Session 29

As the rest of the party is having dinner, Pelanil finds his way to the castle's chapel. There, something catches his eye on the alter: a sliver statuette, and below it, a corpse. Pelanil inspects the scene and surmises that the person on the alter must have been killed by the figurine. Throwing caution to the wind, Pelanil grabs the statuette. He is immediately blown backwards by a burst of radiant light. Piccolo watches on, amused at the entertainment.

Icon of Ravenloft Handout

Nearly dead, Pelanil collapses onto the closest pew, his body tingling from the radiant blast. He hears a voice:

My son, I have gone to great lengths to come to you in this realm. There is yet hope for your soul. Travel to Krezk and speak with The Abbot.

After a flashback to Pelanil's Conversation with Menigal, Pelanil feels somewhat changed after this message from his deity, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Through Pelanil's evil shell, his faith is rekindled, and he rises immediately from the pew and sets forth towards Krezk.

Pelanil finds the party in the dinning hall, Strahd having already retired for the night. Anakir continues to flirt with Escher. Anakir calls it a night early, and Escher slips out of the room a bit later.

Pelanil insists that the group head towards Krezk immediately, but Elora thinks that they should at least spend the night so that Pelanil can heal since he seems to still be smoking from his incident.

As the others argue over the group's next move, Shalooti sits in the corner messing around with her new deck of cards. Finally, her curiosity gets the best of her, and she pulls a single card from the deck. She feels her bag get immediately lighter, and she notices she's lost nearly all of her GP.

The group follow Cyrus back upstairs to bed.

Shalooti rejects Bardolf's offer to share a room, but Bardolf, unperturbed, sets out chiseling a peephole in the wall between their rooms that he uses to watch her sleep. He patches it before she wakes in the morning.

At first, he mistakenly chisels a hole in the wrong wall into the room where Pelanil is staying. There, he sees Pelanil awakened by someone at his door. Pelanil punches a hole through it and seems to just go back to bed. Pelanil casts Magic Circle to protect himself during the night.

Anakir and Escher engage in some pillow talk. Anakir asks Escher to leave Castle Ravenloft and join him and the rest of the party. Escher explains that it's not that easy. It's true that Strahd has lost interest in him recently, but as a vampire spawn, Escher has no choice but to follow Strahd's orders. If Escher were to leave to be with Anakir, he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't hurt him. Their bed suddenly pushed up against the wall by Pelanil's spell.

Elora, feeling mischievous, had snuck down the hall to make noise outside of Pelanil's room. Already on edge, Pelanil leaped from his bed and punched a hole through the door, striking Elora. With her pride damaged, she made her way back to her room.

There, she found Strahd sitting on her bed. He asked her to come inside and close the door. Worried what Pelanil would do if he saw, she obliged.

Elora, you intrigue me. Unlike the others, you do not shy away from the darkness, but rather seek to understand it. That is a rare quality, one I respect deeply. You are not like the others. You see beyond the veil of fear that blinds them. You seek knowledge, truth... perhaps even power. I could help you find all three.

Strahd told her that he didn't request full betrayal of her friends, but that sometimes, the good of the many requires the sacrifice from the few. He recognized that the party was searching for the Misc/Campaign Items/Sunsword, and that their finding it could spell ruin for his kingdom.

What he had to offer Elora was a partnership: if she was willing to do one small task for him (namely, retrieve the Misc/Campaign Items/Sunsword for him before her friends were able to do it), then he would make her Queen Consort to rule Barovia alongside him.

Seeing the indecision on her face, Strahd told Elora to sleep on it, and to get word to him of her decision.

Cyrus brought up pastries the next morning, and told the party that the carriage waited outside for them to take them anywhere they'd like in Barovia. Bardolf asked if they could make pit stops at a few different locations, but Cyrus told him the carriage didn't work that way. Cyrus also mentioned that he had family in Krezk.

The group loaded into the carriage, Anakir disappointed that Escher chose to stay behind. Elora arrives a bit late, and the wagon starts moving. Just as it pulls away, Escher comes running to join Anakir. He had been meeting with Strahd to tell him that he would join the party to spy on them, to which Strahd replied, "Finally, you are of some use".

Before leaving her room, Elora pulled out the Strahd and Elora dolls that she'd been carrying with her. She placed them on the dresser in her room, both sitting side-by-side with crowns on their heads, with a dagger through the chest of Strahd's doll. It seems she had made her decision.

Shalooti continues to play with her new deck of cards. She pulls two. The wagon is immediately struck by a fireball, and Shalooti turns into a thorny plant.