The Ravenloft Chronicles- Shit Storm: Book One, Chapter Fifteen

The Lennox Triplets

Dramatis Personae:
Tilea Aervavil'A'Sum, the Wild Elf Circle of the Moon Druid Barbarian
Scritch, the Weremonkey Squirrel Thief and Tilea's Animal Companion
Sachi Kno, the Vistani Weremonkey Thief
Tabitha Marie Lennox, the Human White Witch of Mystra
Spot, Tabitha's Homunculus
Nikko, Tabitha's Flying Monkey familiar and Warlock
Dot, the Homunculus and White Witch
Pip, Dot's Flying Monkey Familiar
Bruenar Shieldwall, the Shield Dwarf Shield Fighter the party hired
Isabella Catalina Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Scritch's Knight
Isabeth Katherine Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Catalina's sister and Knight
Junior, the Half-Orc New Guinea Singing Dog

Comrades we have lost:
Pineck, Anvil's Horse- turned into soup by a cursed crate
Kithri "Quickshadow" Tealeaf, the Lightfoot Halfling Werebat Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter and Ruin Raider- left to become Archivist
Forgrotken Anvilrocker, the Blugrim Forge Cleric of Moradin- killed by the Talmot Wives
Lythana, the Human Werewolf Order of the Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter- captured by the Talmot Wives, then turned evil mauled to death by Tilea
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Human girl who Tilea released from an amulet- kidnapped by Strahd, now working with Talmot

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Tabitha's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the Witch can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Hetedik Honap 25, CY 745, Farrah's Lair in Mount Ghakis

       After much discussion, Bruenar eventually gave us the ingredients for a satchel for me, for only one hundred million gold. I tried to teleport back to my Temple to work on it, but discovered it wasn't working. I asked Tilea to ask Strahd to turn it back on, since she's buddy buddy with him, but she didn't do it. Catalina and I ended up working on the satchel at Bruenar's instead.

***** Hetedik Honap 27, Outside Castle Ravenloft

       Sarah was flying around near the Castle, and she seemed to have more enhanced power. We were pretty sure Talbutt was feeding her power from the Heart. We needed to cut him off from the Heart completely to take him down. Bruenar thought he could remove the souls from the Heart and absorb them into himself. Tilea wanted Junior- the half-orc boy she won in a drinking contest who was reincarnated into a dog- to be the one to do it, but I objected; that child was too weak to handle this. After a bunch of bickering we decided to flip a coin, and it landed on Bruenar. He wanted to get drunk just incase he died tomorrow, so we headed back to my Temple.

***** Hetedik Honap 28, Temple of Mystra

       Bruenar was gone in the morning. He left a note saying he went to get the souls without waking us because he didn't want to risk us doing something stupid before he could get it done. The note said we needed to just keep an eye on Sarah, and we'd know when she began to lose power.

       We decided to draw Sarah away from the front lines, to try to reduce casualties of our allies. Cat decided the best way to do this was to paralyze Sachi, turn him invisible, and throw him into the middle of the army. He blew up a circlet of blasting right in the middle of them. She turned the rest of us invisible too and we began dropping fireballs and and lightning bolts on the army, killing at least 150 soldiers. Sarah roared and began heading our way. After about two more minutes, she suddenly stopped moving and just hovered like something was wrong- hopefully Bruenar.

       After a while, we decided to antagonize Sarah a bit; Tilea turned into a gold dragon and I turned into a red. About a minute later Sarah began flying up; we followed, and she'd occasionally stop to let us start to catch up before speeding away. Eventually she stopped, and with a flurry of wings and a shockwave she turned around... She had six heads.

       Scritch randomly gave Junior, who'd been drug along with us, a potion and told him to drink it if he feared for his life... he drank it and began screaming in pain before turning into a fucking pit fiend. Sarah screamed at Tilea in rage- I think our antagonizing may have been working at least a little. I got hit with her acid breath, and it killed poor Dot, who'd just wished herself to being a living being. Nikko grabbed her and reincarnated her into a Cheetah Tabaxi Shifter.

       Three of Sarah's heads began chanting in ancient draconic. I tried to use a spell to reduce her intelligence, but my magic seemed to wash over her. Cat was hurling daggers at Sarah, Scritch was trying to use a weird staff, and Junior was launching fireballs at her. Suddenly, all of her heads looked like they were in pain and her skin seemed to be cracking open, like an egg hatching, a red light was glowing inside. Tilea shot Sarah with a massive bow and she screamed in pain and began clawing at the arrow. I raked my claws over her and sunk my teeth into her.

       A message came through from Bruenar: Get ready. The spell three of the heads had been casting went off and the bitch healed completely. Then all six heads started chanting. Scritch dive bombed Sarah, leaping off of Tilea's back and slamming into her. Energy began to spark between the six heads, so we all launched a brutal attack on her. It was odd fighting physically instead of at a distance with my magic; I didn't really like it.

       Dark clouds rolled in as Sarah's spell went off and the earth began to shake. Then the dragon screamed in agony and the cracks appeared again, more than before. We all pounced on her. Black ichor began to seep out of the cracks and the red light began to glow brighter. Her screams were suddenly cut off by an instant fortress item appearing in her neck, severing her head. I rushed to her soul, used the satchel, and instantly absorbed her soul. I don't get why the others had so much trouble doing that.

       With the Wives dead and the souls removed from the Heart, we all climbed on Tilea's back and flew toward the frontlines to look for Talbutt to end the bastard once and for all. Someone turned us invisible for this so we'd have the element of surprise. I dropped daylight on a cluster of vampires but nothing happened. Either they weren't vampires or they were protected somehow.

       We spotted a group of people in black cloaks carrying something heavy. They saw through our invisibility, so we killed all of them, while Sachi slipped off the blow up the command tent. Turns out it was Talbutt they were carrying. Catalina jumped off Tilea and called her other six duplicates and they all threw special daggers into him; fifteen appeared in his chest, burning him badly before they vanished- presumably returning to the hands of their owners. Kittie jumped off Tilea and stabbed a sharpened bone into Talbutt's chest, he screamed in pain- as did all the nearby vampires grabbed their heads in pain too- as Kittie jumped back there was an explosion of bright light.

       It took about half a minute for the light to fade, and my ears were ringing for a bit longer. There was a pile of dust on the ground and scorch marks were everywhere. Kittie was unconscious, but Cat revived her; the girl had nearly killed herself in the process of killing Talbutt.

       I felt a familiar tug and realized Sypha was nearby; at the same moment, Tilea realized Syn was too- they were together. We rushed to the Castle, crashing through the gates, and Tilea stuck her head in the window of the throne room, announcing to Strahd that assassins were on their way in. I realized my Fates cards could remove the soul brands on both Syn and Sypha; I tried Syn first and hit some sort of wall. I tried using a wish to fuel the attempt and Vecna's face appeared in my mind, saying "not now" and wagging his finger at me. I got an instant headache and my nose began bleeding; Nikko fixed me up right away. Tilea then challenged Syn to a duel, they both vanished and reappeared in the garden.

       Sypha told me she had to end this now, but she loved me and always had. As she moved to cast something at me, I used my other Fates card on her. Everything froze and I heard a voice: "That's not what I expected. You're clever; I should have gone for you, you goody-goodies always find different ways of doing things. I can't stop this, but we will meet. Thank you for revealing yourself to me and showing me your cleverness." Everything started again and Sypha doubled over, vomiting black ichor. She fell unconscious, but she was alive. I rushed to my sestra's side.

       Everyone else went to the windows to watch Tilea and Syn fight. They tried to join and help, which pissed Syn off. She told Tilea she'd abandoned her, and Tilea tried to explain that it was Zaul-Guud who held the party in the Mists for ten years. Syn summoned the fiend and Tilea tried to goad him into confessing. Instead, Zaul-Guud used some sort of telekinesis to choke Tilea and fling her away. He turned and advanced on Syn, who was shocked he'd beaten Tilea so easily. 

       With a wave of her hand, a black aura began pouring from Zaul-Guud from his mouth as he choked. Tilea stabbed him in the back three times as he stumbled toward Syn. The druid attempted to eat him, but Syn said "no," and stabbed him in the thigh with a twisted-looking dagger. He screamed and energy burst from him, surrounding both Syn and Tilea. The energy split in half, with half of it dissipating and the other half running through the dagger, up Syn's arm, disappearing when it reach a mark on her arm. 

       Syn drew her Sunblade and stalked toward Tilea, swinging her sword at her- Tilea parried each swing. They danced around the courtyard, dodging and parrying each swing, the sun and the moon at odd, until Tilea landed a painful blow on Syn. Tilea told Syn to leave the dark and come back to her. The girl responded by swinging her blade, and after missing again, she said "curse your magic" and crushed a crystal and an aura began swirling around her. 

       The defiant teenager thought Tilea was just trying to manipulate her, because she'd chosen the soul brand. She wanted her real parents and if she did what Vecna wanted, he said he'd tell her where they were. Supposedly her parents were gods, because only the offspring of a god could wield the true power of the sun as she did. 

       A gray form slipped into Tilea and Tatyana took over her, just as Syn scored a nasty blow to the druid; it hurt the spirit instead. Tatyana told Syn this wasn't how any of this was supposed to go; Syn, of course, placed the blame squarely on Tilea. Tatyana told her it was truly Zaul-Guud's fault, not Tilea's, and that she could give Syn exactly what she sought, if the girl would be patient. 

       Sypha came to a few minutes later and asked how long she'd been out; I remembered Grant telling me she'd been taken about twenty years ago. Sypha wasn't evil anymore, thank gods, and I spent the next few minutes catching her up on everything I could. She had a way to fix Agatha, and with all three of us, we could save Syn. We needed someone fast and stealthy to make this work, so I recruited Sachi, giving him hexbags to plant on Aggie.

       Sypha said we needed to leave now so that Tatyana could get into Syn. I scryed for Aggie and she pulled Sypha, Sachi, and I right to her coven; Sachi was well hidden though. Agatha forced Sypha and I to sit as her coven disarmed us; she began ranting about the Demon Queen wanting her to turn both of us to her side... The Demon Queen in question was Lolth, of course she's the one who duped Daddy.

       Aggie and I went back and forth again, with her explaining that I should join her and me stubbornly refusing. I told her she could just come back to me, but of course, she insisted it should be the other way around. This was a dance my sestra and I had done many times since she was taken. Sypha watched our exchange in silence. I didn't know where Sachi was, but I knew he'd pop out when the time was right. Suddenly, Agatha said we'd join in death if not in life, and Sypha and I were strapped to tables. She held two twisted, vile looking daggers, one in each hand, and was standing between the tables, a dagger poised over each of our hearts.

       Sachi appeared, grabbed Sypha and I and pulled us into his paradise. We had to go right back, since we hadn't enacted Sypha's plan yet. Aggie began slowly killing me, draining my life away, while I glared at her stubbornly, refusing to let her see the pain she was causing. I would rather die than turn away from the light. Besides, we still had Sachi as backup, and I knew he'd save me.

       Sypha couldn't handle watching me be slowly killed, and just as she said "stop, I'll do it," Sachi appeared and yelled "surprise!" Then he threw two philters of love into Aggie's face. Sypha said "this works too, pulled down the collar of her dress to reveal a twisted looking rune carved into it, and slapped a bloody hand to it. A wave of energy pulsed out and Agatha began puking black ichor. One of her witches tried to do something to Sachi, but he countered it and stopped time.

       While Sachi froze time, he set up philters of love next to fans to blow the potions onto the members of my sestra's coven. It worked... Oddly... I grabbed my sestras and took us back to Castle Ravenloft. Sachi followed a few minutes later with nine of her witches, who were currently madly in love with the little monkey.

       Outside mist was clearing, Tilea was behind a barrier and Syn looked like she was about to launch herself at Tatyana. Aggie and Sypha said we needed to be able to see Syn, and we needed the Book. I went to get it while Agatha went for the ingredients. She manipulated Sachi into making the circle for us while we worked. I found it mildly amusing that we were setting all of this up in the middle of Strahd's throne room. I'm not sure where he ended up.

       We got the ritual going, and I tasked Nikko and Dot with standing guard for us. We'd be too focused on the ritual to deal with anything else that may come up.

       Tilea made it through the barrier just as the triplets began their ritual. She invited Tatyana back in, and her dragon took the opportunity to try to fight Tatyana and escape. Tilea was frozen in place while the two spirits battled inside her. Syn still threw herself at Tilea, intent on fighting, not even aware of what was happening inside her surrogate mother. 

       A gravelly voice startled Sachi, as Corvane said she was disappointed no one invited her to this party. 

       Just as Syn swung her sword, Scritch threw Talmot's Heart between Syn and Tilea. 

The Ravenloft Chronicles- Shit Storm: Book One, Chapter Nine

The Mists of Time

Dramatis Personae:
Tilea Aervavil'A'Sum, the Wild Elf Circle of the Moon Druid Barbarian
Scritch, Tilea's Squirrel Animal Companion
Sachi Kno, the Vistani Weremonkey Thief
Tabitha Marie Lennox, the Human White Witch of Mystra
Nikko, Tabitha's Flying Monkey familiar
Bruenar Shieldwall, the Shield Dwarf Shield Fighter the party hired

Comrades we have lost:
Pineck, Anvil's Horse- turned into soup by a cursed crate
Kithri "Quickshadow" Tealeaf, the Lightfoot Halfling Werebat Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter and Ruin Raider- left to become Archivist
Forgrotken Anvilrocker, the Blugrim Forge Cleric of Moradin- killed by the Talmot Wives
Lythana, the Human Werewolf Order of the Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter- captured by the Talmot Wives
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Four-year-old Human girl who Tilea released from an amulet- kidnapped by Strahd

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Tabitha's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the Witch can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Hetedik Honap 16, CY 735, Waterdeep

       It was approaching the witching hour, which was when Agatha's people were most likely to find me. I wanted to head back to Barovia, but Tilea and Sachi wanted to keep shopping. So I used a one use item I'd purchased that gives you a pocket mansion so I'd have somewhere safe to hide from my sestra's spies. Bruenar decided to stay in the mansion with me so I'd have company and protection, while Sachi and Tilea went looking for the black market.

       While they were out, Bruenar stepped outside to get some air and a guard saw and recognized me. Bruenar lived up to the name Shieldwall as he protected me from Aggie's spy, and I shot it with bolts over Bruenar's shoulder. I didn't like killing random people, but I had to keep myself hidden from my sestra.

       Sachi and Tilea stumbled near dawn. Apparently they'd gotten inducted into the thieves' guild, and they'd gotten a ton of gold anda luck blade from an idiot who attempted to rob them; they counter-robbed this guy.

       Once they'd sorted their new items, Sachi wanted to plant a magic bean, so we went back into the woods where we fought the bunnies the day before. The bean turned into a geyser of beer. Then a nest of eggs appeared; turns out Scritch had stolen a bean and planted it while we were focused on the beer geyser. Tilea and Bruenar each ate an egg, while Sachi threw one at Tilea causing it to explode on her shield. As Tilea wound up to throw one back at Sachi, he passed out from drinking too much of the geyser. It exploded, and she threw another one at him, just for the fuck of it. Scritch devoured the last egg while I revived Sachi. He then planted another bean and it sprouted into a blue fire.

       The others were ready to head back to Barovia now, but I couldn't take anyone with me through the Mists. Bruenar knew of a way though, so we followed him. As we traveled, a fruit tree appeared in the road- another bean.

       After about thirty minutes, we noticed a stupidly obvious shadow following us. Tilea called at the figure to just come out, and the idiot made the mistake of trying to shoot her. Scritch snuck up behind the figure and knocked him out. It was the guy they'd counter-robbed last night, trying to get his revenge. A couple of thieves' guild members popped out of the bushes and told us they'd deal with the idiot; he was the guild master's son, and he was trying to win respect by getting his stuff back.

       We arrived at a quaint little cabin in a clearing in the woods about an hour later; there was faint music coming from it. Bruenar knocked and it took a few minutes before a deep, growly voice asked "who is it?" Tilea told the voice we were travelers, and the voice asked of what. She said the Mists, and the door opened. A big half-orc with long, frizzy hair and a prominent widow's peak on the other side of it. The man asked if we wished to go into the Mists, and Tilea said we didn't really wish to go. He shut the door and we could make out hushed voices on the other side of it for a couple of minutes. Then he opened the door again and asked if we desired to return to the Mists; we said yes and the door opened the rest of the way.

       Steam came billowing out of the cabin and we entered a large room- much larger than it seemed to be on the outside. The room was a stereotypical witch's den, with a large cauldron in the center and animals in cages lining one of the walls. A human and a halfling, each holding a ritual dagger, were standing at the cauldron; they used the daggers and their ritual appeared to go off.

       They were all a bit creepy, made my skin crawl. They asked what we would pay for them to send us through the Mists, and Sachi asked how much money they wanted. He was sitting on Tilea's shoulder, in his little monkey form, and these people thought he was awakened; they asked us to awaken a few of their animals, and I told them I could do three tonight and a couple more in the morning. That was a sufficient payment, and they told us their home was open to us if we didn't question their practices.

       In the night we heard chanting to Zaul-Guud, whoever that was; it sounded like they were warlocks or attempting to make some sort of deal. I felt an unnerving energy rise, and heard an animal squeal in pain, followed by a plunk as something was dropped into liquid. We heard this repeated two more times... I managed to keep Tilea from killing them because we needed them to get back to Barovia to save Syn and Lythana. She asked me to put the thorn whip spell in a gem for Scritch, she wanted to pull them to Barovia with us.

***** Hetedik Honap 17, Cult of Zaul-Guud's Cabin

       The odd people asked us to awaken a ghost scorpion, a wolverine, a badger, and a king cobra in the morning; there was no sign of the animals I'd awakened yesterday. Tilea wanted to awaken a flying snake, but they wouldn't let her. She asked them to just send us now, but they had to perform a ritual first, which required them to kill the animals I'd just awakened.

      Before they could kill any of the animals, Sachi tried to steal the athame from one of them, but he caught him and hit Sachi with a nasty-looking spell. Scritch popped up and hit the halfling and Tilea stabbed it; it attempted to hit Tilea with a spell, but she resisted it. Sachi killed the half-orc with ease as Tilea beheaded the human, calling out for their god to manifest on this plane. Since there was no way in any of the Hells we'd be able to get home from these people, I shot the halfling with two blasts of pure arcane energy, killing it.

       We began letting all of the animals out of cages, and I attempted to befriend the flying snake, but it bit me and flew away. I chased it and awakened it. But just as I awoke the snake, a large demon rose out of the cauldron, and all of the people's animals died; Nikko and Scritch were fine. The demon asked who awoke it, and Tilea responded by telling him to send us to Barovia or we'd kill him. He said he could only bring the Mists here, the people we'd just killed were the only ones who could send us there.

       Tilea opened an iron flask and released an ultroloth, then offered it Zaul-Guud's soul... It saw through that, since we didn't actually have his soul. It tried to convince Tilea to release it, but she didn't fall for its nonsense. She told it to take us to Barovia, but it couldn't do it, so she put it back in the flask. Zaul-Guud got pissed and took us to the Hells with it; guess it was a devil, not a demon. Bruenar somehow wasn't taken with us.

       Zaul-Guud moved his hands to cast something, but I countered it. He got pissed and screamed in rage, deafening Nikko, Scritch, and Sachi. Sachi let the ultroloth out of the flask again and told it to defend us. I sent a bolt of electricity at him, but he dodged it; I also had Nikko restore Sachi's hearing. Tilea shifted into some kind of enormous moth, and the ultroloth summoned a swarm of demons as backup. It told them to destroy the flask, but it was safely stored in a haversack. Zaul managed to banish all but one of the demons the ultroloth had summoned, but at least that took its attention off of us long enough for me to take us to the Beast Lands.

       After some debate, we decided to wish to rewind time to just before we met the cultists. We erased Tilea's memory of the first encounter, and would not reveal that we could awaken animals.

***** Hetedik Honap 16 (take two), Cult of Zaul-Guud's Cabin

       We paid the cultists twenty-five thousand gold to send us back this time, and we camped outside in a Hut to hide from Tilea the animal sacrifices.

***** Hetedik Honap 17 (take two), Cult of Zaul-Guud's Cabin

       In the morning their ritual was ready to go when we went back into the cabin, and they were all at their cauldron. They instructed us to line up, and the Mists swirled around us, whisking us back to Barovia. We were just outside the Village, and we went straight to my Temple to send a message to Syn.

       There was a message waiting for me from Belmont asking where the Hells I was and saying serious shit was going down. I sent Belmont a message: "Strahd kicked us out, took a couple days to return. Where do you need me? What's going on? Tilea wants to storm castle and get Blessed One." A moment later he responded with: "Blessed One is currently assaulting the Village of Barovia. Talmot and Wives are at Ravenloft. Army is amassing to assault Faerun and other planes."

       While I was sending my message to Belmont, Tilea realized her dog and cat had aged... significantly. Somehow, they had aged ten years in just a couple of days. Something was very wrong.

       Zaul-Guud remembered the party's actions even though they had wished it away, so as revenge he held the party back for ten years instead of letting them through immediately. 

       We went into the Village, and it was as peaceful as ever. The priest of Lathander at the church that had been fully rebuilt, told us Syn was in Vallakai, threatening to lay siege to the town. Of course Tilea wanted to head straight there to talk to Syn, so we decided to use a spell to step through a tree, and we'd summon Bruenar when we got there. Just as we were stepping through the tree, Sachi called Bruenar, slamming him into it. When we got to the other side, we were about an hour away from Vallakai; and Bruenar greeted Sachi by slamming a tree trunk into his face.

       We were almost there when Tilea decided to venture into the army encampment alone to look for Syn. She flew off as we continued walking toward it, just off of Lake Zarovich, and as we grew near, a voice called out and asked us to state our business. We told him we were just passing through and he told us to turn around, then the idiot shot and poisoned Sachi. I asked Bruenar to retrieve him alive, and after he'd been knocked out, we found a symbol of the Resistance on him; apparently the encampment was a Resistance installation.

       Belmont looked like he'd seen a ghost when we walked into the camp, he'd thought I was dead. I pointed out I'd just talked to him like an hour ago, and apparently he hadn't gotten the message- Strahd must have intercepted it and sent the reply. He quickly brought us up to speed on the last ten fucking years. Evidently Strahd had figured out a way to send an army through the Mists, and Syn was the key to that. Since we never came back, Lythana was never rescued and eventually fell to the other side. Thanks to our appearance in the camp, and the message that had been intercepted, the Resistance was warned that trouble was coming, and everyone began to pack up quickly.

      Around that time, Tilea arrived- apparently after seeing that the encampment was Resistance, she'd flown to Vallakai to look for Syn. She said they were sending dragons from both the south and east to pin us against the lake. Someone came up with the idea to fabricate a bunch of boats to evacuate the camp, but I pointed out the flaws in that plan: Talmot had Vallaki, so we couldn't go there, and there were no other towns on this lake. And the fucking dragons could easily just sink the boats and drown everyone anyways. At least on land we had a chance to fight, in the water we'd be sitting ducks.

       Tilea pulled me aside and told me Agatha was here and Talmot instructed someone to tell her I was. I hoped I wouldn't have to face her, I just wasn't quite ready yet.

       Bruenar went out to scout and found the army wasn't heading here, it was heading to Castle Ravenloft; Tilea took off to warn Strahd, since he was better than Talmot, or Talbutt as Tilea had started to call him. With this new information, we decided to come up behind Talbutt's army and flank it, hoping that between the Resistance and Strahd's forces, we could take him down. I hunkered down to make candles to protect our front line as much as possible, using a spell to help ward against death and one to protect from evil. It wasn't much, but it was the best I could do in the little time I had. Belmont sent Sachi to get Grant, we'd need him in this fight.

       Tilea called upon the spirit of Tatiana, Strahd's love who he's in a constant loop losing. She thought having the spirit of Tatiana, since she hadn't been reincarnated yet, would help her deal with Strahd. 

       We were preparing to march when two of the wives began flying in our direction. I sent Tilea a message to get her butt back here, but she was still at the Castle. Bruenar decided to go deal with the dragons on his own and charged off.

       Sachi went out with the scouts and saw Lythana and Corvane. He came crashing into camp saying they were behind him; we saw Corvane, but no sign of Lythana. I tried to banish Corvane, but it didn't work. Belmont went at her with his whips, and our forces tried to take hit her, but they weren't trained to fight something like her. Corvane hit Sachi hard, just before Lythana flew at me, landing a blow that made me see stars for a moment. Sachi wished Lythana wasn't evil and she stiffened for a moment, something shifted in her. I told her I would never abandon her, we had planned to save her, and instead of a couple days we were gone a decade.

       I tried banishing Corvane again and noticed this time that she had something to keep me from doing that to her again. Tilea asked Corvane why she was working against Strahd- apparently she'd quit working for him ages ago. Lythana seemed to be thinking about stepping out of the fight, but Corvane reminded her she was bound and had to take us to Talmot whether she wanted to or not. Grant stepped out of the treeline then and approached her. He'd been preparing for years to take her down.

       The woman who looked like me- not Aggie- stepped out then too. Apparently she was my eldest sestra, mother gave her to the Mists when we were days old to prevent the prophecy. Mother wasn't drunk when she spoke about the prophecy... This was not the place for a peculiar family reunion though, Corvane and Lythana wouldn't just sit by and wait to continue the battle until my apparent sestra and I talked things out.

       Tilea turned into a draken and went for Corvane, while Sachi tried to use one of the trapped spell gems on her, but it didn't work. A couple of our troops managed to hit Corvane- I was amazed. Bruenar was back and he picked up one of our guys, using him as a weapon to beat on Corvane. Corvane unleashed a series of attacks on the ones closest to her and collapsed. Sestra dropped a ton of fire on our army, decimating our numbers. Sachi tried to put her in the flask, but it didn't work.

       I didn't want to fight my sestra, but I couldn't have her killing my army, so I banished her and shot Corvane with bolts of pure arcane energy. Tilea lunged at Corvane and missed, then Belmont hit her with a blue fire and she screamed in agony. A deafening roar belted out over the trees as a gold dragon and a silver dragon- Farrah and Clarah Talmot- flew into view. Belmont and Sachi ran in terror just before they both used their breath weapons on the army; everyone was dead except for one human.

       Corvane hit Tilea and knocked her out of the air, then Bruenar began beating on her; I smacked her hard with a bolt of lightning. We called out for everyone to fall back, but Tilea couldn't get away from Corvane. Bruenar solved that problem by chopping the bitch's arm off to free Tilea, then as Corvane lunged at him, he farted and fled- I was glad I was in the air for that. Tilea grabbed Bruenar and flew off, and I grabbed the one mother fucker who'd survived and used my dimension door to get away.

Waterdeep: Map by Wizards of the Coast