stonegod's Expedition to Castle Ravenloft: Ch. III [IC] (Completed)

[DEFCON 1]

Jarrith sighs slowly, then moves into the room towards the necromancer. "Let us see what ultimately got this man." He reaches the body then does a quick inspection to try and determine cause of death. Once that is completed, he gives the lab a once-over to see if there's anything obvious of note.

 

[s@squ@tch]

Marot

Taking in all of the details of the room, the warlock smirks slightly.

"I imagine that someone sent their dish back to the kitchen."

 

[ethandrew]

Ladreth walks in, still damp and covered with gore and bits from the battle just recently ended. He picks up a small trinket in his hand, gives it the once over and places it back.

 

[stonegod]

Jarrith turns over the body and Tessa receives a shock. This was the necromancer! The Emerald Claw agent that attacked the caravan! Marot feels a shudder, as the dead woman's face is the one he saw in his mind—right before he was forced to attack his friends in the inn.

A search of the body reveals that it was killed by magic: Burns, acid, and other such mark it heavily.

Other than the corpse, which bears many magic items (a wicked looking dagger, a pale hide made into studded leather armor, a pair of rings, a headband, and other such), the room is laden with material. Just looking through the books shows a wealth of necromantic lore, probably worth the cost to someone with interest in the darker arts. One particular fragment, written on a faded pink leather, causes Jarot to drop it immediately, the vileness of the page sending pain up his arm.

Tessa is helping with the search when she finds something interesting: A set of notes that seem to be more recent, likely penned by the necromancer herself. She reads them to the gathered.[sblock=Exceprts]The records we acquire point to a strong necromantic force here. The Tome of Strahd. We must find it...

Attacked the camp of those fools from the Twelve. Nothing. They knew less than I. It must be in that Castle. I must know for sure...

Weak minded fool. Allowed be privy to their secrets, to find the clues to the power here. And with the journal, it will not be long...

'Lord' Sergei. A fool. There is power here. I will find it without that fop...

How could I have been so blind. It was there all along! The highest tower holds the secret to avoiding death by the sun. Down here, away from him, I've finally been able to find the truth. He won't like it, but I'll be gone soon...

The rest of the pages have been torn away.[/sblock]While Tessa is reading, Khensu also finds something of import: His haversack, places with other alchemical accouterments. And within, the lost relic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

When Knensu spies his haversack nestled amongst the various items in the room, his breath stops short and his eyes widen. Without a word, he dashes over to it and begins rifling through everything within. After a few seconds he discovers the lost relic at the bottom, and the shifter breathes out with a huge sigh of relief. Slowly he rises, holding the relic in the crook of his arm, and turns to the rest of the group. "My weakness has not caused us too much loss, other than the loss of time. I have the relic again. We can now go through the ritual as we originally hoped." He smiles weakly and cradles the artifact, swearing to the Silver Flame he will not lose it again.

As Jarrith hears the notes being read aloud by Tessa, he begins putting some plot points together. "Well it seems we have several things to take care of, and we best move on hurriedly. First the sword... then deal with the three relics... then head up the highest tower and find out what is giving our friend Sergei the immunity to sunlight. Seems like this agent of the Claw has had her fingers in several things... and several minds."

Jarrith smirks and chuckles to himself as is his way. "I think we can safely say that this land is not the place where anyone should live that has skeletons in their closet, since we all seem fairly easily swayed by mental manipulation. If you have secrets and you live in Barovia... you won't have those secrets for long."

He quickly looks for a parchment and ink and begins quickly mapping out where they have travelled thus far in the castle's basement, trying to determine where the crypts might be found. The sooner they get the sunsword awoken, the better off they'll be.

 

[stonegod]

[sblock=OOC]Oops. Big typo. That should be "Lord" Sergei up above. Mateusz was not mentioned. And Marot suspects who she is speaking about is someone much closer.[/sblock]

 

[Stormwind]

Ashlyn has been quiet as the progress into the next room, the shock of Ravika' death and consequent unlife still with her. It would be a nightmare indeed for her, forced to an existence of unlife and she swears to herself that once the curse on this land has been dealt with, she will continue her work here until every last undead is released from their unnatural existence, starting with Ravika's shade.

Seeing the bodies on the floor, Ashlyn casts her gaze over them first (detect undead) before collecting any magical items from the dead into her haversack and then she uses an alchemical bolt to destroy the undead bodies.

She then moves up to the doors on the north side of the room and attempts to sense the presence of undead beyond (detect undead).

 

[stonegod]

Marot looks at the dead woman a moment then spits in her dead face. This is the one... the one that stole by body. A better fate I could not have wished for.

Meanwhile, Jarrith considers the room. After examining the doors a moment to the north, he finds them locked but untrapped. All the locks are on this side, meant to keep others out, so he easily undoes them.

The westmost (left) door sticks a little, but not much. A steep stair rises in the darkness, turning just at the limit of Jarrith's light. There are some cobwebs and the air is stale.

The eastmost (right) door is very stuck and requires Khensu's help to open. Once open, it reveals a spiral stair heading far above if the slight whistle in the air is to be believed. The webbing indicates its lack of use for some time. Thinking a moment, Jarrith bets that this might go to the study where they found the missing girl several stories above.

The center door opens easily. It has a short stair that soon arrives at a platform attached to a hall that turns out of Jarrith's sight. The cool air and earthy smell likely indicates the catacombs can be found that way.

Ashlyn feels no presence of undead within sight.

 

[Stormwind]

Ashlyn turns back to the others, "I don't sense any undead at the moment so we should be good to proceed, however I don't know what we're likely to face in the crypts, but whatever it is, I'm far from my best at the moment. Is there anything anyone can do to help?"

Ashlyn currently has 4 negative levels (and I think Ladreth has 2 as well).
I believe that Marot has a scroll of restoration, and that Avron can cast restoration if we get him the diamond dust.

 

[pathfinderq1]

Tessa had been mostly quiet for a time- it was obvious that the group's recent tials weighed heavily upon her. Now that the passage to the catacombs lay before them, she stirred to a semblance of activity though her normally cheerful visage seemed set in grim resolve.

At Ashlyn's query, though, she could only shake her head. "There are things that the Host might allow me to do, if we had the time and the materials. But for now, there is nothing I have prepared which would directly help. I can strengthen some of us if it comes to battle, but not much else."

OOC: If we can get the diamond dust, Tessa can prepare Restoration as well. She also has some melee buffs left, since the Silence in the last fight cramped her close-in casting. For those items, she can Identify 1 thing per day without components- we just need to determine an order (and to survive a day, which may be the harder task...).