We went down the stairs and back into the main hall with the fireplace and the secret door. Here, it was decided, we would take at least an hour to catch our breaths and stretch our battle-worn muscles. This house just would not let us rest, no matter how desperate we needed it. No sooner had our tuckered touche's touched the floor to rest, when dozens of giant rats came pouring out of the chimney to swarm around us in the room.
One of the vile creatures took a vicious bite out of me and I fell dreadfully ill from the poisonous infection of it's teeth. Our group fought them off in short order, but I needed to be healed by the strange powers of the stone we took from the hags. It was decided that lighting a fire in the fireplace would be a good way to counteract the rats, so we went into the dining hall to break up the oak table for firewood. This proved to be an exhaustingly unfortunate decision, especially for me.
No sooner had we begun, then what seemed like a dozen Phase Spiders appeared and began their attack. After a few moments of battle, just as Tetsuo called for a retreat, I was once again incapacitated. The spider's massive fangs pierced into my body with hot pain and I collapsed into some of it's many legs. I was dragged upwards and all of the remaining spiders phased out, with me in their clutches!
As was recounted to me by my fellows, desperation began to take hold of the group. I don't think any of us considered that the spiders could take any of us with them when they phased. Uphir took off running for the stairs while Nim tried to temper her reckless tendencies with caution, but she would have none of it. She and the rest ran upstairs, assuming that the spiders would bring me back to their webby lair above.
At the top of the stairs, Janlynn cast a detect Finn spell to see if she could locate what was left of me. Her divine senses told her that I was located at an elevation beyond the door leading to the unexplored half of the second floor. Tentatively my comrades opened the door into the room beyond and saw a strange apparition of a skeletal administrator sitting behind a desk of sorts. They could hear him give a polite greeting to Juniper and suddenly the ghostly form of Ulric's mistress strode right through our group, causing a biting chill to those she came in contact with. She barely acknowledged the skeletal form at the desk and strode up to and through a door on the other side of the room.
Uphir rushed forward and opened the door almost as soon as it closes behind the strange young and beautiful looking Juniper. Beyond was a long room with a bench running all along it's north wall. In the middle of the south wall were a pair of black double doors, ornately carved with a large tree and the curving lines of vines and plants, similar to the mark on the sword Nim found by the pool. It looked to be a family tree of sorts. Juniper's ghost was nowhere in sight.
Just as they began to explore the area, the ghostly form of a little girl appeared on the long bench. Juniper's form quickly appears and with a broad, thin stretched smile gives a dolly to the little girl, who holds an expression of confusion and uncertainty. Juniper vanishes as quickly as she appeared, unnoticed by the child, who holds the doll closer to her body. Before any could begin to understand the vision before them, crimson slash marks begin to appear all along the child's dress, her torso quickly becoming sticky with blood. She slowly falls from the bench to disappear as she touches the floor. Left behind was the doll, holding a bloody knife. It was our doll. Our strange possessed demon doll from the ghoul room!
Uphir, Tetsuo and Janlynn moved to the black doors and tried to find a way through while Akkiir and Nim moved to engage the evil doll. We had decided should we see this thing again, we would destroy it. No matter what force was brought to bear upon the door, it refused to open. Some powerful magic held it closed before them. Akkiir and Nim were finding this doll quite dangerous with it's bloody knife which had found it's mark upon their limbs more than once.
Realizing the door would not budge, the rest of the group moved forward to help battle the impossibly fast and nimble doll. Soon several of our troop were wounded by the flashing knife of the strange creature. It was impossible to tell whether they were really damaging it with their blows or not as it was incredibly, magically resilient. After a couple of solid blows the creepy thing jumped to the floor, rolled under the bench and vanished. All that remained of their opponent was the tittering of child-like laughter which hung in the stark silence of the hall, causing a feeling of terror and forlorn uncertainty in everyone.
Without even a moment to catch their breath, they soon found themselves embroiled in another ferocious battle - against the same Phase Spider's they had fought before. I was nowhere in sight, but Janlynn could detect me beyond the dark, forboding double doors. Uphir, incensed by the many small knife wounds dealt by the doll, gave a roar of fury and started cutting through the phase Spiders in a blur of her swinging axe, causing pieces of the giant spiders to fall everywhere, their gooey ichor painting the floor and walls. Everyone attacked with great effort and in a blink, all of the spiders were destroyed. Uphir's fury was responsible for killing seven of the nine spiders herself, having left the remaining two for her friends to dispose of!!!
Taking but a moment to rest, their eyes scanning for the next attack to arrive, they soon decided that they must try and get through the door to see what was left of my poor carcass. Pushing, pulling, and prying seemed to be having no real affect on the door. Then, of a sudden, the doors flew open and a mighty force began to pull them all into the darkness of the space beyond. They struggled desperately but all but Akkiir and Uphir were pulled through the magical portal as the great doors crashed closed behind them.
Beyond the door was a room bathed in the eerie green light that has been so prevalent in this horror house. The floor of the room was piled with corpses and beyond a corpse roughly placed upon a chair, Janlynn could detect me! Even as she rushed across the room to search for me amongst the piled corpses she did not notice the strange monstrosity upon the ceiling that had captured her friends attention, nor the aura of green energy pulsing from the ceiling into the corpse upon the chair. The ceiling was a mass of black vines and roots, at the center of which is the still recognizable corpse of Lazlo Ulric with the vines penetrating and violating his ripped body - his intestines hanging down, holding him to the ceiling. Set in the center of his chest was an oddly shaped green glowing stone. An aura of evil energy could seen flowing into the room of corpses.
Janlynn began digging through piles of corpses and luckily she found me! I was still unfortunately paralyzed by the poison of the spiders bite, but her healing energy made me feel much better, if frustrated me that I could not help my friends. Uphir and Akkiir kept trying to break through the door while the rest of the troupe took in the horrid scene. The corpse sitting upon the chair suddenly snapped her head forward and, bathed in the evil green glow, her body began to fill out until within a mere moment the beautiful face of young Juniper appeared but quickly continued to transform into the aged face of the hag we encountered in Barovia, then continued on to transform into the most hideous creature anyone could have imagined, the Hag's true hellish form.
As everyone turned to meet their foe, with a twirl her form turned into a column of writhing beetles which collapsed into the corpses upon the floor only to re-form on the opposite side of the room. Her wicked, clawed hands twitched and gestured and soon the truth of her evil spell was understood. She was stitching together various desiccated bodies into the same ghoul creatures we fought before and they were beginning to rise from the floor.
Nim was upon her in an instant, his blade glowing brilliantly with the holy power of his selfless deity to smite the foul hag a staggering blow. Akkiir, in a moment of inspiration, noticed he could see some of the melee through the slight crack in between the two doors and this was enough for him to cast a mystic spell which caused him to move from his position to the center of the room beyond in an instant. Uphir's frustration continued as she battled her way through the door. She thought she heard some cracking and was driven even further to apply all of her massive strength to the task.
Comments