The Lightbringers' Expedition to Castle Ravenloft - updated 12/19
- Thread starter Dr Midnight
- Start date
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Session 4 - Chapter 1
ASHLYN OF THE LIGHTBRINGERS
ASHLYN OF THE LIGHTBRINGERS
“Thank you for your assistance,” the woman said as she helped Gerrit to his feet. “Urso is good for bringing you to me when he did.”
Gerrit shivered and did his best to shake the feeling of coming very close to undeath. “I assure you, we’re the ones that…” his sentence was cut off as he coughed up some blood.
“…are thankful,” Arianna said with a smile as she patted Gerrit’s back. “I’m Arianna and this is Gerrit.”
“Ashlyn,” the woman said with an aire of pride. “I’m a member of a group called here to fight the zombie scourge.”
Gerrit looked around. “Where is your group?”
“I’m afraid we separated. Two have gone on to investigate a lead in the search for the source of the infestation and we’re waiting for one to catch up from where we left. What of your group?”
Arianna blinked. “Our group? Oh, it’s just us.”
“A two-man adventuring team? You must be impressive.” Ashlyn raised an eyebrow.
“When not getting slammed into the dirt, maybe,” Gerrit laughed uncomfortably. “We do have another member lagging behind. Jade needs to be picked up.”
“Ahh yes,” Arianna said. “She’ll be getting nervous about now.”
Ashlyn held her hands up. “I beg you. Before you go, would you help me to hold the barricade while it’s repaired?” Behind her, the ruined barricade still burned, a small pile of blackened wooden bits. It’d not hold zombies back for long, that much was clear.
“Of course,” Arianna said. She extended a hand and water showered from her fingertips, extinguishing the dying fire in a matter of moments.
Ashlyn looked mournfully to the wood and said “It’s a shame about that barricade… not that your help wasn’t welcome, but we’ve used almost anything that isn’t nailed down. We’re running out of wood to build these barriers with.”
Gerrit thought for a moment. “Is there a blacksmith’s shop in town?”
Ashlyn replied “I believe so… but if there is, it’s not here in the barricaded area. We can’t get to it.”
“I can,” Gerrit said as he tapped his boots of striding and springing. “Have someone draw me a map.”
She listened for the groans of zombies and heard them. They came from all directions but the east… zombies still marched uselessly against the north, west and southern barricades. She couldn’t hear zombies from the east and somehow that was making things worse. Her pores were tightened and her hair tingled at the back of her neck. Her eyes searched the fog on the eastern road, looking for jerking humanoid forms.
The watching for them was worse than fighting them. Anxiety began to chafe her and she felt as though the moans she heard were getting louder, closer. She felt them closing in.
Something thumped next to Arianna, and she whirled, her bow already nocked and drawn.
Gerrit threw his hands up. “Whoa! Hey! Easy. Just me.”
“Sorry,” Arianna said she put away the bow. Her face flushed with embarrassment. “I think this place is getting to me.”
“The town?”
“The whole region. I don’t like it.”
“Well, cheer up. Here’s a present.” Gerrit upended his magical haversack and tables, chairs, benches, stools, boards, cabinets, curios, and shelves clattered out onto the cobbles. He shook the sack again and hammers and nails fell out. “With these we can nail the barricades together, making them stronger.”
“That’s a fine idea,” Ashlyn said as she came out with the townsfolk. The people were hard-beaten by circumstance, but they still managed to smile and nod at the two heroes for their contributions. A few introduced themselves. One asked Gerrit of the blacksmith, and Gerrit had to relay that he hadn’t seen anyone, but the door wasn’t smashed in. He might be holing up elsewhere. The man didn’t seem comforted.
Once the townspeople were off and running with the barricade repairs, Gerrit took to the roofs once more. He’d been budgeting his time and figured that he had ten minutes before his beacon of light spell wore off, giving him only that much time to find the building they’d left Jade in.
He traveled back to the area and began looking around. No shingles glowed in the mist. Gerrit quashed the feeling of panic and kept looking, hoping he’d only missed it. Nothing… and then, there, behind that smokestack. He leaped off in that direction.
Now to see if Jade was all right. They’d left her upstairs in a house where zombies were clawing at a barricade they’d left at the bottom of the stairs. They’d been gone longer than they’d hoped, leaving more chance for the zombies to burst through the blockage.
The sounds of the zombies from within the house seemed louder than before. Had they made it through? They were moaning and gnashing and stumbling around… but was the sound coming from the first or second floors?
The halfling took a breath and bent over the edge of the roof, looking into the window. Something came out of the darkness towards him… and licked his face. Jade was fine.
Gerrit dropped into the window and held his haversack open for the cat. She crawled in, fitting easily into the extradimensional space inside. Gerrit left the flap open for her peace of mind and began loping back over the rooftops toward the center of town.
Inside, the mood was still grim. The townsfolk had been under a zombie siege for days now and the cracks were showing in the patrons’ calm. A tall, bald barkeep polished and cleaned glasses over and over again, whether they needed it or not. He said nothing and stared straight ahead. A pair of gypsy men played a card game at a table and kept glancing around. Families were piled into the common room, taking up most of the floor space and huddling together for comfort. A man in soiled nobles’ clothing absently sipped wine from a goblet. His eyes were blank and his pinky finger was extended from the glass.
“I do that,” Arianna remarked as she passed.
The man looked up. “Huh?”
“The finger. I do that too, when I hold a drink.”
The man looked at how he was holding the glass. “I guess I didn’t know I did it at all,” he said in a thick barovian accent. “I never thought about it.” He managed a smile at Arianna. “You did a good job repelling the zombies. I was watching. You’re quite skilled with a bow.”
“Thank you,” Arianna smiled.
Gerrit rolled his eyes. His traveling companion could be quite a flirt when she wanted to, and this handsome nobleman fit the bill for her type.
The man gestured to the empty bench at the table. “Would you two care to sit down?”
“Not at all,” Arianna said as she sat. Jade curled up on the floor by the bench.
“I’ll get drinks,” Gerrit said, walking off to the bar. He muttered “I’ll need ‘em,” under his breath.
“I am Ismark the Lesser. It’s good to meet you.”
“Arianna, pleased, I’m sure.” She shook his hand daintily.
“So what are you doing in Barovia?”
“We’re here for the same reason Ashlyn is, I suppose. We came to fight the zombies… only been here for a day or so. How about you? Do you live here?”
“I do,” the man said sourly, swirling his wine in his glass. “We normally have fewer undead, this time of year.”
“What can you tell me about Count Strahd?”
The man looked shocked to hear the name come up in polite conversation. “That fiend? That devil? I can tell you he’s a murderous monster. I can tell you he’s responsible for all this.” He waved a hand about himself with a disgusted expression on his face. “A few months ago he tried to pay us a visit. I don’t know why. My father bravely stood up to him, using the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. Then the attacks began. Only recently came the zombies.”
Gerrit arrived with more drinks and sat down. Arianna took a healthy swig of some local Barovian ale and grimaced. “That’s stronger than I’d expected.”
“Is it strong?” Gerrit took a gulp himself and his face contorted. “Horf… yes it is.”
Arianna downed another draught and asked “So your father stood up to Strahd?”
“Yes. He was the burgomaster of Barovia… he’s dead now. Strahd’s doing, I’m certain. I don’t know how. His body lies these ten days and more in the family mansion. My sister remains with him, barricaded there against the walking dead. I don’t even know if she’s alright.”
“That’s terrible,” Arianna said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s fine. There’s naught else to speak of, these dark days.”
Gerrit said “Here’s to better days, then, eh?” They toasted and finished their glasses.
Arianna’s head swam. The ale had been quick to affect her, muddling her thoughts pleasantly. She grinned. “It’s really not so bad here… undead aside, it’s rather quaint. It’s far gloomier up at Castle Ravenloft.”
Gerrit froze. As the conversation and ambient noise in the tavern slowly died away to silence, Arianna became aware that everyone was staring at her. She realized the mistake she’d made and looked at her empty ale glass. She muttered to herself. “Damn it.”
Coming up
CAST OUT
CAST OUT
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Dr Midnight
Explorer
Session 4 - Chapter 2
CAST OUT
CAST OUT
“You’ve been to Ravenloft?” Ismark asked. Every eye was on Arianna.
The elf squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. “Um. Yes, but… it was just the first place we visited on Farplane.”
“It was?”
“Actually, uh, no… we passed through a town after calling at port. Palervale.”
The villagers jostled at this. “So,” Ismark continued. “You arrived from the south and still went first to Castle Ravenloft, when traveling there would take you through or past Barovia.”
Arianna shook her head and rubbed her temples. This wasn’t going well. “No. I mean yes, but it wasn’t our fault. A carriage came to us on the road and picked us up last night. It took us to the Castle.”
Someone in the back of the tavern gasped. Ismark seemed aghast. “You rode in the black carriage. You had business with the devil.”
“No! Strahd just wanted to talk to us, that’s all.”
Several of the villagers spat on the floor. Looking around, Ashlyn saw that the mood had quickly gone very dark. She leaned over the Gerrit. “Who is this Strahd? I’ve heard the villagers curse with the word- I thought it merely a local equivalent of the evil eye.”
Gerrit cleared his throat and spoke up. “What Arianna means to say is that we were taken to the castle beyond our control.”
“So Strahd wanted you there,” Ismark said with baleful eyes. “He has a purpose with you.”
“He sent us to fight the undead. That’s the truth. He sent us to fight the zombie scourge for his people.”
“His people?” Ismark and others stood up. “His people?? We, who have suffered under the thumb of that monster since time out of mind? His people?”
Gerrit held his hands up. “It’s not what you think.”
The bartender said “I think you’d best leave.” He looked at Ashlyn. “You too.”
The paladin blinked in surprise. “Me? I swear to you, I have no idea what’s going on! I don’t know this Strahd and I don’t know these two!”
“He seeks to subvert us with ill-meaning ‘heroes,’” Ismark told the crowd. “There is some darker purpose here.”
Ashlyn, Arianna, Gerrit and Jade walked out of the Blood on the Vine Tavern and were followed by a slowly stalking mob. Some had picked up pitchforks, others had torches.
The undead moaned from all around, beyond the barricades, hidden by mists. Arianna felt the first stirrings of panic again. “Where will we go?” she asked.
“Anywhere,” Ismark said. “Run back to your master and tell him we’ll not be so easily ground under his heel.”
The paladin, the cleric, the leopard and the ranger climbed over the barricade that led to the northwest road. No zombies were milling on the other side. They looked back at the townspeople and saw no pity there, so they turned back and began walking.
“We must find shelter soon,” Gerrit said. “The day is young but we’ve already done more fighting than we’d expected, and with stronger zombies than I’ve ever known. We must rest and replenish our magic.” His eyes searched the fog ahead, leery of moving shapes.
Ashlyn nodded. “We have several hours until nightfall. We just have to find a suitable building and hole up in it for the night. In the morning we can move on.”
Arianna asked “Where?”
“Well, two members of my group went on to the church at the end of this very road. That was three days past and I haven’t heard from them. It may be a good place to start. Or we can escape Barovia and find Madam Eva.”
“Madam Eva?”
“Yes,” Arianna said as they walked. “She’s reportedly a seer of hidden truths. She lives in a gypsy encampment to the west. The villagers seemed to think she’d be able to give us answers.”
Something shifted ahead and the adventurers stopped. A shape, then another, emerged from the fog. The zombies began groaning with dry, hungry throats as they advanced.
Gerrit looked around and spotted a door. It was hammered shut and the building looked secure. “Hold them off,” he said. “I can get this door open and we can block ourselves in for the night.”
There were four of the zombies now. Arianna said “hurry, then.” She drew her longbow and Ashlyn took out a crossbow, loading it with a glass-tipped bolt. Liquid sloshed inside the bolt’s bulb.
“What’s that?” Arianna asked.
“Alchemical flare bolt.”
“What does it do?”
Ashlyn fired at the closest zombie and the bulb shattered as it struck the chest. A reddish flame bloomed from the wound and the thing’s torso was on fire.
Arianna nodded as she began firing her arrows. “Nice. I might have to pick up some of those.”
Gerrit called upon Vennia to turn the undead from them. A pulse of white light shot from him and several of the zombies gurgled in fear and fled. Still more were melting from the fog, though… there were seven now.
Ashlyn dropped the crossbow and drew her longsword. She laid into the zombies and it became clear immediately just how much more effective a slashing weapon was against these creatures.
While the women fought, Gerrit ran to the door and slammed against it. The door was well secured. He spun and kicked it. Dust fell from the door’s jamb but the door itself barely budged.
Arianna fired arrow after arrow, and Jade ran amongst the zombies, slashing them and biting. “Hurry Gerrit, there are more coming!”
A zombie lurched forward and sunk his teeth into Ashlyn’s arm. She cried out and smashed the thing in the face with her pommel. She backed away as the zombies closed in.
Gerrit reared back and with a grunt planted his foot through the door’s crossbeams, smashing the door in. The group rushed through and then began pushing heavy pieces of furniture into the doorway, blocking the zombies’ entrance. The half-rotted arms reached through the barrier and clawed at the air.
Arianna sat in a chair and breathed. Outside, there must have been about two dozen zombies by now, each of them slamming at the walls, gray shadows through the windowpanes. There were more by the minute. After a while, she began singing to herself just to drown out the sounds of the groaning dead.
Next session
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
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Dr Midnight
Explorer
Man. Tonight's session... I've been called a RBDM before, whatever the hell that means, and I think tonight I topped myself.
[sblock]We had a new player tonight who's never played D&D before. She's a childhood friend of mine. She spent a couple of hours going over her new character and reading up on magic items to buy, getting excited.[sblock]She died in the surprise round of the first combat. I let her character die and I let her sit there for the rest of the game watching the others play.[/sblock][/sblock]
I don't deserve happiness.
[sblock]We had a new player tonight who's never played D&D before. She's a childhood friend of mine. She spent a couple of hours going over her new character and reading up on magic items to buy, getting excited.[sblock]She died in the surprise round of the first combat. I let her character die and I let her sit there for the rest of the game watching the others play.[/sblock][/sblock]
I don't deserve happiness.
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Looks that way. I promised her a better time next session and I can pretty much guarantee that.
[sblock]She's already rolled for reincarnate. She got... a troglodyte.[/sblock]
[sblock]She's already rolled for reincarnate. She got... a troglodyte.[/sblock]
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Session 5 - Chapter 1
REGROUPING
REGROUPING
The adventurers carefully secured the upstairs by barricading the staircase, this time with much greater care. A couch was tied securely to both posts of the stair’s banisters and the door remained blocked.
The second story was much like the first abandoned house they’d stayed in. They closed and shuttered the windows and tried to capture something of a cozy feel with their bedrolls laid head to foot in a triangle.
Jade was happily petted by all while Arianna and Gerrit answered Ashlyn’s questions. They didn’t see any reason to keep Ashlyn out of the loop- they immediately liked and trusted her more than the odd count. Ashlyn, who’d been alone in a strange place for days, was more than eager to socialize and feel like a peer instead of a scrutinized outsider for once.
They’d broken into the abandoned house just after noon, so there was a lot of time to fill before nightfall. The conversation went on and on.
Eventually, they fell asleep with a lantern burning for comfort.
Arianna sat up from her meditations with a reflexive snap. She clutched the bedroll’s blanket up to her chin as something large flapped against the shut window.
Gerrit said “What is that?” Its silhouette, as seen through the window’s shade, was like a giant bat with a misshapen body that seemed to have no arms, legs, tail or head.
Ashlyn shivered. “Those come around sometimes at night. I won’t tell you what they really look like. You’ll not sleep well.” She laughed, trying to lighten the mood.
The thing fluttered at the window for a few moments and flew off. Arianna released a sigh as it did. They all laid back down and tried to relax. They were almost asleep again when glass shattered at the other end of the house.
Immediately the three and Jade were on their feet, scrambling for their weapons. Jade snarled at the dark doorway. Gerrit picked up the lantern with one hand and walked forward, and Ashlyn followed with her sword.
They crept out of the room and onto the second story landing. The noises were coming from the north bedroom, with its door open just a crack. Something inside was moving. It shuffled about softly, crushing broken glass underfoot with polite crunches, and breathed through deep, rasping lungs. Gerrit peered through the crack and saw melted faces, all together in one tapestry of skin, leering in the moonlight. He signaled to the door and made a kicking motion. The others nodded.
Arianna, Gerrit and Ashlyn counted to three and burst into the room. Ashlyn stepped to the fore with a shout and her sword poised to strike.
The creature turned, held its hands up and screamed. It was a half-orc. Its forehead was plastered with sweat and its arms shook with strain and fright. It reached back and pulled out a greataxe that was shaped like a meat cleaver, brandishing it against the heroes. It wore grisly hide armor made of sewn-together faces of different kinds of monsters.
“Get back!” It yelled.
Ashlyn squinted and lowered her sword. “Toufghar?”
The half-orc blinked in surprise. “Ashlyn?”
Arianna loosened the slack on her bowstring. The two arrows nocked there remained ready to fire at a moment’s notice. “So you two have met.”
“Urso be praised,” Ashlyn laughed as she sheathed her sword. “This is Toufghar! He’s one of my adventuring party. You’re back! Where were you for three days?”
Toufghar, not yet over the shock of having things attack him from the darkness, continued to breathe heavily and look around the room with wild eyes. “I… I was looking for shelter from the vargouilles. I came in here and… hell, Ashlyn, I can’t believe it’s you.”
The paladin gestured to his great cleaver. “Put that silly looking thing away. Relax. This is Arianna and Gerrit.”
“And Jade,” Arianna added, tilting her head at the snarling black leopard.
“Pleased to meet you,” Gerrit said, holding out a hand.
Toufghar sheathed his cleaver and shook the halfling’s hand. “Toufghar, pleased to meetcha. Sorry about just crashing in here.”
Ashlyn asked again “Where were you? Where is Thendrick?”
“I don’t know. We got separated today, coming back. Got jumped by a group of zombies headed by three ghasts. He took off in one direction and I went in the other. I’ve been creeping around in the shadows like a thief all night, taking to the rooftops. Then I got a clutch of vargouilles after me, and I jumped in here. I was blocking up the window and in comes you guys.”
“Okay,” Ashlyn said, scrunching her eyebrows as she thought. “So… what happened when you went to the church?”
They walked Toufghar back to the room and gave him some fresh water from their skins. His nerves seemed shot and he talked at a good pace. “Um. We get there, right, and the priest guy is this crazy looking old man named Danovich. His robes are soiled and his eyes keep going all over the place. The church smelled awful. Anyway, he said that he was too busy preparing spells and prayers that would protect the village from the zombies and that we should go away. We said that we felt that the infection could be traced back to the church, and he got really angry. Said we couldn’t prove it. We left peacefully, but I think he was ready to fight. Guy was squirrelly. Cracked from the strain of dealing with the dead, I imagine.”
He took another swig and said “So we left. As we were coming back up the road, the undead hit us. When Thendrick ran off, it was in the church’s direction. I think he might be back there.”
Ashlyn nodded. “Okay. We’ll go get him first thing in the morning, as a group… but Toufghar, if this all happened today, what were you two doing this whole time? You’ve been gone for three days.”
Toufghar blinked again. “Three days? What? Ashlyn, we left this morning.” He thought for a moment. “Right? I think. Didn’t we?”
Ashlyn only stared back at him.
Toufghar leaned back in his chair and put a hand to his head. “Hell. What’s happened to me? Where have I been?”
Outside, bats hung from tree branches in the light of the moon. Their eyes glittered like drops of blood.
Coming up
DANOVICH
DANOVICH
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Dr Midnight
Explorer
Session 5 - Chapter 2
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
In the morning, the four adventurers and Jade collected their things and began discussing how they were going to move through the streets to the church.
“There’s maybe a hundred and fifty feet from here to the church, but it’s going to be a hard trip,” Gerrit said. “I don’t want to risk all of us moving over the rooftops, so I suggest that I cast that spell once more that makes us invisible to undead… leastwise to unintelligent undead. The more clever kinds may see us. This time? No one attacks anything. Anything.” Everyone nodded and Arianna turned a bit red.
With the spell cast, the group climbed over the barrier and out into the street. The sun was overcast through the mists and it was another pale, cheerless day. They began to walk through the streets, weaving past the zombies that lurched around them.
They reached a crossroads. At the intersection, a dead horse lay rotting in the street. It was almost rotted away, but a group of zombies were kneeling around it and feeding on handfuls of sickening brownish-black horse innards.
Arianna held her hand up and stopped the group. She stared at the zombies and made the motion to fall back. The group moved back up the street until the mists hid the intersection.
“What is it?” Ashlyn asked.
Arianna said “I don’t think those were zombies.”
“I saw it too,” Toufghar added. “Teeth like wolves. Eyes were shining. So?”
Gerrit thought for a second. “Sounds like ghouls. Good eyes, ‘anna. These may have a chance of spotting us, and thus attacking.”
“So how do we move to the church? These houses are tightly-packed, there aren’t alleyways to creep through. We’d have to circle way back around to find a throughway.”
The group discussed the problem for a bit and in the end decided to move as planned, as quietly as possible, keeping a ready eye on the ghouls.
They walked up the street. They stepped heel-to-toe, quiet on the cobblestones. They kept to the far side of the road from the horse carcass and passed it.
A ghoul looked up from its meal and stared straight at them. It didn’t move and it didn’t look away.
“Faster. Faster now,” Gerrit said nervously. The group upped the pace somewhat. The ghoul stood from the carcass and began to stalk slowly after them. Its disease-slicked lips drew back from its canine teeth and a line of drool stretched lazily down from its jaw.
The church was dead ahead, maybe fifty feet away. Gerrit broke into a sprint. “Run! We can make it!” They dashed madly for the church’s double doors. Behind them, the ghoul didn’t pursue. It had noticed that its companions weren’t coming as well, and as hungry as it was for fresh meat, it didn’t seem to think it alone could take down four well-armed adventurers and one enormous leopard. It hissed and trundled back to the horse.
Arianna, Gerrit, Toufghar, Ashlyn and Jade reached the church. A gray, sagging edifice of stone and wood stood atop a slight rise, on the very roots of the great pillarstone of the omnipresent castle. Light flickered through holes burned through the roof shingles, and the sound of hoarse chanting was audible within.
The adventurers burst into the church and leaned back against the doors as they shut, breathing heavily. Only now did they look around. The church interior was a shambles, with overturned and broken benches littering the dusty floor. A claw-scarred altar brooded at the far end of the church, directly north of a gaping hole in the rotten floorboards. A croaking voice coming from that same direction chanted the phrase of a nonsense prayer.
“Another lovely place,” Ashlyn muttered. Then, loudly, she called “Hello?”
A wild-haired man rose from behind the altar. His face was thin and pallid and his eyes bugged madly from his skull. He wore the stained robes of a priest of Bellethanne.
“Pardon our intrusion. We’ve come from-“
The priest trembled as he screamed “You can’t take my son from me!!” and cast a spell from a scroll he held in a knotted hand.
Ashlyn’s breath caught in her throat and her eyes rolled up into her head. She and Jade fell to the floor of the church with soft thumps. “No!” Arianna shouted.
Toufghar was first to react through the shock, and he began striding towards the man, hands outstretched. “Easy now,” the half-orc said. “You can see that we come in peace. There’s no call for attacking us.”
Doors behind him opened and the cramped hallway the others stood in was now filling with zombies from adjacent rooms. Gerrit began magically repelling the undead and Ashlyn plugged four arrows into a zombie’s head.
Toufghar, meanwhile, continued his steady walk toward the priest. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s talk.” The priest responded by gibbering something unintelligible and casting another spell at him. Toufghar felt his limbs lock up and his blood slow in his veins, then release. The spell hadn’t killed him… but it had been meant to.
The half-orc sneered and pulled his frost-rimed greataxe from his back. “You always say I should be more diplomatic, Thendrick,” he muttered to himself. “I gave it a shot.” He jumped up to the altar’s side and swept his cleaver through the priest’s midsection. Frozen blood cracked against the church’s wall. Toufghar swung again and the priest fell back, running to the hole in the floor, clutching his intestines to his gut.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, I won’t let them take you I won’t-“ and the man jumped down into the darkness.
Arianna and Gerrit finished off the remaining zombies without too much of a problem. Arianna kept her bow trained on the hole in the floor as Gerrit knelt to study Jade and Ashlyn. “They’re dead,” he said softly.
“Dead? No.” Arianna shook her head, unwilling to believe that her cat may have left her.
“I’m afraid so. I can’t raise them. Can you do anything?”
“I can reincarnate them, but not until tomorrow.”
“Hell,” Gerrit murmured. “They might not even come back right.”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Only other option would be taking them to the nearest holy man, and we can already see that that’s not going to work here in Barovia.”
“Good point. What do we do about the priest, do we go down after him?”
Arianna stepped up to the edge of the hole and looked down. Her keen elven vision pushed the shadows aside, somewhat, and she saw the bottom halves of the priest and… something else. The priest seemed to be whispering to the half-seen thing, which had arms too long for its body. It swayed on its feet and its skin was jaundiced and tight. Other things shambled about down there. The priest leaned forward and, it seemed, hugged the creature he stood before. The thing raised its clawed hands up and hugged him back, tearing slightly at the flesh on the holy man’s back. Arianna recoiled from the hole in loathing. “No, he’s got company down there. He’s in league with the dead. I don’t think we should go down.”
“We can’t not go down,” Toufghar said angrily as he returned from a cursory exploration of the church. “Thendrick’s not up here. He might be down there, still alive.”
“It might be suicide. We should wait until we have Ashlyn back.”
“He might not have that long.” Toufghar cursed and kneeled by a trapdoor. He opened it and a set of wooden stairs led down into the darkness. Whispers and shuffling ceased from below.
Everything was silent in the cellar of the blasphemed church. Toufghar looked to the stairs, wondering if he should go down. Below, horrible things looked to the stairs, hoping he would.
Next session
MIDNIGHT MASS
MIDNIGHT MASS
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