Journeying to the Entry Hall of the Amber Temple, we find another tall statue similar to the outside ones, hooded with a void where its face ought be. Orrrs begins to latch an arrow for it when we all hear a booming voice in our heads:

“What are you planning to do here?”

“We wish to obtain the sword of sunlight to defeat the Dark Lord Strahd,” we reply, but the voice seems quite adamant against taking any of its treasures. Fen asks what we could do instead.

“With a tribute of knowledge or power, some secrets could be shared and safe passage inside the temple granted, so long as you do not take anything not freely given.”

• Orrrs offers the great Spear of Khevan, which seems satisfactory
• Sarandiel offers a scroll of Spiritual Weapon, which is deemed pathetic. She then offers to loan the Pipes of Haunting while she’s in the temple, which gets a hauty no. She tries to offer it some knowledge, but doesn’t get the details right and it doesn’t count, finally she describes the Order of the Raven.
• Dorvil explains the multiverse and where he is from, Ravnica, the existance of Planeswalkers, people whom have a spark, and his group’s efforts to scientifically explore sparks and mechanical Planes traversal techniques. He revealed that someone in the Stoker family has this spark, which is probably the cause of their village ‘splodin and thus Fen’s initial death.
• Fen offers the history of the Knights of the Silver Dragon and their Lodge, including their present affliction and likely cure: restoring the dragon’s skull (an unfortunately unproven theory, due to it being waylaid by our flight from Strahd with Van Richten).
• At first Bran offers up his own dream journal, but is rejected, so he reluctently gives up a green powerstone to get a pass. He then reads out chapters from the diary of Strahd to get Gerggwen a pass too.

We take a rest while Bran recites the contents of the diary and then he asks where we should go to defeat Strahd. It suggests going to some of his vestiges, which will grant power if they accept it. Many of these vaults are on this floor, some are open, while many are still sealed.

Should we really be unsealing vaults of evil for power?

Are ghosts undead? Or just dead? Does one need to move matter to be undead?

Orrrs asks the spirit where he might go for sword powers, and is pointed to a room. Heading that way, we come across 4 scrawny, spikey creatures, hunched over amongst some sarcophagi:

Van Richten called them Nothicks; one-eyed monstrous creatures that may have been wizards once, whom delved too deep. Orrrs stepped towards them, and felt them brush up against his mind, but he seemed to withstand the Jimmy Neutron brain blast. They allowed him to then touch one of the sarcophagi, at which point he paused and seemed to go on a journey of the mind, before he “made a decision” and came back to us. Bran went on a similar, shorter trip, “full of darkness, and a yellow cloaked figure”, before accepting something from it.

Is it wrong to eat? Well to clarify, is it wrong to eat people’s souls?

Leeeaaaaving the spooky coffin room, we proceed further, and notice a big door flanked by two suspicious (illusionary?) walls - pushing one reveals it to be a secret door, opening up on a room holding a model of Castle Ravenloft, as mentioned in the tarot card reading and in the diary of Strahd from when he was first designing it. We study the layout of the miniature castle and then argue about where we could find the sword in the castle; Dorvil interrupts by punching the model and pulls out the Sword of the Sun!

Meanwhile, Sarandiel investigates the chest in the room’s corner and finds a false bottom containing a book in there. She picks up the book, the title reads “The Tome of Understanding”. She begins thumbing through the book and immediately becomes engrossed in it, powering through it entirely before anyone notices, and as the last words vanish from the pages (for 100 years), she finds herself feeling much wiser. [Author’s note: these books are extremely rare and powerful, and wisdom is worthless on a Bard hahaha]

Bran pipes up that his Patron wants him to go further into the Temple. Along the way we find the corpse of a wizard, with an ice staff lying next to them. Bran picks it up and hands it to Dorvil, to investigate later before eventually giving to Gerggwen, who seems confused which end of the icicle is up.

We wonder through a few rooms, eventually spotting a haunting statue with dessicated corpses slumped over at its feet. Bran has a strong desire to touch, but is able to withstand the draw to do so, however, Sarandiel, Fen, and Dorvil however are strongly drawn to the statue, intent on staring at it for all eternity. Bran’s able to snap his brother Fen out of it, who then throws a cloak over the statue, freeing the others from its enthralling staring contest.

Bran is drawn towards a back wall, which he manages to open only to encounter a comically large number of skulls falling out of the closet. Several minutes later, once enough skulls clear, we spot a steel chest nailed to the closet’s ceiling. Orrrs runs up the wall and picks the magical lock, but once it opens, the floor drops out beneath the rest of the party below. Sarandiel’s Feather Fall safely lands them in the earlier corridor near the Vestiges.

So there’s an empty chest, on the ceiling, in a 30ft tall closet full of skeletons - err, just the skulls, behind a hidden door, which contains yet another hidden door conaining a lich’s bedroom???

Circling back up, we enter a bedroom through the skull closet, where we find a Lich - and recognize it as Bran’s spooky Face of Dread - his patron! He attempts to talk to him, but it doesn’t seem to be able to respond in its current drained state. Bran hands a green powerstone to the Lich, whom cracks the stone, drawing the power into himself. The Lich Exethanter gives himself a shake, like he’s been in a daze or asleep for awhile. He begins chatting with us, asking us about other stones, mentions teaching a younger Strahd magic;

“Would you like to learn magic?” asks the Lich. “I do know magic!!” exclaims the bard, doing a ditty on her strings. party rofls, including the lich

We mention having left another powerstone as entry tribute, and return to the entrance hall. The Lich chatises the entrance statue Nefron for asking for tributes from us. He cracks the second green powerstone and glows with much more of his full power. He offers us access to his vast library, which contains the entirety of the Wizard spell library, a bewildering amount of power.

At one point, Bran was probably going to be more of a Witcher-type. Sure, but life happens, and then Undeath.

Orrrs asks about the vestiges and Exethanter points out some particulars of note. Fen the Cleric is extremely uncomfortable about obtaining power from this Lich or any of his fellows, but the description of Yog the Invincible sounds intriging to multiple folks.

– Compiled by Darkwalker Fen von Stoker
Zombie Cleric of the Moon (and non-evil lycanthropes) and Sarandiel, keeper of song and epochs

Previous Chapter: Dwayne The Roc

Next Chapter: Fighting Shadows

Dramatis Personae

• B - Darkwalker Fen von Stoker, Zombie Cleric of the Moon (and non-evil lycanthropes)
• T - Bran ‘green eye’ von Stoker, Deathlock, Strahd’s Favoured
• N - Orrrs, Murderhobo, Sensei to Misha, Werewolf Alpha, Bearer Donor of the Spear of Khevan
• N - Normal Hands Misha, spiderful sidekick
• M - Sarandiel, Shapeshifting culture vulture, Irena #3, Keeper of Songs and Epochs
• D - Dorvil the Blue, Artificer of Splendifourous Gadgets, Mechanoplaneswalker
• T - Gerggwen, Panic Fireballer and keeper of the cat Bonedaddy

With Guests

• Van Richten, aka Ricktavio, seasoned veteran of Monster Slaying, Loremaster
• Exethanter, The Lich