Gloom Despair, and Oh Wait…

Curse of Strahd

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Session 67 – 2022-07-30

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The battle continued, starting with Round 7

Misty is upstairs at the door on the balcony above the battle below. She listens at the door and heres ghostly moans from within. She opens the door quietly and peeks in. She doesn't see anything initially, so she she slips in and closes the door behind her. It's a long hallway, with a dark vaulted ceiling with lots of cobwebs, and she hears a sad moaning that seems to travel the length of the hallway. She hides just inside the hallway watching for signs of anything. Seeing nothing, she moves to the other end of the hallway.

Rinn moves behind Anton and attacks him with the Sunsword. He gets a good hit on him but he's still standing. Petre takes damage from the Spirit Guardian. There are several NPC actions taken. Snoggly takes a light hit. Zanfyr takes a couple of shots at Radu, hitting on the second attack. Kyanna takes a bow shot at Vallaki1 dropping him. Arrigal moves up to attack the T-Rex. He missed both attacks and then disengaged and moved back down the hallway to hide in the crowd of innocents. Davian and Adrian continue to skirmish with Petre but miss. Haldar moves up on Anton and attacks him with the silver dagger finishing him off. Snoggly, the T-Rex, bites Vallaki3 and tails Vallaki4. Vallaki3 failed his saving throw and was grappled. This spawned a conversation about how bad the DM's roles have consistently been and how good the player rolls have consistently been. Ezmerelda hits Vallaki4. Chris then took care of a lot of NPC on NPC action. We continue to hear screams and even monstrous sounds from down the main hallway. Zanfyr, between actions, catches glimpses down the hallway of large groups of people gathered there. The noises we are hearing, he can tell, are coming from beyond that. Vistani1 hit the T-Rex twice, one was a crit. Dain attacks Anton and uses a Devine Smite for damage. Anton falls! Dain move to Petre and drops him. The werewolves are all down. All of the remaining opponents are human or dusk elf. Chris took care of a few more NPC actions. The heartbeat pulses again, the building shakes a little again.

Round 8! Misty listens at the door in front of her, she doesn’t hear anything. She cracks the door and peeks inside seeing a ten foot wide corridor leading to another set double doors. There are two alcoves north and south in the passage way with floating skeletons clad in rusty armor. She moves into the hallway and closes the door, hiding in the shadows. The skeletons don’t respond to her presence. Back to the main room and Rinn moved to take out Vallaki4, next to Ezmerelda and drops him. He continued on to Vallaki2 and punches him. The person that the T-Rex is holding in his mouth manages to stab him but for only a little damage. Zanfyr uses his Chilling Gaze on the Vistani next to him. He drops. Zanfyr moves on to Vallaki2 and hits him. Kyanna shoots at Vistani2 dropping him. She also cast a healing word toward Rinn. Arrigal moves up and attacks the T-Rex again. Adrian Martikov flys out of the window. Haldar chases after Arrigal. He sees Arrigal hiding within the mass of people stuck in the hallway. He sees Luvash and another person pushing against the door on the far end of the hallway. Haldar hits Arrigal twice, one was a crit. The T-Rex munches on the Vallaki person in his mouth and spits him out. He then moves south to Vallaki4 and tail attacks him, killing him. Ezmerelda picks up a scimitar and moves into the hallway. Piddlewick continues trying to catch up to Misty. Ismark finishes off his opponent and moves to the window to look for Strahd. Dain casts a cure wounds on himself and then moves towards the hallway. The heartbeat pulses and round 8 ends.

Round 9! Misty moves to the next door and listens. She doesn’t hear anything and cracks the door opens slips in and closes the door and hides in the shadows. She see an immense room, heavily decorated, two throne chairs in the far south, a table to the west of that with lots of presents piled on it, more tables and chairs as the room appears set up for a party. She slips back out of the room and back through the next door to the hallway. Piddlewick approaches. She asks him what he wanted her to see up here. He points at the silver arrow and the door she just came back through. She asks him point blank, “Are our weapons that way?”. He nods his head. She opens the door again and they head back into the little hallway with the floating skeletons. Piddlewick runs up to one and attacks it. It doesn’t respond. Misty stops him and asks what he is doing? She finally gets to the question of the weapons. He points to the next set of doors and her turn ends.

Back to the main group, Rinn casts Longstrider on Dain increasing his movement to 35ft. Then he moves rapidly toward the main mass in the hallway, seeing Arrigal, he approaches quickly and growls at him. Zanfyr moves into the hallway as well. Kyanna casts a healing word on the T-Rex and moves to the hallway. Arrigal uses his disengage and runs to the far end of the hallway. He beckons Luvash to stand with him against us. Haldar follows Arrigal. As he approaches, Arrigal takes a swipe at him. Haldar follows up with a deadly blow. Luvash looks at Haldar with a look of disgust for the whole situation. Haldar suggest that he return to protect the girl. Asking what is beyond the door. Luvash says that it’s quiet for now. As the people were fleeing before, winged beasts attacked them. When he described the winged beasts, it became clear he was talking of gargoyles. Seeing no where else to go in this form, the T-Rex moves to and looks out the window. He sees rain and lightening, and hears screech’s of an aerial battle above. Ezmerelda moves down the hallway towards Luvash and suggests that we get these people out of here. He alerts her to the gargoyles that were attacking on the other side of the door and suggests that escape is not this way.

Piddlewick opens the door to the room with presents and turns to face Misty making a sneaky thief pose, suggesting she be sneaky. He then turns and enters the room, with a complete lack of stealth. Kassamir, talking to the dusk elf and Dain, tells them that his sister is near. He tells them that she can defeat Strahd, that she is quite powerful, if he can bring her back, “We must find Patrina!”. He asks us to join him. The dusk elf joins him, Dain tells him that he must stay and help these people. Kassamir and the dusk elf move into the main hallway and seeing the mass of people in there, stop to see what is going on. Dain moves into the opening of the hallway, seeing the cluster of people, starts calling the people back to the room for safety. As they head towards the room, they see the T-Rex in there and grow scared and stay out of the room. Dain tries to explain that the T-Rex is an ally and not to be afraid of it. It doesn’t seem to help. Ismark pops back into the room and says, “The bastards gone up the wall. We must go upstairs.”. He heads toward the hallway as well. Luchian back away from the T-Rex a little. The heartbeat pulses yet again.

Round 10! Misty, seeing that Piddlewick is not moving silently or in a particularly stealthy way, uses a pass without trace and moves into the room. As she enters the room, she notices, to the north, a set of stairs and four suites of armor. Two standing on the stairs and two standing next to the stairs. They don’t seem to be reacting to either of them. Misty gives Piddlewick the look of a plea for the weapons. He points to the door in the southern portion of the eastern wall. She moves to the door and waits for Piddlewick.

Rinn shouts out to the people in the hallway to make their way back top the chapel and to ignore the giant beast in there, he is one of us and is safe. Then he asked, ”Where is Misty?”, having not seen her in a while. He also moved towards Luvash and the door. Luvash seeing the Sunsword as Rinn approaches asks what weapon is this. Rinn explains that it’s a weapon designed to kill vampires like Strahd. He sarcastically replied, “Good luck with that!”. Zanfyr moves through the hallway and as he does, the multitude part to allow him passage. Once past them, he turns and roars and the people start to retreat. Arabel being very afraid, cries and shrinks back. Luvash draws a weapon and yells, “Kill that thing!”. Rinn responds that it is an ally and not to attack it. Haldar moves to open the door. Within the main entryway, there are several bodies. Blinsky and his monkey are dead. They’re are several others that are dead as well. The hall is dimly lit, with bodies ripped and torn apart. Torches cast odd shadows across the faces of eight stone gargoyles squatting motionless on the rim of the domed ceiling. Haldar moves like the wind towards the direction where the weapons were taken. Snoggly drops his T-Rex form and moves into the main hallway. The people shy away from him recognizing that he had just returned to human form from being the monster that was in the room. Ezmerelda goes into the hallway.

Piddlewick catches up to Misty and goes through the door. After opening the door, you see dusty scrolls and tomes lining the shelves, more scrolls and books lie scattered on the floor, around four heavy wooden chests, fitted with iron locks. There is door in the east wall as well. In the center of the room is a great black desk. There is a rope hanging from a hole in the ceiling. Dain moves to the end of the hallway but can’t quite make it into the room. More NPC move. The Heartbeat pulses again.

Round 11! Misty listens at the door on the eastern side of the room. She opens and sneaks into the hallway afterward. Looking back at Piddlewick, asking where to go next. He points to the staircase going down. She begins making her way down the stairs. She eventually runs into Haldar. Rinn tells Luvash to leave the Yeti alone, gather Arabel and the others to the big room to stay safe. He then moves to keep up with Haldar, also moving to get to the weapons and armor, and finds Misty as well. Misty suggested that he put away the sunsword for stealths sake. Haldar and Rinn, still able to move further down the stairs, continue on. Haldar makes it about 10 feet further stopping at a corridor To the north stands a wooden door. The staircase continues downward. Kyanna began moving off to the weapons as well. Snoggly moves his full distance trying to keep up. Ezmerelda catches up to Misty. Kassamir and the dusk elf also head down the stairs. Dain catches up. Ismark comes up behind Snoggly, asking what the plan is. Snoggly tells him that first, we need to get our weapons back. Ismark asked, “Did they take your weapons?”. Snoggly affirmed that and the heartbeat pulsed again.

That closes this session.