Iron & Gold, Curse of Strahd
Previous Chapter 32 To The Amber Temple — Next Chapter 34 A Lich In Time
Being an actual play of Curse of Strahd, using Precis Intermedia Games’ Iron & Gold, with Mythic as the GM.
33 - The Search For Dark Gifts[1]
“Did you not feel it coming?” Igga asked. “The storm.” She was the leader of the wildmen, and bigger than any of them. She mostly ignored Felewin, focusing on Ezmerelda and Ninefingers. Maybe she figured that Felewin must have something wrong with him if he wasn’t the leader. Felewin let her ignore him; he was content to listen. Besides, her accent was strange and he had to concentrate to catch all that she said.
“We’ve sheltered here before,” Igga said. “It keeps the storm away, and we know enough not to go beyond the doors, where the fiery spirits dwell.”
Ezmerelda nodded. Ninefingers said, “And what about the secret room over there?”[2]
“The what?”
“I can see the release for the secret door, there in the frieze.”
Igga stared at him, and then at the wall, and then back at him. Ninefingers sighed and went to the wall. Shouldn’t have mentioned it but I can’t believe they haven’t spotted it. He pushed on the release and then rotated it; a door in the wall became visible.
Ninefingers drew his sword, in case, and pulled open the door.
The room looked empty. The opposite wall was honeycombed with recesses, each of which was thick with dust.
She said, “What do you see?”
“Nothing. It’s empty.”
“Then I don’t feel bad for not seeing it.” The other wildmen laughed.
Ezmerelda said to her, “Tell me about the fiery spirits.”
“Through those doors”—Igga indicated them— “are the fiery spirits. They unleash vengeance through their empty eyes. But if you go through those other doors, you see a big room with a tall statue; that will also kill you. However in here, there is no problem.” She said thoughtfully, “We will take Wulfmark outside to skin him.”
“He wasn’t a were or anything, was he?” Hrelgi asked.
“No, just a dire wolf,” said Igga, “but why waste a perfectly good pelt?”
“Go ahead,” Ninefingers said. “We will be too busy to prepare the pelt, and it shouldn’t go to waste.”
Igga bowed her head in thanks.
Ezmerelda said to her friends, “Lethal statue or lethal fiery spirits?”
Ninefingers said, “I vote the spirits.[3]”
Felewin asked, “Why?”
“The way a place like this is usually constructed, the first trap is quite lethal — that would be the statue. It kills people and scares survivors away. Following traps are generally easier because the targets are weakened and you can’t afford to have everything very lethal. You concentrate lethality on the entrance and whatever the tomb is guarding. That means that while the spirits are bad, they’re probably not as bad as the statue—they’re intended to finish off whatever was weakened by the statue-trap.”
“But aren’t there exceptions?” Kasimir asked.
“Of course, but I haven’t seen evidence of a designer like Traltoth or Victus here. It’s a calculated gamble.”
“You have defeated Sangzor; perhaps you can do this,” said Igga.
“We could hold them,” said Kasimir. “Unless they’re undead.” He looked at Uthrilir, who looked away in shame.
“We need to see them,” said Hrelgi. “We need to know what they are. Without that, we can’t prepare spells.”
“Can their beams of vengeance go through the doors?” Felewin asked.
“No,” said Igga. She spoke to one of the wildmen, who wasn’t young even though his age was unknown. “Hardtooth?”
Hardtooth said, “I was with Bearskin when he tried to attack the spirits. Five of us went into that hall. Instead, they attacked us, and only Grimfang and I escaped, to my shame.”
“I am big and an obvious target,” said Felewin. “I will go in first, and Hrelgi and Ezmerelda will follow me. They will evaluate the fiery spirits, and we will come back in here. I shield them until we come back in.”
“That’s madness,” said Ninefingers. “I should go.”
“You are small and can’t shield them,” said Felewin gently. “And I’m not planning on staying there until they kill me. The two of them can drag me back in if I’m badly hurt.”
“No,” said Ninefingers.
“Plus I’m the only one who can hit them at range until the wizards figure out what they are.”
“No,” said Ninefingers.
Felewin shrugged and put a bolt in the crossbow. “Or we all go in, get hurt for the length of time it takes the wizards to figure things out, but that sounds like we all get hurt.”
“No,” said Ninefingers sadly.
Felewin had his crossbow ready and wore two other loaded crossbows, taken from the bandits. He walked gingerly, because he did not want to set them off accidentally.
Uthrilir prayed[4] for Felewin’s safety, and then he and Ninefingers opened doors.
Felewin had to take several steps into the hallway to give Hrelgi and Ezmerelda room, and noticed the charred body a few paces from the door. Then he noticed that this end of the hallway was scorched by fire, and then he saw the flying skulls wreathed in green flame.
They noticed him almost immediately.
He fired[5] and hit, but the bolt had no effect. Two skulls gazed fire at him but missed[6], the flames harmless against the doors; the third fire-gaze hit but Felewin was unharmed. He couldn’t breathe in the heat, but he was unhurt.
Felewin grabbed the second crossbow and fired again.[7] He returned hit against the one, and perhaps it did some damage — it was hard to tell with flaming skulls.
The two skulls that had missed started flying toward him. Two of the skulls flamed him, but again his armor seemed to stop it. He couldn’t breathe because of the heat, but the fire didn’t hurt him.
“Got it,” said Ezmerelda.
“Let’s go,” agreed Hrelgi.
“Come on!” Ninefingers shouted.
Felewin retreated backward, unwilling to turn his back to them. Kasimir pulled him in and Uthrilir and Ninefingers closed the doors before another gout of flame landed.
“Thank you, Uthrilir. They hit me several times, but none of the flames landed.”
“Thank the Maiden. I am not worthy of thanks.”
Felewin put a hand on Uthrilir’s shoulder. “I thank the Maiden, but I also thank you for asking on my behalf.”
Uthrilir shook his head. “The Maiden deserves all the thanks.”
Felewin walked over to Ezmerelda, Felewin, and Kasimir, who were bent over their respective spell books. When they paused, Felewin asked, “Have we a plan?”
Hrelgi said, “My original thought was motus latency, because Kasimir and I know it and that would be two on three, at least. However, latency is difficult and the distance those flames can go is really quite…. We can’t all have magical protection.”
“I could not breathe for the flames,” pointed out Felewin. “I would be able to continue for a while, but I would fall, breathless.”
“If they can’t see us, they can’t attack us, but only Ezmerelda knows the sensus spells. So what we’ve decided on is this.” Hrelgi took chalk from her pouch and went in the secret room. She began drawing a circle. Kasimir watched and made corrections as she did so.[8]
Finally, she said, “That’s a latency circle. Anything inside it cannot move.” She handed the chalk to Ezmerelda, who started drawing another circle around it. “Ezmerelda is drawing a blackout circle: anyone inside that larger circle can’t see see.”[9]
“But how do they get into the circle?”
“I pull them in there, with the doors open. Everyone else will be sheltered, out of range.”
“Will the darkness keep you safe?”
“I hope so,” said Ezmerelda. “The toughest part was making the illusion so it affects things that can see in the dark.”[10]
“I trust that she did it,” said Hrelgi. “Butt I can heal myself if it doesn’t work…after I get out of there.”
“You get all three and then what?”
“We shut the secret door and forget about them.”
“I like it,” said Felewin.
The wildmen had already moved the carcass of the dire wolf outside it and removed the pelt. (Their appearance startled the horses.) They hid over to one side of the doors and the group hid between the doors and the door to the front hall. Hrelgi carefully took her position. She cast the spell…and failed. The skulls noticed her and came to the doorway. Hrelgi[11] cast the spell again, and one flaming skull flew directly for her and then stopped.
Uthrilir asked the Maiden for help.[12]
The skull did nothing until Hrelgi started to speak. It was facing her so it shot fire at her.[13] She was unscathed.
Her next attempt failed. The third attempt captured another skull.[14] Again it took two attempts to get the last skull.[15]
Then she stepped out of the secret room and shut the secret door.
“You’re hurt!” Uthrilir said.
“Right,” said Hrelgi, and[16] healed herself.[17] “Shall we search?”
“We look in each room but don’t enter,” said Ninefingers, “and then we pick the rooms to go in. Agreed?”
The others nodded.
“Good luck!” Igga called, around a mouthful of dire wolf meat.
The rooms along the hall were some kind of storage chamber with small bottles on the racks, a ruined bedroom with a scale model of Castle Ravenloft, and a beautiful cooked feast laid out on a table.
“Well, that’s a trap,” said Ninefingers. “Nobody around to cook a meal.”
Uthrilir said, “There are exit doors, though, so we might have to go in.”
They retreated into the hall. Felewin spotted the arrow slits and pointed them out. “They look onto the big statue room that Igga told us about.”
“Anything odd about the statue?”
Felewin looked. “Dark. It’s a big statue in a temple,” said Felewin. “I can see some way past it — amber doors under a balcony of some kind. If this side is built like that side, those doors in the feast room lead out onto a balcony, and there’s another set of doors to go in. Can’t see anything else behind the statue.”
“Let me look,” said Ninefingers. Felewin lifted him up. “Tunnel that leads to another parts of the temple. Well, that’s down, which Kasimir wants, but let’s check the bottle room and the bedroom first.”
The bottle room had the far wall covered with a rack and the central rack besides.
“For storage, why wouldn’t you put racks on all walls?” Ninefingers asked. “Why would you need to put a rack in the middle of the room?”
“Religious?” Felewin asked. “Makes a symbol or something like.”
Uthrilir pointed out, “The Mujabi do that.”
“Maybe,” said Ninefingers. “I’m going in; cover me.”
Ninefingers slunk in. Nothing leapt out at him. He looked at the two bare walls.[18] On the northern one, he found a knot in the wood; when he pulled on it, a door came with it. It revealed a landing and a second hidden door to the other room. The stairs and landing were thick with undisturbed dust.
“Voila,” Ninefingers said. “Now a choice — downstairs or through the trapped feast room? I’m inclined to say secret stairs because designers tend to rely on secrecy instead of traps, but I’ll go along with all of you.”
“Stairs. We can always go back to the feast room,” said Felewin.
The others agreed.
The stairs eventually led them to another hall, much like the one they had left, but coated in glistening amber. Dust covered the black marble floor.
The ceiling was tall and vaulted; along the walls, a little above Uthrilir’s head, were amber ledges, lined with live-sized alabaster statues of cats, frogs, hawks, owls, rats, raves, snakes, toads, and weasels. Many of the statues had fallen off the ledges—their shattered remains lay on the floor.
The amber door at the far northern end was open. Four other amber doors were to the west and south, and they were closed. North of them, on the east, was the tunnel that presumably led out to the main temple area.
“Check the open room first?” Felewin asked. “I mean, it’s open and not in a bad way.”
“Sure,” said Ninefingers. “But be aware that something might have moved into the room in the meantime.”
This room had amber-glazed walls and a floor of purplish-black marble. Two amber sarcophagi stood in alcoves to the west and east. A third sarcophagus that once stood in the north alcove lay shattered on the floor. Clustered in the middle of the room were four loathsome, hunched creatures. Each one had a single large, baleful eye.
One of the creatures looked at Ninefingers and said, “Why are you here?”[19] The creature turned to its compatriots and said, “I will trade the reason.”
Another looked at Hrelgi and said, “What feelings do you have for your companions?”[20] It looked at Hrelgi for a moment and said, “It is delicious. I will auction the knowledge.”
“It is a long time since we have had new knowledge to trade,” explained the third creature. “Tall one, who was the first person you ever loved?”[21]
“No,” said Felewin. “These are rude questions and we choose not to answer them.”
The creature looked surprised. “Your companions have shared.”
“Not willingly,” said Ninefingers.
“If you tell anyone…” started Hrelgi.
“I will trade you my answer for the answer to one of my questions,” Felewin said.
“Your terms are acceptable,” said the creature.
“My mother,” said Felewin. “My turn.”
The fourth creature said, “He is correct. Your question was poorly phrased.”
Felewin asked, “What is the purpose of those amber boxes?”
“Why, they are prisons for the last vestiges of dark gods.” The hunchback creature giggled. “What fun! My turn. What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?”
One of the other creatures remarked, “Tralzar is concentrating on emotional responses again.”
Tralzar said as an aside to them, “There is more variety than factual information.”
Felewin considered the question and finally said, “I confessed my attraction and interest to a woman only to discover she was affianced to my brother. I left to become a knight three days later.”
Kasimir said to Felewin, “Will one of the vestiges grant me the power to raise my sister?”
Felewin looked annoyed that Kasimir hadn’t asked directly, but said, “How do we get to the room with the entity that will grant my companion that power?”
“You’re assuming there is such an entity,” murmured Uthrilir.
The creature said, “From this level? Behind the statue is a secret door to stairs that lead up to the library. In the library is a stairway down down to that vault. The sarcophagus to the east holds the entity with that power.”
“Thank you,” said Felewin and withdrew.
They could hear the creatures talking as they left: “I now know that some creatures regard our intrusions as rude.”
“You have nothing to auction; we all heard your factoids. I now know what the elf thinks of her companions and will auction it off.”
Hrelgi said, “Let’s leave now.”
They moved faster, urged on by Hrelgi.
“Up to the top?” asked Uthrilir. “Going through the feast room we saw should lead us to the area the library is in.”
“We don’t know that you can get there from up top,” said Felewin. “We know you can get there from here.”
“Except, of course, the statue will kill us,” said Ninefingers.
“We only have Igga’s word for it, and she was wrong about the fiery spirits,” said Felewin.
“She wasn’t wrong, she was generalizing. Different thing,” said Ninefingers. “We might be able to sneak by but Felewin is crappy at sneaking.”
“I can make us invisible,” said Ezmerelda. “Not for long, but long enough to get behind the statue.”
“We don’t know that the statue can’t attack from behind,” said Ninefingers.
“We don’t know anything about the statue,” said Felewin.
Ninefingers squatted in the hallway, his back against the wall. “Kasimir, you said this was originally a temple to hide away evil gods and dangerous magics?”
“Indeed.”
“And the wizards or monks or whatever got corrupted?”
“Again, yes.”
“So the statue being a killing trap is a late addition. Statue probably doesn’t animate. They wouldn’t set it up that way originally. The statue has a head because the darkness covered the face, not the back. So… there’s a chance that the targeting system for the death-by-statue trap doesn’t affect the back of the statue.”
Ninefingers looked at the end of the hall. “We’ll test it. I’ll go out, I hope stealthily, and get behind the statue. I’ll look for the secret door. If it attacks me, we’ll know more. If it doesn’t attack me, we know a way to avoid dying.”
“All right,” said Felewin.
“You know, when you tried to kill yourself for information, I objected. You could at least do the same thing for me.”
Felewin grinned. “Please don’t die. Also have a rope tied to your waist so I can pull you back.”
“I can’t. It’s not really stealthy.”[22]
“Oh. And…Thank you.”
“Right.” Ninefingers checked all his kit to make sure there was nothing to jangle, and then slipped out to hide in the niche around the wizard statue; from there he moved to the corner, behind the statue. Halfway to the statue was an open door; he stopped at the edge. He glanced in the open door.
Inside had once been a treasury of some kind; now it held body parts ripped apart and preserved by the cold, the gore frozen and glistening. There was no one alive in there.
Ninefingers filed away the idea that the secret door might be in that room but the wording of the creature’s response made that a second choice for him.
He moved quickly past the door.
There was another door, a locked one, on the wall beyond the statue. The secret door must be between the two doors.
First assumption: the layout of the floor was roughly symmetrical. That narrowed down the location. He could see how big the one treasury room was, so he could guess where the secret door must be.[23] He found seams in the amber walls; then it was a task of finding the release mechanism.
He knocked several times to find a hollow spot or conversely a more solid spot.
After his third knock, the door opened, revealing a dusty stairwell up.
Knock three times. Easy enough.
Ninefingers slipped back to tell the others.
“Now we have to get all of you past the statue,” finished Ninefingers.
Ezmerelda asked, “Make us invisible?”
Hrelgi said, “Someone who goes to the trouble of seeing through magical darkness often can see invisible things.”
“Run like devils are after us,” said Felewin. “We’re assuming he or she or it can’t see behind the statue. I can’t be stealthy, so just move. In and up the stairs.”
“That will work to get there but not so well on the way out of the temple,” said Ninefingers.
“We might not go the same way. Uthrilir thinks we might be able to get out of the library staying upstairs.”
“Probably,” the dwarf said.
“So we run for that doorway. Dodge, yes, but don’t take extra time.”
They looked at Ninefingers. “I don’t have better ideas,” the goblin admitted. “Stay on this side of the nearest column, there, for the most obscured view, but avoid the rubble from the collapsed balcony. However, we all run at once; more targets increases the difficulty.”
“Unless he knows Bakfari’s Area Modifiers,” said Hrelgi.
“Please don’t borrow trouble, Hrelgi. We run,” said Felewin. “Ezmerelda, you okay with this?”
“It’s a level floor,” she replied. “Everything’s fine.”
Hrelgi readied the lantern for opening when they started running. At Felewin’s count, they sprinted.[24]
Once they passed the column, three daggers of lambent force came out of the cloud of darkness and hit Felewin. The speed of Felewin’s run carried him behind the statue. They all tumbled into the hidden stairwell and Ninefingers shut the secret door.
“You’re hurt,” said Ninefingers.
“Yes, but not badly,” said Felewin.
“Stupid, stupid as a knight.”
“Thank you.”
Uthrilir prayed that Felewin be healed,[25] but there was no effect. The dwarf looked away, his cheeks burning with shame.
“Here,” said Hrelgi. She checked her grimoire and cast a spell.[26]
“Thank you,” said Felewin.
“We might meet something terrible,” she said. “We need you in fighting shape.”
“Thank you,” said Felewin again.
“Uthie would have done it if the Maiden were listening but she’s washing her hair.”
“Do goddesses do that?”
Hrelgi said, “Of course they do.” She stood up. “Gods and goddesses are just like us but bigger.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Felewin.
The stairs were dusty and unused, and traversed up the same distance in a straight line as the others had traveled down in a curve.
When they got to the top, Ninefingers separated from the group to check the top door for traps, but the door swung open automatically.
The room beyond was a library with walls of stone. Three of the walls held two marble book cases each, with hundred of well-preserved books. A fresco on the vaulted ceiling showed angels fighting in a hell of some kind, with the angels being set ablaze.
Ahead were embroidered rugs, chairs, and lit candelabras; beyond that was a black marble railing around a hole in the floor, with a gold marble staircase that spiraled down. Into the dark.
Ninefingers stepped into the room and examined one of the candelabras. “No dripping wax,” he said. “Magic of some kind.”
“We go downstairs,” said Kasimir.
“In a second, Kasimir,” said Felewin. “Hrelgi, are these books useful?”
She looked at the titles painted on the spines, grabbed one, and flipped it open. The pages were blank.
“No.”
Kasimir said, “They are magically locked. You cannot read them without the verbal key.”
“Like a password?” Felewin asked.
“Yes,” said Kasimir.
Hrelgi looked at the book, then picked up her grimoire and checked. She said a few words of incantation, and words appeared. “Huh,” she said. “Never heard of magical locking.”
“Some magical locks disintegrate the book if it is taken from the room or the temple. It depends on the type of lock,” said Kasimir.
Felewin took one of the candlesticks. “Might need light downstairs. Ninefingers, I hate to impose, but would you carefully and quietly check down the stairs for traps that the wizards might have placed down there?”[27]
“Talk amongst yourselves; it might cover me. Don’t make a lot of noise,” said Ninefingers and he slipped away.
Uthrilir said, “I presume it leads to a locked door or hallway; the last chamber had a lock on it, even though it was broken open. We should have asked them about the place.”
“No, we shouldn’t have,” said Hrelgi. “They ask for too much in exchange.”
“Anything useful in the books?” Felewin asked.
“Titles are the kinds of things that wizards like to name things, so not sure. ‘On the Grandiloquent Use of Language to Subvert the Will of the Divine.’ I mean, what is that?”
Kasimir looked at another book. “This one is called ‘An Investigation into Optics,’ so I’m guessing primarily applications of fabrica sensus.”
Hrelgi looked at a volume as thick as her head was wide. “This one is ‘Magick’ (with a k, which is kind of cool) ‘of the Calligraph.’ I don’t know what a calligraph is.”
“Writing machine,” said Ninefingers from beside her, having returned. “Come close, please.”
Everyone huddled around him.
“I saw big amber things like we saw before but all intact, but also six crates. We have seen these crates before, in Vallaki.”
“Vampires?” Uthrilir asked.
Ninefingers nodded. “I don’t know that the crates hold vampires but if Strahd got his power in this vault, he might put them here to protect it."[28]
“We have something proof against vampires. Uthrilir?”
“I might not be worthy,” the dwarf said.
“Your faith is unshakable,” said Felewin. “Your pride on the roof was egged on by your relic. The Maiden chose you to carry that relic; she knew that sometimes you would fail.”
“How did you know…?” Uthrilir looked at Ninefingers. “You told him!”
“A bit. You made a lot of noise opening that trap door.”
“They had you ensorcelled, asleep!”
“It was a lot of noise. No one else woke, but I did.”
“What happened?” asked Hrelgi.
“Minor crisis, it got averted, things are fine,” said Felewin to her. “I wouldn’t bring it up now but we need your conviction. The Maiden has chosen not to help you for some of today, but that has always been true.”
“She is vast and has other pressing needs,” Uthrilir said.
“Exactly,” said Felewin. “But we will need her help in dealing with these vampires.[29] Your faith is our only conduit to her help, so we need your faith.”
Uthrilir nodded. “I shall do my best.”
Felewin smiled. “Good. We know the holy symbol can paralyze one vampire. Let’s see what it does against a group of vampires.” He included the others. “We go downstairs but we are not stealthy. We need whatever is there to know about us and come out. If it’s too much, we’ll retreat, but we want to get all of them. Every vampire destroyed is one less that Strahd can use against us.[30] How many did you say there are?”
“Six crates, all the same size. They would hold Felewin.”
“Vampires see in the dark, so Ninefingers and Uthrilir at the front, then me, then Kasimir and Ezmerelda, then Hrelgi. Hrelgi, leave the lantern unshuttered so it’s as lit as possible, even if one gets behind you.” He held up the candle. “I hope this candle works outside this room; I’m going to put it on the stairs. It might help.”
As they went down the stairs, at the halfway mark he set down the candlestick and it stayed lit. Felewin adjusted his shield, drew his sword, and they continued carefully, so the candle was not extinguished.
Felewin had stepped into the room but Ezmerelda, Kasimir, and Hrelgi were still on the stairs when the hiss came.[31]
Uthrilir prayed, “Please protect us, your most unworthy servants, as we try to cleanse this room, this temple, this land.”
Almost instantly, the vampires — Felewin could see some of them now, in scale and brandishing swords — moved back, back against a wall.[32] One disappeared into the crack in an opposite wall; the others were pinned, unable to approach Uthrilir.
Uthrilir held high the holy symbol, and it shone with sunlight, illuminating the room. The vampires began to smoke.[33]
“Will this kill them?” Hrelgi asked Ezmerelda.
“No. It will reduce them to immobility; only a stake through the heart will kill them.”[34]
Hrelgi asked, “Do we have enough stakes?[35]”
“Yes,” said Ezmerelda. “We have a dozen or more. We use sunlight until they appear to be dead, and then we drive in the stakes. Otherwise they will regenerate once the sunlight is gone.”
“Got it,” said Felewin. He was carrying a stake, and he got it out.
Within ten minutes, the five of them were eliminated, and the sunlight vanished.
“Did you make that stop?” asked Ninefingers.
“No,” said Uthrilir. “It only lasts a certain length of time.”
“Do we go after the other one?”
“Eventually. First, we handle Kasimir’s quest.”
Kasimir looked embarrassed. “I don’t know which sarcophagus is to the east.”
Felewin thought about it and then said, “Between twists and turns, I don’t know. Try touching one of the amber blocks.”
Kasimir looked at the three amber blocks, and at the cracks in the wall, and chose the one farthest from the cracks. He cast a spell and then tentatively touched the amber block. He listened to something the others could not hear, and then pulled his hand free. “Strahd touched this one. It offers the gift of the vampire.”
Kasimir went to the next block and placed his hand on it, then took it away. “I do not wish the dark gift of Tenebrous. I have asked additional questions and I think it is becoming a lich.”
Hrelgi looked interested. “That’s how liches are made?”
“That’s one way to become a lich,” said Kasimir. “I am not a wizard who can take advantage of the offer; I am not good enough,” Kasimir added. “Do not mention the dark gift of Tenebrous to my sister, when we resurrect her. She would make a good lich.”
“I thought you said she had reformed,” said Ninefingers.
“I think she has reformed. A change of heart does not always go with a change of personality. She would be very good at being a lich.”
Kasimir avoided the cracks in the wall to get to the third amber block, passing through the knot of everyone else. He touched it with more confidence. After what seemed a long time, he said aloud, “I accept.”
His body became grayer and shriveled; he took on the countenance of a corpse or a ghoul, and his skin got coarser and leathery. Finally he said, “It is done. We can leave.”
Hrelgi said, “You changed.”
Kasimir looked at his own hands and then sighed. “To all things, there is a cost.”
“Is that permanent or just until you raise her from the dead?” Hrelgi asked.
“I do not know,” said Kasimir.
“Don’t sit for a portrait is all I’m saying,” said Ninefingers.
“I shall not. How do we leave?”
“First, do we want to go after that vampire? We ought to,” Felewin asked.
“I do not want to risk my gift fighting with a vampire when I am this close to my goal,” said Kasimir.
“Even with your gift, how long do you think you’ll last out there?” Ninefingers asked. “You can’t use the gift on yourself.”
“But why subject myself to extra danger?” Kasimir asked. “We could all leave.”
“Let’s check,” suggested Uthrilir. “Ninefingers and I will see where the cracks lead. Perhaps the vampire has trapped himself.”
Ninefingers said, “Like we’d be that lucky.” He walked toward the crack. “Come on. Holy guys first. Remember to look up; these guys can really climb. They’re like spiders.”
Uthrilir prayed for protection, each in one fissure.[36] The fissures were next to each other, about as wide as Ninefingers was tall, and taller than Felewin. They walked for a short distance and came to the exit. The obvious thing was a pair of giant amber legs to their left. The fissures opened into an alcove where there was a big statue, taller than the wizard statues in the main temple, carved entirely from amber. Ninefingers guessed it to be half again as tall as Felewin. He scanned the room, including the ceiling, for the vampire.[37] Nothing.
“I’m coming through,” Uthrilir said.
“Just a moment,” Ninefingers said. “I don’t see the vampire, so he’s behind a pile of treasure.[38] Advance cautiously.”
“If you say so,” said Uthrilir.
Ninefingers had just stepped past the statue and suddenly thought, I said look up at that, when[39] the vampire leapt down from the statue and hit him, hard but with its fist, not its sword.[40]
Ninefingers did have time to make a sound, so Uthrilir saw this, and held the holy symbol of raven kind aloft,[41] The vampire froze.
“Kill him,” Uthrilir said.
“I can’t get free,” said Ninefingers. “Felewin! We need strong arms!”
Felewin ran in swiftly, holding his lantern, and with a mallet and stake in his other hand.
“Free me and kill him. We haven’t much time.”
Felewin was fast. When it was done, he asked Ninefingers, who was still lying there, “Did he bite you?”
“No, he didn’t have a chance. Hit me, though.” Ninefingers tried to stand and failed.
Uthrilir rushed over and prayed.[42] When he was done, Ninefingers thanked him and the Maiden, and got up.
Felewin examined the dead vampire and took its sword and knife. There was no shield, which disappointed him; his own shield was beat up and would not last much longer.[43]
He looked at the piles around the room but he couldn’t tell in the lantern light and he would have to search through things.
“Are you coming?” Ninefingers asked.
Felewin stood. He had decided his shield was good enough; he’d spend time tonight maintaining it.
“Big statue,” he said to Ninefingers.
“They did like their amber,” the goblin replied.
Previous Chapter 32 To The Amber Temple — Next Chapter 34 A Lich In Time
Monsters
Although there are several monsters, only the flaming skulls need combat statistics.
Flaming Skull
Note that they can cast some spells; the D&D list is mostly covered by Fabrica Motus and Sensus, which I chose not to give them, and Fabrica Materia. Generally, shield is possible and flavours of fireball.
| Abilities | Fitness 4 Awareness 3 Creativity 3 Reasoning 1 Influence 3 |
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| Skills | Athletics 5 (≤9), Fabrica Materia 5 (≤8) |
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| Gimmicks | Descrying Reality, Flight, Resistant[Crafting], Natural Armour[3], Fiery Breath (gaze) 2 inj, Undersized, Weak |
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Game Mechanics
