Iron & Gold, Curse of Strahd
Previous Chapter 37 In The Dungeon — Next Chapter 39 Broken Heart of Sorrow
Being an actual play of Curse of Strahd, using Precis Intermedia Games’ Iron & Gold, with Mythic as the GM.
38 - A Study In Strahd[1]
In the landing on the way up, by the tapestry of King Barov, Ninefingers in the front said casually, as if to someone, “The big fellow, his sword makes real sunlight, which is anathema to your kind.” Felewin waved the sword into being, and saw four creatures with pale flesh scuttling along the ceiling. Their eyes were red in the light, and as they came near, their cracked and bloodstained lips opened to reveal fangs.[2]
Felewin asked, “Uthrilir?”
Uthrilir brandished the holy symbol. “The Maiden commands you to stay!”[3]
Only three of the four vampires stopped; the one who did not was in front, and he did not see the others stop.[4] Felewin cut him down and Ninefingers followed with another cut that would have maimed a living thing. Hrelgi stepped in with the stake and mallet and started driving the stake in.
“Three to go,” said Felewin. “Keep them held, Uthrilir.”
“Gladly,” said the dwarf.
It took only a few moments and then all four of the creatures had been granted the true death.[5]
“They wore no armor,” commented Ninefingers.
“They did not,” said Felewin. “Is this significant?”
“I don’t know. The vampires in the temple and Vallaki wore different kinds of armor, but these were, for lack of a better term, Barovians.”
The rest of the trip to the study was uneventful.
“Worth remembering: some vampires have the will enough to resist the symbol,” said Felewin. “It’s not a reflection of Uthrilir at all.”
“Thanks. I think,” said Uthrilir quietly. “I have been thinking about what Ninefingers said. We have killed less than two dozen vampires while here. Strahd has killed hundreds of adventurers — we know this from the ghostly walk. My question is, where are the others?”
“Shhh,” said Ninefingers. Everyone was quiet and melted behind whatever cover they could.
“Grizzlemaw, where are you?” came a woman’s voice, harsh with age. “Please don’t be in the master’s study, please—”
The door from the dining hall opened and a stooped old woman came in; she was all in black and carried a broom, but bristly end up. Her hair was gray and well-shaped. She moved well for her apparent age. She would have seen them but she was looking at the floor and under furniture.
They held their collective breath.
Peering under a chair, she saw Felewin’s feet. He saw the moment her posture changed, and he thought to himself, We don’t hold back. He drew the Sun Sword and willed its blade into existence as he swung[6] at her and connected. There was no splatter as he nearly killed her; the sword cauterized wounds as it went through. Ninefingers was there too,[7] and he finished her. She toppled to the floor.
There was a hiss and a snarl, and a cat leapt at Ninefingers.[8] Yowling and clawing at Ninefingers, it stuck to the goblin’s armour. Uthrilir said, “Pardon,” and[9] hit it with his mace, knocking it free and against the wall. The cat lay there stunned for a moment, and Hrelgi was flipping pages. Felewin stepped forward[10] and killed the cat, cauterizing its wounds as well. He bet forward to pick up the cat and Ninefingers said, “Don’t throw it in the fire. We don’t need the smell of burning hair.”
Felewin shrugged and threw the dead cat down the stairs they had come up. Then he tossed down the witch’s body. They heard it sliding down the stairs until it came to rest. It came to rest too soon. Something had stopped it.
Ninefingers ran to the doorway and said, “Felewin, you’re big — you have to get the painting.” He stood with his sword ready against anything that walked through that door; Uthrilir moved to the other, and Felewin grabbed the picture and awkwardly moved it to the centre of the room, where he and Hrelgi faced opposite directions.
“Now we’ll see him if he comes through the wall, at least,” said Felewin.
Rats darted in through the door to the dining room; Uthrilir pushed the door shut but five rats[11] five had gotten through. They immediately swarmed onto Uthrilir, trying to bite through his clothes and armour.[12] Uthrilir grunted at the teeth tearing at his flesh, and Hrelgi said a spell she had memorized[13]. “Thank you,” grunted Uthrilir, slapping at rats with his hands. He managed to grab one of the five[14] and threw it hard toward the fire,[15] and the rat squealed as it burned.
“Ugh. Burning hair,” said Ninefingers.
“Don’t move from that door,” Felewin said. “Hrelgi, you help him.”
Hrelgi had already found the spell. She spoke it, and the remaining rats died.[16]
“Thanks again.”
Ninefingers tossed Uthrilir a spike that landed at his feet. “Seal the door. There too many ways[17] in and out of this room. He might be able to go through ceilings but others cannot.”
As Uthrilir began to hammer the spike, one of the double doors to the west swung open. A yawning young woman stood there in a nightgown and slippers. “He won’t like you hammering in his study.” She wrinkled her nose. “And you smell.”
Felewin said to Uthrilir, “Please ask the Maiden to repel her and we’ll seal that door too.”
Uthrilir held his holy symbol aloft and spoke the words. They had no effect.[18] Ninefingers saw her breathing and said, “I don’t think she’s a vampire.”
The young woman laughed. “I’m not a vampire! I’m Gertruda.” She smiled.
“You should go back in that bedroom and bolt the door,” said Felewin.
Gertruda scowled. “You’re against my sweet Strahd, aren’t you?” Conspiratorially, she said, “I hope to marry him.”
“You would not be the first,” Ninefingers said. “But we will kill you if you stay in here.”
Gertruda looked at them all, and then backed out of the room.
Ninefingers said, “Ezmerelda, watch this door while I keep those shut.” He hurried over to the double doors; Ezmerelda moved to guard the spiral staircase.
Once he started hammering the spike in, the door Ezmerelda was guarding burst open,[19] pushing Ezmerelda to the floor.
Three armored undead, looking more like ghouls than vampires, marched in. They wore the tattered remains of livery and carried broadswords. The leader snarled something in the native tongue. Ezmerelda scooted backward as she said, “We don’t care who your liege is.”
Felewin said, “Hrelgi, take this. Ninefingers, keep on. Uthrilir, some help?”
Careful not to hit the painting, he flicked the sword into life. Sunlight filled the room, and Felewin marched forward, confident that Hrelgi would catch the painting.[20]
Uthrilir was already there, swinging his mace at the first one.[21] He hit, and that one missed him; he defended successfully against the second wight. The third one attacked Felewin, and managed to hit him, but Felewin’s armor took the brunt of it, and then Felewin cut him apart.
Uthrilir[22] hit the first wight[23], but the wight managed to block. Felewin[24] struck the second wight, and killed it. Ezmerelda pushed the door shut behind them.
Now there were three of them against one remaining wight.[25] Felewin hit first and nearly gave it the true death; Uthrilir finished with his mace.
“Throw them down the stairs?” Ezmerelda asked.
“I guess,” said Felewin. “Make it more difficult for anyone using the stairs.”
“Secret door,” said Ninefingers. “Too many doors in this room.”
“Can you throw them over the fire?” Uthrilir asked.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Hrelgi. She looked up some spells[26] and said them; the bodies disappeared.
“Dungeon?” Felewin asked.
“Yes,” said Hrelgi. “You know, I’ll bet this place has a big magic circle around the foundation, under the ground.”
“Be nice if you could counteract it,” said Ninefingers.
Hrelgi shook her head. “Maybe once. Magic like that, you set it and then some sigil is used to let you counteract it. I don’t know the spell and I don’t know the counter.”
“You’re saying someone could teleport in.”
She nodded. “I’m saying it’s possible.”
Ninefingers started to say something when doors smashed open: the door Hrelgi was standing beside and the two that had been spiked shut. The spikes weren’t nearly enough; the doors were splintered, torn off their hinges by the ferocity of the blows.
Three women had entered, all in soiled wedding gowns of different colors, their fangs gleaming in the sunlight from Felewin’s sword. The one by the stairs to the dungeon wore gold; the one by the double doors wore red; and the one who had just come from the dining hall wore white.[27]
Uthrilir held aloft the holy symbol and ordered them to freeze. The women in gold and white immediately froze; the one in red laughed. Hrelgi picked up a long splinter of wood and looked in her grimoire.
Ezmerelda fired her crossbow[28] and a crossbow bolt sank into the red dress; the woman roared in pain and leapt for Ezmerelda. Felewin[29] beheaded her with the sun sword. Her head moved farther and rolled to the base of the fireplace, even as her body fell near Ezmerelda.
Ninefingers grabbed a stake and drove it into the heart of the vampire in white.[30] It barely went in — from experience, Ninefingers knew he had to hammer.
Uthrilir maintained his pose.
Hrelgi said the spell,[31] and the wooden splinter flew across the room, impelled by magic, and sank into the dress of the one in gold.[32]
The[33] vampires remained motionless. Ninefingers used his mallet and hammered the stake in farther; Hrelgi repeated the spell[34]. Felewin said to Ezmerelda, “Take the painting, and I will behead the vampires.” Ezmerelda nodded and moved forward. Only once she had the painting did Felewin move to where Ninefingers was.[35], and the remove the head of the vampire in white…but swarms of rats had come through the open doorway. They stayed away from Ezmerelda and the painting, but tried to climb up Ninefingers and Felewin, while others headed for Uthrilir.[36]
Behind the double doors, Ezmerelda could see Gertrude huddling on the bed in fright, while a woman in a maid outfit stood behind her, watching. The woman must be a vampire or something evil.
Ezmerelda couldn’t imagine a normal maid living her, but she couldn’t have imagined Gertruda, either. She finished cranking the crossbow and reached for her grimoire. Hrelgi had shown her a death spell for rats, but she had to find the spell—
Hrelgi repeated the spell once more, driving the splinter into the woman’s chest.[37] Felewin took a minute, spun around, and took the third woman’s head off.
Uthrilir sighed, and said to Gertruda, “Leave, miss, and take your maid. If you stay, you will die.”
The maid managed to say, “By your hands?”
“I try not to kill the innocent,” said Uthrilir.
“We are safe, then,” said the maid. “We are innocents.”
Ezmerelda raised an eyebrow at that, but kept looking until she found the spell.[38]
Uthrilir[39] hit one rat with his mace and killed it. Ninefingers managed another rat, and Ezmerelda cast the spell. She saw the rats falter and then scurry away.
“Ow,” said Ninefingers. “And… Magic sword. I’m healed. So it does it once a day.”
“Alive is good,” said Felewin. He looked at the women in the other room. “Uthrilir asked you to leave. Do so, or die.”
Hrelgi started flipping pages in her grimoire, looking for the right parts of a spell.[39A]
“But we have been kidnapped by Count Strahd,” said the maid.
Gertruda said indignantly, “I wasn’t kidnapped.”
“The door is open,” said Felewin.
“Many of them,” muttered Ninefingers.
“Leave and live, or stay and die.” There was a pause. Hrelgi crossed over to Ezmerelda and muttered something.
Ezmerelda[40] fired her crossbow. A blessed bolt sank into the maid’s shoulder. The maid snarled, showing fangs, and the wound around the blessed bolt began to smoke. Gertruda stared at her in disbelief.
The maid backed away and fled outside, through the doors to the parapet.
“Ninefingers is right. There are too many doors,” said Felewin. “Into the bedroom.” He strode over to Ezmerelda and grabbed the painting.
“The bedroom?” Ezmerelda asked.
“Only two doors. I hope.” To Gertruda he said, “Get out or die.”
Gertruda hopped off the bed and backed toward the parapet. “My beloved Strahd will kill you.”
“Probably,” said Ninefingers.
“But we’re going to make it difficult,” added Felewin. He stuck his head through the bedroom door and counted exits. “Too many.”
“Secret door in the fireplace?” Ninefingers asked.
“Can’t get the painting through that space,” said Uthrilir.
“Out on the parapet?” Hrelgi asked. “Might not be teleport-trapped.”
“Maybe,” Felewin replied. “Except open to flying attacks by witches, bats, gargoyles, and dragons, all of which are in this castle.” Hrelgi looked disappointed. “Keep it in mind as another tactic. We’ll try the intact door first.” He took the portrait from Ezmerelda and let her lead to the other door.
Ezmerelda opened it and saw a hallway draped in shadows. It opened to the right and left, and led out to the parapet.
“Hrelgi, we might try your idea anyway. Ninefingers, you lead; Hrelgi and Uthrilir, take the rear.”
Ninefingers and Ezmerelda advanced into the dark hall. Bits of darkness detached from the walls and attacked them.[41] Ninefingers managed just to avoid it; Ezmerelda did not, and she gasped. “Shades!”
Felewin stepped forward and slashed at the shadow[42] but the painting was awkward to hold and he missed.
Hrelgi said, “Shades? I don’t even know what those are!”
Ninefingers turned on his and thrust once[43] but missed.
Uthrilir shut the door behind them and muttered a prayer.[44]
The first[45] to act was Felewin,[46] who twice cut the shade attacking Ezmerelda, and the thing evaporated in the light of his sword. Ezmerelda drew her silver sword and cut the shadow[47] on Ninefingers, who also attacked his shade[48].
Uthrilir prayed again, louder and with more conviction.[49] Shadows flowed away from them and left them in late afternoon light. They waited at the entrances to the left and right.
Hrelgi[50] cast a spell, and the shadow from Ninefingers also evaporated, leaving the hall slightly lighter.
“They are undead, and the Maiden rebukes them,” said Uthrilir. As he moved forward, the shadows moved away from him. Ninefingers could now make out three of them.
“There are at least three more,” he said to the others.
Uthrilir reminded them, “The rebuke only lasts a bit, three score heartbeats or so.”
“In. Take advantage of the break,” said Felewin.
They moved forward quickly. Ninefingers stopped at the intersection ahead. “Parapet ahead, big stairwell to the right, hall with alcoves to the left.”
“Left,” said Felewin. “Don’t want to be stuck in a stairwell.”
“Not outside?” Hrelgi asked.
“Raining. Take a look.”
She did; outside, rain was pelting down, with the occasional flash of lightning.
Makes it safer outside, assuming witches can’t see in the rain, thought Felewin. Would ruin the painting, though.
Felewin headed left, inside. A swarm of bats came up from the stairwell, and engulfed them, blinding them.
Felewin stood for a moment, and then thought, When Uthrilir’s rebuke ends, the shades get us because we can’t see. He closed his fist around the hilt of the Sun Sword and loudly said, “Strahd! Call them off or we damage the painting!”
Nothing happened, and Felewin deliberately took a scoop of wood from the frame. “I mean it!”
The bats withdrew, whirling in a circle around the five of them, and one bat morphed into a man.
Strahd.
“The threat is only good while in abeyance,” said Strahd.
Felewin smiled. “This is all you have left of Tatyana. You already hate us; I have little reason not to use it.”
“I see.” The door they had come in slammed open. There was the sound of another door opening, too, and something shuffled in the distance. “Your Maiden’s rebuke will end shortly, and the trinket Uthrilir holds is proof only against vampires. There are other undead in the castle, and they are making their way here.”
“We have killed wights, vampires, corpse hands, and more,” said Felewin. “We can kill again.”
“So what do you want, Felewin?” Strahd asked.
Felewin was aware that the large empty stairwell was behind him and opposite Strahd. He moved until his back was against the wall.
“Your elven companion thinks I should send you home and be done with you. Your holy knight thinks I should be destroyed, as does your Vistana traitor. Your verdigris friend will do what you will. So, Felewin, lost prince of your people, what do you will?”
Strahd kept walking, passing close to Uthrilir but not touching him. “If you want to be a knight, I can make you one. You will be serving me and I will then make you kill all of your friends, but you will have your desire to be a knight, and I might not have you kill them for years or decades.”[51]
There was something soothing about the vampire’s voice and hypnotic about his eyes, but Felewin steeled himself. “I want you to die.”
Strahd’s features blazed in fury, and then the vampire laughed. “I’ve done that. I shall be gratified to see you broken and eager for death, Felewin, for this has been an invigorating match. You have dispatched several of my favourite spawn, and shaken off rust I did not know had settled on me. However, you cannot win. Not in my castle.” He smiled. “I think I shall make it necessary for you to take innocent blood. I will corrupt you, even as I corrupted the Abbot, who is of a kind very hard to corrupt. You already fear me. Next you will worship me.”
“‘Next’ can be a long time coming, Count,” said Felewin. He sliced another scoop from the frame of the picture.
“Once the picture is destroyed, you cannot use it as a threat.”
“True. But at the same time, you cannot hate us any more intensely, so I lose nothing by damaging it, and you lose the one thing you still have of Tatanya. No one else remembers her.”
“I can have them paint a picture of Ireena,” said Strahd.
“It’s not the same,” said Uthrilir.
“And you’ll know the difference,” said Felewin. “And you fear the artifact; that’s why you sent so many vampires. You want it to run out before you face us.”
“It will not hold me,” said Strahd.
“It has other powers,” said Uthrilir.
“How will you use them when you are mad with rage?” Strahd said, and then a few words in an unknown tongue.[52] Hrelgi looked horrified.[53]
Uthrilir screamed and ran at the closest person, Felewin. Felewin swung the painting between them and yelled at Strahd, “Call him off or you lose this!”[54] Uthrilir’s mace missed Felewin and came down on the painting’s frame, cracking it.
Strahd shrugged and said, “As you wish.” He took two steps to the left, then said a spell.[55] Uthrilir flew away from him; there was a moment when he tried to grab the doorway, and Hrelgi gasped and ran after him. As she ran, she cast a spell she had memorized.[56] Uthrilir vanished into the darkness of the stairwell.
“Now there are only two of you left. That will be easy. I doubt that Uthrilir will survive the fall, so I will get his relic.”
Hrelgi turned and said a spell.[57] Strahd’s clothes turned to lava.[58] Strahd[59] quickly moved to the end of the hall, where Gertruda suddenly appeared. Strahd grabbed her and bit her neck. The clothes were still dripping off him, and Strahd disappeared, with Gertruda in his grasp, her screaming from the lava burning through Strahd’s flesh. He left behind the stench of burning hair and flesh.
“How’s Uthrilir?” asked Felewin.
“I toughened him as he fell, but I don’t know if he lived.”
“Strahd will kill the girl,” said Felewin. “But we need Uthrilir if he’s still alive.”
Hrelgi was frantically flipping pages in her grimoire. “There’s a way…I think…to see things far away. I might be able to sense Uthrilir. Except I’ve never done it.[60]” She started the spell and then went, “Ow!”
“Then slowly,” said Felewin. “Take your time and concentrate.”
“But it’s Uthie!” Hrelgi looked close to tears.
“When I was learning to shoot a bow, I was terrible. I got too excited. Breathe. Breathe slow and deep. Think about your heart for a moment. Make it slow.”
“It’s Uthrilir!” said Hrelgi again.
“Your heart. Think about your heart.”
Hrelgi closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened them again and looked at her grimoire. She spoke the first part of the spell.[61] “Ow. Ow. He’s alive. He’s okay. His heart is beating, but my spell has worn off. We need to get to him.”
“We need to kill these first,” said Ninefingers, waving his sword at three shambling bodies in Ravenloft livery. They had clearly been dead a long, long time: eyes were sunken and dry, bellies were distended and some kind of green growth had spread across two of the faces.
“Keep them from following us,” said Felewin. “Don’t knock them down the stairs; who knows if the fall will kill them, and I don’t want Uthrilir to have to deal with them. Kill them, then down the stairs.”
“I can’t help. Brain freeze.”
“You’re bleeding from the nose. Don’t worry; it’s three zombies,” said Felewin. “Hold the painting.”
The zombies had no armor or weapons. Felewin said to Ninefingers, “You hold them in place and I’ll take them apart.”[62] He slashed twice at the front zombie and took off an arm and its head…but the parts were still moving. The arm began dragging itself along by the fingers. The head kept biting from where it fell.
“Pride and a fall,” said Ninefingers, as he[63] thrust twice at the next one, hitting it but not doing much damage. All three zombies attacked;[64] the arm grabbed Felewin’s leg and the third zombie came to Ninefingers while he was distracted and clawed the goblin’s arm.
“Just defend! I’ll get them!” Felewin said. Behind them, Hrelgi flipped pages while looking back at the stairwell.
Felewin[65] cleft the partial zombie in two, and all the parts stopped moving; his second nearly took apart the zombie that had clawed Ninefingers, but the zombie still moved. Ninefingers[66] said a rude word and slashed at both zombies, granting the true death to the one that had clawed him, and hitting the other again. The remaining zombie[67] clawed at him but missed.
Felewin[68] took one more blow at the zombie and it fell to the ground, unmoving.
Hrelgi[69] cast a spell and Ninefingers was healed. “Now can we go get Uthie?”
“Sure,” said Ninefingers, flexing his fingers to make sure they were okay.
“Hrelgi, bring the lantern over here.” Using his knife, Felewin quickly but carefully removed the staples holding the paining to the frame. He rolled up the painting and tied it with a bit of thong torn from his jerkin. “Easier to carry.”
“Now?” asked Hrelgi.
“Lead on,” said Felewin.
Ninefingers had switched to his regular sword; he hid the glowing sword in his scabbard while he advanced in the dark. He led the way.
The stairwell had no railing and wound around the tower’s outside. The stairs were spattered with blood. It wasn’t Uthrilir’s, for patches of it had dried but the blood was reasonably fresh — a few hours at most. “Watch your step,” cautioned Ninefingers.
“We’re coming, Uthie!” called Hrelgi.
“I wish you hadn’t notified his troops,” said Felewin.
“Sorry,” said Hrelgi.
“Let Ninefingers go first.[70]”
Previous Chapter 37 In The Dungeon — Next Chapter 39 Broken Heart of Sorrow
Monsters
You have seen all of them except Strahd, and I will withold that .
Game Mechanics
