Synopsis
After a long rest, Glim has copied some spells and tells us that Vilnius’ amulet is a control device for another magic item: a Shield Guardian. Very intriguing.
We move out to explore the eastern half of the temple. We try to keep the golem guardian from causing us trouble, but closed doors appear to be no impediment for it. We defeat it before it cause cause any of us serious harm.
We examine the room Vilnius had been in, which turns out to be an auditorium as he described. We move on and check the golem’s area, but find no secrets there either.
While examining the vandalised shrine, Cereus discovers a secret door and Cali opens it. It leads down to another sarcophagi room, this one full of some repugnant undead. As we begin to engage them, Glim surprises us all by becoming a teleporting-ninja-powerhouse! She drops all of the remaining undead in a single attack combo.
We examine the sarcophagi. “Drizlash the Nine Eyed Spider; Dahlver-nar, He of Many Teeth; and Zantras the King Maker.” Kasimir is unimpressed by their offers, and we move on.
We head back to the main room and explore behind the big statue. We find another secret door, this one leading up to a large library. The books all have blank pages and spines, which is very strange. Stairs lead down to a lower room, and there we alert six vampire spawn left in crates around the room. After destroying them, we examine the three sarcophagi around this room. We learn that the three sarcophagi offer the “Dark Gift of Vampyr”, the “Dark Gift of Tenebrous”, and “Dark Gift of Zhudun, the Corpse Star.” Kasimir recoils in horror from the first two, but finally finds his goal at the third. He accepts the offer, and is immediately transformed into the hideous visage of a corpse. He still lives, but he bears the appearance of death.
Here we end the session.
The Goings On
We successfully take a long rest in the barbarian room, upstairs. Glimmerald copies spells while Cereus reads from his book of wisdom.
Glim casts identify on Vilnius’s amulet. This is a two-part device, she says. We haven’t seen the second part yet, but it’s used to control the second half.
Lucy has a dream while sleeping: She wakes with a vague recollection of a female voice saying something over and over. “I knew you’d come around. Now come east and down and east and south and east. I knew you’d come around. I knew you’d come around.”
We decide to tackle the upstairs eastern corridor. We gather in the hole room, with the northern door ajar. Cereus sneaks down the corridor to shut the far door. He sees no sign of the golem. As he approaches the northern door, he hears a couple of heavy footsteps then nothing. He peers through the crack in the door. The room beyond has collapsed partly. A cracked-amber statue of a jackal-headed warrior stands looking vaguely toward the doors he’s behind. He silently pulls both doors shut.
He then returns to us, and we try to move stealthily down the hallway together. Just before the side door, we decide to test whether or not the golem can hear or reach us with the doors closed. Luccaria casts booming blade. Shortly after, we hear thunderous footsteps and the northern doors swing open. The golem rushes toward us!
We hold our ground in the hallway, loosing attacks as it approaches and then reaches us. Turk flies into a rage, stabbing it brutally. Cereus nails it with deadly arrows. It uses magical powers to try to slow us down, but only Kasimir is affected. He launches some slovenly magical missiles. Glim launches a fireball, encompassing the brute. He’s in very hard shape. Luccaria slips around behind him and drops him with a lucky blow.
We open the side door. As Vilnius described it, it appears to be a large auditorium. A big slab of obsidian is on the far wall: a chalkboard! We find no secrets here. We move on to the golem’s area. We find no secrets there, either. We move out onto the balcony.
Two amber doors off the balcony stand open. We move into the desecrated temple. There’s a foyer to the east and doors to the west. Candlesticks are knocked over on the floor. Fragments of a shattered obsidian statue are in an alcove to the east. Empty alcoves line the north and south walls of the shrine. Lucy tries to reassemble the statue a little to get a sense of who it might depict. It was probably like the big one in the main temple area… a faceless figure.
Cereus and Cali search the room, and Cereus finds a secret door! Turk tells him to stand back and let a real man open it. She kicks it a couple of times, but to no success. Cali figures out how to open it using her brain, and it opens to her touch. Given Turk’s temperament, this is a light moment.
Beyond, the hallway reeks of the stench of death. It goes north and turns east. Stairs descend and we follow them down.
Below, the hall is rubble-strewn with one side collapsed. Ahead of us is an open amber door, and beyond we see another room of sarcophagi!
The room has amber glazed walls and green flooring. In the room are two walking female corpses with ghastly gray skin and three eyes each. Their third eyes are in the center of their foreheads, and each are glazed over with cataracts.
Cereus drops one immediately, and Cali finishes off the second with some harsh words. Suddenly, three more of them scramble from shadows, along the ceiling, and out into the hallway above us! They drop and pounce on Cereus, Kasimir and Cali. Two more drop down from the ceiling in the room! Suddenly and unexpectedly, Glimmerald begins to teleport from one creature to another, severing their wretched throats with her tiny dagger in the blink of an eye! When she’s done, she’s back in the hallway next to Cali, and all of the creatures are dead! What the hell?! Glim’s a ninja?!
Kasimir is only shocked for a moment before he steps into the room. “Hmm, peculiar,” he says, touching the first. “Intriguing,” touching the second. He touches the last one and looks in the direction of Cali. “You might find it interesting?” Lucy checks out the three. “I am Drizlash the Nine Eyed Spider. Mortals like you always limited to the ground. You expect to expand your horizon to the walls? The power is here for you to take, you only need to reach for it.” She touches the second. “Greetings mortal, I am Dahlver-nar, He of Many Teeth. How many lives have you lived? Oh, I see, I can feel your lifeline. It’s just the one and no more? No, waiit, this one is special. A second life. A taste of immortality you’ve had. But I can offer you a gift. Yet more immortality to be had.” What form does this immortality take? “More lives than one.” Does your power grant anything else? “Like what?” Like the power to drink the blood of the living? “What? No, begone!” She moves to the third one. “I am known as Zantras the King Maker. Named such because I can give you the aura of a king. If you accept, never again will you succumb to others.Your will will supercede all others.”
We search the area and the bodies, but find no treasure.
We move back up and down to the other parts of the upper floor. Behind the giant statue, Cali finds a secret door! Through it is a set of stairs heading up. At the top, we find another secret door and behind that is a very large room!
This stone library has 20 foot high walls and a 30 foot high vaulted ceiling. Frescoes show angels being set afire in hell. In the center is a circular cut out and circular stairs leading down. On the shelves are hundreds of well-preserved tomes. Embroidered rugs, chairs, and lit candelabras fill the southern part of the room. The shelves are 10 feet high.
We move in and begin looking around. Lucy moves to the top of the staircase where she finds black marble railing on the stairs. The chamber below is unlit, and there’s nothing at the bottom to see.
Glim sends Alabaster downstairs. The room below is shaped more east-west. There are no furnishings, but six wooden crates are spread along the southern portion of the room. There are three alcoves, each with an amber sarcophagi. In the southeast corner there’s a fissure in the wall, similar to the damage in the barbarian room. Perhaps the same earthquake caused this damage? Glim tells us that it’s safe for now.
Kasimir pulls a book off the shelf and says, “What the shit?” He pulls another one off, and says, “What kind of library is this?” All the books have nothing written on the spines. They’re different shapes, sizes and colours, but all contain only blank pages. What the…
Glim tries to find out if the writing is in invisible ink or something similar. She’s unsuccessful in determining what, if anything, might be written in them. Perhaps this is a little “god of secrets” humour… nothing of true value is ever so easily obtainable.
She says we should check downstairs now. As we head down, Turk makes a bit too much noise and the crates arrayed around the room burst open, revealing six vampire spawn! Lucy rushes into one of the clusters of three, and engages. Ireena’s radiant sword causes them to hiss. One rushes over underneath the stairs. Turk stabs one next to Lucy a couple of times, dropping it, shouts “That’s how you fucking do it, bitch!” and then jogs over to the one under the stairs. Another one moves under the stairs, dragging Turk under with it.
Cereus tries to plug one under the stairs with an arrow, but accidentally strikes Turk instead! The raging woman barely notices the scratch. The second arrow strikes a vampire spawn, happily.
Ireena pulls out the Symbol of Ravenkind, and tries to paralyze one of the vamps. Glim says, “Oh, it’s too late for you, dear,” and the creature seizes up under the holy symbol’s power. She rushes down the stairs, her sword burning the vampires’ skin.
Cali’s mocking words hurt the vampires’ feelings, but they rally their self-worth. Glimmerald once again becomes a gnome ninja, nearly dropping all three spawn that she hits with her brutal strikes, especially the paralyzed one.
As we are finishing off the last of the spawn, one tries to flee through the crevice but Turk finishes him before he can escape.
The golden, marble staircase lines the north part of the room, and artwork is found around the area. There are tall, rough blocks of amber in the east, south, and west alcoves; what we call the sarcophagi. There are also some shattered pieces of amber around.
Kasimir rushes to the eastern sarcophagus, and recoils in horror. He touches the south, and again recoils in horror. He turns and looks in the direction of Glim, “Stay away, stay away.” At the east one, he touches it and says, “At long last. I accept.” When he does, something peculiar happens. His skin goes completely grayish, a little motley and bruised. He looks dead. He’s still standing, walking and moving, but his body now looks like a corpse. He looks perplexed.
Lucy touches the west one. “So you come here seeking the ancient power source which brought Count Strahd Von Zarovich to where he stands. It is curious you are that interested in acquiring what he has. Are you trying to fight fire with fire? You must know this gift is not free to take, like so many others in this place. No, there is a price. The price is blood, flowing red and fresh from a recent kill. But not just any blood. It must be the blood of one who loves or reveres you, slain by your hand. If you drink that blood the deal is sealed. Or else… your own blood shall suffice, as long as you’re slain by hateful enemies. Only then shall you achieve the glory of immortality.” This is what sealed the pact for Strahd… he killed his brother, and was killed by the guards who now hated him. “Dark Gift of Vampyre”
Glim touches the south one. “I will exclusively converse with sentient beings educated in the arts of magic. Nothing else interests me more, and you should feel the same. There’s not enough time in a life time to unravel all the secrets hiding in the weave… What’s that? I can hear your thoughts, did you know? I can hear your lament, you’ll never be able to know and learn everything. You are mortal and shall never know all arcane secrets. But there is a way to abandon mortaldom and advance. A way to achieve immortality. A secret way to hide one’s soul away from the body in order to protect it. I can feel your knowledge of magic is very far from achieving this goal, you are not useful to me. But I feel potential. I’ll give you the secret, the arcane recipe. The rest is all on you, maybe some day you’ll come back and thank me, just like Exethanter did. But you are not yet ready…” This is the “Dark Gift of Tenebrous”.
Ireena checks the east. “You’re searching for power. Like others, power over life and death. Death is a veil which surrounds the soul. If you want to take it away, you have to take it yourself. Just enough to take one very important decision.” This gift is “Remove the Veil of Death From One.” It seems that you can bring one person back to life, but at the cost of taking on the appearance of death. It’s a high cost to pay, but Kasimir has been single-minded on this matter and it seems likely that he will live out his days in exile once he restores his sister.
Here we end the session.
Long Nights in Barovia 