Post by gavmeister on Feb 3, 2017 11:45:37 GMT
Bran leads the adventurers down the creaking, cobwebbed staircase to the basement level. They hear an eerie, incessant chanting coming from far away. They discover empty crypts awaiting internment of the Durst family. A swarm of centipedes boils out of Elisabeth Durst’s coffin but the party quickly stamp them out.
Giselle and Bran return upstairs and retrieve the skeletons of the innocent Durst children. Both are interred with solemn words from Ricken invoking the Morninglord’s mercy. Pankas is released by Thorn’s ghost and the children find peace at last. The adventurers celebrate by looting the cultists’ treasure, including a silvered shortsword. Ricken inexplicably denies the Morninglord’s Guidance to Giselle, so they fail to bag everything.
They trek through the corridors and arrive at a dining area littered with human bones. Giselle searches the pantry and is attacked by a grick, which fortunately does not survive for long. They continue their search.
Failing to heed the danger signs, Ricken falls through rotten floorboards and injures himself in a pit trap. Then five ghouls – human-flesh eating degenerate cultists - ambush them as they reach a corridor junction. Pankas and Bran hold them off until Ricken can channel Turn Undead. The ghouls flee and the adventurers are able to take them down piecemeal. The adventurers return upstairs for a short rest in the children’s bedroom.
Returning to the basement they find an abandoned room dedicated to the torture of the cult’s prisoners. Skeletons hang in chains from rusty shackles. A wooden statue of a gaunt, pale-faced man wearing a voluminous black cloak stands in an alcove, his pale left hand resting on the head of a wolf. He holds a smoky-grey crystal orb in his right hand. As Theodore’s Mage Hand seizes the orb, five shadows – tortured souls of the cult’s victims – emerge and attack. They drain strength from Pankas’ sword arm and force Giselle and Theo to flee. Then Ricken steps up and channels Radiance of the Dawn. The shadows are extinguished by the Morninglord’s powerful radiance. They discover a secret door which leads upstairs to the ground floor of the house.
Searching the cult leaders’ bedroom, they are assailed by the stench of death. Gustav and Elisabeth Durst attack – transformed long ago into hideous ghasts. Pankas is briefly paralysed by Gustav before Bran can take him out. The party loot the chest in the room and find a Cloak of Protection. They rest again before heading to the lower chamber.
The chanting becomes distinct: “He is the Ancient. He is the Land.” They search the cult’s reliquary. Giselle slips a hag’s severed finger into her pocket. Theodore is excited to find a wand of polymorph but it turns out to be a stick with a desiccated frog on the end. He settles for a dagger with a rat’s skull pommel. They shun the bone aspergillum. The party search the cult’s prison and liberate a gold ring from the skeleton of a dissident cultist.
They discover a secret passage and emerge into a large flooded chamber. The chanting falls silent. The room is dominated by a central dais with a sacrificial altar. A large pile of offal lurks in a side chamber. Pankas wades through the filthy water to examine the altar. Thirteen faceless dark apparitions appear on the ledges around the room, each holding a torch burning black. The chant changes “One must die! One must die!” The adventurers reject the demand of the long dead cult. None who live shall die! Ominously the chant rings out just once: “Lorghoth the Decayer, we awaken thee!”
The pile of offal animates and Lorghoth rises. The apparitions chant one last time: “The end comes! Death, be praised!”
Pankas charges in to contain Lorghoth. Bran casts Bless from Mother Night's scroll, and then joins Pankas in hacking and slashing at the undead monster. The creature lashes out at both of them with twisted knots of thick entrails. Pankas shields Bran as best he can. Giselle wisely hangs back, pumping arrow after arrow into its exposed guts. Theodore casts Spiritual Weapon, summoning Mother Night’s sacred chakram which he hurls repeatedly – in between firing Eldritch Blasts.
Ricken channels Radiance but it is resisted, and both his Guiding Bolts miss. He rushes to the front line and is immediately knocked senseless to the ground by Lorghoth. The adventurers begin to run out of options.
Theodore dashes to the front line and casts Protection from Evil on Pankas. In response Lorghoth turns on Bran instead and engulfs him. Just in time, the paladin cuts himself free and the undead monstrosity’s rampage is ended forever. The chanting is silenced. A Healing Potion is administered to Ricken.
They raise the portcullis and return through the basement, emerging into a changed Death House – Giselle’s premonitions are proven all too real! The windows are bricked up and thick acrid smoke pours out of the fireplaces. Pankas is overcome and has to be brought round with a healing potion. All the internal doors have been replaced with slashing scythe blades. Groping through the smoke they find that the walls of the room have rotted. They smash their way through and are then assailed by swarms of rats. The adventurers are at their wits’ end. Eventually they find the main door and flee through the now unlocked gate.
The mists of Ravenloft have receded. They see a light in a nearby house. The family are horrified by Bran’s appearance, but agree to give the adventurers shelter for the night. In return, Balthazar Krykski needs a favour from them next morning.