Magic, Power, and Consequences

Disclaimer: This includes spoilers for Curse of Strahd so don’t read if you don’t want to know.

Now that the poor scarred kid was dead, Milo the Rogue began to loot the body. He found quite a bit, but Malachi the Barbarian made him give all the loot up as he didn’t feel Milo deserved it. Malachi ended up handing a necklace found on the body, made of gold and ruby, to Aleera the Bard. Aleera donned it, not knowing if it had any use. With the party all reunited in the small library looking room, we rested for a bit and Milo moved on to check the room for loot. He found that all the books were spell instruction books for wizards. He grabbed a few of them and stuffed them in his bag. 

After formally meeting Karriss the Cleric, the party decided we could move on and slowly began to move through the dark temple. There was something in the center of the temple throwing fire at us so we fought it first. We ended up being able to maneuver around it and kill it. As we investigated the body we found that it was an Arcanaloth. It had posted up in a hollow skull statue toward the center back of the room and used the eyes to direct its magical fire. We posted up in the skull and took a long rest to refresh ourselves, taking turns guarding the party. 

We woke and began exploring the rest of the temple. We came upon a large platinum statue with a charred body lying next to it, the body was of the scarred boy’s Master. The necklace activated the statue and we realized that it was a shield golem. With a new weapon on our side we began exploring the other side of the temple and came across many locked doors and a few open doors. While searching we came across the three hags we thought we had killed in the windmill earlier. They had escaped unscathed and were here searching for something. We figured they were here for more power. 

Aleera and Milo saw the hags first and hung back. Instead she sent her newly acquired sprite, thanks to her pact of the chain, down the corridor to take them by surprise. The sprite, invisible now, snuck up on the hag at the back and took her down with a sleep arrow. The other two were weakened and could not cast any spells with their leader down. Malachi proceeded to begin beating them down with the help of Milo. Just as Morgantha, the main hag, was coming to, Malachi smashed one of her friend’s skulls with his weapon. She saw that her fellow hags were dead and tried to escape by misty stepping through the wall. Instead she ran into the other half of our party: Wick, Mithra and Kariss. Wick ended up killing Morgantha with a smite that burned her to ash. After making sure they were dead the party began to explore the rest of the temple.

We found many strange receptacles with strange names and plaques that offered power. Malachi touched one that offered him 2 hellhounds to summon until they died and the ability to speak Infernal, but he sweated smoke from then on, it was the Dark Gift of Seriach, The Hell Hound Whisperer. Kariss touched one and accepted the Dark Gift of Delben, the Star of Ice and Hate. She could use “cone of cold” freely but was afraid of fire from then on. Wick the paladin got the Dark gift of Zrin-Hala the Howling Storm and was able to control lightning but his entire body went numb and should he be injured he would not feel it. Milo got the Dark Gift of Vaund the Evasive. He could not be scryed on and the only drawback was that he could not answer any question directly. He had to be squirrelly. The only two party members to not take powers were Mithra and Aleera. 

Milo, after acquiring his power, wanted more. He stepped into a chamber that held three receptacles. The room appeared darker than the others. One of the receptacles had already been broken but the two on either side were intact. Their plaques called them the Queen of Mirrors and the Queen of Ash. The broken receptacle read “Here lies Sable, the Queen of Blood Pacts” The names on the other 2 had been scratched off. He touched each unbroken receptacle, making constitution saving throws each time. He failed and upon the second failure he dropped unconscious. 

He had doubled back, not telling the party and after a gush of black smoke flew past them, Aleera went to find out if he had come back that way after not seeing him for a while. She came across his prone body on the floor of the room. She read the plaques and realized that Milo had failed and in doing so had freed the queens. She was so angry that she left him in that dark room to die, and closed the door. He could rouse himself or he could die, she left that up to fate.