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Eh...Ex...Exe...Exeth

Curse of Strahd
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Session 59 – 2022-05-15

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Session Summary

We start in the battle we left off of last week. Six vampires were out, one was down and another was severely injured while three others were paralyzed due to the Holy Symbol of Raven Kind. We continued that battle. Pretty quickly Misty took out another one. David meta gamed Dain as he provided Rinn with benefits by positioning Dain to give Rinn advantage. Zanfyr attacked with a bite in Hell Hound form and killed it. Rinn put one down. There was another Fireball along the way and Haldar surrendered as usual but we won. The only real damage was a bite against Misty where she became paler. Her hit point max was reduced as well. Kyanna healed everyone but Misty is still down 21 points to her max. During a discussion, Zanfyr seemed to remember that once you had a good rest, this would recover. Haldar staked all of the vampires. 

After searching the room, Haldar didn’t find anything useful. It was decided that we should proceed up the back stairs. Rinn moved up them carefully checking for traps. As he reached the top of the stairs, he saw a stone library with twenty-foot-high walls and a ceiling that sports a fresco depicting angels being set ablaze in hell. In the north half of the room are hundreds of well-preserved books on black marble bookcases. In the southern part of the room are embroidered rugs, chairs, and lit candelabras. In the center of the room is a decrepit skeleton clad in tattered robes. Pinpoints of red light burn in the skeletons eye sockets. 

He was looking at Rinn and he spoke in a gravelly voice and said, “Do I know you?”. Rinn replied, “We do not know each other as we’ve never met before.”. This creature, even though it looked like a skeleton, exuded a tremendous amount of power and the fact that it was talking to Rinn was not how undead creatures, such as this, should behave. He replied, “I am called Exethan..Exeth…Ex…Ex…, I do not know my name!”. Rinn throws out the name Exethanter but that doesn’t appear to illicit a response. He finally asked who Rinn wa and Rinn gave him his name. Rinn asked if he would allow the rest of our party to come up and visit. He said, “Come!”. Rinn continued up into the room. The rest started to come up as well. In the discussions, he asked us if we’ve seen his book. He describes the book as heavy, large, and it has writing in ink that is the same color as, took a while to remember the right word, “Grass, the color of grass.”, and it’s wrapped in leather. Rinn thought back to the book we saw in the treasure room but it didn’t have grass colored writing in it.

Snoggly asked what the book was. The skeleton said that it was very important and had the word “Incants” on it. Misty, Snoggly, Haldar, Kyanna, and Dain searched the books on the bookshelf while Rinn went back to the treasure room, he remembered that there were books on the treasure piles. While we searched the bookcases, the skeleton looked up above where Ezmerelda and Kassamir were standing and said, “Who is that?”. Most of us turned to look where he was looking and saw nothing. At one point he asked, “Is he with you?”. And then he followed that up with, “Hello there strange creature!”. Then he bid the creature “Goodbye then!”. None of us saw anything. 

As we looked at some of the books that seem to be potentially the one he is looking for, we opened them to find no writing. Dain took one of these books to the skeletal figure and told him that we don’t see anything written there. Can he see anything? Seeing Dain more closely, he started questioning him about being a dwarf. Using the David Bogazan interview method, he began quizzing Dain. As the Skeleton looked at the book, he commented on the fact that it was blank. He suggested that maybe if he had his book, he would be able to make the writing show in the other books.

Haldar moved deeper into the room and searched under the table. The skeleton creature saw Haldar and began the same interview process with him. Under the table, Haldar found a piece of crumpled, almost rotted, paper. He carefully opened to find it was handwritten with very poor penmanship making it hard to decipher what it said. It wa written in the Common tongue. The paper is dirty and has been there for quite a while. He tried to read it and made out a couple of words. The word “maggots” appeared on there and the first word was “I”. Finally, maybe the word “mind” for “mind maggots”. Haldar offered it for someone else to look. Snoggly was able to read it. It said, “I can feel the rot of my mind progressing like the decay of crawler maggots. I must locate the final ingredient of the potion. Its creation is beyond my capabilities. A cruel joke for one such as I. It is ironic perhaps, that divinity lays beyond the reach of one who has transcended the laws of death. I must wait. The sacrifices have been made to the nameless god below.”.

He asked Haldar about the note to which he told him it spoke of a final ingredient that was missing. He said something about a potion and then something about a laboratory. He finally saw Misty. That’s about the time that we saw that he wasn’t moving. He turned to face the different directions but hadn’t taken a single step. As he looked at Kyanna, he saw Misty for the first time. He said, “I cannot be deceived. You are as you appear!”. Then he launched into trying to introduce himself again. He finally learned what she was, and she began to quiz him on where the laboratory was. Meanwhile Rinn searched two piles of the treasure and didn’t find the book. Rinn started to get caught up in the treasure that he was searching through. Realizing the golem is gone, started having thoughts of taking some things. He finds a white staff, very elegant, and he sensed great power coming from it. He stared lustfully at it but realized he has two specific items to collect, the book and the sword. He continued his searching.

Snoggly asked where the laboratory was, but the skeleton had forgotten where it was. We tried to describe where the laboratory, we know about, was. But he only confirmed that there are lots of skulls there. Haldar and Misty started looking for other possible exits from the library. Rinn doesn’t find anything in the other piles. Haldar searched and found a concealed door but not like a secret door, more like a decorative concealment. He opened the door to a staircase going down 30 feet of stairs. Rinn continued searching the other two piles and didn’t find it. He picked up the sword and began to leave the room but the guardian blasts “Thief! Robber!” in his head again. He backed up and said, he was taking it to the gentleman upstairs, isn’t he the owner? Having received no answer, he rolled his eyes and chucked the sword back onto the pile and left, returning up the stairs.

He found that they have found the staircase leading down and proceeded to search if for traps. He searches the wall at the end of the stairs. Its pretty well hidden but he found it. He opened it and it was directly behind the statue. Misty suggested that maybe Rinn should search the statue. He searches it and found a hidden door on the back of the statue. It is exceptionally well hidden. Rinn checked it for traps and finding none, used his mage hand to open the door. He stepped forward and looked up into it. He saw a tightly wound staircase circling up the interior. Rinn climbed the stairs. It was tight but he kept climbing. After about twenty feet, he came to a trap door. He checked it and found no additional traps on the door called trap. Rinn then cracked the door and was unable to see anything in front of him, it’s just black. As he thought about casting Dancing Lights, he was suddenly wracked with a great deal of pain. He took a lot of damage and dropped the door and backed out. He messaged Haldar and explains to him what happened to him. 

Haldar climbed the stairs and threw open the door. He was struck by the fact that he could’t see anything. He suddenly found himself outside, in a dark forest, near a lake. Looking around, he recognized the place as the camp where the wagons were camped the night that he appeared to Barovia. He was outside of the mists. Haldar took a long drink from a wineskin. Time has passed since he had arrived in Barovia. Meanwhile, Rinn messaged Haldar to find out what was going on and didn’t receive an answer. He backed out telling everyone that Haldar is not responding to his calls. When I asked, “Can you hear me now?”. I got nothing. Misty made her way up the stairs and found the stone trap door, opened it and for a brief second, heard a little whispering and disappeared. She found herself outside the palace of Pasha Pook in Calimport. She was apparently back home. Rinn attempted to message Misty and again, got no response. He cast Dancing Lights in the stairwell, and they stopped at the closed trap door. He and Snoggly move up about ten feet on the staircase and used their combined Mage Hands to open the trap door from there. As the door started to lift, we heard the sound of a pop. 

Something very large appeared next to Dain at the sound of the pop. Dain, Zanfyr, and Kyanna, saw this creature appear. The mage hands had pushed open the trap door. Rinn sent a couple of the dancing lights beyond the door and they disappear upon entering the darkness beyond the trap door. Kyanna cast Guardian of Faith. Dain was facing a Nycaloth, A sort of demon. He casts Protection from Good and Evil on himself and called out that we are being attacked by a Nycaloth. Zanfyr recognized it as a demon as well. He cast blight on the creature. Kassamir stepped up and hit it twice. The creature regained it’s composure and attempted to hit Dain, missing him and then he pops out again and reappears about 30 feet in the air, more towards the mid-western part of the chamber. Snoggly moves back down out of the statue, seeing the creature hoovering in the air. Snoggly casts Banishment on him and he disappeared with a pop. Haldar suddenly pops back into the stairwell of the statue.

Haldar said that he had been sent back, outside of Barovia, to the camp where he was when he came here in the first place. He climbs back down and out of the statue. He had not seen Misty. We told him she had disappeared mush as he had. He suggested that she might return as well, soon. While Rinn was keeping the trap door open, Misty appeared half in and out of the darkness. She couldn’t see anything in the darkness. She explained that she had been at Pasha’s in Calimport. Rin asked if she could feel around up there a little and she did feel around a little but didn’t feel anything. She also began hearing some whispering again and then a Fireball went of in the statue. It caught Misty, Rinn, and Dain. After it went off, Rinn exited the statue. Misty climbed down afterward as well. Rinn went to Kyanna for some healing. Zanfyr caught him up on the demon that had appeared and the blinked across the room. He told Rin that Snoggly had banished it for the time being. Kyanna did some healing.

We finally decided that we are pretty sure there is nothing in the lab that we had found and searched earlier. Rinn ties to reach Helwa from the door at the top of the stairs. It is dark n the other side of the door so we figure Helwa must have gone. We moved back to the first room on the second floor of the main chamber. We search it and find it has nothing but shattered bits of wood. Rinn searches it thoroughly and finds nothing. They move to the eastern door and Rinn checks it for traps and finds nothing. Everyone but Dain spots the returning Nycaloth. Rin casts Protection from Good and Evil on himself, pulls the door closed with his mage hand and runs across chamber getting some distance from the rest of them. Misty moved to a spot away from the rest but able to possibly leap on it if it gets close enough. Esmerelda throws a firebolt at it. Kyanna hit it with Radiant damage and makes it vulnerable to attack until her next turn. Haldar fires twice at it and hits it both times. 

From the head of the statue, a mote of fire shoots out across the room and explodes into a fireball. A few of us take some damage. Zanfyr casts Protection from Good and Evil and uses his bonus action to turn into a giant Vampire bat. He tasks off across the chamber towards the creature, apparently playing a game of chicken. The creature flying towards Zanfyr hits him. Snoggly casts Protection from Good and Evil on himself. 

That ends this session.