Endrid's Diary 2/10/22

 

The party settled down for a night of rest in Vasily's mansion while Valaki burned around us.

I spoke with Ireena before bed. She reminded me of how before we met she had been visited by and bitten by Strahd. The townspeople were afraid of her and this was the original reason we took her on our quest. It had been such a long and arduous journey I had honestly forgotten our initial encounter with Ireena.

 

Brace said he has some kind of “errand”. Nobody knew what he is talking about but I told him not to get himself killed.

 

Brace tried to emerge and found that the door was locked from the outside. Trieskan noticed in the evening that the door was jammed but for some reason was not alarmed by this realization.

 

I yelled at Brace to get the door open by any means necessary and he smashed it with his war pick. He ended up smashing the door but there remained an impenetrable force.

 

The door seemed to have some type of magical trap or something. Brace couldn’t figure out how to get the door open so Trieskan examined its mechanisms. He discerned that the door appeared to be held shut with magic and not engineering. Brace suggested we check the windows and these appeared to be similarly sealed.

 

Ireena woke and walked by the door-opening-fiasco seeming very unimpressed. Trieskan and Radha followed her. They found her in the kitchen trolling around for grub.

 

Radha looked around the kitchen and didn’t have much success finding anything that looked appetizing. She gathered up a few dusty looking turnips.

 

Trieskan and Ireena talked about the house: Ireena believed that the house was safe, Trieskan felt more apprehensive.

 

Brace smashed a window with his war pick. The window shattered but a wall of fog remained. Brace touched the fog wall and it felt sort of electric and impassable.

 

At this point we all looked around but failed to discover anything helpful to our situation. We bumped into Hugh and Brace asked him what was up with the miserable fog prison we were in.

 

Hugh changed form into Rahadin, the commander of the skull warriors during the Esmerelda wagon fiasco. Rahadin busted out his greatsword and said we needed to “talk”. After this introduction, we heard chained marching from the skeletons.

 

Rahadin again requested the artifacts. Brace asked Rahadin how he can stand to work for a bozo like Strahd. I think Brace said something about Sylvanus.

 

Rahadin said he would let us go if we either gave up the artifacts or handed over Ireena. We were unmoved by this offer and decided to use all our artifacts to bring him down.

 

We began our epic battle with Rahadin misty stepping away from the center of the room.

 

Brace attacked one of the wights and it did not seem much phased by his attack. I ran to Rahadin and hit him with the blood spear. I was in a frenzy and his ability to dodge and withstand my attacks was unlike anything I had ever seen.

 

Radha hit Rahadin with two Eldritch blasts and a hex. He was thrown against the wall and I missed on a spear attack as he flew by.

 

Bingdor pulled out his dulcimer and filled the room with glorious sunlight. The wights seemed surprised but not paralyzed.

 

The twelve wights assaulted us. Every member of the party took a few arrow hits but we withstood their attack. Some of the wights grabbed and grappled Ireena.

 

Trieskan tried to summon spiders but it didn’t quite work. Instead he climbed all the way up to the center of the ceiling using his spider abilities.

 

Brace hit a wight with Divine Smite and it fell dead. We learned that the wights could be felled.

 

I chased down Rahadin and got a few good stabs with my Blood Spear. I wounded him but he seemed like he had plenty of fight left in him.

 

Radha tossed a few Eldritch Blasts that Rahadin dodged.

 

Bingdor pulled out the Holy Amulet of Ravenkind and used Turn Undead. Several of the Wights were affected and began wandering aimlessly.

 

The wights grappling Ireena appeared to be pulling her towards the door.

 

Rahadin slashed me several times and his screams caused me immense pain.

 

Brace and I both worked to free Ireena from the wight’s grasp.

 

Radha continued to blast Rahadin but he kept dodging furiously.

 

Bingdor tried to hit Rahadin with a juiced-up Guiding Bolt to no avail.

 

Trieskan aimed his shortbow at Rahadin, another unsuccessful attempt.

 

Rahadin escaped the room but he didn’t seem to be fleeing in fear. He dissipated the fog barrier.

 

Radha tried to hold my hand…

 

We managed to destroy three wights and had nine flee along with Rahadin. We were a bit banged up but still had some fight left in us.