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

Shattering Dreams

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
Belmont Von Richter, the mysterious Human who tends to show up just in the nick of time
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, then turned evil
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Four-year-old 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 17, 745 CY, Shores of Lake Zarovich

       Farrah came after me, so I polymorphed the girl from the Resistance into a flying snake to fit her on my broom, and used my dimension door two more times to put some distance between us. A few seconds later Sachi yelled to me to "get ready," so I put Nikko in his dimensional pocket and turned myself into a flying snake. He grabbed me and the girl and away we went.

       When we reached a clear spot, Sachi summoned Bruenar and Tilea came with him. I attempted to send a message to Belmont, but it wouldn't go through. We decided to go to Argynvostholt, it had always been our fall back location. Before leaving, Sachi decided to test out Bruenar's teleport to see how many people could go with him, so we he went a little away and summoned, but only I went with him. Since that didn't work like he was hoping it would, I turned myself and the girl- Violet- back into flying snakes, and we wrapped ourselves around Sachi. Tilea stayed behind with Bruenar.

       About half a mile outside of town, after crossing the river, we heard a trumpet sound. Talmot soldiers were below us, drawing weapons, so Sachi turned invisible so we could get away from them. Sachi called Bruenar, but Tilea didn't come with him. He was really beat up, it took me two major healing spells and one minor one to get him back in shape. Apparently calling him had left Tilea facing a group of vampires alone. She could handle herself though and we knew she'd catch up pretty quickly.

       Sachi and I went to scout Argynvostholt and found several ballistas outside, along with some huge battlements on the outskirts of time. As we passed over town, we were hit with a net and stuck to the immovable rod. Sachi got out easily, but it took a bit of effort for me to wriggle free. We went to the Resistance chapter house, and it was on fire. Sachi summoned a water elemental to help, but fire elementals were the source of the flames, so the little water elemental couldn't do much. Sachi summoned Bruenar and Violet came with- they ended up falling into the flames... He scurried away to summon them somewhere else.

       There were tons of buildings on fire, more than we could deal with on our own. Sachi pulled out his Wand of Wonder and set off a fireball at a group of people... They didn't survive the fanning of the flames. I dropped an ice storm to put out part of that section, since the people were already dead, but it didn't do much. There was nothing we could do here. As we agreed on that, Sachi began mouthing off as usual, so Bruenar paid Violet to hit him. Sachi used the Wand of Wonder again and dropped darkness on us. I dispelled it, turned Violet and I into flying snakes again, and we took off. I hated leaving, but there really was nothing we could do.

       We went hunting for Tilea and we entered a clearing where the smell of baked goods wafter toward us. It was the Old Bonegrinder, and this wasn't just dream cakes we were smelling, and there was snow around the Bonegrinder. This was odd, even by Barovian standards. Bruenar appeared, apparently he'd made it so we could summon each other, not just Sachi summoning him. Tilea appeared next, and we watched the Bonegrinder from the treeline while Bruenar wandered off.

       We spent forever arguing in circles about what to do, the Resistance was pretty much dead at this point, and we couldn't reach Belmont. Eventually Bruenar came back with a ton of treats from the Bonegrinder, he said Kringle was at the Castle, so it was a special day in Barovia. The Bonegrinder was completely neutral territory; there were people in both Strahd and Talmot's factions together, talking and getting along, children were playing- this was a peaceful and glorious sight. We were close enough to the mill that the snow reached us, and we ended up engaging in a snowball fight with the kids playing nearby.

       After the snowball fight, Tilea demanded we take down the Bonegrinder, which I was not happy about, because I didn't want to destroy this neutral territory. Everyone else was willing to go along with Tilea's demands, so I went to keep them alive. Tilea and Bruenar were going to storm the mill while the rest of us caused a distraction. Tilea made Bruenar look like a Talmot guard to frame him for it; we all did some sort minor disguises.

       Sachi and Scritch stole all of the baked goods and the money from the Bonegrinder, and the pair began flinging gold and treats out to the crowd, causing a huge distraction. While they kept the patrons busy, we slipped inside and Bruenar tossed up a bomb. We heard feet scrambling above us as dust and smoke filled the air around us.

      I felt something try to fill my throat, but I shook it off quickly, and summoned an air elemental to clear the smoke from the room. Sachi opened up a hole in the wall to help vent the smoke too. Bruenar began beating on the door to the second story. Sachi and Violet began bleeding from their eyes, and I dispelled that curse instantly. Tilea turned into a savager- an enormous beast- and started beating on the walls; she was going to collapse the building.

       Violet and I got out of there before they could collapse the building, and I tried to see invisible things to look for the hags; when that didn't do anything, I lit a blink candle to see if I could find them on the ethereal plane, which didn't show anything either. A noxious cloud appeared, so I had my air elemental funnel it up and away from us. Then I realized we hadn't checked the other floors... As Bruenar charged through the tower, trying to break down the walls, I flew up to the second floor and found myself face to face with a blood hag. She tried and failed to curse me, and another one failed too. The other two hit me with magic missiles, and would have gravely injured me if not for my candles. Nikko healed me quickly.

       Sachi used an illusion spell to make it look like Farrah was approaching; apparently we were completely framing Talmot for this one. Violet ran away in terror at the sight of the illusory dragon. Bruenar and Tilea continued breaking down walls, while the hags tried and failed to curse us, and sent more missiles at Tilea. Violet summoned Tilea, who turned and ran back into the building. Then she summoned me, and attempted Bruenar, but I guess he could choose not to come now. Sachi set off an epic explosion with several wands and necklaces of fireballs. Everyone believed it was Talmot's doing.

       We headed back to my Temple and found it surrounded by mercenaries; the dog and cat were running the battlements quite well. Bruenar said he had something funny to show us, then waded out among the mercs, got himself surrounded, then switched places with Sachi. After laughing for a moment the others went into the fray while I got on my broom and started throwing out bolts of magic. All of the mercs were dead in less than a minute and we didn't really take any damage from that fight.

       An old Vistani woman approached us and offered us a reading from her Tarokka Deck to thank us. When Violet's present card came up, an efreet appeared and proposed to her, which she readily accepted. The wedding was set for tomorrow. I would open the Temple and perform the ceremony. We invited Strahd, so we wouldn't be slighting the Lord of the land. Bruenar helped make the Temple and Violet look amazing.

       Tilea made sure it was known that there would be an epic wedding, and everyone was invited so long as they didn't support Talmot.

***** Hetedik Honap 18, Temple of Mystra

       Violet's fiance was a fucking prince in the City of Brass, so there were tons of guests from the Plane of Fire present. Strahd was able to enter the Temple, which I was not happy about; I needed to redo the hallow protections on this place.

       Twenty minutes into the wedding, Talbutt walked in and asked why they didn't invite the up and coming lord of the land. Tilea told him we didn't acknowledge his claim to the land, and Strahd had given his title to a cat; which he hadn't done, but probably would now to slight Talbutt. Violet mouthed to her fiance that Talmot was ruining her wedding, then pouted at him; all of the elementals rose as one. Talbutt said if she wanted him to leave he would, and she told him he wasn't invited and it was rude to crash the party.

       Talbutt said he understood and Syn appeared behind Violet and stabbed her- then vanished. None of my healing magics could close the fucking wound, though I tried frantically. The Prince rounded on Talbutt. Tilea put a daylight spell on an arrow and shot Talbutt with it. I tried my talisman of good, but he just barely avoided falling in. He turned to mist to get the arrow out, and instantly reformed because the daylight spell was still present. The asshole pulled out an iron flask and sucked the Prince into it. He vanished just as Tilea took another shot at him.

       Strahd knelt beside the dying Violet and offered to turn her and help her rescue her Prince, and she accepted.

       Almost every one of the elemental guests was killed by Talbutt supporters.

Maps from the Curse of Strahd adventure module by Wizards of the Coast

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

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

Well Spent Wishes

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
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Four-year-old Human girl who Tilea released from an amulet

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

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 12, CY 735, Temple of Mystra

       In the morning, Tilea attempted to perform a ritual that would make Syn part of her family, but something stopped it from working. During the ritual I felt that there was something off about Syn's soul, almost as if it were cursed, but not quite cursed. It was odd to explain.

       Sachi began debating what to use the wish he'd gotten from genie on. He really wanted to get all the treasures we'd lost in the dungeon yesterday. Bruenar suggested he wish for a second chance at it and for the knowledge of how to disarm all the traps. He spent more time deliberating before he finally took the dwarf's advice. Tilea told Sachi to go outside when he made the wish, thinking my Temple would protect us from any ill effects.

       It was odd watching his wish go off; it felt like everything shifted just a little to the left. The lava flow reversed and all fires were instantly snuffed out- but the damage to the buildings was still there. After a few minutes, the lava had fully withdrawn back into the dungeon.

       Syn insisted on going with us, even though we told her she'd be safer in my Temple. There was no persuading this child though, she was damned stubborn. She wanted to ride Sachi there, and when he told her he's too small, she turned him into a giant so we all could ride him.

       When we arrived, Corvane appeared, and as soon as she saw Syn, she demanded we hand the child over. Sachi used the distraction to slip into the crypt. Corvane seemed to be pleading us to hand over the child, as if she didn't want to force a confrontation with us. Of course we couldn't just hand over the child... she really should have stayed within the safety of my Temple. Once it became clear we wouldn't hand Syn over, Corvane charged Tilea, swung a dagger at her- hitting- and snatched Syn. Tilea swung at her to try to get hold of Syn, but Corvane was too fast.

       I lite a blink candle to try to get Syn away from Corvane, but it didn't work. Then I tried polymorphing her, but that didn't work either. I hate this fucking monk. Tilea turned into a beast called a savager and attacked Corvane. Bruenar charged her, but couldn't free Syn from her grasp. Corvane yelled out "bring me back and them too!" Which was worrisome. I tried to polymorph Syn into something that could get away easier, but she resisted my magic too. Tilea and Bruenar began trying to beat the Hells out of Corvane, to no avail. I turned myself and Scritch into giant ant queens and we joined the fray; Scritch actually did quite well. Bruenar managed to get hold of Corvane and body slammed her... then she vanished through a dimensional door with Syn.

       I shifted back to myself and grabbed Bruenar so we could attempt to follow. We popped into a group of angry Barovians, who all turned to us when we appeared. I slipped Bruenar a gem and asked him to keep them off of me while I tried to pick up the trail... I didn't realize that meant started beating everyone up...

       I got into the air to look for them, but there was no sign of either of them. Tilea caught up and picked up the trail, thankfully. She took off, and I grabbed Bruenar and followed. I guess she lost the trail quickly, because she turned around and went back to the crypt for Sachi. She began trying to destroy the door to the crypt, but I got around her and opened it myself, flying down to get Sachi.

       Sachi is too fast and he zoomed by me on my way in. When I finally got to the top of the stairs, Strahd was waiting. He said "goodbye," waved his hand, and I found myself standing in front of a green portal that was shrinking. I jumped through and found Sachi and Bruenar. Apparently Strahd had evicted all of us from his domain.

       We spent the next three days in the Feywild among Tilea's people, preparing to mount a rescue operation when we returned to Barovia.

***** Hetedik Honap 15, Feywild

       One of the things we'd gotten in the crypt was a Talisman of Ultimate Evil, which I asked Mystra to aid me in purifying. Smoke began to fill the ritual circle, and it became clear we would have to fight whatever this evil was. Tilea had the druids send us to Faerun before we fought it so we weren't inviting unknown evil into the village.

       Once we reached Faerun, I broke the circle, and a cloud of smoke covered everything. I shifted into a giant ant queen so I could gain the ability to see them, then turned everyone else, except Bruenar into one too. There were a bunch of small, fuzzy things in the smoke, but I couldn't tell exactly what they were. I managed to bite one, and it multiplied, becoming two. The fuzzy things were hitting us hard too, every time we hit one it split and hit back twice as hard. Then a huge man crashed into the area and the smoke began to rapidly clear... it was fucking bunnies. One of them hit me hard, so I got in the air, done with those stupid rabbits.

       Tilea randomly decided to feed one of the bunnies a goodberry, and it vanished. Apparently petting them makes them go away. Once we'd all petted them, they were gone. The man vanished with them.

       We were in the woods just outside of Waterdeep, and a group of riders was coming toward us; they must have seen the smoke. When they arrived, Bruenar told them we were on a mission of peace and had just cleansed the amulet, which I presented as proof. They made Tilea leash Sachi before we got into town, then we hit the shops to gear up to rescue Lythana and Syn.

Map from the Curse of Strahd adventure module by Wizards of the Coast

Waterdeep; Map by Wizards of the Coast

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

The Search for the Sun Sword

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
Belmont Von Richter, the mysterious Human who tends to show up just in the nick of time
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

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 11, CY 735, Village of Barovia

       Since we were looking for the Sun Blade, we thought the best place to start was at the Church of the Dawn Father in the Village of Barovia. Tilea and Sachi were paranoid that someone would be waiting to ambush us in the church, which didn't make much sense to me, but I was filling in as their babysitter now that Lythana was gone, so I didn't really argue. We flew into the bell tower instead of walking through the doors.

       In the tower was a rusty old trap door that Sachi opened instantly with his hand. Sachi jumped in first, doing a little flip to show off for whoever he thought was waiting for us down below. Tilea, who was currently a raven, did a flip in the air and landed on Sachi's shoulder. Nikko and I swirled down behind them... there was no one waiting for us.

       The bells began to ring above us, this was the first time I'd ever heard them ring, I'd never even heard someone mention them ringing. Then the chains holding the bells snapped, and they slammed hard into the altar below. I looked around and found scuff marks in the dust, like someone had been in here and ran when the bells collapsed. We needed to look around anyway, so we went to search the rooms.

       Sachi found a locked trap door in one of the rooms. I literally found a needle in a haystack.. well, hay mattress, but still. Tilea found a piece of paper with exploding runes on it, blowing the room she was in up. In the final room was a blond haired, green eyed, scruffy looking human man. He grabbed Sachi, threw him across the room, ran out, and parkoured himself out of the hole we'd put in the roof. As Sachi took off after him, I realized the man was Grant, a member of the Resistance and a friend. I had no hope of catching up to them, so Tilea and I waited for Sachi to come back.

       When the monkey returned he was drunk and injured. He went to pick the lock on the trap door and passed out instead. I'm beginning to understand why Lythana was getting triple pay for traveling with them. I healed Sachi, removed his drunkenness, and dispelled any magic that may have been active on him. Grant is a bit of a dick, so it wouldn't surprise me if Sachi's stupor was from some magical trap of his. Before waking him up, Tilea created a creepy little statue of Sachi that she hung over him.

       Right after we woke Sachi up, the doors to the church were broken down by a dwarf I knew in reputation only: Bruenar Shieldwall. Apparently Sachi had hired him before we came down here. The monkey instantly began negotiating with him over the fee, which ended up being half of Sachi's loot. As he opened the trap door, Sachi not so subtly tried to find out if Bruenar was in the Resistance, and the dwarf responded by throwing him down the stairs. 

       The basement looked like it was going to collapse at any moment, and it wouldn't have surprised me if it had caved in on our heads. In the corner of the basement, Tilea found a scrap of parchment that had been mildly burned. I had a feeling that it was done with invisible ink, so I took a candle flame to it, and words appeared. Cemetery: Markovian Crypt. Guess that's our starting point for hunting down this sword.

       When we walked out of the church, Corvane was waiting for us. She said it took us long enough, and she wondered if we'd figure the rest out; then she vanished into thin air. Chills went down my spine, the presence of that monk always makes my skin crawl.

       It took about half an hour to find the crypt, and we discovered we couldn't gain entrance without a few items that needed to be fit into the locks. They were probably in other crypts in the graveyard, so we went to the nearest one to look for it.

       I set up a ritual to detect magic, while Sachi picked the lock; instead of waiting for me, he and Bruenar went into the crypt to explore. There were three sarcophagi in the crypt, and Bruenar opened the first two with ease. But on the third one, he strained his back and had to go sit down for a moment. Sachi thought it would be a good idea for him to open the heavy lid on his own... He dropped the lid on his head and fell into the sarcophagus, getting tangled in the body. Bruenar hobbled back over to Sachi and had to rip him out of the chest cavity of the corpse. It wasn't all for nothing though; while I was finishing up the ritual, Bruenar found one of the things we needed in the doorframe.

       Sachi then insisted we needed to search every other tomb here to look for the other pieces and ran off. By the time Tilea, Bruenar, and I caught up to him he'd been almost turned to stone by a trap, and was facing off with several ghouls inside the crypt. Bruenar ran in, destroying a ghoul instantly; then he somehow got his shield stuck in the wall. Sachi killed another ghoul; then Bruenar was hit hard by a third ghoul, which he proceeded to destroy. Tilea, Nikko, and I concentrated fire on one ghoul, and Bruenar finished it, then killed the final one on his own. He was definitely worth the monkey Sachi was paying him. I healed Bruenar and he surprised me by giving me a very expensive diamond as payment. With the ghouls gone, we found the last piece we needed easily.

       I got in the air to look for the next tomb, and realized they were in a pattern that looked like a crest I'd seen on Strahd; I was certain the other pieces were in the big tombs in the pattern. Apparently telling everyone instantly wasn't the best idea. Sachi took off and began opening them as fast as he could. He got his hands on some very powerful spell gems, that looked to be somewhat volatile, so I warned him to careful.

       Once we collected all of the pieces and put them in place, the door opened, and a wave of heated slammed into us. We descended the half mile long staircase down, and found ourselves in a large cavern with pools of lava here and there. As it opened up more, there were multiple lava streams, and at the end of the corridor, on a dais, was a stained glass box. On either side of us were streams of lava, and just across the lava was tons of gold and magic items; there was a little wooden box I felt strangely drawn to; it must be a witch candle box of some sort.

       As we looked around, Bruenar told us there was a legend that if we tried to take something we didn't truly need, the place would collapse on top of us. At that point, Bruenar whispered that Corvane had been shadowing us for a while now, and he'd deal with her while we looked for the sword. Sachi went to a dagger on a pedestal that he felt drawn to, and was just reaching for it when Tilea convinced him to wait to take it until we'd found the sword; the last thing we needed was for this place to collapse on us because the monkey wanted a shiny knife.

       Sachi hopped over the lava stream that was between us and the stained glass box. My broom was deflected, so I couldn't get over it, I sent Nikko instead, and Tilea turned into a flying monkey to get herself over there. The box was glowing, until Sachi touched it. He vanished for a second, then reappeared, holding a little golden lamp; the lights in the box went out. There was no seam to open it, so the only way in it was to break the glass. Nikko saw a tiny orb of light in the box, and Tilea demanded he open it. He told her no, and apparently that meant that nobody could open the fucking thing.

       Sachi and Tilea both decided to just get the items they were drawn to and leave. I don't know why neither of them weren't willing to open the box themselves, but I was quite irked that they expected my familiar to do it. I had Nikko grab the box I was drawn to, and as we went to collect our items, the glass box shattered. Lava instantly began to bubble up out of the streams and the pedestals. Nikko was too close to the pedestal of mine to ge clear quickly enough, so I put him in a bubble that would protect him until he got to me. The lava flung him away from me, but I was able to pull him to safety with a thorn whip. I turned myself into a flying snake and grabbed hold of Sachi, and that monkey took off at a ridiculously high speed.

       We passed Bruenar on the way, and I attempted to polymorph him so we could grab on to Sachi, but my spell failed. Sachi tossed a bead of force into the entrance to the larger cavern to try to buy Bruenar some time, but as we cleared the crypt, we couldn't tell if he escaped. Tilea heard something and saw a smoking figure falling through the air; it had to be Bruenar. Sachi tossed a bead of force at him, but it bounced off, and Bruenar instead began riding it. Tilea used a spell that put all of us on the eastern side of the cemetary, away from the fucking lava.

       Corvane caught up to us, I guess it was too much to hope that the lava would have caught her too, and demanded the sun sword we'd failed to find. She didn't believe we didn't have it, and tried to grab Sachi and stuff him in a bag of holding.

       Tilea glared daggers at Corvane and said, "I wish you would leave us the fuck alone."

       "Fuck that, I wish she was banished from this place," Sachi quipped.

       Smoke engulfed us, and it tasted terrible. When the smoke cleared, a hulking figure was looming over us, and asked "who did it?" The genie granted Sachi's wish and Corvane vanished. I hoped it was permanent, but I doubted that.

       The entire Village was on fire as the lava continued to pour out of the crypt. We rushed to the inn to get Tilea's animals. Once we reached the city gates we opened our bags to look at what we'd grabbed, in hopes something in there would fix this. Tilea and Sachi's bags were completely empty, and the box Nikko had grabbed had lost all magic. Inside it was a note that said "ha ha" in a familiar script, but I couldn't quite place it. A drow appeared in front of us, which turned out to be Grant in disguise. He demanded Guild dues from Sachi, gave us shit about the lava, and tossed us the loot; he'd gathered everything before we'd even noticed, including the sun blade we'd failed to find.

       We proceeded too begin evacuating people from the Village, saving about 200 people total. About a quarter mile beyond the gates, I sacrificed a magical pearl and my remaining magical energy to Mystra in exchange for a Temple where I could safely house everyone whose lives were literally burning down around them. Everyone began rushing toward the Temple doors, but then Sachi began talking... Apparently the other Vistani don't like the monkey.

       Grant tackled Sachi and told him to play dead, then helped me convince the Vistani to go into the Temple. Tilea flipped out and attacked Grant, and wouldn't listen when I tried to get her to back off; I made it clear to her that I could bring him back after everyone was safely inside. Tilea ignored me and continued trying to attack Grant, which he and I rushed to get everyone inside the Temple without putting them in the rampaging druid's way.

       Tilea began trying to hit Grant with lightning, and he just danced around, none of it doing much to him. It was honestly quite amusing to watch. He'd finally had enough and stabbed Tilea just as Sachi popped up. He told Grant he had gotten a feign death dagger from Talmot, which made Grant vanish instantly. Tilea said someone named Syn told her that was how he was tracking them, so Sachi threw the blade into the lava.

       A couple hours later there was a knock at the door to my Temple. Outside was a terrified little girl asking for Tilea. Sachi screeched at her for some reason, and she ran off in terror. I got Tilea and she caught up to the child and calmed her down. Apparently the little girl was this Syn person she was talking to earlier.

All maps from the "Curse of Strahd" Adventure Module by Wizards of the Coast