In which the party explores the basement of Fiona Wachter's mansion.
When last we left the party, they had been bumbling around Fiona Wachter's mansion, vaguely looking for anything that tied her to Strahd. They had found a daughter who seemed to think herself a cat, some 400 year old deeds in which Strahd gave land to the Wachter family, and a book about communicating with devils written by Fiona herself. They also found a goblin hiding in the bed under the body of Fiona Wachter's husband. The body did not last long as Jaro dispelled the magic keeping it from decaying. Talna then spoke with the spirit of Lord Wachter as well as Leo Dilisnya, the latter of whom claimed to have betrayed and murdered Strahd at the marriage of Strahd's brother, and whose bones were in a chest under the bed. What shenanigans will our heroes(?) get up to next?
The image of Leo Dilisnya slowly disappears from the room, and the smoke from Talna's incense begins to dissipate. However, before it disappears completely the smoke spreads out again, and suddenly a blue dragonborn wearing the robes of a spell caster is standing in the room looking bewildered.
"I thought I had it that time! I almost escaped! Where... where am I?" the dragonborn says.
"Vivi!" Elle cries out. "We missed you!" Taking this as his cue, Maximiliano scurries back under the bed.
"Oh, it is you again," Vivi says. "I suppose my spell pulled me back to you. Perhaps you are in need of my assistance?"
"We always welcome your presence friend Vivi," Sadun intones.
"Then I shall accompany you while I recover from my latest exertions. No matter what I try my spells cannot seem to get me beyond this plane of existence. But I am certain the answer is out there somewhere. Perhaps spending time with you again will spark some inspiration for me."
"We should head down to the basement, now that the dead man has told us where to find it," Talna says, earning a quizzical look from Vivi. "Perhaps there will be more information there."
The group heads back to the first floor and enters the servants quarters. Searching the walls, they are quickly able to discover a hidden doorway in the back of the room's closet.
"Before we go down there, I should say I sensed an undead presence below this house," Elle warns. "Lots of undead presence."
"Best to be prepared then," Jaro says, casting Mage Armor on himself. Vivi nods and follows suit.
With a blaze of wild magic, Jaro's magical armor begins glowing as brightly as a torch. "Oops, sorry about that," he says. "Maybe somebody else should go first?"
Elle gingerly eases the door open, peering down a flight of stone stairs lit by iron torches. "Why are the torches lit if nobody is home?" she wonders aloud.
"Maybe they're all hiding downstairs," Balazar says, wandering in from the foyer. "I heard a commotion in here, I didn't want to be left behind if there's going to be fighting."
Elle picks up a boot from the closet, and prepares to throw it down the stairs when Jaro grabs her arm. "Don't warn whatever might be down there that we're coming!" Jaro says.
"I wouldn't worry about that, if anything comes up here I'll just kill it," Balazar says confidently.
Elle ponders a moment, and puts the boot down. "After thinking it over, I have decided that throwing boots down the stairs is a bad idea."
Jaro opens the door all the way, stepping back into the servants quarters as he does so. The air seeping from the stairway sends a chill up everyone's spine.
"I'll sneak down first," Elle says, tip-toeing down the stairs.
"I'm not as quiet but I really want to kill something, so I'll go next. As backup," Balazar says, giving Elle a head start before moving slowly down the stairs behind her. The rest of the group gathers just outside the closet, waiting for word of what they find.
At the bottom of the stairs, Elle finds a large root cellar with a dirt floor. Across from the staircase she just descended is another staircase leading back upwards, presumably to another location in the house. Tracks in the dirt lead from one staircase to the other. Four cots, neatly made, sit against one wall.
A rumbling noise seems to emanate from beneath Elle's feet, so she promptly forgoes stealth and stomps heavily on the ground, saying "Quiet down there!" In response, skeletal hands erupt from the dirt all around the room, and fleshless creatures pull themselves from the earth. Elle finds herself surrounded by eight glowering skeletons, gripping rusty blades in their hands.
"Hey Balazar? There's skeletons!" Elle shouts up the stairs.
"I noticed, they popped up as I was walking down the stairs. Why did you have to stomp your foot?" Balazar replies.
"I didn't know they were going to get mad!" Elle says.
"You heard rumbling beneath the floor so you had to stomp on it to say "shut your noise?"
"I said 'Be quiet please!' I was hardly rude about it!"
"I guess I have to come clean up your mess after all!" Rushing into the room, Balazar breathes flame on the first three skeletons he sees, lighting small fires on the tattered clothes clinging to their bones.
Hearing the commotion below, the rest of the group draws their weapons. Vivi is the first to respond, moving quickly down the stairs. In the wake of Balazar's fire breath, Vivi sees several skeletons lined up nicely, and unleashes their own breath attack. A bolt of lightning leaps from Vivi's open mouth, arcing from one Skeleton to the next, charring three of them before earthing itself against the far wall. With the roar of dragon's breath singing in her veins, Sadun dashes into the fray as well. Pausing at the railed landing of the descending staircase, Sadun breathes a mist of bitter cold across the remaining unharmed skeletons, freezing their joints together and causing brittle bones to crack with movement. Sadun then leaps off the landing in between a pair of skeletons, attempting to draw their attention from Elle.
Having allowed the dragonborn their glory, Gilligan moves to the landing and summons a glowing Spiritual Weapon in the shape of a massive gauntlet emblazoned with Helm's watchful eye. The mailed fist smashes into the back of a skull, though the skeleton attached to the skull remains upright. Seeing no clear ground to move forward, Gilligan calls out "Skeletons! When do Skeletons laugh? When someone touches their funny bone! Ha Ha Ha!"
"That wasn't funny!" Talna calls down the stairs.
"But some of them are looking at me instead of Elle now!" Gilligan calls back.
The skeletons clatter forward, swinging with mindless abandon at the living creatures amongst them. One rusty sword passes through Balazar's guard, chipping some scales from his shoulder. A second skeleton steps forward and swings, but Balazar steps past the sword point and brings his own sword up in a powerful sweep that cleaves the skeleton's rib cage apart. In a shower of bones and dust the first skeleton falls to the floor, the magic animating it ebbing away.
As two more skeletons swing at Elle, one of which lands a solid blow on the gnome, Balazar shouts up the stairs "I thought of a way to get the money back we paid for my replacement hand, since I don't need it anymore! We just wait until nighttime and I rob them blind!"
Two of the skeletons swing at Vivi and Gilligan on the stair landing, but the adventurers easily jump over the extended blades. Sadun stoically takes two slashing blows from the skeletons she distracted, unconcerned by the pain.
Elle unleashes her fury on the skeletons, swinging wildly with her twin short swords, repeatedly hitting the skeleton in front of her until it collapses to the floor in a heap, and immediately bringing her blades to bear on the next skeleton in line.
A glowing dove appears next to another skeleton and pecks viciously at its eye sockets as Talna descend the stairs, chanting a second spell. The sound of a bell tolls out, seeming to come from between two skeletons, both of which promptly crumble to dust from the necrotic energies unleashed.
Jaro, still shining brightly, runs down the stairs , stopping in front of Balazar. Seeing a mostly intact femur from one of the defeated skeletons nearby, he levitates the bone and sends it through one skeleton at high speed. Both the skeleton and the bone erupt in a cloud of bone dust, coating the skeleton behind. Balazar follows up the performance by chopping the last skeleton near him into neat piles of limbs and torso. Moving away from the shining satyr, Balazar sees Sadun fighting the only skeleton remaining, and shouts words of encouragement in draconic to her: "Kill the bastard!" Finding her spirits buoyed, Sadun swings Briarblade in a wide overhead arc, cleaving the skeleton's skull and rib cage in twain.
The group looks around, breathing hard, to find their brief skirmish at an end.
"Did you save the skull Sadun?" Talna calls out.
"No, it's this dust here, I think," Sadun replies.
"I had the opportunity to copy animate dead into my spell book recently, and I'm regretting not doing so," Vivi says. "Look at all these raw materials."
"I could pray for that ability on the morrow," Talna says, "we could create an army of skeletons between the two of us. We could make two a day, once before we go to bed, and once when we wake up in the morning."
"And we could make skeleton pets!" Vivi exclaims, excited.
"I've been making a collection of skulls, let me show you the two I communed with just before you arrived."
Jaro backs slowly away from the two, trying hard to look nonchalant.
Elle moves to investigate the cots while Talna and Vivi talk. The cots are neatly made, and footprints fill the area around them, crossing to and from both staircases. Looking closer, Elle notices several footprints leading from the cots to the blank wall below the staircase the party had descended.
The entire group turns to Elle when she presses on the wall and it starts to move back with a loud grating noise. "That's not how we open doors," Balazar observes, and immediately runs over, leaps over the gnomes head, and jump-kicks the wall. The hidden door slams open with a crash.
Flickering candles in iron holders light the room beyond in patches of light and shadow. The ten foot ceiling enshrouds the large black pentagram inscribed on the stone floor. At each point of the pentagram, a wooden chair is set. Three of the chairs are occupied. One chair is occupied by a young man with the face of an angel. Seated in the other two chairs are a taller young woman with an unsettling glare and a middle aged woman. All three are watching Elle and Balazar as they enter the room, followed by the rest of the party. On the wall to the right of the entrance are eight black robes, ranging in size from gnome or goblin all the way up to dragonborn.
Elle boldly strides into the room. The man waves her in. "Welcome," he says. "We have been expecting you."
"Hello!" Elle calls out cheerily.
Talna edges into the room, looks at the robes, and summons a translucent blue hand, which plucks the robes off the wall in one swoop and deposits them near the party. "They clash with my outfit though," she complains.
"They are for you!" The man says generously. "We have been expecting you, as I say."
"Why are we always expected everywhere?" Balazar asks petulantly.
"We're not exactly subtle," Talna points out. "Three tall dragonborn, a goat-man, a tiny angry gnome..."
"Yeah but how are we always expected by everybody?"
"I sense five undead and a fiend in the room everyone," Gilligan calls out. "Not counting Balazar."
"Ok, I'm going to lie down in a cot for awhile then," Balazar says.
As Balazar walks from the room, Vivi waves their hands and Blinks to the ethereal plane. In front of them, they see a small devilish creature with a horned head climbing on the wall, and two skeletal figures dressed in mage robes hover at the points of the pentagram. The dragonborn reappears in the room with a puff of smoke. The seated man looks on in interest. "Ah, a spellcaster," he says. "Whom do you serve?"
"I saw a small demon, and some... wizard skeletons," Vivi declares to the group, ignoring the man entirely.
"What kind of demon?" Elle asks.
"A little one?" Vivi says.
"Is it cute?" Talna asks.
"Sure?" Vivi responds.
"Is the head normal?" Talna presses.
"Well it has horns," Vivi says.
"Ooh, do you think the horns are attached to the skull? That would make a really cool zombie! We have to save the body!" Talna exclaims. "I just need to go to bed. Then I can get a really cool zombie or skeleton."
"So is this the book club?" Elle asks of the seated figures, holding up Fiona Wachter's book.
The man starts laughing, joined shortly after by the two seated women. "Something like that," he concedes.
"Can I come back in now?" Balazar shouts from the other room. "I'm getting bored!"
"Ok, I've sensed evil rolling off you, I'm going to enforce some legal authority here," Gilligan says. "You're all under arrest!"
"Begone ye undead fiends!" Talna shouts, bringing up her holy symbol. The human forms seem to fall away from the three seated figures, becoming gaunt and skeletal in appearance. One of them turns and runs into the corner, clearly terrified of Talna's holy symbol. At the same time, two glowing balls emerge from the torches behind the figures and press against the wall. And a small imp scurries higher on the wall. The man and the remaining seated figure stand up in fury at the group's effrontery.
Immediately upon hearing Gilligan's shout, Vivi began chanting a spell, and soon a dripping green arrow flew through the air and impacted the imp on the wall. The imp squealed in pain as the acid ate into its skin. Balazar follows up by charging across the pentagram and cleaving the imp in two with his short swords.
The now skeletal man looks at Balazar and sniffs. "Poor decision," he says.
"It's not the first one I've made," the red dragonborn replies with a grin.
The skeletal woman who is still in control of herself begins moving to attack Balazar, but stops short, and changes direction to attack Elle instead, despite taking a slash from Balazar as she leaves his flank. Elle replies to the woman's swipe with a pair of hamstringing cuts with her swords. The woman grimaces in pain but keeps to her feet.
Gilligan walks into the room, unstrapping his lance from his back, and stabbing the skeletal man from a distance. Jaro moves to support Elle, attempting to hit the woman with his Shocking Grasp, but a glowing barrier around her deflects his attack. "They have Mage Armor!" Jaro shouts.
Sadun runs in, flanking the skeletal man across from Balazar, and swings Briarblade in a powerful strike, cleaving deeply into his flesh. For the first time, the man seems to actually be in pain.
Talna attempts to summon her dove again, but the man raises his hands, chanting a counter spell. "Oh no you don't!" Jaro says, and swiftly casts a counter to the man's counter spell.
"Thanks Jaro!" Talna says. The dove misses its attack but distracts the man long enough for Talna to put an electrified hand on his shoulder, sending a jolt through him.
The man focusses his eyes on Gilligan, who initiated the fight. "You think you can stop me?" he says, "Welcome to my nightmare!" And with that, the lights all go out in the room, to the sound of the man's echoing maniacal laughter.
Vivi, recognizing a sphere of magical darkness when they see one, runs from the room. Turning, they prepare a Magic Missile for the skeletal man the next time she sees him.
In the darkened room, Balazar swings his swords wildly, but his swords meet no resistance. Frustrated, he spins in a circle with his sword held at shoulder height. This time, he feels a buzz as his blade intersects the form of one of the wisps.
An unseen foe claws into Jaro's flesh, sapping his strength with necrotic energy. Using her keen gnomesh hearing, Elle stabs at the spot the attack came from. Her swords biting into flesh with each stab. Jaro summons up all of his sorcerous powers and manages to dispel the darkness, exposing the corpse of the woman in front of him and Elle. More importantly, the skeletal man is revealed in the doorway, and Vivi lets fly their magical missiles, three of the darts slamming into his body from behind.
With the primary foe exposed, Sadun charges across the room, swinging Briarblade. Her first swing goes wide but the return blow bites into the man's side. The man responds by chanting a spell. Tentacles of black energy reach through the floor, slapping and numbing the party members surrounding him. Sadun and Vivi are able to fend off the worse effects, but Elle and Talna are turned aside, and Jaro is knocked unconscious. Vivi steps up behind the man, and joins the Shocking Grasp Attack Group, sending more electricity through the man's body.
Balazar levels his swords at the man and runs him through with both blades. Withdrawing his steel from the man's flesh, Balazar follows up with a series of blows to the man's sides and arms, leaving him bloody and tattered. The wisp Balazar had hit with his wild swing earlier moves towards Gilligan now, but fails to land a hit, a tinge of electricity across his skin being the only effect the goblin feels.
Elle summons a Spirit of Healing above Jaro's prone form. The spirit is a translucent white, and takes on Jaro's image. Healing energy pours off the spirit, returning Jaro to consciousness. Elle jumps over his prone form, benefiting from the healing as well, before turning and firing an arrow into the man's kneecap. Gilligan also walks over Jaro's body to bathe in the healing energy, before stabbing his lance into the man's side, and channels holy power into his weapon to sear away the man's dry and ragged flesh.
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," the man shouts, finally having had enough, "just let me live!"
At the shout, the other three enemies stop moving, watching the adventurers carefully.
"How do we kill Strahd?" Balazar demands.
"You will let us go if I tell you?"
"Before it was just letting you live, now its all your friends? You made a mistake, you're in no position to negotiate with us," Balazar responds.
"That's amusing coming from one who has himself made a deal with Strahd."
"We're not talking about who I may or may not have made a deal with," Balazar replies angrily. "We're talking about you right now."
"Let us go, and I'll tell you anything I can that will help you."
"You give us the information you have and we decide if you live," Balazar says, then turns to Sadun and says in draconic "We'll kill them after we get the information one way or another, right?"
"Considering you initiated hostilities here when we were perfectly welcoming of you, this is all your doing," he looks to Gilligan, "you started this, I am offering an alternative option."
Gilligan looks at the man, walks up to him, and then knocks him unconscious.
He turns back to the rest of the group. "Does anyone have some rope? We can tie them up. Where did the others go?"
The group looks around. The other three foes have vanished. Shrugging, the adventurers tie up their prisoner and rest while they wait for him to awaken.
Sadun and Vivi take the opportunity to leave the room and rest in the cots while the others confer about their course of action.
"I think I will be leaving you again, I am certain my research will lead me to a way out of this plane eventually," Vivi says. "When I do, I will come and save you at least."
"I appreciate it," Sadun says. "I hope we may all leave this miserable place soon and return to our homes where we belong. I believe our route to greatest glory lies through freeing the land of Strahd, but I like not what this place has done to my friends and welcome any opportunity to save us all from the dark fate this place seems to desire for us."
"Yes, your friends," Vivi says, a distant look in their eyes. They focus back on Sadun. "I will see you when again Sadun, hopefully when I have better news. Until then, I bid you farewell."
"It is always good to see you Vivi, I look forward to our next meeting."
TO BE CONTINUED
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