Dragon Souls
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
Nikko, Tabitha's Flying Monkey familiar
Dot, Tabitha's Homunculus
Bruenar Shieldwall, the Shield Dwarf Shield Fighter the party hired
Isabella Catalina Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Scritch's Knight
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 brainwashed by Belmont
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
Nikko, Tabitha's Flying Monkey familiar
Dot, Tabitha's Homunculus
Bruenar Shieldwall, the Shield Dwarf Shield Fighter the party hired
Isabella Catalina Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Scritch's Knight
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-
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Human girl who Tilea released from an amulet-
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 23, CY 745, Myconid Paradise Under Tser Falls
Syn told us she knew we'd been looking for her and that Tilea had called to her. Gesturing to the dragon corpse, she said that was quite the spectacle, but it probably wasn't our reason for calling her. With the impatience of a teenager, she told us to hurry up so she could get back to what she was doing. The girl had a plan to take down Talbutt, by using Vecna. She insisted we needed to stop worrying about it...
Then Syn froze and Belmont stepped out, saying that's quite enough story time. He had a plan to break the loop Strahd was stuck in, and to do it he'd take over Barovia and bring law to the land. Something was terribly wrong with Belmont; the man standing before me was not the same man I'd known for years. He said he'd served his purpose, and what was the point in life after your purpose was served?
Sachi yelled "money" and began chucking coins at Belmont. With a flick of his wrist, Sachi was entangled in Belmont's whip. Syn was suddenly at Belmont's side, her sun blade glowing. Belmont told us if we didn't stand down now, he would end us all, and he would not do it kindly; we would all know true fear before meeting our deaths. I was stunned by the monster my friend had turned into. I asked him what happened to him, and he said "reality happened."
Syn told Tilea the next time she saw her, she'd have her heart; Tilea told her they were supposed to do this together. Belmont briefly entertained the notion of allowing Syn to destroy Tilea now, but he didn't act on it. He told us if we wanted to help, we should keep hunting down the dragons and leave both Syn and himself be. Syn threatened again to destroy Tilea, then both of them vanished.
The apparition of Tatyana appeared, told Tilea she'd failed, and vanished; Tilea said she was cut off from contacting the spirit. We'd lost our chance to do this right, and we'd used Grant's plan B on Sachi and Clarah. My attempts to end Grant a message to see if he could get us another satchel didn't work, so Sachi went to hunt him down.
While Sachi was looking for Grant, the rest of us went with Bruenar to his home in Mount Ghakis so we could gear up to fight the three remaining Wives. We didn't know what to do about the other dragons, what we'd done with Clarah wasn't something that would be easy or pleasant. I suggested using a soul gem ritual and putting the soul there; Bruenar and Catalina began talking about some sort of blood ritual from there, and said the Archivist could help us with that. I could go visit her after we finished at Bruenar's.
The transportation to the mountain wa bumpy because of wards, and Scritch got sick from it. We seemed to be stepping into a nasty winter storm, though it was still the middle of the summer. Thanks to wards, we couldn't just transport straight to his home, so we had to hike up a mountain in arctic temperatures. Eventually Sachi sent us a message and we summoned him. He'd learned we needed Sestra to help to make another one of those satchels. Tilea rummaged through a haversack that was apparently Lythana's and found a bunch of hexbags inside, but those would not bind a soul to something. Sachi said we needed to get into Sypha's lab; apparently that was the name of my secret big Sestra.
When we finally reached the top of the mountain we could see all of Barovia. It was breathtaking to see the entire domain, enduring this Stygia-esque temperature was nearly worth it just for this view.
To get the hatch to Bruenar's house open, he told Sachi to breath a little fire on the door to melt the ice. He seemed to have some trouble with it, until Bruenar told him to try using his ass... The monkey farted fire...
We were led into what appeared to be the chambers of a dwarven king; Bruenar said this was his personal collection. There were display cases all over the chambers that were holding tons of what looked like extremely powerful magical items. Looking around, I didn't think I'd see anything that would work for me, since there were mostly weapons in here, until my vision settles on a black tome. Bruenar told me it was the Black Grimoire- the spellbook that belonged to the Wicked Witch of the West, Morgan Le Fay. I took a couple steps away from the case when he told me that.
While Bruenar handed the others some items to help them, I couldn't take my eyes of the book. I remembered the book could supposedly undo any curses, hexes, brands, and more. This could possibly help me save Aggie, and probably Sypha too. While I wasn't desperate enough to use it, having it on hand might be a good idea. I wouldn't look at it though. As I reached toward the case, it unlocked on its own, and the moment my hand touched the book, it flipped open and my name appeared on the inside cover... Aggie and Sypha's names were there too. It then began speaking to me, telling me it had the magic I needed to save both of my Sestras. I wouldn't give in... I can just put it behind some serious wards and ignore it. It certainly can't talk to me through my wards. I would just tune it out until I got back to the Temple.
Once we finished up I dropped off the book at the Temple and headed to see the Archivist. Sachi followed me so he could go shopping. Kithri gave me the list of ingredients for the satchels... this was not going to be cheap or easy to put together. We needed two ounces of kraken ink, fur from a white stag, an act of God frozen in time, an angel's feather, the blood of a Demon Prince, and the soul of an alpha stuck in a gem.
We also talked about the book- which had not stopped talking since I touched it. It could even reach me on Faerun, when it was locked up behind wards in the Temple. The book kept offering me quick fixes to things, and I was doing everything I could to just ignore it. When it wasn't being a peanut gallery, it was humming. Yes, humming.
When we got back I found the others standing in front of a heavily warded hallway that supposedly led to Sypha's lab. The others were convinced that since we're identical I'd be able to go down the hallway. That didn't work out. I got super woozy and couldn't take more than a step down the hall. There was a blue candle at the end of the hallway that only I could see, it was probably a bloodline thing.
I tried opening a dimensional door straight into the lab and there was an explosion, killing some of Sachi's people, along with Dot. Catalina suggested I cut myself and bleed into the hallway, then everyone went into another room. I did so and said the family words: Prosperity and glory to the Lennoxes forever. The entire building exploded this time.
I found myself in a dark, lightless void. It had to be some kind of pocket dimension. I tried saying the family words and everything lit up; I was in Sypha's lab. I began quickly looking around for something helpful, but I couldn't find anything before Tilea called me. I tried to get back there and ended up in Strahd's throne room. I tried a second time and got the same fucking result. I hoped third time was the charm... and I found Strahd in the bath. Thankfully there were bubbles so I didn't see anything... I certainly didn't want Strahd to be the first nude man I ever fully saw. The thought makes me shudder.
Back in the Temple, I gave everyone our ingredient list, and Tilea began trying to trick Sachi into saying he was an alpha so we could put his soul in a gem... This spiralled quickly into a rather irritating argument about the alphas, because apparently that would be the hardest thing to acquire. Bruenar got sick of the arguing after a while and told us he had everything on the list and would sell it to us for one billion gold. Which then launched an argument on how to get the money. I suggested a dungeon crawl, but everyone just talked over me. Then Bruenar got sick of that arguing and said he'd give us everything for a single satchel if we'd shut the Hells up.
***** Hetedik Honap 25, Temple of Mystra
Catalina and I spent 24 hours on the ritual to make the satchel, and we were pretty sure we'd gotten it right. Cat scryed for Farrah, the gold dragon, who Tilea insisted she had to be the one to have, but was countered. It seemed like Farrah had gone into hiding after seeing what we'd done to Clarah; I couldn't blame her, I didn't like what had been done either, or what we were still planning to do. But we had to get those dragons off the board before we had a chance to take down Talbutt.
Tilea went to the myconid paradise to commune with nature to try to find Farrah, and found it ablaze with undead everywhere. She started a massive earthquake to kill the undead, collapsing the cavern and part of Vallaki. After that she learned that Farrah was heading toward Mount Ghakis.
Apparently there was a dragon lair under Bruenar's. A hole was in the ground that led down, deeper into the mountain. Sachi jumped down it first, turns out it was a 30 mile shaft. After calling him back a couple times just to mess with him, we all decided to jump down. Rolling down that shaft in my bubble was way more fun than I would have thought it would be.
When we finally spilled out of the shaft, we found Farrah, and she tried to flee, but Scritch hit her hard enough to knock her out of her dragon form. We all beat on her, and Bruenar came flying out of the tunnel and slammed into her shield first, killing her. It was gruesome.
Scritch used a high resurrection spell and we did the satchel thing again. Tilea only died three times. It was then that we realized her hoard wasn't there. Instead, there were tons of portals open to other planes. We'd never find it, that hoard could be anywhere on any of those planes. Sachi began talking to Clarah out loud, saying he loved her and stuff, I think he was trying to get her to tell him where the hoard was. I was pretty sure he'd lost his mind, so I used a restoration spell on him. Turns out he was only insane in the sense that he always was.
Cat used an amulet of the planes to open up a bunch of portals at once, while Sachi searched them all quickly. I kept her alive while she was doing this, while trying to get her to stop this madness. It would never work.
Bruenar had wandered off while we were doing this, and came back about an hour later having claimed Tarah's soul. The only one left was Sarah's, the black dragon- the white witch had to take the black dragon's soul. Fast. Bruenar had used a dark blood magic rune to take Sarah, and that was offered to me as an option, but I couldn't use dark blood magic, nor was I willing to risk something that could destroy my soul if I failed. The ingredients for the final satchel would cost us 300 million gold.
Since I was about to do something so risky, Cat pulled out a Tarokka Deck of Many Things to do a reading for me, and I got the Raven card- the one I'd been wanting, that could fix everything. After everyone else had their own reading done, Bruenar pulled out a Deck of Many Things. Catalina got a knight of her own. I got two Fates cards, Nikko got a card that ended up making him a warlock under me, and Dot got three wishes and some gems.
I used the Raven card to undo the circumstances that got us trapped in the Mists for ten years, and the dragon souls began to leave the others' bodies. Scritch used his own card to undo what I was doing; he feared I was killing everyone and the card wouldn't be able to save us.
Syn told us she knew we'd been looking for her and that Tilea had called to her. Gesturing to the dragon corpse, she said that was quite the spectacle, but it probably wasn't our reason for calling her. With the impatience of a teenager, she told us to hurry up so she could get back to what she was doing. The girl had a plan to take down Talbutt, by using Vecna. She insisted we needed to stop worrying about it...
Then Syn froze and Belmont stepped out, saying that's quite enough story time. He had a plan to break the loop Strahd was stuck in, and to do it he'd take over Barovia and bring law to the land. Something was terribly wrong with Belmont; the man standing before me was not the same man I'd known for years. He said he'd served his purpose, and what was the point in life after your purpose was served?
Sachi yelled "money" and began chucking coins at Belmont. With a flick of his wrist, Sachi was entangled in Belmont's whip. Syn was suddenly at Belmont's side, her sun blade glowing. Belmont told us if we didn't stand down now, he would end us all, and he would not do it kindly; we would all know true fear before meeting our deaths. I was stunned by the monster my friend had turned into. I asked him what happened to him, and he said "reality happened."
Syn told Tilea the next time she saw her, she'd have her heart; Tilea told her they were supposed to do this together. Belmont briefly entertained the notion of allowing Syn to destroy Tilea now, but he didn't act on it. He told us if we wanted to help, we should keep hunting down the dragons and leave both Syn and himself be. Syn threatened again to destroy Tilea, then both of them vanished.
The apparition of Tatyana appeared, told Tilea she'd failed, and vanished; Tilea said she was cut off from contacting the spirit. We'd lost our chance to do this right, and we'd used Grant's plan B on Sachi and Clarah. My attempts to end Grant a message to see if he could get us another satchel didn't work, so Sachi went to hunt him down.
While Sachi was looking for Grant, the rest of us went with Bruenar to his home in Mount Ghakis so we could gear up to fight the three remaining Wives. We didn't know what to do about the other dragons, what we'd done with Clarah wasn't something that would be easy or pleasant. I suggested using a soul gem ritual and putting the soul there; Bruenar and Catalina began talking about some sort of blood ritual from there, and said the Archivist could help us with that. I could go visit her after we finished at Bruenar's.
The transportation to the mountain wa bumpy because of wards, and Scritch got sick from it. We seemed to be stepping into a nasty winter storm, though it was still the middle of the summer. Thanks to wards, we couldn't just transport straight to his home, so we had to hike up a mountain in arctic temperatures. Eventually Sachi sent us a message and we summoned him. He'd learned we needed Sestra to help to make another one of those satchels. Tilea rummaged through a haversack that was apparently Lythana's and found a bunch of hexbags inside, but those would not bind a soul to something. Sachi said we needed to get into Sypha's lab; apparently that was the name of my secret big Sestra.
When we finally reached the top of the mountain we could see all of Barovia. It was breathtaking to see the entire domain, enduring this Stygia-esque temperature was nearly worth it just for this view.
To get the hatch to Bruenar's house open, he told Sachi to breath a little fire on the door to melt the ice. He seemed to have some trouble with it, until Bruenar told him to try using his ass... The monkey farted fire...
We were led into what appeared to be the chambers of a dwarven king; Bruenar said this was his personal collection. There were display cases all over the chambers that were holding tons of what looked like extremely powerful magical items. Looking around, I didn't think I'd see anything that would work for me, since there were mostly weapons in here, until my vision settles on a black tome. Bruenar told me it was the Black Grimoire- the spellbook that belonged to the Wicked Witch of the West, Morgan Le Fay. I took a couple steps away from the case when he told me that.
While Bruenar handed the others some items to help them, I couldn't take my eyes of the book. I remembered the book could supposedly undo any curses, hexes, brands, and more. This could possibly help me save Aggie, and probably Sypha too. While I wasn't desperate enough to use it, having it on hand might be a good idea. I wouldn't look at it though. As I reached toward the case, it unlocked on its own, and the moment my hand touched the book, it flipped open and my name appeared on the inside cover... Aggie and Sypha's names were there too. It then began speaking to me, telling me it had the magic I needed to save both of my Sestras. I wouldn't give in... I can just put it behind some serious wards and ignore it. It certainly can't talk to me through my wards. I would just tune it out until I got back to the Temple.
Once we finished up I dropped off the book at the Temple and headed to see the Archivist. Sachi followed me so he could go shopping. Kithri gave me the list of ingredients for the satchels... this was not going to be cheap or easy to put together. We needed two ounces of kraken ink, fur from a white stag, an act of God frozen in time, an angel's feather, the blood of a Demon Prince, and the soul of an alpha stuck in a gem.
We also talked about the book- which had not stopped talking since I touched it. It could even reach me on Faerun, when it was locked up behind wards in the Temple. The book kept offering me quick fixes to things, and I was doing everything I could to just ignore it. When it wasn't being a peanut gallery, it was humming. Yes, humming.
When we got back I found the others standing in front of a heavily warded hallway that supposedly led to Sypha's lab. The others were convinced that since we're identical I'd be able to go down the hallway. That didn't work out. I got super woozy and couldn't take more than a step down the hall. There was a blue candle at the end of the hallway that only I could see, it was probably a bloodline thing.
I tried opening a dimensional door straight into the lab and there was an explosion, killing some of Sachi's people, along with Dot. Catalina suggested I cut myself and bleed into the hallway, then everyone went into another room. I did so and said the family words: Prosperity and glory to the Lennoxes forever. The entire building exploded this time.
I found myself in a dark, lightless void. It had to be some kind of pocket dimension. I tried saying the family words and everything lit up; I was in Sypha's lab. I began quickly looking around for something helpful, but I couldn't find anything before Tilea called me. I tried to get back there and ended up in Strahd's throne room. I tried a second time and got the same fucking result. I hoped third time was the charm... and I found Strahd in the bath. Thankfully there were bubbles so I didn't see anything... I certainly didn't want Strahd to be the first nude man I ever fully saw. The thought makes me shudder.
Back in the Temple, I gave everyone our ingredient list, and Tilea began trying to trick Sachi into saying he was an alpha so we could put his soul in a gem... This spiralled quickly into a rather irritating argument about the alphas, because apparently that would be the hardest thing to acquire. Bruenar got sick of the arguing after a while and told us he had everything on the list and would sell it to us for one billion gold. Which then launched an argument on how to get the money. I suggested a dungeon crawl, but everyone just talked over me. Then Bruenar got sick of that arguing and said he'd give us everything for a single satchel if we'd shut the Hells up.
***** Hetedik Honap 25, Temple of Mystra
Catalina and I spent 24 hours on the ritual to make the satchel, and we were pretty sure we'd gotten it right. Cat scryed for Farrah, the gold dragon, who Tilea insisted she had to be the one to have, but was countered. It seemed like Farrah had gone into hiding after seeing what we'd done to Clarah; I couldn't blame her, I didn't like what had been done either, or what we were still planning to do. But we had to get those dragons off the board before we had a chance to take down Talbutt.
Tilea went to the myconid paradise to commune with nature to try to find Farrah, and found it ablaze with undead everywhere. She started a massive earthquake to kill the undead, collapsing the cavern and part of Vallaki. After that she learned that Farrah was heading toward Mount Ghakis.
Apparently there was a dragon lair under Bruenar's. A hole was in the ground that led down, deeper into the mountain. Sachi jumped down it first, turns out it was a 30 mile shaft. After calling him back a couple times just to mess with him, we all decided to jump down. Rolling down that shaft in my bubble was way more fun than I would have thought it would be.
When we finally spilled out of the shaft, we found Farrah, and she tried to flee, but Scritch hit her hard enough to knock her out of her dragon form. We all beat on her, and Bruenar came flying out of the tunnel and slammed into her shield first, killing her. It was gruesome.
Scritch used a high resurrection spell and we did the satchel thing again. Tilea only died three times. It was then that we realized her hoard wasn't there. Instead, there were tons of portals open to other planes. We'd never find it, that hoard could be anywhere on any of those planes. Sachi began talking to Clarah out loud, saying he loved her and stuff, I think he was trying to get her to tell him where the hoard was. I was pretty sure he'd lost his mind, so I used a restoration spell on him. Turns out he was only insane in the sense that he always was.
Cat used an amulet of the planes to open up a bunch of portals at once, while Sachi searched them all quickly. I kept her alive while she was doing this, while trying to get her to stop this madness. It would never work.
Bruenar had wandered off while we were doing this, and came back about an hour later having claimed Tarah's soul. The only one left was Sarah's, the black dragon- the white witch had to take the black dragon's soul. Fast. Bruenar had used a dark blood magic rune to take Sarah, and that was offered to me as an option, but I couldn't use dark blood magic, nor was I willing to risk something that could destroy my soul if I failed. The ingredients for the final satchel would cost us 300 million gold.
Since I was about to do something so risky, Cat pulled out a Tarokka Deck of Many Things to do a reading for me, and I got the Raven card- the one I'd been wanting, that could fix everything. After everyone else had their own reading done, Bruenar pulled out a Deck of Many Things. Catalina got a knight of her own. I got two Fates cards, Nikko got a card that ended up making him a warlock under me, and Dot got three wishes and some gems.
I used the Raven card to undo the circumstances that got us trapped in the Mists for ten years, and the dragon souls began to leave the others' bodies. Scritch used his own card to undo what I was doing; he feared I was killing everyone and the card wouldn't be able to save us.
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