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Amber and Fire

Curse of Strahd
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Session 56 – 2022-04-23

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Session Summary

As we start, Kyanna is stunned from a hit by the Amber Golem. Misty drags her out of the way. The Golem steps forward and bashes Dain. Ezmerelda hides. Zanfyr turns into a giant snapping turtle and makes a nice bite attack on it. Snoggly moves to the back of the room, casting Magic Weapon on Haldar’s bow on the way by and then he transforms into a gorilla. Haldar attacks with his new magicfied bow. Rinn casts Shadow Blade and moves in behind the Golem and attacks. Kyanna is still stunned, Ezmerelda casts Magic Missile at the Golem. We beat on it pretty good for a while and eventually take it down. When it dies, it crumbles. A couple of us took a lot of damage. There are six major piles of treasure in this room.

Rinn casts Identify on the Sunsword which identifies as a Sun Blade. It’s a long sword and you must atune to it. There was a discussion, while we try to figure out who should wield it. After much discussion, realizing that if Dain took it, we would lose the Hornguards sword in battle. It’s a plus 2 greatsword and we don’t wanbt to takew it out of the fight. There were reasons why others couldn’t take the weapon. Turns out that Rinn is the one who will atune to it and he does.  While Rinn is atuning to it, Misty gets curious at all the shiny things in here and starts looking around at it. She sees a Gilded Skull with Red Gems for Eyes and some books. Using her staff, she flips open a book and reads the title, “Snow Dwarf and the Seven Wights”. She looks more closely at the skull and intrigued, uses the staff to push it around to get a better look at it. 

Misty then digs around in her bag and pulls out a shrunken skull she picked up earlier. She starts trying to rationalize a swap. The gorilla in the room starts making a lot of ape noises trying to get her not to take it but she doesn’t understand ape speak. Dain is alerted by all the noise and comes over to see what she’s doing and tries to convince her not to risk it. She really wants to but after a little conversation, and a promise that once Strahd is dealt with, then we’ll come back and clean this place out, destroying the evil within, and ending its powerful hold over the area. Ezmerelda proceeds to remind us that this place is very powerful. This is the place that made Strahd. That brought Dain around to the heart of his decision. This place made Strahd, if we don’t destroy the evil within, the world will face Strahd again, perhaps a different entity, but a Strahd, none the less. 

This is around the time we noticed that Kassamir is missing. We had heard a scream to the south and decided that it might have been he who screamed. Ezmerelda thinks it was South/Southeast. Rinn sneaks through the back tunnel leading out of the north side of the room to see if there is anything up there we need to know about. As he approaches the next room, he sees a golden marble staircase with a black marble railing leading up along the north wall, 6 rotting wooden crates. The amber covered walls are sculpted to look like tentacles entwined around marble bas-reliefs of kings, pharaohs, and sultans, attended by a myriad of slaves. There are alcoves in the walls with giant blocks of amber. Rinn backs out and is concerned about it being the room that Snoggly and Zanfyr were teleported to. They had run into 6 boxes with vampires in them as the story goes. Snoggly goes in to check and returns with a, “Yes, it’s the room we were in.”. 

We decide to look for Kassamir chasing down the sound of the screams to the south. We exit that room and go out into the main chamber. Rinn hears a voice in his head saying, “Thief! Robber!”. Rinn speaks outloud to the voice saying, “We are still in the temple, it is still in the temple. I still hope you’ll grant us permission to take this with us but in the meantime, we will be exploring the temple and may need this to defend ourselves. Right about then is when 4 fireballs converged on him. Three from arrow slits in the western upper deck and one from the main statue. Everyone else hears the voice in their heads, “Thief! Robber! Liar!”. Rinn takes 54 points of damage from that and amazingly remains upright. Rinn darts back to the chamber and throws the Sun Sword back on the pile. 

Snoggly asks the Guardian, “What do we have to do to be given the sword, cause we have to have it to destroy Strahd.”. It responds with the canned answer, “You shall have safe passage in this place as long as you don’t take anything that is not freely given!”. He does add that, “I care not about the affairs of Strahd Von Zarovich!”. Snoggly asks,”Who is the person to freely give us this sword? We’d like to talk with him!”. The voice says, “That is for you to discover!”. Snoggly said, “Crap! So we’ll have to go wondering about this place!”. Zanfyr brings up what he had said earlier, that we would likely have to go through this place, exploring, until we find whoever will give us this sword.”. Agreed, but Rinn points out that he’d hoped we could use it while we were here, as-long-as it’s still in the temple, it has not been stolen, but that is not apparently what the guardian meant. He meant taking possession of the sword violated this rule and caused the attack to happen. There is some healing done and we prepare to explore the rest of the temple.

Again, we start looking for (Dobbler Head) Kassamir and when we get near the eastern archway, decide that the screams might have come from there. Rinn sneaks into that room and looks around, not seeing anyone. The walls and ceilings are coated with amber with amber doors leading from the hall from multiple points. Misty looks back at the main statue to see if it’s following our movement or is it standing still facing forward, she also doesn’t remember examining it. She investigates the back and sides of it, looking for any compartments or if it is moveable. She doesn’t find anything. In the chamber that Rinn is checking out, he spots footprints in the dust leading to the southernmost door in the chamber. The door to that room stands partially open. Rinn moves through the chamber on his way to the southern door. There is a smell of rot and garbage in the air.  

Rinn checks the door and then uses his mage hand to open the door. Looking in, we see a room with walls of glazed amber, a floor of red marble, and Dain sees a roughhewn shaft in the center of a 10-foot-high ceiling. Three amber sarcophagi rest in three alcoves and there is a body on the ground in from of one of the sarcophagi. It looks like Kassamir. Dain approaches and see’s that he is unconscious and his skin is pale but he does appear to be alive. Haldar steps in and pours water on him. He suddenly wakens much like Kynna and Rinn have each done, with a terrifying scream. He pushes away from us in a panic then seems to recognize us and turns around and throws up! After a moment, he starts to compose himself and says, “It is done, I know how to bring back Patrina now. We need only find her!”. Dain asks, “How exactly do we bring back Patrina now?”. He tells us that he has been granted the power. He looks at the sarcophagus and tells us that, “It called for me! The power within. It has spoken to me many times, and all the more since we arrived. The voice was familiar.”.  Once we came down here, it was so strong, I came this way. I knew this place was the key to Patrina’s redemption.”. We can see that he is happier than we’ve ever seen him. He tells us that this place holds many such gifts to be freely given. Then looks up as if looking to a deity saying, “I am coming for you Patrina, what is done will be undone!”. 

He stands up and looks pale. Snoggly asks, “Who exactly gave you this gift!”. He turns around and looks at the sarcophagus and says, “Her name is Fekre!”. We asked and he told us the sarcophagus never opened. We need only touch it to communicate with Fekre! Then he invited us to do so. Dain says, he will not touch it. Snoggly suggest that Dain check Kassamir to see if he possesses any evil or  fragment of undeath as Kyanna possessed after her experience with death in this place. He casts divine sense and can sense evil all around but not specifically from Kassamir. The evil he senses though does cause Dain to puke as well.  When asked why he came to this sarcophagus, he said it called to him. He said he had heard Fekre’s voice many times before but didn’t know her name. 

Snoggly asked Rinn if he has been hearing anything. Rinn says he hasn’t. He kind of expects to but he has heard nothing so far. Snoggly then asks Kyanna if she is hearing anything. She hasn’t been hearing anything either. Snoggly calls to it to see if it responds. It does not. He moves to inspect another one of the sarcophagi without touching it. It’s a rough block of amber about 8 feet tall, 5 feet wide and 5 feet thick. There doesn’t appear to be a lid or door on it. When he looks at it closely, he sees an area inside it that is a dark, misshapen, blob that is about the equivalent of a 1-foot diameter area. Snoggly uses his staff to poke at it but it’s just a solid block of amber and just strikes it. There is nothing written on it or around it. Snoggly tries to cast a light spell on the dark area inside it but realizes he’d have to touch the stone to do it. He doesn’t want to touch it. Rinn tried to cast a dancing lights spell inside it but that didn’t work either. We stopped for a bathroom break.

We get into a conversation with Kassamir about what he’d have to do to bring back his sister. He says that if he can touch her, he has the power to bring her back. Snoggly asks, “Anybody?” to which Kassamir thought for a moment and said, yes, he believed he could bring back anybody. Dain asked, more than one person or one time? This left Kassamir a little confused. He’s not sure that if he were to use it to save one of us, would he still be able to use it to save her. Then Dain started questioning why they gave him this gift, what was the price of it. He says it was freely given to him. He feels fine though so it doesn’t feel like anything was taken in trade for the gift.

Kyanna noticed that not only is he somewhat pale, he seems a little bigger, a little burlier, a little tougher, and maybe even a little heavier. She turns to Snoggly and asks, “Does Kassamir look bigger to you?”.  Snoggly doesn’t seem to notice anything different about him. We decide to move on. Rinn checks the next door back in the chamber outside that room for a trap and can’t find anything. There is no mechanism for opening the door from this side. Dain steps up and smashes the door with a Warhammer. He makes a lot of noise in the process. The door, upon collapsing, releases a cloud of black energy. It dishes out a lot of necrotic damage, mostly to Dain and Rinn but everyone took a little damage. 

This next room as three amber coated walls with a blue marble floor and three amber sarcophagi, standing in alcoves around the room. Kyanna notices a greenish glow to the south. She makes a quick reaction and grabs Haldar and pulls him away shouting, “Creature in the room to the south, Flame Skull!”. About that time a fireball goes off. Everyone but Haldar and Kyanna are hit. Rinn makes a move to put some distance between he and the Flame Skull fires at it. Misty moves into the room and attacks it. She also sees that another one is coming down through the ceiling. She calls out that there is another one coming in. She does a lot of damage and then Haldar fires on it and ends it. Ezmerelda moves into the room with Misty and sees the other Flame Skull coming into the room and sends a lightening bolt at it. It hits but doesn’t kill it. Snoggly remembers that there is something we still have to do to stop the flame skulls from coming back to life. We have to use holy water on them. He shouts that out as we move into the room and casts a magic missile on the new skull approaching. 

Zanfyr drops turtle form and holds an action to take a bow shot at it. Kassamir moves to a spot and holds his action, looking for something to fire on. A fireball erupts in the room catching everyone on there. The Flame Skull drops into the room and those holding their action fire and kill it. Kyanna comes into the room and sprinkles holy water on one of the two that are down. Another Flame Skull comes from the back archway and another fireball goes off. We take care of that one as well Rinn hid after his shot. Dain moves back and fires two crossbow shots and misses. Zanfyr moves to a good vantage point and also misses. Misty opens a can of whoop-ass on it and looks through the archway and doesn’t see anything else coming. We discuss where we can go to rest but there doesn’t seem to be a good location for that. Rinn asks Ezmerelda if the shaft in the southern room where she is still standing is clear. She says it is clear and points out that it looks like there’s another room up there. Rinn wants to check that door and see how the mechanism works. There was some last minute healing and the game stopped here.