warlock in the white shirt with a volley of arrows dropping her and Jessuf, Urik, and Thundina forced the grey-masked warlock into her secret chamber, and overwhelmed the warlock. A search of the room turned up lots of alchemical items plus a dozen shocker lizard eggs, some still viable. Thundina and Romann each took a ring off fallen warlocks while Jessuf peeked into the boiling cauldron before exclaiming, “There’s a silver key at the bottom of here. Let me just get it.”

Jessuf reached into the cauldron for the key, but the bubbling gelatin material started crawling up his arm excreting acid all over the arm. The acid tickled Jessuf and the trickling brook sound became a continuous stream of sound. The gelatinous sphere was too small to consume someone immune to its light acid damage and the sphere was removed from Jessuf.

The Sunsword hummed in the room and Jessuf knelt with the sword to begin to pray. While Jessuf began the bonding process with the sword, Thundina examined the journal on the podium. The journal belonged to one Afeena Musesco who described her descent into becoming a warlock from contact with a devil and how that devil now ran a garden just above the room of hellish magic. Thundina laughed at how well useless such revelations were now that both the devil and Ms. Musesco were dead.

With every goal met save one, the party set looking for a path down into the catacombs. Once they had located the quickest path to Strahd’s coffin they could go searching for the vampire lord himself. The stairs from the chapel were promising at first, but they quickly encountered the other side of the wall with a small open chink. The thick wall obviously barred that stairwell while allowing Strahd to gas through if needed. The second try, near the dining room proved more promising.

In a room off that stairway, a cloaked lady hobbled out to stare accusingly at the descending party, “Are you a spy for Strahd? I’ve dealt with your kind before. Oh yes, I will be independent of the Lord Strahd. So, are you a spy?”

Thundina said slowly, “No. We’re hunting down Strahd to destroy him.”
“Oh, alright then. Maybe I can help you. I know of a ring which resists death effects and the relics hidden in the catacombs. However, you will need to do something for me first.”
“Sure, how can we help you?” Thundina responded. The idea of a ring to protect against Strahd’s energy draining attacks excited her.
“I need the tongue of a living person from the village. Not just a living person when the tongue is harvested, but a person still alive when you deliver the tongue to me.”

Thundina thought a moment. That ring would be the perfect defense needed for attacking Strahd, but the price was awfully high. Would anyone really miss some random villager if it meant the destruction of Strahd? Maybe Bildreth could give something back. No, ripping a tongue out of someone is just too vile to be seriously considered. Thundina just couldn’t bring herself to do something like that.

Sir Urik spoke up, “Well, since it’s for such an important mission, such a sacrifice may be…”
Romann’s eyes gleamed, “Excellent. Hold still a moment, this shouldn’t hurt much.”
Jessuf shouted, “No! We aren’t seriously considering this.”
Romann rebutted, “If’s he’s offering willingly, I don’t see a problem.”
“It’s wrong. It’s disgusting. We are not maiming Sir Urik.”
“It’s a sacrifice for greater good. I think we should take the offer.”
“Absolutely not. Thundina, you’ve been unusually quiet for an offer of treasure.”
“We can’t do this,” Thundina said. “It’s not just wrong, it passes into vile. I can handle just wrong, but not vile.”

The party passed the cloaked witch and descended into the catacombs. The iron gate barring the way to a crypt on a dirt pile no longer was guarded by the mists of transposition. The party walked up to the black iron gate and smashed it open. Strahd sat on his coffin, laughing maniacally, “You challenge a Lord of Ravenloft in his own domain? Do you have no idea the nature of Ravenloft? There is no hope for you anymore, there is only never-ending darkness. You haven’t met Lucien yet. Lucien was a celestial who thought he could cleanse the land. He is now a loyal servant. Just like you shall all be.”

Thundina snapped back, “Shut up Strahd. You’ve become delusional. Weeks ago, we might have come to some sort of agreement, but then you tried to cheat me. Now that I’ve bonded with the land, I understand what you’ve done and why you can no longer be the lord here, old one.”

By way of response Strahd summoned a cloud of green gas on top of the party. The gas weighed heavily on the chest and Talor coughed fitfully. The party scattered out of the cloud as it slowly rolled away from Strahd. The large statue of a man on a horse which had been standing behind Strahd began rumbling forward until it filled the entry and blocked passage with its mass. Jessuf stepped up to it to halt its advance while Thundina applied a silver sheen to her guisarme and Sir Urik gave her Protection from Evil and Cyron cast protective wards over Romann. Strahd and Lucien buffed themselves as well with Lucien applying Protection from Good.

As the Cloudkill passed, the party reformed in front of the statue and Cyron identified it as a cursed-scribe golem instead of a normal animated statue that had been encountered so far throughout the castle. The nature of the curse inscription became clear when after one of its hammering blows, Romann failed to counterattack. Each attack from the golem left welts which would surely leave deep purple bruises the next day. Romann’s and Thundina’s attacks on the golem failed to cut deeply into its magical stone body.

Lucien pushed past the golem to begin assaulting the party directly. He took a position on the edge of the battle, but Thundina quickly moved to a flanking position on Lucien and tripped him up. She followed up Lucien’s fall with a quick thrust slipping through a hole in his armor. He looked up at the party members looming over him and appeared indecisive as to whether or not risking standing in his current predicament. Thundina mocked him, “Come on Lucien, stand up for yourself.” He stood up, but that left him vulnerable to first Romann’s and then Thundina’s blades. Off balance from Romann’s cracking strike, Lucien stumbled towards Thundina. Her high sweeping blow took off his head and the decapitated corpse fell back to the ground.

Strahd harried the party from behind the golem throwing Enervation at Thundina after lining up the perfect shot via True Strike and then fell draining Magic Missiles spread among the party. The golem meanwhile swung at Romann, catching him on the temple, knocking him out cold. Cyron healed Romann as best he could, but Romann was still dangerously low on health.

Talor, after one shot bounced harmlessly off the golem, starting making the tough shot through the combat to hit Strahd with silver arrows. Jessuf joined in the ranged combat by throwing Searing Light at Strahd as well. The touch of the Searing Light overwhelmed Strahd and he returned to his coffin.

Thundina observed the course of the battle against the golem and decided that someone had to get behind the golem to provide flanking and allow Romann and Jessuf to better power attack the golem. The next time the golem attacked and slammed its fist down to the ground on the miss, Thundina dashed up the arm, and over the golem, dropping lightly behind it. The golem would bash Romann, hitting heavily, and Cyron would desperately heal Romann to keep him in the fight. Romann chipped away at the golem, crushing it slowly.

Thundina rolled her shoulders and exhaled as the adrenaline surge of battle faded. She took a step over and peeked into Strahd’s coffin. He was laying with his arms crossed on his chest, pale face a stark contrast to the dark coffin. He pleaded, “Please, spare my life. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything – I’ll give you the valley. I can tell you where I hid the rest of my treasure.”

Romann stepped up, “Why don’t you tell us where the treasure is first?”
Talor, just behind, “Maybe we can spare you. Maybe we can find an agreement, a ransom.”

Strahd panted, “Yes, yes. Do I have your word? Any agreement.”

“I want one simple thing from you,” Thundina said stonily. “I want you to die.” She looked behind her to see Cyron pulling out a stake and offering it to her. She accepted it and turned back around.

Romann again tried, “Treasure, Thundina, think, treasure. We can come up with something I’m sure.”

Strahd desperately cried, “I always keep my word. I will give you my treasure. We can negotiate still.”

Thundina stabbed the flarestake into Strahd and said, “Negotiations are over. We’ll hear no more from you.”

Strahd screamed as the flarestake burned. His screamed continued and continued. Thundina whispered to Cyron, “I thought stakes through the heart was supposed to be the end of vampire.”

Cyron whispered back, “It’s supposed to be. You did hit the heart, right? I know you don’t have quite the same accuracy and control against undead.”

“I’m certain I hit the heart.” Thundina responded before snapping her fingers, “Oh how dumb of me. The Tome of Strahd spells out that a stake won’t kill him, only sunlight can. I guess all we’re doing is torturing him like this.” She looked at Strahd and said firmly, “Not that you don’t deserve it.” Strahd could only manage a scream as the stake continued to burn in his shriveled heart. “Let’s take him outside and burn him in the sun,” Thundina said.

As they carried Strahd outside, Talor whispered to Strahd, “Actually, I guess I did have to kill you. That was my job.”

The party set the coffin down and glanced up at the sky overhead. The overcast sky showed no sign of breaking anytime soon. Thundina asked Cyron, “Can we speed this up any? I don’t want to sit hear listening to Strahd cry for a day or two or however long it takes us to get some direct sunlight here.”

Cyron shook his head, “A greater cleric than I could directly control the weather, or perhaps a druid of similar strength could control the winds to disperse the clouds for a time, but there is nothing I can do.”

Thundina sat to wait and began looking through all the little items she had acquired during the time. She had Orning’s identification papers which would need to be returned to his father. She found the little witty note Tourg had written her way back when they had first arrived in Barovia. There were the Lightbringers patches from Thendrick and Mathilda, and Tourg and BarBar as well. From Ashlyn, Thundina now wore Ashlyn’s holy symbol.

Thundina had just reached thinking of Ashlyn when there was a shout from the rest of the party. A single beam of sunlight was breaking through the clouds, illuminating Strahd. It only lasted a moment, but when Thundina looked into the coffin, Strahd was gone and a pile of black ash now filled the coffin. All that was left were the robes that Strahd had worn plus a bundle of papers. Thundina pulled out the papers and took a quick look, enough to see that these were the deed to Castle Ravenloft and the valley of Barovia.

“So, now what?” Romann asked.
“I don’t know,” Thundina said. “I guess we go down to the village and start the process of transition of power.”

As the party arrived in town they could see that almost all of the town was out and gathered in town square. The party walked down the street, approaching the gathered crowd, when Gertruda burst out of the crowd and rushed up to Romann and latched on to him, “Is it true? Did you kill Strahd? The town is abuzz that Strahd is dead!”

Romann gaped, “How did you hear? We only just watched him burn before we came here.”
Gertruda walked with Romann and the party, “A vestani was shouting that Strahd had been slain and a lot of people said they felt different. There’s something different about the valley, can’t you feel it? The land is adjusting to a new lord.”

Ismark pushed his way out of the crowd, “Hail heroes. Will you please come with me, there is much which needs to be discussed.” He led them through the crowd and back to his manor. The crowd gaped at the members of the party as they parted to allow the party to pass through.

Ismark took the party to his sitting room and offered seating. Once everyone had sat, he requested, “Please, tell me all that has occurred and led to the fall of Strahd.”

Thundina responded, “Well, there really isn’t all that much to tell. Over the past couple days we have held vigils at each of the fanes to strip Strahd of his protections, then we tracked him down by his coffin, forced him to revert and return to it, and then dragged him out into the sun where he burned.”

“And my sister, have you found her? Is she safe?”

Thundina was about to answer when they all heard a large commotion outside. When they looked outside, there was Ireena wandering dazedly back to the manor. Ismark ran to his sister and escorted her inside, asking her if she was okay.

Once settling that Ireena was safe, Ismark resumed the conversation with the party, “With Strahd dead, I presume that one of you will be taking over as the Lord of Ravenloft.”

Thundina said slowly, “Well, we do have the deed to the castle, but hadn’t given it much thought. I guess we did slay Strahd and do have the bonds to the land.”

“Of course,” Ismark bowed to the party. “You are welcome to stay here with me while you figure out what is happening. If you will excuse me, I feel I must tend to my sister.”

Jessuf spoke up once Ismark had departed, “I came here to work out a deal regarding lands, but I have realized that I really am meant to stay in one place and lead the people. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d like to be new lord of Barovia. Thundina, are you going to press a claim?”

Visions of ruling Barovia danced in her head. Her father had told stories of how he would have single-handedly conquered a country, he’d be so proud of her. She had dreamed of rescuing and marrying a prince and then living a plush life forever after, but this could do. She looked firmly at Jessuf, “Yes, and why not? I’ve been opposing Strahd the longest. I was the one who slew him. I deserve this.”

Jessuf sighed and turned to Cyron, “And what about you?”

Cyron shook his head, “No, I am not one to rule. I serve Romann, wherever he will lead.”
Romann chimed in, “I think I’m going to propose to her. I think we’re meant for each other.”

The rest of the party looked at Romann quizzically, his comment having come out of nowhere. He clarified, “Gertruda. She’s beautiful, kind, and gentle. I’m going to propose to her.”

After the meeting with Ismark, Romann went to Gertruda’s house, dropped to a knee, and proposed with the ring he had taken from the warlocks, and she accepted him. They set the wedding for the next week, once all the loose ends were tied up regarding the castle and valley.

Thundina walked the ways of the valley, thinking and reflecting on the past few weeks. She found her feet taking her once more up to the castle, like she had walked so many times before. In the castle, Thundina visited the ransacked treasury and picked up a silver coin which had escaped the previous sacking. She climbed to the devil’s garden and then to the Dayheart chamber. As darkness claimed the valley, Thundina found herself in the throne room. She decided to take a break and sit on the throne. It felt like a perfect fit; so comfortable and just the right size for her. Maybe she could rest a little longer.

Thundina awoke several hours later. She had dreamed, she had heard the land calling to her, but it was a dark call, and reminded her of Strahd. The dreams were of blood, of death. Her heart raced, her breathing came quick. Was this what she wanted? The power and strength, and the thrill of domination. The more she thought on it, and the more she considered the implications, the more she hated the idea. It was the death of dreams and the death of what made her her.

She got out of the throne and wandered into the accounting office next to the throne and rummaged for some paper and quills. She had some notes to write. The first note was to Romann.

“Romann, sorry I’m going to have to miss your wedding. I wish you and Gertruda all the best and I hope you have many fat children. Cyron will always be there to help you; he’ll make a good uncle. I admired your fighting style; you were a good companion here. I’m afraid I have to be leaving the valley now, before I’ll be able to say proper good-byes. T”

The second note was for Jessuf. He had something she needed and she had something he’d need. He might not like the idea of a trade, but it needed to be done.

“Jessuf, I’ve decided to relinquish my claim to Barovia. I’m hitting the trail before dawn and I intend to be halfway back to Thronehold by noon. Well, not quite, but I expect certain rewards for my efforts. I came here on a mission, I hope you understand. Watch yourself here, there is something dark in the land which I wouldn’t have been able to control. Don’t give into that darkness. T”

She took her two notes back down to the village and snuck back to her room and quietly packed up her share of the treasure. Since she had been tasked with hauling and cataloging most of it in the first place, she knew exactly where all the valuable unclaimed items were and added them to her haversack. She took the note for Romann over to his room and left it pinned to the door. Next was a visit to Jessuf’s room. He had locked the door, but that was no problem for Thundina. She snuck into the room and found the Sunsword prominently displayed on the dresser. Thundina took the sword and left the note for Jessuf as well as the deed to the Castle Ravenloft and the valley of Barovia. She then slipped back out, securing the Sunsword in her haversack. As she was about to leave the village, she heard a voice from behind her, “Leaving, Thundina?”

She found the source of the voice, Talor was leaning against a building. “Isn’t it awfully early to be up?”
“I wanted to call another bat to be my next animal companion. Besides, I’ve always been somewhat more nocturnal.”
“Fair enough. Yes, I am leaving. I need to get out of here, this is not where I belong.”
“Mind if I join you on the journey?”
“I thought you didn’t like me,” Thundina said wrinkling her nose.
“You seem to get what you want,” Talor shrugged. “I want great piles of stuff. If I work with you, maybe some of that good fortune of yours will rub off on me.”
“Alright then, let’s go.”

The set off along the road to the west, Thundina intending to try the northwestern gate. As the neared the crossroads, they could see a table had been set up with a woman sitting behind it. Thundina and Talor approached and Madam Eva hailed them, “Ah duckling, leaving Barovia I see.”

“Yes,” Thundina agreed. “Funny meeting you here.”
“I’m glad to hear that. It is a better fate for you this way. Do you know where your path leads?”
“To the northwest gate and then eventually back to Irontown and then on to Korth.”
“Ah duckling, what surprises you will find. Ravenloft is not like other places. It is a demiplane onto itself; a rogue plane that wanders through the other planes, and when Strahd died it departed Eberron. The mists will not take you home, they will take you to where you need to be. Sit, let me read your fortune one final time.”

Thundina sat in front of the table and Eva dealt out cards once more. “Child of Chaos, your path will change those all around you. You are difficult to read for all the chaos that comes with you. If you have the courage and strength, the queen holds a great treasure. Yes, go now Child of Chaos, and see what destinies lie before you.” Eva waved as she shooed Thundina and Talor back on to the road and towards the gate. Before they had left earshot, Eva added, “I hope you are not bothered by spiders.”

Thundina and Talor passed through the gate at the edge of Barovia and before long they had left the mists which shrouded the valley. They stopped and stared at what they saw, it was not the hills of Karrnath but a great, bustling city before them.

 

[Ealli]

Author's note

And with that, we are at the end of the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. We will be taking a couple weeks off before starting a new adventure. Because the next adventure is also likely to be a module, I will be making a new thread for it so those who don't mind those spoilers but do mind these spoilers can read along.

Thank you for reading. Congratulations on making it to the end. And good night.