The Lightbringers' Expedition to Castle Ravenloft - updated 12/19

[Richards]

I've never tried the gestalt character option. How are your players liking it?

In any case, I'm enjoying the hell out of your new Story Hour.

Johnathan

 

[Squash Cop]

I've never tried the gestalt character option. How are your players liking it?

It's fun.

-Gerrit

 

[Dr Midnight]

It certainly does look fun, I'd love to play one sometime.

 

[Wee Jas]

This isn't the same group I've played with before- I've moved and am in a new area

I don't approve of this at all. You know what you get? F+

 

[Dr Midnight]

The game went oddly tonight. Ever have that feeling like you're having a really bad headache, but without the pain? My head was a mess- complete disorientation, couldn't stay in character, couldn't convey the direction the dialogue was taking... tons of problems tonight. Wasn't my best session.

And of course the players didn't react at all as I expected to one (supposedly brief) development, so I had to improvise with a head full of mud. I feel like I'm recovering from a concussion or something. Man.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Session 2 - Chapter 1
RAILROADED​

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Arianna said to a passing woman. “I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the village of Barovia.”

The woman glared at them with thinly veiled enmity. “What, do the devil’s minions come out in daylight now? I think you know all about the problems up in Barovia.”

Arianna and Gerrit exchanged a look. “I don’t understand,” Gerrit said cautiously. “We…”

“Just don’t be plaguing us, here, with your mischief. Move along or I’ll alert the constable.” The woman stalked away.

Arianna shook her head and watched the woman storm off. “What do you think that was about? Look, all around us, others are glaring at us.” It was true- people were giving them the sideways glance as they went about their business.

A young boy with a candied fish on a stick said “It was because you came in on a boat that was trailing mist I think.” He took a lick of his fish. “People were saying they didn’t like your mist, I think it was the mist. I think they didn’t like your mist. Yeah.” He grinned.

“Our… mist? The spells we used to escape the pirate ship?”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know but this one lady said a bad word about your mist and spat on the ground.” The boy laughed and walked away.

The adventurers were about to move on when a dwarf was thrown out of the Sorrowful Cup tavern. He came stumbling backward out of the saloon-style doors and tripped over Arianna’s panther Jade. His arms pinwheeled as he toppled over. In an instant Jade was on him, pinning him to the ground and growling low in her throat. “Sit,” he mumbled up into the cat’s snarling face.

Gerrit and Arianna helped the dwarf to his feet while laughter came from the tavern. “Thank you,” the dwarf said into his chest as he stood. “That was less than dignified.”

Arianna brushed him off. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I don’t even know. Superstitious townfolk don’t know how to treat a stranger. All I did was ask how to get to Barovia and several large apelike goons took to muscling me out of their bar.”

“You’re going to Barovia?” Gerrit asked.

“Yep. I’m joining an adventuring group that’s already establishing themselves there. Big problems up in Barovia, so I hear.”

“What a coinky-dink, we’re going ourselves.”

“Huh.” The dwarf thought for a moment. “What’s a coinky-dink?”

Gerrit ignored that. “Care to travel together for a while?"

A voice from the tavern shouted something about let’s go get those mist-using monsters and maybe that dwarf too, followed by drunken cheers of encouragement.

“Sounds good,” the dwarf said as he started hustling for the crossroads. “Name’s Crickbourn.”

The road east out of Palervale was a rutted dirt road lined with thin underbrush and dark evergreen trees. The wind blew through the treetops and across the party’s backs. Leaves skipped along the road beneath the sky and the elf, the halfling, the dwarf and the panther walked for hours toward Barovia.

The sun began to set and the forest took on a sinister cast. The trees were dark shapes moving by them in the gloaming as they walked. A dim mist had begun to build on the ground and over lateral distance, adding to the melancholy flavor of the scenery. The crescent moon was climbing in the dusk sky.

Arianna shivered and wrapped her cloak around her shoulders.

The sun’s light was almost entirely gone when a noise came from up the road. The party stopped in the road and listened. Horses’ hooves and the turn of wheels. Through the trees, a red light could just be seen on the curving road ahead, coming closer.

Crickbourn licked his lips, looked around and darted into the underbrush. Gerrit turned to him. “What are you doing?”

“Uh. Hiding.” The dwarf hunched his shoulders behind a tree, partly from embarrassment.

Gerrit and Arianna stood on the side of the road and watched. The mist of the road was lit with a reddish light. A carriage came around the corner. It was led by two pitch black Vistani stallions wearing equally black blinders, bridles, and jutting feather headdresses. The carriage was an ornate, enclosed space with burgundy curtains. A red-glassed lantern hung from each front corner of the carriage. Somewhere off in the far distance, a wolf howled.

No one was driving the horses.

The carriage stopped on the road by the heroes and the horses stamped the ground. The door to the carriage opened. The inside was empty and lined with comfortable looking red silk cushions.

“That’s… creepy,” Gerrit said.

Crickbourn was peering out from behind his tree. “Are we supposed to get in?”

“I don’t think I want to get in that,” Arianna said, shaking her head.

“Um. Move on horsies. Get along now.” Gerrit waved his hands westward, trying to get the horses to move. They ignored him.

Arianna stepped up to the horses. “I think I can get them to go away.” She pushed aside one horse’s blinders and looked into its eyes, speaking softly, trying to establish a connection. She stopped and looked closely for a moment, then with a start jumped back from the horse. She clutched her robe around her and her face was aghast.

“What?” Crickbourn asked. “What’s wrong?”

“The eyes,” Arianna said. “They’re made of glass. They’re painted glass, like taxidermists use. Someone took out its eyes.”

Gerrit gasped. “Vennia preserve us. Did it listen, at least?”

“I don’t even know if they’re alive. I don’t want to try again.”

The howl came again from the woods- only this time, there were two wolves baying to the moon. They sounded closer. Crickbourn quickly ran back to the road from his place behind the tree.

“We should just keep walking,” Gerrit said. “How much further can it be to Barovia? We’re almost there, I think.” He looked up the road and was astonished to see that the thin mist they’d been walking through was now a thick fog that obscured the distance. Their vision only saw maybe a hundred feet into the mist. The trees were now mere shapes, gray against gray. “The fog is getting thicker.”

“It is,” Crickbourn said. “Maybe we should get in.”

“Nonsense, it’s only fog.” Gerrit walked up the road cautiously. The others watched him almost disappear into the mist.

In the mist, Gerrit was struck by something, and he couldn’t put a finger on it at all. In a moment it came to him- it was silent in the mist. No wind, no birds, no whisper of leaves in the trees. Barely his own footsteps beneath him, barely his own breathing. It was silent as the grave.

The further he walked, the more the fog thickened. Before long he couldn’t see his own hand at arm’s length before him. He turned back to the carriage and the others.

Arianna watched him melt from the fog on the road and saw a hunched shape following him, just over his shoulder. She called out “Gerrit, behind you!” The halfling quickly rolled to a kneel, facing the way he’d come. There was nothing there. He waited for a moment then rejoined the others.

“That fog’s too thick,” Gerrit said. “It plays tricks on you. I don’t think we should walk through it.”

“What are we going to do?” Crickbourn asked.

“I think we should camp here tonight.”

“We could get in the carriage. No mist in there.” The dwarf clearly was clutching to his sanity, surrounded as he was by mist-shrouded wilderness. His eyes bugged as he looked around.

Arianna said “I’d rather camp than get in that thing. Traveling will be better by daylight.”

The door to the carriage swung shut with a click. The horses began to trot off, west, into the mists. The red light faded and the heroes were alone in the road in the thick fog.

The howling came again and Crickbourn jumped. “That was close. Maybe five hundred feet off. How many did that sound like?”

“At least three,” Gerrit said. “And from different angles. They’re surrounding us.”

Jade was looking around, nearly panicked. Arianna petted her and said “They’re big. They’re also baying in a certain pattern… which means they’re hunting.”

“Damn,” Gerrit said. “Maybe we should have gotten in the carriage after all. This is bad.”

“We should climb a tree,” Crickbourn said. The others agreed before he was even done voicing the idea. They all climbed up the nearest tree. From here the ground was completely covered in mist.

The howls came from every direction. This time there were no fewer than six of the bestial voices, maybe a hundred feet away from the tree and circling.

Then, the red light began to dimly bloom again from the west. “The carriage!” Crickbourn cried. “It’s coming back!” The horses, seemingly undeterred by the wolves in the fog all around them, pulled up and stopped on the road.

Crickbourn said “I’m going, wherever that thing is headed has got to be safer than this.” He crawled out over the branch towards the roof of the carriage and slipped. He fell to the ground with a thud. More frightened than hurt, he scrambled to his feet and leaped into the carriage. He readied himself to close the door quickly if he saw a wolf and shouted “Are you coming? If so, hurry!”

Gerrit, Arianna and Jade ran out over the limb and landed on the roof with a thunk.

Something dark and obscured by mist circled the carriage from its place on the ground. “Immense,” Arianna murmured. “It’s fifteen feet long from nose to tailtip.” Another passed by it, circling in the opposite direction. The horses paid them no attention, and they ignored the horses in turn.

The heroes swung down into the cab of the carriage, and Jade jumped to the ground and then in. Crickbourn shut the door just as something lunged, rocking the carriage on its axles. Claws raked the wood of the door and the horses began moving. After all that silence, the movement of the wheels and the rocking of the cabin was a welcome change.

They settled back on the pillows and let the carriage take them wherever it would.

Coming up
CASTLE RAVENLOFT​

.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Session 2 - Chapter 2
CASTLE RAVENLOFT
Some text taken or paraphrased from EXPEDITION TO CASTLE RAVENLOFT​

The carriage moved oddly. At first it followed the dips and bumps of any road, and its passengers swayed inside with the motion. Then the carriage would tip as though it were driving along a hill. The party inside braced themselves against the side of the cabin. “We must be almost perpendicular to gravity’s pull,” Gerrit said. “How are we not tipping over?” The windows were obscured entirely by the curtains, but no one wanted to part them and look outside.

The carriage righted itself, but within moments they were climbing a steep hill. The horses didn’t seem to slow or register any strain.

At one point they were bracing themselves against the ceiling.

The cart slowed to a stop after about forty minutes’ time. Crickbourn was green from the rolling motion. The door opened and revealed that they’d left the mist and forest setting. The pale blue light of the moon was illuminating crags of rock.

Crickbourn leaned forward. “It looks like we’re in the mountains.” He looked out and to the road behind them. The carriage was stopped on a curving rocky path. He then turned to the front of the carriage. “Oh my.” He stepped out, staring.

“What is it?” Arianna asked. She and Gerrit got out, and Jade followed.

Castle Ravenloft towered before them.

Twin guardhouses of turreted stone kept a silent watch over the approach, broken from years of use and exposure. Beyond these, a wide chasm gaped between the Balinok cliffs and the walls of Ravenloft, disappearing into the fog-shrouded distance far below. The lowered drawbridge of old wooden beams hung precariously between them and the arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creaked in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stared at them from hollow sockets and grinned hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hung in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stood open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard.

“Vennia above,” Gerrit murmured. “What manner of man is this Count Strahd?”

Arianna pointed. “The moon! It’s grown full!” The full moon, thick and yellowish, hung in the sky behind Ravenloft’s main tower.

Crickbourn shrugged. “So?”

“The moon is and has been in its crescent phase. It’s not due to be a full moon until a fortnight hence. It’s larger than I’ve ever seen it.” The face the patterns on the moon made, what the elves called she-inside, was here taking on unfamiliar angles and strange casts. It didn’t look like a face anymore. Arianna didn’t like it. “Shall we go inside?”

“I don’t know that I trust this drawbridge,” Gerrit mumbled. The bridge looked to be ancient, rickety wood supported by two pockmarked iron beams. He tested its weight with one foot and it creaked audibly. Dust floated down into the unseen white abyss of the chasm. With a few minutes’ work they’d crossed the bridge using rope and a clever series of knots.

They walked through the archway. Here, thick fog swirled around in the darkened courtyard. Ahead, torch flames fluttered in the wind on each side of the keep’s open main doors. Warm light shone out from the doorway. Although windows and arrow slits were visible in the walls above them, no illumination was seen from within, barring the main entrance.

They walked cautiously into a small entry chamber. It was illuminated by flickers of fire in the mouths of two coiled stone dragons that formed an archway at the room’s far end. Their mouths directed the light in the adventurers’ direction, and the room beyond was dimly lit as well.

This small entryway opened into the castle atrium. Here, cobwebs hung from dust-covered columns supporting a great hall. Stone gargoyles squatted motionlessly on the edge of a balcony circling some twenty feet above the floor. Cracked and faded frescoes adorned the domed ceiling, nearly obliterated by centuries of decay. Two great bronze doors stood closed opposite the arched entry. To the left of the entry, a wide staircase climbed into darkness. The only lit passageway was the wide hall that opened to the right. The torches seemed to be forming a path.

The adventurers walked into the hallway. The torches ended on either side of a closed set of double doors. The carvings on the wooden doors were ornate designs of knights and great dragons with curved, frowning mouths.

Arianna put her hands to the bronze handles of the doors and pushed. The doors opened inward on a dimly lit dining room. Crystal sang in the gloom as great chandeliers hung overhead. Motes of light danced in glass and china on a great dining table, which was set for four places. At the head of the table, someone was seated with his back to them. The figure stood. His back was slightly hunched and draped with a fine black cape. His hair was pale gray, almost white, and it was combed back smoothly. The figure turned.

“Ahhhh. Welcome to my home.” He spoke in the thick accent of the region. His face was aged and friendly. Arianna placed him at perhaps seventy years old. The eyes crinkled as he smiled at them. “I am Count Strahd Von Zarovich. You must be Arianna. Ah but you are a vision. I see the family resemblance.”

The doors closed behind them with a click. Strahd gestured to the chairs. “Please, have a seat. I have prepared food and drink in anticipation of your coming.”

“Thank you, Count,” Arianna said, taking a seat and doing her best to maintain her dignity despite the unsettling room. “If you don’t mind, I had some questions.”

“Of course.” Strahd sat and smiled. “You wonder how I found you, and what our bond is.”
“Yes. Um. Firstly, though, I was wondering about the carriage. How did you know where to find us, and how does a carriage with no driver find its way?”

“Barovia is an old, strange land. We have many customs you would consider odd. I have many friends that keep me abreast of the goings-on on the road and elsewhere. News travels quickly. As to the carriage, the horses know their way.”
“Even without eyes,” Gerrit said.

Strahd smiled and went on. “I found you through my network of tellers. I have had feelers out amongst the islands and continents of this sea for some time, looking for my heir. Some weeks back I was told that my nephew’s baby girl had been found. You were taken from the land by your father and when your parents died, you came to rest at an orphanage in Ortil.” He waved a hand dismissively. “These details are unimportant. What is important is that now you have been found and can resume your throne.”

“Throne?” Arianna was distracted, despite the promise of wealth. She was born one hundred and sixty years ago. How old was this Count? He looked human. Mostly human, leastwise.

“Yes. The coffers of Castle Ravenloft have been overflowing for time immemorial, and I shall not live forever. I had feared that when I died, the castle might be overrun by scoundrels and unsavory types. Now, you are here and can assume your position.”

Gerrit was listening and studying the table. The food smelled delicious, but he didn’t dare try it. He cast a spell, surreptitiously, that allowed him to detect the poisons in the things around him. The wine glasses glowed a faint green, but the meat seemed alright. He dug in. Crickbourn saw his example and did the same.

Arianna went on. “Familial relations aside and begging your pardon, Count, but I’m not driven by material wealth. I appreciate the importance this castle must have to the Von Zaroviches, but I don’t know that I’d want to give up my life in Ortil and move here.”

“Oh, you shall. You will come to understand, one way or another, the pull that this castle and its charms can hold. I suspect that you will spend the rest of your life here.” He smiled again. “But before I can believe you are truly an heir to the castle, I must be absolutely certain that you are the child I sought. You will have to assert your devotion to Ravenloft.”

“Devotion? How?”

“Firstly, there is a matter of knowing, alchemically, that we are kin. It is a matter of… blood.” At this, the doors opened again and three black-robed men, thin of frame with large hoods hiding their features, walked in. One held up a pin and a small vial. “We shall need three drops of your blood,” Strahd explained. “My mages will study it and determine our true relation. With your consent.” The mages waited expectantly.

“You mean to take my blood.”

“Yes. Do you not have enough to spare?” Strahd chuckled to himself.

“Crickbourn,” Arianna said. “You’re familiar with the workings of alchemists, yes? Have you heard of any such process?”

Crickbourn shrugged. “It seems entirely likely. Alchemists are finding new uses for chemistry all the time. Determining family through blood doesn’t sound like a stretch at all, considering what alchemists these days are capable of.”

Arianna pressed her lips tightly together and considered. “I guess I don’t see the harm.” She stepped forward and the alchemists drew three drops of blood from her fingertip. Once they had what they needed, they hurried from the room.

“Excellent, Strahd said. “Now, to your familial duties. You are young and strong, are you not? I am old and frail. I can defend my home easily enough, but outside the walls of Castle Ravenloft I am almost meager. I am afraid there is a problem- a matter of some witches.”

“Witches?”

“Yes. Upstart black magic types. The foulest sort of people. They mean to drive me out or kill me and take Ravenloft as their own. To this end they’ve enacted a brilliant campaign of propaganda and muckraking.” He sat back unhappily. “They have turned my own people against me. The people of Barovia, my own good citizens, now believe I am some undead fiend and spit upon my offered hand. The witches have told them that their problems are my doing.”

“What are their troubles?”

“Ahh, there is a zombie plague about Barovia. The witches brought about some means for the dead to return to life. Each night, the people of Barovia quake in fear as the dead roam the streets. They blame me. They call me ‘the devil, Strahd’ and curse with my name. As the people turn against me, the witches can use them to help overthrow me.”

“This is all very unfortunate,” Arianna said, not certain she believed what she was hearing. “What is it that you’d like for us to do about it?”

“As a Von Zarovich, if my name is slandered, so is yours. I expect you to take personal offense… and with the gift of youth and power, retaliate. You will kill the witches. You will end the zombie plague. You will find something called ‘the Tome of Strahd’.”

“What is the Tome of Strahd?”

Strahd leaned back in the chair and gestured with disgust. “It is a nothing, a manufactured confection of lies that these vile monsters have used to turn the people against me. It is a book that I supposedly wrote. In it ‘I’ detail how I killed my own brother - unthinkable! – to woo his betrothed. After this I become some sort of undead beast. I’m unsure of the particulars. You can understand, I’m sure, why this has upset me so. I want you to first seek out Madam Eva, who will tell you where to find the book.”

“All right,” Arianna said as she took a bite of the steak. “What are we to do with it when we find it?”

Strahd smiled. “Why, destroy it, of course.”

Coming up
A RESTLESS NIGHT ​

.

 

[Richards]

I know this is a new gaming group, but have they gamed before? More importantly, do they know the backstory of Ravenloft and Count Strahd von Zarovich, or was this all new to them?

And again, excellent job on the writing front, although I can see where you'd be kind of frustrated at the players not "taking the hook" with the creepy carriage. Very evocative stuff. I think you've gone up a couple more levels in the Storyteller prestige class since I last read your works!

Johnathan

 

[Dr Midnight]

Oh, they game. They're not super crazy regular gamers, but they know a plot device when they see one. I like to think they were inside the characters, who actually didn't want to get in. I liked it, it made things interesting. I just hadn't expected to have to go that way.

On railroading, I don't like to do it... but Strahd's in control, and he's not having them NOT get in. They could have stayed out and fought whatever emerged from the woods and it'd have been fine, just... irritating. I'm used to players screwing up my plans and usually can improvise. Last weekend, though, I was feeling really incapable. Know that feeling when you've been staring at a monitor for hours and hours and your eyes almost feel like they're vibrating, you can't focus? That was happening to me. I almost felt drugged. Had a bad headache for the next two straight days.

Thanks for the writin' compliments Richards. I really haven't written much since the Knights, so I can't say I've kept in practice. I dunno.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Session 2 - Chapter 3
OVERNIGHT ACCOMODATIONS
Some text taken or paraphrased from EXPEDITION TO CASTLE RAVENLOFT​

The group walked down a dark hallway, led by Strahd, who was holding a candelabra. They came to a spiraling stone staircase that circled upwards into one of the towers of the castle. They walked up and up and up, passing cobwebs that swayed with their passing… but not with Strahd’s.

They were led to a large door that opened into a lavish guestroom. In this room a king-sized canopy bed was veiled in black with gold tassels. Two overstuffed chairs flanked a small table, upon which sat a decorative lamp. A closed door inscribed with decorative floral carvings occupied the east wall. The ceilings were maybe twenty feet high.

“Here we are,” Strahd said with his polite smile. “I apologize for lumping you all into one room, but I fear my other guest rooms are occupied.”

“They are?” Arianna asked. She recalled pulling up to the castle and seeing no lights anywhere but in the entry chamber.

“Just so. You are an adventuring group, though. You are used to all sharing the same quarters.”

Gerrit said “Crickbourn’s not really… one of us, in matter of fact. He was with us on the road when the carriage came and he came with us for safety.”

“Oh,” Strahd blinked. “I had no idea. Well, you are welcome just the same, noble Crickbourn.”

“That’s okay,” Crickbourn said as he unfurled his bedroll. “I probably wasn’t going to get to stay in a nice place like this tonight anyway.”

“Tonight, roam of the room freely but do not leave it. The castle is very old, and its corridors are not entirely safe without the right perspective. If you must leave the room for anything… don’t.” He bowed with a smile. “And now if you will pardon me, brave heroes and kind Arianna, I must visit my beloved.”

Crickbourn looked up sharply to the Count from his bedroll as Gerrit asked “Your… beloved?”

“Yes. The fair Ireena, who resides in Barovia. Her father has recently passed on, so she will be grateful of my coming. Ahh. Someday we are to be wed.”

Crickbourn said “Goodnight, Count.”

The Count looked to him and said “Yes. Goodnight.” The door clicked shut and a bolt slid home, barring them in.

Gerrit shook his head. “A guy his age, going after a girl young enough to have just recently had a living father… ‘get the fruit while it’s fresh’, eh, Count?”

Arianna sneered as she unpacked her satchel for the night. “That’s disgusting.”

“Hey, he’s your relative.”

The dwarf lay down and said “This is a different land, with different customs. It may seem odd to us but we must accept.”

“Ehh,” Gerrit said. He was investigating the room. He lifted the mattress. “Hey! I’ve found something!” He pulled out a thin silver ring and a journal of some sort. He read it briefly, flipping forward through the pages. “This belonged to some guy named ‘Harp’. Came to the castle forty years ago… because he was told he might be the last heir to Castle Ravenloft.”

Arianna paused and looked up. “That’s odd.”

“Yes it is,” Gerrit said, skimming ahead. “He was invited to the castle… held… not allowed to leave? Huh. This says Strahd was holding him captive, apparently while assuming control of Harp’s property in a distant land.”

“How does it end?” Arianna asked. Jade had hopped up onto the foot of the bed and was already snoring softly.

Gerrit cleared his throat and read. “It says ‘I cannot live any longer in this captive manner. The things I hear at night! The things I have seen! I will go mad if I don’t escape, even at the risk of death. I will attempt to flee the castle tomorrow. Dwinnea keep me safe, and may I see my wife again. –Harp.’ There’s nothing else.”

Arianna sat on the bed. “I wonder if he made it.”

“I’m sure he did,” Crickbourn said. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Gerrit tossed the journal on a nightstand and began to rummage through a closet. “I’m not really tired yet… this place is creepy. Hey, robes!” He began admiring simple black robes that were hung in the closet.

“You always are impressed by the most mundane things,” Arianna said, bemused.

The halfling had already forgotten the robes and was bracing himself in the closet, climbing up to the low ceiling. “I think I’ve found something.” He pulled and the panel in the ceiling swung down on a hinge. An extending steel ladder fell from its concealed position, threatening to make quite a racket, but Gerrit reached out quickly and caught it before its feet could clang to the floor. The corridor went straight up, the ladder disappearing into darkness.

Arianna walked over and even Crickbourn, who’d been sullen, showed interest. “Secret passage?” Arianna asked.

“Looks that way. Want to check it out?”

Crickbourn walked forward. “You hold the ladder steady, I’ll climb. I can see in the dark anyway.” He climbed and whispered “Looks like it goes up the rest of the way to the fourth floor.” Despite his best efforts to creep silently upward, he was a dwarf, and one who’d had a trying day. The ladder’s frame rattled slightly in its moorings. He got to the top and pushed gently upward on the hinged panel there, lifting his head only enough to see into the room.

Something pulled up on the trap door, exposing him completely. “Now!” someone yelled. Crickbourn gasped as two men in black robes, the blood mages of earlier in the evening, began to tip a large bubbling cauldron towards him. Above him, the third mage had opened the trap door while sitting on a sturdy table. The dwarf hadn’t been remotely quiet enough, and the alchemists had readied themselves for a trespasser.

The cauldron clunked down to its side and boiling, opaque, dark red liquid gushed out over the cobblestones toward the startled dwarf. He had only a moment before it hit… but luckily, a moment was all he needed. He called upon his magicks and summoned a seven-foot diameter sphere of energy that hovered in place around him. Its pearlescent surface resembled a soap bubble. It trapped the arm of the alchemist holding up the trapdoor firmly in its grasp.

The boiling liquid hit the bubble, splashing and covering it in its sticky red color. The bubble had acted as a ramp and the arm that was trapped in the bubble with Crickbourn clenched and spasmed from the pain of the burns. While the mages in the room began rushing about, looking for a way to help their trapped peer, Crickbourn waited for the liquid to subside.

“What the hell’s happening?” Arianna asked, running over.

“I have no idea… sounds like liquid sloshing up there,” Gerrit said. He was at the bottom of the bubble, looking for a way to climb up. “I heard voices shout ‘now’ and then Crickbourn cast a spell. Crickbourn, if you can cancel the spell, I can get up there and fight!”

Crickbourn let the spell go and climbed down as Gerrit hustled up around him, heading towards the room above... which was entirely dark now. Something above spoke, just above the passage, from the darkness. A spell struck Gerrit in the chest. Later, he could only describe the feeling as being “shot with a heart attack.” His hands crumpled into claws and he grimaced from the pain.

Gerrit began climbing down, now, quickly. He was a sitting duck in this corridor, and he’d be almost helpless above in the dark. He didn’t think he’d be able to take another hit like that.

As he neared the bottom, the feeling struck him again and he fell the rest of the way. He struck the cobbles of the floor hard and his spasming lungs wouldn’t let him breathe. Arianna pulled him back from the line of fire and shut the trapdoor, bracing it. As Gerrit began to cough, color came back into his cheeks. The other two waited for sounds, signs of the mages coming down to continue the attack. There was nothing until the door at the top of the shaft slammed shut.

“I think they’re done with us,” Arianna whispered.

“That’s good,” Gerrit wheezed from the floor, “because I’m done with them. They only hit me twice and just about finished me off.”

“The Count will hear about this for certain,” Arianna said. “We’re bound to be in trouble tomorrow.”

“Hell with him,” Gerrit said as he sat up. “We’re not captives, like this Harp was. We’re not children to be spanked. If he doesn’t like that we looked about, he’s free to kick us out.”

Crickbourn muttered “We should stop and do as the Count said. This exploring has only done us ill, as he’d hinted it would.”

“Yeah,” Gerrit said, healing his wounds with his holy power. “Let’s turn in. Jade, uh… guard that closet door. If anything starts coming through, meow loudly.”

Arianna positioned herself by the closet. “I’ll watch it. I don’t sleep anyway.” She sat down and watched the closet door as the others slept.

Gerrit tossed and turned all night. He was having the most awful nightmares.

Coming up
EPILOGUE: DISPLEASED ​

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