Curse of Strahd Solo Run (IC)

[RandomWombat]

The spear slices through the ghoul skin like butter and Kellon tears the cloak in two with a yank of the weapon. It falls to the ground, resting over Anton's body like a funeral shroud.

Spider seems to be struggling against the two small targets, jittering to and fro on the floor and in the air. The nicks and cuts are beginning to pile up and tire the arachnid. "Kellon! I need help!" its innocent voice calls out.

The bag of guano is torn open as a disgusting amorphous blob of bat dung in the shape of a bat crawls out and falls to the floor. It lurches pathetically towards Kellon and bites at his feet ineffectually, like a tiny chihuahua gnawing on a table leg.

From the murky room below, there is a loud thud and a splash. A glance down sees Gustav in a dead man's float in the murky water. His limbs still twitch and try to actuate, but cannot muster the strength.

The chanting grows to a fever pitch, equal parts manic and desperate. "One must die! He is the Ancient! He is the Land! One must die!"

Spoiler: Combat Log

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Kellon strikes the Flesheating Cloak for 5 damage, destroying it. The Corpse Mound is damaged by its destruction.
Spider bites at Goblin's Paw, but misses.
Gustav slashes Corpse Mound for 12 damage.

Goblin's Paw scratches at Spider, dealing 2 damage.
Rat Blade slashes at Spider, dealing 2 damage.
Bat**** Bat **** Bat bites at Kellon, but misses.

Gweyir bites the Corpse Mound for 2 damage.

Corpse Mound slams Gustav for 8 damage, defeating him.

Sokol steps in to flank in Gustav's place, striking twice for 5 and 5 damage.

It is Kellon's turn!

Spoiler: Initiative

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Sokol - 14
Kellon - 11
Spider - 10
Gustav Durst - 8
Eldritch Manifestations - 8
Gweyir - 3
Corpse Mound - 1

[Prehysterical]

Spider's plea tears at Kellon's heart like a shark. In his fury, he shouts back at the figures, "One has died, you bastards! I spit on your god!"

"Hang on, lad!" One death would be on his conscience today. Not two.

Kellon steps forward and tries to swat the dagger out of the air.

Spoiler: OOC

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Attack: (1d20+6)[16]
Damage: (1d6+4)[8] Magic Piercing

[RandomWombat]

Kellon's spear slaps the blade down against the stone, leaving a crack through its handle. Spider grabs into it and rips the rat skull off, and the artifact goes inert as the house shakes again. Shooting out a bungee rope of web behind it, Spider yoinks itself out of the fight and crawls away on the ceiling to hide.

The hideous little artifacts gnaw and scratch at Kellon's tough feet, unable to get through. Levitating from its resting place, the infernal amulet floats towards Kellon and jabs at him with its iron horns, but they clatter off of his shell.

Then all at once, the chanting stops. The shaking stops. The items all fall to the floor, inert. The dark voices rattle a last roar of defiance that dies into a whimper. All is still - for the moment. The house's exhaustion may not last long.

Spoiler: Combat Logs

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Kellon strikes the Rat Blade for 8 damage. Bat takes an AoO as he moves away, but misses.
Spider bites the Rat Blade for a 5 damage Sneak Attack, destroying it. Spider Disengages as a bonus action and flees.

Goblin's Paw scratches at Kellon, but misses.
Bat bites at Kellon, but misses.
Devil Amulet manifests and attacks Kellon, but misses.

Gweyir bites Corpse Mound for 7 damage.
Sokol slashes Corpse Mound for 6 damage and bites it for 6 more, destroying it.

Combat has ended.

[Prehysterical]

Lost in his grief, the silencing of the chant and the stillness of the house go unnoticed. Kellon continues to batter and stab with his spear, tearing into the guano, the hand, and the amulet, a wordless cry of anguish ripped from his throat.

[RandomWombat]

Shifted back into her elven form, Gweyir pulls herself up the slope from the murky water below. "Kellon. Anton. We did it." She looks unharmed, but tired, as she helps Sokol up behind her - Gustav across his shoulders in a fireman carry.

"We must hurry, friends! Before we must do this all over again!"

Spider peeks back into the room and then scurries down, over to Anton's side. It prods Anton's body, urging him, "Get up! We got to go!"

[Prehysterical]

Once the blood stops roaring in his earholes, Kellon stops and breathes heavily within his shell. The words of the others breach his anger and Kellon looks over to see Spider prodding at Anton's corpse. As Kellon slings his warhammer, he tells Spider in a shaky voice, "He's... He's not getting up, little lad." Kellon slings the poor man's body over his shoulder. Anton would not be stuck in this forsaken prison, not while he had anything to say about it.

[RandomWombat]

"Is he-"

"We'll talk about it later," Gweyir places a hand on Spider's head and leads it towards the stairs, healing magic flowing into both Spider and Kellon. Sokol brings up the rear, his slow gait slowed further by his cargo.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Gweyir casts Healing Word twice, restoring 6 to Spider and 2 to Kellon.

Their group trudges back upwards, towards Strahd's shrine and the hidden door to the first floor. Gweyir and Spider peel the clay off of the door and open it up for Kellon and Sokol. But it seems that not all will be a walk in the park from here.

As they arrive at the trapdoor and open it, they find the den filled with choking, acrid smoke. The furniture and structure are rotten and shapes writhe within the boards of the decaying walls. Somewhere in the smoke, Kellon can hear the swish and whoosh of swinging blades. With the last of its strength, the House is throwing everything it has left at them.

"****. Alright, we need to make sure nobody gets lost in this mess."

[Prehysterical]

Kellon holds aloft the shining head of the Spear of Light to try and combat the smoke. "I will go first."

Spoiler: OOC

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Perception for the smoke and doubtless traps: (1d20+3)[5]

[RandomWombat]

Kellon pushes forward into the smoke. It stings his lungs as he tries to breathe, lugging Anton's body through the room. He stumbles into the chair as he wanders past it towards the door. The windows are all bricked up now, as they were in the childrens' room. Were those bricks even the parents' doing, or just the house working to torment the children on its own?

As he reaches the first door, he sees through tearful, stinging eyes a swinging blade going back and forth through the gap. The entire door itself has simply vanished, replaced by this mechanical guillotine.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Kellon passes his Con save against poison damage from the smoke.

The first blade trap lies ahead. There is another in the door to the foyer. Avoiding the blades is a Dex save. The main hall is also filled with smoke and will take a Con save to avoid poison damage. The foyer is safe, and the exterior door is not trapped. Kellon can feel free to roll those saves in sequence, unless something happens that requires him to stop.

Making a DC 15 Intelligence check to memorize the pattern of the blades before going through grants advantage on the save.

[Prehysterical]

Everything results in a blur of sensation for Kellon. Aware of the poison in the air and the blades ahead he may be, but all he can do is push forward. Almost to the exit...

Spoiler: OOC

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First Dex save: (1d20)[9]
Con save: (1d20+1)[19]
Second Dex save: (1d20)[16]

[RandomWombat]

Through the first door, Kellon moves to soon - the blade, on its backswing, slams into him. There is a sickening ker-chunk. It isn't until he's stumbling through the second room that he realizes it was not him. His shell absorbed most of the impact and cutting force, but one of Anton's arms was sliced off and is left laying on the ground. There is little to be done about an arm, however.

More prepared for the second door, Kellon slips through without a problem. He heaves his way into the foyer, where the smoke from the fireplaces does not reach. The shield on the wall has been transfigured, its face now tarnished and its windmill motif chipped and peeling.

Behind him, Gweyir stumbles through the blades and the poison in spider form - at first he thinks it is Spider, until she is sliced open by the first guillotine and shifts back into her normal form. Finally falling through the last door, Gweyir gets slashed again and thrown into the wall, where she lands unconscious and bleeding beside Kellon.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Gweyir wildshapes into spider form again. She takes 4 poison, then 7 slashing that reverts her to normal form, then 6 poison and 12 slashing that KO's her.

[Prehysterical]

Close... Too close. Not near as close as Gweyir suffers, however. Looking down at her broken, bloody wreck, Kellon kneels down and uses the last of his magic. "Don't you die on me, druid! Your brother is waiting for you!"

Spoiler: OOC

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Kellon uses Cure Wounds on Gweyir.
(1d8+3)[7] healing

[RandomWombat]

She coughs and pushes herself up on one arm. "I'm alive. Alive. Whew. Thanks."

Spider goes practically unnoticed, crawling along the wall behind Kellon and back onto the floor. It seems to have glided through the entire gauntlet unscathed.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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20, 18, 20, 18 on the dice. A true Rogue.

Last comes Sokol, lugging Gustav along with him. The poison of course has no hold over his undead lungs as he lurches through, but he practically dives headfirst through both of the guillotines. Emerging out the other side, he arrives in the hallway, he and Gustav covered in many huge gashes that by all rights should be deadly to any living thing.

"And so Sokol survives, as always, by sheer dumb luck! How about we get out into the fresh air my friends?"

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Immune to poison, but takes exactly enough to leave him hanging on at 1 hit point.

Gweyir opens the final door... to find that the mist has passed. The empty, black midnight streets await beyond. "Sweet relief."

[Prehysterical]

"Relief" is far from the word that Kellon would use, but the absence of the Mist could not have come at a better time. Looking at Sokol, Kellon shakes his head in amazement. "If you weren't dead already, you lucky boyo, I would buy you rum until you passed out!"

They burst out of the doors, uncaring for the hour or who or whatever may be listening. Kellon gasps for air as his lungs purge the poison from his system. Looking back forlornly at the manor, Kellon asks in a weary voice, "Do you think the children made it out?"

[RandomWombat]

Outside into the crisp night air, the survivors all pile. Sokol lays Gustav upon the ground and stands tall, holding out his arms to his sides. He faces skyward, his eyes closed. Unlike the Barovian day, the night is clear with not a cloud in the sky. A brilliant full moon looms above, and tiny pinpricks of starlight dot the expanse of blackness. "Ah, sweet Barovian moonlight. Were that I could take you up on that rum, this night would be complete."

Gweyir drops to her knees, exhausted. The silver sword in her hand, like the other items from inside the first two floors of the manor, seems to have aged and accumulated years of tarnish and wear. After the wave of relief passes, she looks to Anton's unmoving form, draped over Kellon. Pale as a ghost and dripping only a few trails of red into the street. "It would be complete if we all made it out. Dammit. Why- why did he always have to go running off into cursed rooms?"

Spider makes a few sad chittering and whimpering noises, but a ghostly hand runs along his back. "It'w be okay."

Standing there with them in the street are the spectral forms of Rose and Thorn. It is perhaps fortunate that the streets are empty, or their strange congregation may awaken yet another lynch mob.

Gustav's twisted, corrupted form begins to come apart. Ghoulish flesh reduced to dust. Beneath that mask of death, a spectral form is uncovered. The Gustav from the paintings throughout the house, as he was in life. He drifts up into a standing position and looks around. His eyes settle first on the exterior of the house, unchanged from when the group went in. And then they settle on his children.

Now all spirits, the three converge in a group hug, crying ethereal tears of relief.


On the outside of the door to the Death House, Kellon notices a note stuck there with a dagger.

Spoiler: Note

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Visitors to Barovia,
My sincerest condolences for your loss.
This house has taken many good souls. That you not one heralds the day when no more souls are lost in darkness.
To any who wish to walk free again in the light of the sun, come and visit me in my camp across the bridge. You will be welcome here. You will be safe. The cards do not lie.
~Madame Eva

[Prehysterical]

Kellon sets Anton's body upon the ground, trying not to look too closely at the damage done to his remains. He is unable to look at Gweyir as he answers, "Because I sent him in there alone... I was too late."

He wants to feel some sort of triumph at the children's appearance in the street, but all he can taste is ashes in his mouth. Only the sight of their father embracing them brings any sort of minor comfort to Kellon.

Through his tearing eyes, Kellon notices the message pinned to the door. His first impression of the note almost sounds like taunting from one of Strahd's cronies, but the last sentence catches his attention. "The cards do not lie...," he mutters quietly to himself. Perhaps not every mysterious force in this land served the evil vampire...

[RandomWombat]

Standing up, Gustav steps behind the two children, a hand on each of their shoulders. "What you have given us I can never repay." He looks upon Anton's body solemnly. "I am sorry for your friend."

"Death is only another goodbye," Sokol speaks softly, still bathing in the open air, waving back and forth with the wind. "Take it from a man who has lived and died twice... the wheel in the sky ever turns, and someday you may meet again in a new life. A better life if we make it a better world, no?" The man opens his eyes and finally looks down from the sky. "What is important: this damned house has no grasp upon any of us now."

"I'm sorry..." Rose looks down at the pavement guiltily. "The house... made us draw people in. Let us ask for help and this... this happened so much before."

"But this time it lost."

[Prehysterical]

Kellon knows that Sokol is correct. Death is part of the cycle, part of life. But Anton was so full of curiosity. It was so clear that he wanted to learn more about this world... He sniffs. "I was too hard on him. He were as brave as any topman." Kellon stows the note away and plucks the dagger from the door.

"Oh, it's done more than lost, lads and lasses," Kellon rumbles. "This house made the mistake of messing with a tortle! We may not be as long-lived as dwarves or even humans, but we can display a commitment and patience that puts either to shame! This, I vow: I will not leave Barovia until the evil in this place has been scattered to the corners of the cosmos! That fool Strahd has brought a herald of the Tempest to his own doorstep!"

Like the wind dying and the sails falling flat, Kellon deflates as his bravado flags. These had been the longest couple of days in his life, even longer than the days when he was burying his parents on the island. He looks to the Dursts and ventures, "Well... I am guessing that this is goodbye."

[RandomWombat]

"I'll drink to that," Gweyir announces, clanging the tarnished silver Durst sword against the paving stones.

Gustav looks down at his hands, beginning to turn smoky as wisps trail off into the night. Rose and Thorn are beginning to fade as well. "So it would seem. I have one last thing to give. Should you meet a family named the Wachters, tell them that you have come to reclaim a debt for the Dursts. Present some proof - our family sword, our deeds. And they should pay you what we were owed. Farewell."

"Thank you for everything," Rose waves, a sad smile on her face. Thorn pets Spider one last time, as the Dursts pass on.

"Well. We have burial arrangements to make," adjusting the pillow cases holding the childrens' bones, Gweyir looks to the foot path out of the village, from which they originally arrived.

"I would be happy to help, of course."

[Prehysterical]

Unfortunately, Kellon left the deeds to the house inside. He had never expected a slapdash escape from the house. Kellon waves goodbye to them quietly; he will need to express his grief properly later.

"We need to go across the bridge," Kellon interjects during the discussion concerning burial. "It seems that a certain woman who enjoys handing out cards to strangers wants to make our acquaintance. Any port in a storm, at this point." He uses the dagger to scratch a message into the front door:

NO RICHES
ONLY DEATH

[RandomWombat]

"Surely bridge can wait for morning, ay? Not safe to wander Barovian roads at night. Bury our man, find a place to stay - well! Place for you to stay. The little spider and I probably not welcome at inn!" Sokol laughs, perhaps at himself calling Spider 'little'. "Maybe we lurk in graveyard, make some new ghost stories."

"Humans think spiders are not cute," Spider affirms.

"I can sleep just about anywhere. Druid upbringing."

Spoiler: Anton's Stuff

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His equipment left behind, and anything he was carrying for the group:
-Scholar's Pack (contains writing supplies and 4 remaining days' worth of trail rations)
-Wooden Wand Spell Focus
-Silver Dagger (sheathe is disguised inside a functioning pen)
-Anton's Spellbook
-Yellowed Spellbook
-Alchemy Jug

[Prehysterical]

"No graveyards, not tonight. I'd rather take my chances in the woods than see another undead this night... present company excluded," Kellon amends. "Besides, Spider can find himself something to eat and we don't have to worry about villagers happening upon us and mistaking us for graverobbers. Considering what happened just in the past hour, we are not splitting up again."

[RandomWombat]

"Alright. Let's go find somewhere to camp then," Gweyir sets out towards the road out of the village. Spider skitters along at her heel, with Sokol lagging a little behind on his stiff legs.

"I will not complain of company!" the zombie announces.

The Mist has receded away from the village, and the lands around it. As they pass by the old road and the hunters' abandoned campsite, its flames dead and gone, they see the valley stretch out around them. A few small farms dot the countryside. To the north, tall cliffs overlook the valley. To the southwest, a mountain stands across the river.

But the Mist is not gone. It swirls and looms to the east, stretching up and down the borders of this land. An impenetrable wall as high as the stars and the sky.

[Prehysterical]

Kellon hefts the scholar's body back onto his shoulder. "Just a little longer, shipmate," he promises.

As they look out into the valley, Kellon asks for Gweyir's counsel. "What do you think? Make our way to the base of the cliffs and set up camp? It would limit the number of angles anyone could come at us."

Spoiler: OOC

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Survival roll: (1d20+5)[13]

[RandomWombat]

"Sounds like a good idea. I'd say we should look for caves, but - well, I wouldn't trust any caves here."

Spoiler: Survival

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There's a forested area beneath the cliffs which would also provide cover from the village. Kellon knows that there are wolves in these woods, so there will definitely need to be a watch.

[Prehysterical]

The possibility of wolves does not overly concern Kellon. "Well, let's not waste any time, then. My steps hasten me to a resting place, wherever I may fall."

[RandomWombat]

Together, the party treks around the edge of the village to the opposite side and travel north. From the north of the village, the woods are not far. The grass is still slick with the slimy dew left by the Mist, clinging to their feet and boots and making them slide around.

It become easier going after they reach the treeline. The trees of Barovia stand tall, and their branches hold close to their sides as they grow higher. No canopy blocks the light of the full moon as it shows their way, but many shadows stretch and weave across the path. The trunks of the trees provide grip on slopes, and the dirt ground beneath, crawling with roots, provides better traction than the slick grass of the Barovian fields.

Then they arrive at the cliffside. Crags loom up above them, great towers of stone jutting up alongside one another like a phalanx of sentinels blocking their path. Where they bend and curve around caves, hanging shapes of bats lurk within. Their tiny eyes open up and fix upon the group, glowing unnaturally. The same unwelcoming stare of the local townsfolk.

[Prehysterical]

Wanting at least a little shelter, but willing to settle for less, Kellon seeks out a defensible position with coverage, one that will not disturb too many of the cliff denizens.

Spoiler: OOC

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Survival: (1d20+5)[24]

[RandomWombat]

Going to and fro along the base of the cliffs, Kellon finds a place where the trees and bushes cluster together to form a natural wall on one side, up to the cliffs. It creates what is effectively a corner at their back, save for anything small enough to slither through the bushes. Should anything larger try to come through, there will be plenty of noise in warning.

"Good eye, this seems like a good place," looking to Kellon, still carrying Anton over his shoulder, Gweyir sighs and sets the childrens' pillow cases on the ground. "Guess we should get digging. He'll start to rot if we leave him lying out here. Possibly draw wolves too."

"I did not bring any shovel, but I am not averse to manual labor," Sokol holds up his empty hands.

Spider crawls up onto the cliff wall, settling in onto a few of the crags in a watchful perch. It wastes no time beginning to construct webbing, stretching strands out to surround the camp in silken tripwires.

[Prehysterical]

This little sanctuary looks cozy enough to be a tortle shell... Kellon sighs as he is forced to agree with Gweyir. Much as he would prefer to leave it to later, they cannot wait any longer to deal with the question of Anton's body. Kellon would have preferred to give the outlander a more spectacular view for his final resting place, but survival always beats out aesthetics.

Rummaging through his own supplies, Kellon reluctantly sets aside his own shield and a bucket as potential digging tools. He flexes his claws as he tells the pair, "Grab what you prefer. Tortles are no stranger to digging with claws, even if it is usually sand instead of landlubber dirt."