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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 6149385" data-attributes="member: 67">Spoilers and Conclusion!The sanctity of the chapel provided some solace for the party as they rested, finally ready to press on when the day had passed.  They made there way upstairs again, first fighting off a couple of Strahd zombies sitting in the thrones above the chapel and then, eventually, through some secret doors and into the bedchamber of Gertrude, Mad Mary's daughter.Gertrude seemed to think that she was to be Strahd's bride (even though he never told her such!), so the PCs figured they could lure Strahd out by tying her up and verbally abusing her until she cried.Turns out, Strahd was annoyed that they were bothering the snack he had set aside for after he dealt with them,  so he did make an appearance, taunted them, and left as a gaseous cloud again.  It was enough to convince Gertrude that Strahd wasn't such a nice guy, after all.They decided to untie her and take her with them.  Ultimately, they headed down again, into an angry mob of villagers--whose anger was mostly replaced with uncertainty by the time they had gotten this far.The party unloaded Gertrude onto them and they happily took her off to Barovia.Down again, this time, all the way to the lowest level, which, unfortunately for the dwarves, was covered in five feet of water!  Fortunately, the dwarves both had exceptionally high endurance and could hold their breath for long periods of time.That's when things went downhill.  Fighter-dwarf stepped on one of the teleport-traps and found himself elsewhere, isolated in a cell.  Strahd showed up, and attacked, sinking his fangs in and draining the dwarf nearly of all life.  But, then, he stopped, saying that it suited him better to let the dwarf live and be a burden to his companions.  Also, more taunting.  And then he was gone again...After this, the rest of the party found the cell, and barbarian-dwarf (with his belt of hill giant strength) bent the iron bars and carried the now unconscious fighter-dwarf over his head through the water.We left off there......But picked up a week later.The conscious party members took the unconscious back to the stairs (and out of the water), where barbarian-dwarf proceeded to slap and shout at the other until he woke up.Then, they returned to the cells and proceeded to loot every single chamber--with barbarian-dwarf taking every single coin he could find (and barbarian-elf picking up the lawful good shortsword, after being cleansed of her damnation by the newly religious fighter-dwarf).That's when the wraiths Strahd had previously sent after them finally caught up with them.  Even in his weakened state, fighter/cleric-dwarf stood boldly forth with Icon of Ravenloft and Holy Symbol presented to turn them away.  Instead, he destroyed them, but at the cost of his life!It was a good death.Just then, a high-elf popped into one of the cells--another victim of the traps!After a brief introduction, the elf--a wizard--magicked some flight into everyone, and they all went up the chute they had discovered.  They went straight for the catacombs, checking far too many of them (and barbarian-dwarf weighing himself down with even more loot), before moving into the tombs that mattered.They discovered the Tome of Strahd.  Then they discovered the sunsword hilt (and Sergei's armor) in Sergei's tomb.Then they went straight for Strahd's tomb.Barbarian-dwarf immediately drove the sharpened handle of his maul into Strahd's chest--immediately immobilizing him, but even as the barbarian-elf struck with the sunsword, some bit of mischief deflected her blow toward the other, so that he had to back away and release the stake from Strahd's heart.  Now he was free, and, so rose up in gaseous form, before manifesting again in to energy drain the elf.Barbarian-dwarf tried again with the stake, but much less successfully this time, and also ended up energy-drained.  Barbarian-elf attacked with the sunsword again, but, Strahd grabbed her wrist with his draining touch and forced her to drop it.That was the opening wizard-elf was looking for; s/he telekinetically picked up the sunsword and drove it at the vampyr.  But Strahd was not to be so uneasily undone, and grabbed the sword--that which he had been after all along--straight out of the air!Barbarian-dwarf renewed his assault, forcing Strahd to drop the sunsword.  Once again, wizard-elf took control of the blade and thrust it straight into Strahd's face.  When all was said and done, Strahd was destroyed, but the wizard had the vampyr's hands clasped firmly around his throat and had been drained of all energy and life.  S/he, too, was dead.It was a good death.</blockquote>

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