Treasure Hunting
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
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
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
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 19, CY 745, Death House
Upon hearing the chanting, Tilea asked if we needed to give the trespassers notice before killing them. I hoped we wouldn't have to kill whoever was down there, but this was Death House.
There were several stone sarcophagi down here, and Bruenar opened one. Inside was the skeletal remains of a child, which Tilea promptly covered in fungus to decay them. As they decayed at a much faster rate than they should have, a scream rang out that shook me to the core. The bones burst into blue flames, and fire rose from the other coffins in the room. The column of flame materialized into my Sestra- not Aggie, the one I didn't know I had, I suppose I should probably learn her name at some point. Apparently destroying the bones called her. I told her to fuck off and tried to banish her again, but she was prepared this time.
Lythana appeared before Sestra could do anything to us, and stabbed her, telling her we were her bounty. Tilea used the distraction to slip around the corner and turned into a huge beast- I think she'd called it a savager before. Lythana got in Tilea's face and began stabbing her- though she did take a hit from Sachi as she approached.
Bruenar got right in Sestra's face and hit her a couple times with his shield. Sestra tried to banish us, but I countered her. She tried a second time and failed. Like she'd hit me with my own trick. Sachi began stabbing Sestra, and I hit her with one of my bolts of arcane lightning, though I had to counter her attempt to counter me in order to successfully cast the spell.
Tilea cut Lythana's head off and destroyed it completely. There would be no bringing my dear friend back.
Sestra used a misty step to get away from Bruenar, leaving a glowing blue orb in her place. It burst in a cloud of cold, killing poor Nikko, and leaving Sachi and Bruenar staring blankly into space. I revived Bruenar first, then tried to harm Sestra with a candle, but she deflected the magic. Tilea was too big to reach Sestra, so she began looting Lythana's corpse instead. Sestra dropped a fireball on everyone, and Bruenar got back to beating the Hells out of her. I found and revived Sachi and healed all of us, and then I suddenly couldn't sense my Sestra's presence... she'd left. I told the others she was gone, but they decided to smash walls to search for her instead of listening to me.
I realized that all of us were cursed, except for Bruenar, so while they destroyed our surroundings, I removed the curse from each of us. As they continued their rampage of destruction, a grick popped out of something Bruenar smashed, and he killed it instantly. When Tilea broke down a wall she nearly tripped over a ghoul; there was a group of ghouls and shadows on the other side of it, which we killed instantly.
We entered a room that looked like it had once been a torture chamber of sorts. There were skeletons hanging from the walls, and a statue was in the corner of the room, holding a large crystal. It didn't look cursed, but there was some hardcore necromantic magic on it. I told the others not to touch it, but then the statue floated for a moment. Then the crystal floated, turns out it was Scritch playing with his telekinesis, and apparently when he did, he felt Talmot smash at his mind, but he didn't break through. Then Tilea messed with it and got the same result. The crystal was shaped like a heart... this was Talmot's heart and phylactery.
We didn't think we could destroy it, but we needed to do something with it. As we debated what to do with it, there was a slight glimmer from it and a massive wave of energy came from Tilea. She had to quickly drop the heart, which seemed to be trying to fuse itself to her hand. Thick mists swirled around us and Tilea set off a spell to create a druid grove where Death House was. Scritch realized there were five lives inside the heart just as the mists swirled us away.
The mists deposited us where the front gates to Death House had once stood. I talked to the crowd that had gathered and explained that Death House should be gone forever now; at least that was the hope. They began an instant party in the streets to celebrate. Sachi suggested we head to the tavern and a good chunk of the crowd followed. As we drew near we heard screams from inside; we walked in to find Bruenar attacking people with a cursed pipe... I tried to put him in a sphere of force, but I couldn't hit him with it. The crowd began turning on Bruenar and I couldn't calm them.
Tilea decided not to join the party, but to instead bring Talmot's heart to Grant. She'd first thought to bring it to Strahd, but decided against that. The druid had a theory she wanted to test. Grant began working on it immediately.
Suddenly, everyone stopped. It seemed the Heart may have been causing this somehow. Then Bruenar discovered Tilea's grove had destroyed his root cellar, and all the alcohol inside it. He was vibrating with rage, but at least he didn't start murdering my people over it. Forty-seven had died during the original altercation; I had the bodies sent to my Temple so they could be brought back to life.
Bruenar summoned Tilea and punched her. She told him Grant was going to die, and icy fear wrapped around my heart. We hurried to the guild hall, where he was, and couldn't enter the secret room he was in. Bruenar drank something to get it open and we walked into an incredible arcane lab; it was my Sestra's. Grant was standing in front of some sort of apparatus with spikes through each of his hands, with black and red energy crackling everywhere. The entire place was cursed too.
After watching him silently for a few minutes, he put the Heart in a box and said that as long as it was in the box it couldn't be detected. He had garnered some information from it that was so powerful that he could trade it to Strahd for all of Barovia. Grant wanted fifty million gold, or something of equal value, for it. Then he learned that Tilea had destroyed the entire root cellar of the tavern, and the price rose to seventy-five million; I chuckled to myself as he worked to extort gold from Sachi and Tilea. For that price raise, Sachi produced Lythana's ring of mind shielding, offering Grant our friend's soul. Grant raised the price to one hundred million.
I then explained to everyone that I couldn't bring her back. Whatever it was that had bound her in a contract had most likely put it on her soul, so even the most powerful resurrection spell available would still have the contract intact.
Sachi finally paid Grant and he told us there were five dragon souls in the Heart, former Wives, and the current Wives were bound to the Heart- if we killed one her soul would be trapped inside. Talmot's soul wasn't linked to it, but it was literally his Heart. Things just got a lot more complicated as far as Talbutt was concerned. Grant was going to visit the Archivist for some books to research, but Sachi and Tilea were opposed to letting Grant just do the research. They just didn't know him as well as I do, he wouldn't betray our cause or keep vital information secret. Tilea wanted to give the Heart to Bahamut or Tiamat to see if one of them could extract the souls from the Heart. We didn't come to any conclusions, and went back to the Temple. I held a small funeral for Lythana.
***** Hetedik Honap 20, Temple of Mystra
In the morning, after Bruenar used the feast in the Temple to restock the tavern, we headed to Tser Pool; apparently Tilea had learned of a powerful treasure there by communing with nature. Our trek to the Pool was much longer than it should have been. We encountered several groups of travelers and told them of the Temple. Unfortunately, many of them freaked out and attacked us, forcing us to fight them... most of them died.
The Tser Pool encampment was eerie. There were fires lit, meals sitting out uneaten, toys dropped in the middle of play, but no signs of people or animals. It was as if everyone had just vanished in the middle of what they were doing. At first I thought the camp had somehow been removed from time, but after thinking about it for a moment, I realized that couldn't be the case. I attempted to dispel any magic here, but nothing happened.
Something was odd about the pool itself too. Sachi put his hand in the water and it got stuck for a second. He decided to attack the water next, and in the spot he hit water splashed back at him much faster than it should have. We realized the lake had been covered in dust of dryness; the water wasn't nearly as high as it was supposed to be. Before Sachi re-watered the lake, I looked around the camp to see if what we were after was here.
A small wave crashed over the encampment, putting out the long-abandoned but still burning fires. We found the people, as their corpses floated to the top of the lake. From the look of the bodies, this happened ten years ago. Sachi grabbed a small piece of flesh from every corpse so I could resurrect them later. Of course, after we water the lake, we learn that the item we're here for is at the fucking bottom of it. Tilea shifted and went to look for it. There was an odd ripple across the surface of the lake before Tilea told us to get ready to breathe water. Sachi used an item that would affect all three of us, and just before Tilea summoned us, we heard two draconic roars.
We were in a small underwater cavern surrounded by nothing but diamonds. There were no curses here, nor was there any magic. That meant this had to be a trap. Sachi began collecting diamonds as we looked around. On a brightly lit dais was a sword, that when Tilea tried to touch it, it seemed to fire a warning shot at her. She tried a couple more times to grab it and it froze each time. The blade didn't feel sentient, but there was a stubborn presence to it. Finally, she managed to grab the icy-looking steel blade and shoved it in a bag for us to deal with later.
As we worked to mine the diamonds, there was a ripple in the water above us. Tilea put up a wall in the opening to the cavern above us, then told us there was a giant octopus up there. A few hours later, it broke through Tilea's wall, so I decided to banish it... not the best idea. I'd just displaced a fuckload of water, and caused the amount of water in the lake to drop instantly. Sachi went shooting out, Bruenar used a bag of winds, and I grabbed Tilea and we swam out. The octopus didn't come back, not that that was surprising, most things in Barovia aren't from here.
From there we went to Tser Falls next, since that was the direction of the other powerful magical artifact Tilea had learned about. Tilea did another spell to commune with nature and a myconid named Taki appeared. He was going to lead us to the forever sun in his home, which was nearby. Myconids don't move very fast... Sachi offended him by picking him up to try to have him just direct us there. To make up for it, Sachi smeared shit on it... giving Taki enough power to become the High Shroom- leader of its people.
Eventually we reached a cave, that got warmer the further into it we went. He paused at one point in the tunnel and announced the new ways were over and he was taking control. After a brief fight with the old leader, Taki was declared the High Shroom and we continued our tedious journey into the cave. We eventually emerged into a lush underground forest, in a dome about a half mile high, with a glimmering sun at the top.
We looked around the forest for a while, exploring this hidden paradise, marveling in its existence. Sachi threw a pomegranate at Tilea, who turned it into fire seeds that detonated in the air. Then they were both hit by a fire seed pomegranate by a furious tiefling who stormed toward us. Sachi instantly began mouthing off to the tiefling and he responded by silencing Sachi. Our insane monkey decided to throw shit at him, so he turned into a huge beast that made Sachi bolt. We kept summoning him back to us enough times that the tiefling told us to just let him go. Bruenar sent him to the lake, waited long enough to where Sachi was probably just getting going on mining more diamonds, then called him back to us.
The tiefling was the druid charged with protecting this paradise. He told us he had been given a vision of a druid who would get the myconids out of Barovia, and he would have assumed it was Tilea, except she didn't have her moonblade with her. The vision had said when the sun and moon fought side-by-side... The sunblade's hilt was with Syn, but her soul hadn't yet merged with Tatiana, so the prophecy was not yet to be fulfilled.
Maps from the Curse of Strahd adventure module by Wizards of the Coast
Upon hearing the chanting, Tilea asked if we needed to give the trespassers notice before killing them. I hoped we wouldn't have to kill whoever was down there, but this was Death House.
There were several stone sarcophagi down here, and Bruenar opened one. Inside was the skeletal remains of a child, which Tilea promptly covered in fungus to decay them. As they decayed at a much faster rate than they should have, a scream rang out that shook me to the core. The bones burst into blue flames, and fire rose from the other coffins in the room. The column of flame materialized into my Sestra- not Aggie, the one I didn't know I had, I suppose I should probably learn her name at some point. Apparently destroying the bones called her. I told her to fuck off and tried to banish her again, but she was prepared this time.
Lythana appeared before Sestra could do anything to us, and stabbed her, telling her we were her bounty. Tilea used the distraction to slip around the corner and turned into a huge beast- I think she'd called it a savager before. Lythana got in Tilea's face and began stabbing her- though she did take a hit from Sachi as she approached.
Bruenar got right in Sestra's face and hit her a couple times with his shield. Sestra tried to banish us, but I countered her. She tried a second time and failed. Like she'd hit me with my own trick. Sachi began stabbing Sestra, and I hit her with one of my bolts of arcane lightning, though I had to counter her attempt to counter me in order to successfully cast the spell.
Tilea cut Lythana's head off and destroyed it completely. There would be no bringing my dear friend back.
Sestra used a misty step to get away from Bruenar, leaving a glowing blue orb in her place. It burst in a cloud of cold, killing poor Nikko, and leaving Sachi and Bruenar staring blankly into space. I revived Bruenar first, then tried to harm Sestra with a candle, but she deflected the magic. Tilea was too big to reach Sestra, so she began looting Lythana's corpse instead. Sestra dropped a fireball on everyone, and Bruenar got back to beating the Hells out of her. I found and revived Sachi and healed all of us, and then I suddenly couldn't sense my Sestra's presence... she'd left. I told the others she was gone, but they decided to smash walls to search for her instead of listening to me.
I realized that all of us were cursed, except for Bruenar, so while they destroyed our surroundings, I removed the curse from each of us. As they continued their rampage of destruction, a grick popped out of something Bruenar smashed, and he killed it instantly. When Tilea broke down a wall she nearly tripped over a ghoul; there was a group of ghouls and shadows on the other side of it, which we killed instantly.
We entered a room that looked like it had once been a torture chamber of sorts. There were skeletons hanging from the walls, and a statue was in the corner of the room, holding a large crystal. It didn't look cursed, but there was some hardcore necromantic magic on it. I told the others not to touch it, but then the statue floated for a moment. Then the crystal floated, turns out it was Scritch playing with his telekinesis, and apparently when he did, he felt Talmot smash at his mind, but he didn't break through. Then Tilea messed with it and got the same result. The crystal was shaped like a heart... this was Talmot's heart and phylactery.
We didn't think we could destroy it, but we needed to do something with it. As we debated what to do with it, there was a slight glimmer from it and a massive wave of energy came from Tilea. She had to quickly drop the heart, which seemed to be trying to fuse itself to her hand. Thick mists swirled around us and Tilea set off a spell to create a druid grove where Death House was. Scritch realized there were five lives inside the heart just as the mists swirled us away.
The mists deposited us where the front gates to Death House had once stood. I talked to the crowd that had gathered and explained that Death House should be gone forever now; at least that was the hope. They began an instant party in the streets to celebrate. Sachi suggested we head to the tavern and a good chunk of the crowd followed. As we drew near we heard screams from inside; we walked in to find Bruenar attacking people with a cursed pipe... I tried to put him in a sphere of force, but I couldn't hit him with it. The crowd began turning on Bruenar and I couldn't calm them.
Tilea decided not to join the party, but to instead bring Talmot's heart to Grant. She'd first thought to bring it to Strahd, but decided against that. The druid had a theory she wanted to test. Grant began working on it immediately.
Suddenly, everyone stopped. It seemed the Heart may have been causing this somehow. Then Bruenar discovered Tilea's grove had destroyed his root cellar, and all the alcohol inside it. He was vibrating with rage, but at least he didn't start murdering my people over it. Forty-seven had died during the original altercation; I had the bodies sent to my Temple so they could be brought back to life.
Bruenar summoned Tilea and punched her. She told him Grant was going to die, and icy fear wrapped around my heart. We hurried to the guild hall, where he was, and couldn't enter the secret room he was in. Bruenar drank something to get it open and we walked into an incredible arcane lab; it was my Sestra's. Grant was standing in front of some sort of apparatus with spikes through each of his hands, with black and red energy crackling everywhere. The entire place was cursed too.
After watching him silently for a few minutes, he put the Heart in a box and said that as long as it was in the box it couldn't be detected. He had garnered some information from it that was so powerful that he could trade it to Strahd for all of Barovia. Grant wanted fifty million gold, or something of equal value, for it. Then he learned that Tilea had destroyed the entire root cellar of the tavern, and the price rose to seventy-five million; I chuckled to myself as he worked to extort gold from Sachi and Tilea. For that price raise, Sachi produced Lythana's ring of mind shielding, offering Grant our friend's soul. Grant raised the price to one hundred million.
I then explained to everyone that I couldn't bring her back. Whatever it was that had bound her in a contract had most likely put it on her soul, so even the most powerful resurrection spell available would still have the contract intact.
Sachi finally paid Grant and he told us there were five dragon souls in the Heart, former Wives, and the current Wives were bound to the Heart- if we killed one her soul would be trapped inside. Talmot's soul wasn't linked to it, but it was literally his Heart. Things just got a lot more complicated as far as Talbutt was concerned. Grant was going to visit the Archivist for some books to research, but Sachi and Tilea were opposed to letting Grant just do the research. They just didn't know him as well as I do, he wouldn't betray our cause or keep vital information secret. Tilea wanted to give the Heart to Bahamut or Tiamat to see if one of them could extract the souls from the Heart. We didn't come to any conclusions, and went back to the Temple. I held a small funeral for Lythana.
***** Hetedik Honap 20, Temple of Mystra
In the morning, after Bruenar used the feast in the Temple to restock the tavern, we headed to Tser Pool; apparently Tilea had learned of a powerful treasure there by communing with nature. Our trek to the Pool was much longer than it should have been. We encountered several groups of travelers and told them of the Temple. Unfortunately, many of them freaked out and attacked us, forcing us to fight them... most of them died.
The Tser Pool encampment was eerie. There were fires lit, meals sitting out uneaten, toys dropped in the middle of play, but no signs of people or animals. It was as if everyone had just vanished in the middle of what they were doing. At first I thought the camp had somehow been removed from time, but after thinking about it for a moment, I realized that couldn't be the case. I attempted to dispel any magic here, but nothing happened.
Something was odd about the pool itself too. Sachi put his hand in the water and it got stuck for a second. He decided to attack the water next, and in the spot he hit water splashed back at him much faster than it should have. We realized the lake had been covered in dust of dryness; the water wasn't nearly as high as it was supposed to be. Before Sachi re-watered the lake, I looked around the camp to see if what we were after was here.
A small wave crashed over the encampment, putting out the long-abandoned but still burning fires. We found the people, as their corpses floated to the top of the lake. From the look of the bodies, this happened ten years ago. Sachi grabbed a small piece of flesh from every corpse so I could resurrect them later. Of course, after we water the lake, we learn that the item we're here for is at the fucking bottom of it. Tilea shifted and went to look for it. There was an odd ripple across the surface of the lake before Tilea told us to get ready to breathe water. Sachi used an item that would affect all three of us, and just before Tilea summoned us, we heard two draconic roars.
We were in a small underwater cavern surrounded by nothing but diamonds. There were no curses here, nor was there any magic. That meant this had to be a trap. Sachi began collecting diamonds as we looked around. On a brightly lit dais was a sword, that when Tilea tried to touch it, it seemed to fire a warning shot at her. She tried a couple more times to grab it and it froze each time. The blade didn't feel sentient, but there was a stubborn presence to it. Finally, she managed to grab the icy-looking steel blade and shoved it in a bag for us to deal with later.
As we worked to mine the diamonds, there was a ripple in the water above us. Tilea put up a wall in the opening to the cavern above us, then told us there was a giant octopus up there. A few hours later, it broke through Tilea's wall, so I decided to banish it... not the best idea. I'd just displaced a fuckload of water, and caused the amount of water in the lake to drop instantly. Sachi went shooting out, Bruenar used a bag of winds, and I grabbed Tilea and we swam out. The octopus didn't come back, not that that was surprising, most things in Barovia aren't from here.
From there we went to Tser Falls next, since that was the direction of the other powerful magical artifact Tilea had learned about. Tilea did another spell to commune with nature and a myconid named Taki appeared. He was going to lead us to the forever sun in his home, which was nearby. Myconids don't move very fast... Sachi offended him by picking him up to try to have him just direct us there. To make up for it, Sachi smeared shit on it... giving Taki enough power to become the High Shroom- leader of its people.
Eventually we reached a cave, that got warmer the further into it we went. He paused at one point in the tunnel and announced the new ways were over and he was taking control. After a brief fight with the old leader, Taki was declared the High Shroom and we continued our tedious journey into the cave. We eventually emerged into a lush underground forest, in a dome about a half mile high, with a glimmering sun at the top.
We looked around the forest for a while, exploring this hidden paradise, marveling in its existence. Sachi threw a pomegranate at Tilea, who turned it into fire seeds that detonated in the air. Then they were both hit by a fire seed pomegranate by a furious tiefling who stormed toward us. Sachi instantly began mouthing off to the tiefling and he responded by silencing Sachi. Our insane monkey decided to throw shit at him, so he turned into a huge beast that made Sachi bolt. We kept summoning him back to us enough times that the tiefling told us to just let him go. Bruenar sent him to the lake, waited long enough to where Sachi was probably just getting going on mining more diamonds, then called him back to us.
The tiefling was the druid charged with protecting this paradise. He told us he had been given a vision of a druid who would get the myconids out of Barovia, and he would have assumed it was Tilea, except she didn't have her moonblade with her. The vision had said when the sun and moon fought side-by-side... The sunblade's hilt was with Syn, but her soul hadn't yet merged with Tatiana, so the prophecy was not yet to be fulfilled.
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