Curse of Strahd Ep. 32: Dreaming across the Amber Temple

Transcript

The Blade's Edge: Hello, one and all, and welcome back to the Blade's Edge, D&D actual play podcast where we are currently playing through the Curse of Strahd, and we are going to jump right back in for those of you ah who are not caught up.

The Blade's Edge: um And we'll put behind in the curtain, we haven't played over a month, but we are in the Amber Temple. um So just a slight recap. The gang has just defeated this juggernaut-type beast patrolling the Amber Temple, ah keeping the place free of intruders, um And you guys are looking for something from your tarot reading, something from the Taroka reading um ah that should be somewhere within this temple.

The Blade's Edge: After that battle, which is pretty gruesome, you guys took a long rest. And we're going to pop straight in. And I want everybody just to go ahead and roll me initiative and go ahead and let the the people know what you roll.

Kyle Beams: Oh, yeah. We're going to be dropping a hot 11 initiative.

Kyle: Oh.

Kyle: The young 13.

Kyle Beams: The Young 13.

Trevor: a slightly older 14. Uh,

Tommy: And coming in last place, no shock to anybody, a nine for your boy, D'Saun.

The Blade's Edge: So Inabi, Inabi, as you dream, first of all, go ahead and let maybe let people know ah who you are, who you're playing.

Kyle Beams: All things in their place.

Trevor: ah yes, sir. Uh, I'm playing an obby. He is a Shatter Kai, uh, blade singer. Um, Dark Ninja vibes, you know.

The Blade's Edge: Okay.

Trevor: um

The Blade's Edge: um As you guys long rest in the Amber Temple, there are... um ah there's something that this is happening to all of you. It's you feel, you feel like you're like you're in this liminal space between dreaming and reality.

The Blade's Edge: And you find yourselves in your dream state, wandering, wandering the Amber temple, this massive place.

The Blade's Edge: And you find yourselves each of you individually, but we're starting with you, Trevor and Nabi. Um, You find yourself drawn underground, your body almost sleepwalking, somewhere in the middle of a sleep paralysis, full consciousness and dreaming.

The Blade's Edge: you your Your feet are hitting the and marbled floors, looking at the ambered walls, and it all feels so real. You head down and the air is stale down here.

The Blade's Edge: And Inabi, I want you just to gut check, given what I've told you, to go ahead and make me either a religion check.

Trevor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

The Blade's Edge: And these things will will produce different results. So think about it just for a second.

Trevor: yeah. yeah

The Blade's Edge: A religion check. An arcana check, an insight check, or a perception slash investigation check. those Those will produce the same sort of result.

Trevor: ah I am between... I think I'm going to go either Investigation or... Did you say Arcana or...

The Blade's Edge: Religion, arcana, insight, or perception investigation.

Trevor: Yeah.

Trevor: I think I'm... I bet you... If I had to guess... And Abhi's probably feeling extremely confused right now because he doesn't normally dream because he's like an elf.

The Blade's Edge: Totally.

Trevor: So dreams aren't really familiar to him. So him being in this weird dream state, he's thinking something like he's thinking something magical is probably happening.

The Blade's Edge: Totally.

Trevor: So it could be an arcana, but I think overall be like an investigation because he's trying to figure what fuck is going on with him.

The Blade's Edge: I love that. Yeah. Give me an investigation check at advantage.

Trevor: Um, let's go. What advantage?

The Blade's Edge: You guys will, for each of your guys' checks, you'll have an advantage on your role.

Trevor: Thank you.

Trevor: Oh, so much better. 25 would have been a nine.

Kyle: Nice.

The Blade's Edge: Wow. It would have been a nine, but you get 25. Okay. So you, with an investigation, Inabi, you're piecing together. Okay. I was trapped in a ring for a long time.

The Blade's Edge: This is similar to that. Like I'm not in control of my body, but this is happening. This is real.

Trevor: Oh yeah. Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: You are, you are realizing that. Something in this place, a great darkness in this place and some great awful power and awful, not in the sense of awful, but in the sense of full of awe, a power that is so all encompassing and awe inspiring, pulls you as you get down your you guys can see this map, correct?

Kyle Beams: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah, we could see it.

The Blade's Edge: You walk in Abhi and you see another statue similar to the one on the first floor and your body takes you left. And you walk into a parallel hallway and your body takes you up and up and up to a door.

The Blade's Edge: And when you stand at that door, you feel beyond that door power calling to you. The tattoos on your body, when you look down at yourself, are glowing.

Trevor: Well, let's go.

The Blade's Edge: You are shedding a light in like a 30-foot radius off of just your tattoos the closer you get to this door.

Trevor: I

Trevor: want go through that door.

The Blade's Edge: You open the door.

The Blade's Edge: and

The Blade's Edge: You open the door and you enter and the first thing you see is this creature.

The Blade's Edge: This creature staring at you, a a bipedal toad looking thing, its entire body sort of this black, gray, um massive hands on the ground, almost like it is, you know, it would run almost on all fours, although it's standing just on two feet, horn on its head, mouth, eyes, and a face that lets you know that this is definitely a sentient being.

The Blade's Edge: um Looks sort of like this.

Trevor: Sick.

The Blade's Edge: And this creature is standing in front of three... on

The Blade's Edge: Three amber blocks, I think, is is is what you would see here. um Go ahead and...

The Blade's Edge: Just read this to you. um A rough block of three rough blocks of solid amber. Each one is eight feet tall, five feet wide, and five feet thick.

The Blade's Edge: And you see in each of these ambers, in the dead center of the amber, there is a what you could only describe as an utter darkness no more than a few inches long almost trapped in the center of each of these amber each of these amber blocks this creature sees you and looks at you and looks at if it is as if it is guarding this uh this far block

The Blade's Edge: Maybe you even see some skeletons on the ground from long dead people. You see this creature, this slod, this death slod, guarding this ah this amber block at the far end of the room.

The Blade's Edge: Long dead bodies on the ground. This guy definitely has a weapon. It's almost as if he's guarding it. And when he sees you, he moves aside.

The Blade's Edge: And he kneels, clearing the way for you to approach the amber.

Trevor: Oh interesting like that one specifically Okay

Kyle Beams: Sick.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, as if other people have come here ah in search of something and he has killed them. But you, it's almost as if he's been waiting for somebody like you.

Trevor: um Yeah, I'll step up unsureedly. Not too sure what this thing is.

The Blade's Edge: um

The Blade's Edge: You step up and you hear in your head as the amber lights up and you realize what you're looking at is an amber sarcophagus.

The Blade's Edge: You hear whatever is trapped inside talking to you.

The Blade's Edge: My child.

The Blade's Edge: One of mine.

The Blade's Edge: You found me.

The Blade's Edge: You realize you are listening to the voice of Osybus.

Trevor: to Oh shit.

Kyle Beams: It's him!

The Blade's Edge: um And he says, this power has been waiting for somebody. Somebody to exact revenge on Strahd.

The Blade's Edge: It pulses. Your tattoos light up even more, casting shadows across the room from you and the death slot. The amber sarcophagus sort of opens.

The Blade's Edge: A little centerpiece opens. it the like hole in It's it. About a fist-sized hole. And you hear from it, Have you come to claim your power?

Trevor: Yes.

Kyle: you

The Blade's Edge: You get the sense when you say yes, that you should put your hand into the amber sarcophagus and you can choose if it is your right hand or your left hand.

Trevor: What hand is the tattoo on? I can't remember. um

The Blade's Edge: Okay, either way, you can tell me.

Trevor: The tattoo, we'll say it's a his left hand, and he'll put his left hand in.

The Blade's Edge: You put your left hand in and make a con save for me.

Trevor: Alright, alright. Concentration check cancel. 10. ten

The Blade's Edge: Pain racks your body. You feel you watch the veins underneath your sort of pale skin turn black and stay that way.

The Blade's Edge: You maybe cough up a bit of blood. the and as you do, your hand retracts. You cough into your hand. And the blood that you have coughed up is pitch black and viscid like tar.

Trevor: Oh shit.

The Blade's Edge: Maybe as youre your hand comes out too... You coughed into your right hand. Then you look down at your left hand and whatever happened in there cut your hand and you see the blood pouring out of your hand almost ceremonially.

The Blade's Edge: And the blood that is pouring out of your hand is pitch black, viscous, like tar.

Kyle Beams: Yes.

Trevor: oh shit

The Blade's Edge: As it drips down to the ground. um And you see that on your left hand, ah you have three extra fingers.

The Blade's Edge: So your left hand has eight fingers now.

Kyle Beams: She...

Trevor: ah Hell yeah, let's go.

Kyle Beams: Oh.

The Blade's Edge: And three of them look monstrous. They look like maybe they're almost like how wolver where Wolverine's claws come from.

Kyle Beams: oh

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

The Blade's Edge: You have like three fingers that each have like long nails on them.

Trevor: Whoa, okay.

Kyle Beams: Grab my strong hand. Oh, no.

Tommy: like in between like Like in between the knuckles, he has fingers in between his knuckles now.

The Blade's Edge: Yes, yeah. yeah and you And you see that those ones are sort of moving and you're not controlling them.

Tommy: Yeah.

Kyle Beams: oh no

Trevor: Oh shit.

The Blade's Edge: um The hole in the amber closes and um

The Blade's Edge: he says, mastery over life and death. My knowledge will assist you in the transformation of many.

The Blade's Edge: And if given the opportunity, Inabi, ascend.

The Blade's Edge: Ascend Barovia.

Trevor: I'd probably just bow or like kneel.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. You bow, um and you feel your body in this dreamlike state turn and walk. ah From now on until the day Anabi dies, your blood is pitch black and vicious and viscous like tar.

The Blade's Edge: That is a permanent thing that happens.

Trevor: Let's go.

The Blade's Edge: And you hear in your head as you walk, a curious fluid blood is, don't you think? It flows red, but it can easily bring death.

The Blade's Edge: I say it ought to be black. My gift to you, Inabi, confers you the power to make this judgment. All you have to do is use it.

The Blade's Edge: You now have the power to judge anyone in your way. That's how I became Oshibis. And that's how you became my priest.

The Blade's Edge: my hand of oblivion

The Blade's Edge: um you can cast um you can now cast a finger of death three times

Trevor: Oh, damn.

Kyle Beams: ah

The Blade's Edge: Um, so finger of death, obviously a crazy name. Um, and for those of you at home, it's a, a, a very high level spell higher than the level. These guys can cast seventh level necromancy spell when it, somebody has to make a con save or take seven D eight plus 30 necrotic damage or half as much on a, on a save and anybody it kills immediately rises as a zombie that is under your command.

Trevor: Let's fucking go.

Kyle: That's crazy.

Trevor: That's so tight.

The Blade's Edge: um And each one you feel is like connected to one of these like fingers in between your knuckles.

Trevor: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: So like each one of those is one of the fingers of death.

Trevor: Yep.

Trevor: Fucking tight.

Kyle: Oh, yeah.

Tommy: Check.

The Blade's Edge: on And you, ah yeah, and your blood is and your blood is like tar and Osibis wishes to make a history check on your on your sort of walk back as you think about all of this.

Trevor: Oh, nat 20 for 23. Hit me with that

The Blade's Edge: Oh, baby. Okay, so you're...

Trevor: it hit me with that history.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, this this is just a little bit of lore. This is not, you know, not not super important for the the the whole of the story, but for those of you who are interested in this sort of thing at home, and obviously this is very important to Anabi.

The Blade's Edge: um Okay, so... um

The Blade's Edge: that Your unholy order was founded centuries ago by Osibis, a mysterious figure of unfathomable ambition and evil. on You guys kind of use other souls to springboard your own immortality or those who you deem worthy to have immortality.

The Blade's Edge: um He forged Pax, yeah with and Osaibus, early on with and entities that would give him more power, um and he sort of found it through this thing that you've heard about before, Osaibus, known as the Dark Powers.

The Blade's Edge: sort of like, are they gods? or They're sort of like the unseen things, especially here in these like Shadowfell, these pocket sort of dimensions here. Dark powers are sort of, you know, you get the sense that's what Osibis is now. Like he has trapped in this amber. He is a dark power.

Trevor: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: Um... yeah Um... Um...

Kyle: you

The Blade's Edge: Uh... um

The Blade's Edge: At some point, the Ole Miss Inquisition, when you guys were rising to power, so maybe maybe before your time, or do you think that you were trapped in that ring so long in Abbey that maybe you were alive when this happens and that's why you remember?

Trevor: Oh, like pre-before I was in the ring type shit?

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, yeah.

Trevor: Yeah, that makes sense. I like that.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. um You guys were growing in such power that you were met with resistance, and that resistance was in the form of the Ulmist Inquisition, which is what's where Stalvodok comes from.

The Blade's Edge: um ah Rudolf van Richten, Stalvodok, the Ulmist Inquisitors.

Trevor: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Blade's Edge: And at the time when you faced them, they worked with Count Strahd von Zarevich. This is before Strahd became evil, became who he is now.

Trevor: Oh, shit.

The Blade's Edge: um

The Blade's Edge: And Osybus' disciples, maybe not you, this makes sense if it's not you, ah some of his disciples betrayed him, which is why he lost, fearing that their master would eventually consume their souls. The disciples aided Strahd, which is why there are priests of Osybus here, and that so much of it is being held in Barovia,

The Blade's Edge: ah But as Osibis was captured in this ah Amber, he uttered a curse upon them that their immortality would fail them when they least expected it. um

The Blade's Edge: um do do do

The Blade's Edge: Osibis had then become one of the dark powers, which is what you you see now. um And you are a ah part of a sect, do you get the sense, of a priest of Osibis, which seek to ah not only get revenge, but you get the sense that if Strahd is um gone from this area, Osibis might be freed.

The Blade's Edge: So, um yes, so that is why he said ascend.

Trevor: Got you, got you.

Trevor: Yep.

The Blade's Edge: Lovely. um

Trevor: Sick. That was tight.

The Blade's Edge: Maybe all that's got coming back from you. You remember maybe long battles long before, long before Rudolph Van Richten, but, you know, former Ole Miss Inquisitors, and maybe you fought Strahd before at some point, and you too were...

The Blade's Edge: um betrayed by the priests of Osibis who, who stabbed the Osibis himself in the back. And maybe you were, maybe you were put in that ring so that you didn't die as a last effort.

Trevor: Yeah, like a fail safe type vibe.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Trevor: Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: So as you come back, maybe you, you, you might be the last one, the last true actual follower um not of the bloodline of the betrayers, at least here in the mists.

The Blade's Edge: There might be some out and beyond Barovia.

Trevor: Yeah.

Trevor: Sick.

The Blade's Edge: Lovely. You sort of sleepwalk back.

Trevor: Fucking tight.

The Blade's Edge: um ah Bash and Stalvadak, you guys each rolled a 13. Who's got the higher... let's just Actually, let's get a roll off. Ichi rolled me a d20.

Kyle Beams: Roloff coming at you.

Kyle: Oh, roll

Kyle Beams: 20. Oh, and we're we're doing a little four.

Kyle: Incredible, I rolled an 11. Yes, sir.

Kyle Beams: a

The Blade's Edge: bash you feel ah similarly after a long battle muscles are tired shoulders need to be stretched out you find yourself walking you walk through this place you pass like you pass by like beasts and like a ghost a poltergeist um

Kyle: yes sir

The Blade's Edge: aga a ghast, a ghoul, even. um Maybe at one point you're walking and you just see like three evil looking witches who just like pass you by and you're gu you're walking and you feel them brush up next to you, but nobody's stopping to talk to you. Nobody's stopping to acknowledge you, but you feel like this is real.

The Blade's Edge: And you find yourself walking downstairs down the cold marble steps in this this place that is so cold. If you guys remember, the Amber Temple is up on this mountain with no doors, so the snow is just piling in.

The Blade's Edge: As you head downstairs, don't you ahead and make me religion, arcana, insight, or investigation perception check, and that will determine where you go.

Kyle: so does it does it feel like I'm the one that's wandering or that I'm being pulled by something

The Blade's Edge: Maybe you can determine that. you Which of those checks that I told you would do you think would be the best role for you to determine that?

Kyle: I would definitely go with insights just to just to suss out the the general vibe that's going to be 19 for a 25.

The Blade's Edge: ah love that.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. You actually advantage. Let's see if you nat 20.

Kyle: Oh, I do. Yeah.

Kyle: Another

The Blade's Edge: Wow, he's rolling hot. um You get the sense that you you are not you're not in control, but you're not being led with a 25. You're not being led to harm.

Kyle: okay

The Blade's Edge: This is almost like you guys came here looking for something. And this these powerful vibes in here, the powerful energy in here...

Kyle: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: ah understands that and is seeking to help you each of you in your own way maybe with ah with a 25 you actually look around and you see like stalvedox walking one way as you walk down the stairs inabies walking back up bleeding this black tar with three extra fingers coming from his knuckles but you guys you look at him but you don't say anything he doesn't say anything to you and as you pass He feels like there's power emanating from him.

The Blade's Edge: um And you feel this this dark this dark magic, this dark energy, but very powerful energy pull you um further and further down.

The Blade's Edge: You find yourself walking to the right. Maybe you see that Inabi came from the left. You walk down and you see these three witches, the same witches you saw earlier, this, standing outside this door.

The Blade's Edge: standing outside um this door And you see that they are stirring a cauldron. And they're stirring a cauldron with a 25 insight. You know that they're stirring this cauldron with a bone.

The Blade's Edge: But it's like a massive bone. It's like the like it's like the the like the femur bone to something. It's like bigger than your whole body. You know what mean? and they're like stirring it, you know, maybe one of them is one of them's at the base of it. And one of them is on like a little, little step stool stirring it higher up. Cause that's how big the bone is while one is like pinching things and putting them in.

The Blade's Edge: And as you walk, they don't seem to... You feel... ah You smell cinnamon. You smell um ah paprika. And you smell um little bit heat from something.

The Blade's Edge: Is it just... Is it... is it spice in there or, and then you realize this room is emanating. This doorway right here is inviting you in and you feel power pulling you in.

The Blade's Edge: You look down at your arms and your muscles are, it's like you just finished a workout. You just pumped.

Kyle: Got a crazy pump going on.

The Blade's Edge: You just got pump. Yeah. You're, you are outside this door, just traps or a farming, just full on

Kyle: Is there a full body mirror outside this door?

Tommy: Is JoJo walking right now?

The Blade's Edge: ah Yeah, you you you see your yourself in the cauldron.

Kyle Beams: Hell yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Maybe it's a ah it's a black cauldron, but it's clean and it's shiny and there's a light ah from the fire lighting under it where you can see yourself sort of in the reflection.

Kyle: ah yeah I just stop and I flex for a little bit, checking out my pecs.

The Blade's Edge: um You flex and your ah reflection points. Your reflection flexes with you and then points at the door.

Kyle: wow

The Blade's Edge: And as it as it points at the door, it gets even buffer. And even buffer your reflection.

Kyle: um Yeah, i think this whole time Bash would be... a Bash doesn't necessarily feel like a malevolent force. Or malevolent?

Kyle: Manevolent?

The Blade's Edge: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: What did I... Yeah. You know the word.

Kyle Beams: I think you combine malevolent and benevolent.

Kyle: Yeah, that's great. So it's just a neutral vibe.

Kyle Beams: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: No, he doesn't feel like a malevolent force, um but he is terrified because he's aware of what power can do to people because he saw what happened to his father and he doesn't want to become what became of his father.

The Blade's Edge: Totally. Okay.

Kyle: um And with that, e will open the door with an extreme amount of of mental caution.

The Blade's Edge: okay You open the door, and much like what Inabi saw, you see three amber blocks with a 25 insight. You get the sense that they're amber sarcophagus sarcophagi in the center of each about an inch long um pure blackness, pure and utter darkness trapped in the center of them.

The Blade's Edge: Except for this far one. The darkness within this far one. It's about a foot long. not in's Not an inch, a full foot. And in the center of that blackness, there is a roiling, bubbling, red um sort of ball pulsating.

The Blade's Edge: You feel it calling you closer.

Kyle: Yeah, Bash's heart is beating out of his chest. As he takes a step forward.

The Blade's Edge: Take a step forward, and you hear a voice in your head. right You want to be strong.

Kyle: Yes.

The Blade's Edge: Weak as you are, you'll never scare an insect. I offer you strength.

Kyle: How?

The Blade's Edge: I am the great Tarhack, the five-headed destroyer, and I offer you the strength of fire. Then, and only then, will you show people how strong you really are.

The Blade's Edge: You wish for revenge. You wish to kill,

The Blade's Edge: As you stand now, you stand no chance. With my help, you can take his head.

Kyle: Do you want something from me?

The Blade's Edge: Um... You ah feel ah much like what happened with the knobby instead of a fist-sized hole. A sort of um ah sort of wide slot, I guess, appears where you could like reach two hands in grab something.

The Blade's Edge: um It looks like that foot-long... ah yeah um power with that red ball in the middle. It looks like you would reach in with both your hands and grab that.

The Blade's Edge: ah You hear in your head. All I want is if you accept this gift, you accept a piece of the great dark.

Kyle: that will live with me forever.

The Blade's Edge: Forever.

Kyle: Okay. And i reach forward and I put both of my hands into the sarcophagus.

The Blade's Edge: put both your hands into this giant amber block and you pull out something that is physical. As you pull it out, ah you realize it's only looks a foot long because it's folded. You pull out this thing and the thing that you pull out is a belt.

Kyle: belt

The Blade's Edge: Yes.

Kyle: and I'm I ah put on the belt

The Blade's Edge: Cool. sort of looks like these, as I will put it in our Discord here. Sort of a thick leather band with a red ah ah glowing ruby in the middle, much like the the red rock that was inside the ah sarcophagus and as the sarcophagus closes back up you still see that blackness that darkness inside of it and that redness inside of it and um first and foremost as you put this belt on um you gain a um uh this following flaw and you can role play this however you'd like much like how anabi's blood to turn to tar uh bash bloodsinger

The Blade's Edge: ah You like to bully others and make people feel weak and inferior because they are.

Kyle: oh No.

The Blade's Edge: And you put this belt on and this is a belt of fire giant strength. Your strength score becomes 25.

Kyle: Oh my god. Oh my god.

Trevor: fire

Kyle Beams: to go

The Blade's Edge: And yeah, you can find that item. it's You have to attune to it. um And...

Kyle: ah What was it called?

The Blade's Edge: ah The Belt of Fire Giant Strength.

Tommy: Thank you.

The Blade's Edge: Kill the stride. Eat your people.

The Blade's Edge: and there might be more

Kyle: I just say thank you, and and much like Anabi, I kneel.

The Blade's Edge: You kneel to the great Tarhack, the five-headed destroyer.

The Blade's Edge: You kneel, and as you as your body almost grows at this point when you leave and you see these witches, ah the how big your reflection got in the cauldron before you entered the room, you look and see the reflection of yourself now, and that's how big you are now.

The Blade's Edge: your ah muscles in a constant state of rippling, the veins bulging from your arms. um But you also feel a sense of ah arrogance maybe on your walk back.

The Blade's Edge: These same creatures that haven't disturbed you due to the nature of this dream or dreamlike state. you know Maybe on your way back, you pass by a ghoul and you sort of go out of your way to shoulder check him and you walk by ah you know maybe a witch at the top of the stairs heading down. And as soon as you pass her, you turn around and put your foot on her butt and kick her down the stairs.

Tommy: bash Bash is now that one guy from high school and you know exactly what who I'm talking about.

The Blade's Edge: Just sort of chuckling as you make your way back. um and you make your way back fully rested, built a fire giant strength, which it it should auto-update your page, you should be good.

Kyle: Yeah, i got I got a plus seven to strength right now.

The Blade's Edge: We love it.

Kyle Beams: Damn. That's a big boy.

The Blade's Edge: um Stall the dock, much like Inabi. I assume you don't ah maybe dream often because you don't technically need to fully sleep. Is that right?

Kyle Beams: Yeah, correct. So I'm in my my centuries rest form. And so I'm just kind of hanging out in hibernate mode.

The Blade's Edge: You find yourself walking around, still in hibernate mode, but your eyes are open. You see Inabi walking up a set of stairs with these sort of claw-like fingers in between his knuckles.

The Blade's Edge: You see Bash return, bulging with muscles as your feet are taking you further and further. You're sniffing out Werewolves, vampires, all things that your heart dreams of killing.

The Blade's Edge: And you just find it leading you somewhere, your nose, your senses, ah your instincts leading you down the stairs that they came from. And ah much like them, you can make me a religion, arcana, insight, or perception slash investigation check.

Kyle Beams: um I will do an investigation.

The Blade's Edge: Add advantage.

Kyle Beams: Okay, an advantage is going to be a 16. And i can, can I use my so flash of genius on myself?

The Blade's Edge: Cool.

The Blade's Edge: No, that's not but that's not necessary for this.

Kyle Beams: No, okay. No, okay, cool.

The Blade's Edge: um You find yourself... ah You walk... um

The Blade's Edge: to the right the same way that bash walked maybe this is when you see bash exiting that room as you look down and you see these three witches uh they're stirring a brew with a you know femur bone from ah a giant you get at this sense you get the sense bash as you walked back out that that was the bone of maybe a fire giant um As yeah you're watching these witches brew this potion, you feel you feel like you can sense um the

The Blade's Edge: the werewolves, the power, the things that you've been looking for, the fight that you've been after. you can You feel it coming, but you feel it from this door up here calling you closer.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, and so I see i see Bash walk out looking all jacked.

The Blade's Edge: You

Kyle Beams: Okay, um I start just kind of like, I put my chest up and I walk into this this northern room feeling emboldened by my friend's large stature.

Kyle: I walk past you and I slap you on the ass.

Kyle Beams: Oh, I'm standing up straight.

The Blade's Edge: ah you ah You open this door and you enter into a place where you're looking at something that looks kind of similar to you, but maybe just bigger. And it's staring. It's looking at you.

The Blade's Edge: and it takes you a second with a 16 investigation to realize that it is it is inert. With 16 investigation, you're... You feel this power in this room and you sort of, as you make your way around to the back of this thing, in the back of this thing, it looks like it's it's open, almost like a mech suit.

The Blade's Edge: Like there's a place for somebody to to ah ah hop inside of it.

Kyle Beams: Oh yeah, I climb into it.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. um as you As you do, you begin to hear a voice in your head. hi Interesting. You feel so clean.

The Blade's Edge: So shaven and smooth. You appear healthy. But I offer you the resistance, the resilience of the invisible.

The Blade's Edge: With it. Without it, you're just swine. With it, you will be able to do the things your heart desires. You plan on killing the vampire of vampires.

The Blade's Edge: You will need my blessing if you are to succeed.

Kyle Beams: Yes, absolutely.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. ah You and very quickly say yes, absolutely. And you... ah ah Find this this thing that you were in, um you're you're there for, and how long are you Minutes, hours, days, weeks.

The Blade's Edge: At a certain point, you feel like, I feel powerful. I feel emboldened.

Kyle Beams: I know Kung Fu.

The Blade's Edge: And you you push yourself out of this this inert shield guardian. As you push yourselves out, you look at your hands and your arms.

The Blade's Edge: And you barely recognize what you're looking at. You look in the chest plate of this shield guardian. Maybe when you were inside, you see these swirls, these eldritch markings, these...

The Blade's Edge: these hieroglyphs inside this thing that when you agreed lit up, you smell oil. ah You're standing on oil. This whole room is filled with oil.

The Blade's Edge: You step out, you look into the chest plate of this guardian. And first and foremost, first and foremost, oily black fur covers your entire face and body.

Kyle Beams: Oh my God. you Did I get turned into a werewolf?

The Blade's Edge: Sure a look like one.

Kyle Beams: Oh no. I've become that which I hate the most.

The Blade's Edge: And your maximum hit points increased by 30.

Kyle Beams: Okay. Override max HP 99. Sure. i'm I'm a werewolf guy. Werewolf is pretty cool, guys.

Tommy: You know, maybe I was wrong this entire time.

Kyle: you

Tommy: Maybe you got maybe they and maybe they are pretty cool, huh?

Kyle Beams: Can I, like, try to, like, stretch my fingers out and just, like, experiment with what I what i am

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, sure. You're the same person. You're covered in oily black fur, your face and your body and your hit point maximum is increased by 30 above and beyond that. Anything else you'd like to RP with it? Totally up to you.

Kyle Beams: Okay. Wild.

The Blade's Edge: um And as you leave, i think you're getting, i think something about the voice and the eldritch markings reminds you of, said the invisible, the invisible. And you start to think back and you're looking back at the markings inside that thing.

The Blade's Edge: And you remembered something about Jimothy. Something about Yock Sizzler that another name that Yock Sizzler went by was Yock the Invisible.

Kyle Beams: Interesting. Well, I wonder if I just made like a little like pact.

The Blade's Edge: You didn't. um you you You all have ah have ah have a a dark gift which comes with a boon and a piece of you with with these dark gifts.

Kyle Beams: Oh, that's right.

The Blade's Edge: um But you head back covered in fur, bash, ripped, almost too ripped. like you're going burst at the seams. so so He's like so just like filled to the maximum amount of muscle anymore and his skin's gonna rip and his muscles are gonna pop out.

Kyle: Bye.

The Blade's Edge: And Nabi with these fingers growing in between his knuckles. He's dripping this tar like blood. You're covered in this oily black fur. You try and scrub it out and clean it but it remains oily.

The Blade's Edge: Each of you with a boon and a bane somehow now tied to a dark power all of these dark powers at the very least want the same thing.

The Blade's Edge: Kill Strahd. They want you to succeed. get You each get the sense as you walk back, you're still dazed, you're still in this dream space, this liminal dream space, that they could have asked for more.

The Blade's Edge: Maybe, hey hell, maybe these things could killed you. They could have not even led you there. And though there was a price to pay, that price was but a fraction of what it could have gotten from you.

The Blade's Edge: These things ah genuinely wanting you to succeed. um Okay, so last but not least,

The Blade's Edge: Dasan.

Tommy: ah Oh boy.

The Blade's Edge: You of everybody... ah obviously you guys don't know each other's experiences. This could be something you guys talk about afterwards, but you find yourself walking.

The Blade's Edge: But for you, it's like you take two steps to the right and then your body stops and you take three steps to the left. Very short, very short footed, three steps to the right. Your body stops, your right leg's pulling you to the right.

The Blade's Edge: You take one massive step, a stomp even. um Your left hand grabs a pole, pulling you left. You find yourself, through painstaking, back and forth, pulled down further and further into this second level.

The Blade's Edge: And I need from you, Dasan, I need a religion, Jack.

Tommy: It was always going to be a religion check.

The Blade's Edge: There's always going to be a religion, Jack.

Tommy: All right, here we go.

Tommy: Dirty 20.

Kyle Beams: Ooh, yeah. Yes.

The Blade's Edge: You do advantage. Everybody had advantage. 20 is great though.

Tommy: Everyone has a manage. All right.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. It's because you didn't stand

Tommy: Not standing up. 19. nineteen um Hey. ah yeah. yeah I got a blanket on my lap. I was like, man, I would just have to move all this stuff off.

Tommy: You know, my mistake.

The Blade's Edge: up. walk with purpose now at this point with a 20 religion. You walk with purpose briskly towards this statue.

The Blade's Edge: And you immediately wo scoop around to the back of this statue on the second floor. And there's a secret door, but you knew it was there. Something about it. You knew it was right there.

The Blade's Edge: With stairs that lead down, further and further down. And you go and you go and you find yourself in a room.

The Blade's Edge: And in this room, you see straight up chilling over on one side. Each one looking at you. Maybe they have what would be the equivalent of like toothpicks in their mouths. You see these vampire spawns.

The Blade's Edge: You see six of them, each watching you all around this amber sarcophagus. And you realize that you, as you look down and over at them, that you're floating.

The Blade's Edge: You've been floating since you made that religion check, not walking. Your feet are above the ground, your body being pulled. And at this point, we've you're pulled in between two amber sarcophagi.

The Blade's Edge: One of which in the center of it, you see is much like in Jurassic Park when he has the mosquito in the amber.

The Blade's Edge: ah You see in the center of this amber, a spider, not even a big one.

The Blade's Edge: Spider dead center. And in the other one, you see just a tiny, pure inch of light. The brightest, purest light you've ever seen.

The Blade's Edge: And you hear from the sarcophagus to the south, My child, come to the light.

The Blade's Edge: It is only through light that we can defeat the darkness.

The Blade's Edge: I know what you've done in your past life. I know the things that haunt you.

The Blade's Edge: But through Lathander, all is forgiven. Your sins can be absolved.

The Blade's Edge: You can live your days as a pious, righteous man.

Tommy: you

The Blade's Edge: a man of God.

The Blade's Edge: And together, We can defeat this evil.

The Blade's Edge: You hear skittering across the floor as your head turns towards the other sarcophagus.

The Blade's Edge: Don't listen to him.

The Blade's Edge: He can't give you what I can give you, D'Saun. You want to defeat Strahd? Me too. But not only that, I want to take over...

The Blade's Edge: Imagine what we could do with these resources at our disposal. Imagine the power. You want to help people? Well, what better way to help people than to be the one in charge?

The Blade's Edge: I wouldn't stand in your way. I would lift you up. You would rule. would just help.

The Blade's Edge: yeah At this point, before I go further, what is D'Saun feeling? Let us in. Let us in.

Tommy: Oh, man. Uh, man, throughout this whole campaign, pretty much like pulled in two different directions, you know, coming from the Underdark, being a a blood wizard of Lolth and then kind of finding redemption in Lathander here in Barovia after dying, finding the Sun Sword, almost being called and compelled to action and redemption.

Tommy: I don't know. i mean, it's both are enticing for sure. ah

The Blade's Edge: The light, Dasan. The light will bring you salvation and can give the people of Barovia what they need.

Trevor: ah The light.

The Blade's Edge: No, do not do it. I am the queen of spiders. They call me the queen because I am the king maker. I am the queen and you, Dasan, can be the king.

Kyle: horse

The Blade's Edge: Think of your friends, Nisan. Gilgraves. Almagraves. Valerius Moonstone Roy Halovich. Think of... Vesrak.

The Blade's Edge: Think of it. Dig deep into what he did. With the wine. I've been there every step of the way, Nisan, and I've never judged you. And I've never held any of it against you.

The Blade's Edge: And I can absorb you of all these things of our past.

The Blade's Edge: He's desperate. I am the queen. I am the kingmaker. They name me such because I hold the power to give you the influence and aura of a king.

Tommy: you

The Blade's Edge: i can feel it ad do you well. If you accept never again will you surrender yourself to others. Your will supersedes anyone else's.

The Blade's Edge: There was only but one will to son. And that is that of God's.

Tommy: Yeah, I'll.

The Blade's Edge: I think this point the choice is yours.

Tommy: ah oh man. um So good. um

Tommy: I'll walk over to the spider coffin sarcophagus. as it's almost being like willed by like spiders behind me, like skittering.

Tommy: um you see these kind of like eight long legs ah spring from my back is almost assisting and pulling me towards Lulph.

Tommy: And you I rub my hands like along like the fine, like amber sarcophagus. And I take a deep breath and I just say,

Tommy: I never wanted to be king and I take out my Sun Sword and I swing down with all the strength that I have trying to destroy this sarcophagus. 23.

The Blade's Edge: slices through like a hot knife through butter and make a con save for me.

Tommy: twenty three

The Blade's Edge: 23, lovely. um You feel your brain racked with pain because what's happening, I think, with that high of a role in the 20 religion is what you've just done at the very beginning of this campaign, Vesrak, who you formerly ah were, um Vesrak had a link.

The Blade's Edge: Vesrak had the echoing soul link. And deep somewhere in your subconscious of your brain, your soul was tied with that of Lulth's, whether it was from a botched,

The Blade's Edge: ritual from when you were in the Underdark or from something else. You had a link, a distant link, an echo.

Tommy: Thank

The Blade's Edge: But this link in your head as you cut through the sarcophagus is severed, never to return. And as the sarcophagus slumps over,

Tommy: ah

The Blade's Edge: You quickly look back at the other sarcophagus, at the light, and you don't see the light there anymore. But when you look back towards the sarcophagus that you've cut in half, you see resting right on the center where you've sliced this thing in half. You see resting in the center is a book.

Tommy: Is it limbs of the spawn?

The Blade's Edge: ha What do you think?

Tommy: I don't know. I look at it. I i pick it up.

The Blade's Edge: You pick it up and the cover says hymns of the dawn.

Trevor: Let's go.

Tommy: We just keep rhyming.

The Blade's Edge: um Well, that's what it was.

Tommy: ah

The Blade's Edge: that well That's actually the book. And then every time.

Tommy: Okay, okay.

Trevor: finally see it for what it is, man.

Tommy: Thank God.

The Blade's Edge: yeah You're everybody else knew that's what the book was called.

Tommy: i

The Blade's Edge: You were the only one who saw them. You finally you see this book for what it is. Hymns of the dawn. And yeah, um And with that,

The Blade's Edge: do do do you on, hold on, hold on. And with that, ah yeah as you touch the book, you immediately become attuned to it. And you can go ahead and add it to your ah ah character sheet.

Tommy: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: um ah you You touch the book and maybe you you you can finally read it. You open it up as you begin walking back and you open it up and you read. And it is...

The Blade's Edge: gospel of Laphander and of hope. What has given the people of Barovia reason to live and to keep going on is hope and the warmth of the sun and change and a new day.

The Blade's Edge: And you flip through and you flip through. And then eventually halfway through the book, the rest of the pages are hollowed out right in the center. And in the center of those pages sits a necklace and with the symbol of Lathander on it, and this is what you are sort of immediately um attuned to. it Actually, didn't put it in ah Luton Info. It's in general. It's my bad.

The Blade's Edge: ah But it's sort of this pendant that looks like the sun with a gleaming ruby diamond straight in the middle. This is the holy symbol of Ravenkind.

Tommy: oh

The Blade's Edge: can only be attuned to by a cleric or a paladin of good alignment, which you have assumed it yourself. You feel the tarot card in your mind burn up as if this is what you were sent here to get.

The Blade's Edge: A unique holy symbol sacred to the good-hearted faithful of Barovia.

Kyle Beams: Ooh.

The Blade's Edge: It predates the establishment of any church in Barovia. It was delivered to a paladin at one point named Lugdana by a giant raven, Or an angel in the form of a giant raven. Lugdana used the holy symbol to root out and destroy nests of vampires until her death.

The Blade's Edge: The high priests of Ravenloft kept and wore the symbol after her passing. It's platinum amulet shaped like the sun with a large crystal embedded in its center. It has ten charges. It regains 1d6 plus 4 daily at dawn.

The Blade's Edge: As an action, you could spend a charge, present the holy symbol and make it flare with holy power. Vampires and vampires spawn within 30 feet of the holy symbol. When it flares, must make a DC 15 wisdom save or be paralyzed for a minute.

The Blade's Edge: They can repeat the saving throw at the end of each their turns. If you have the turn undead or turn the unholy feature, you can expend three charges when you present the holy symbol. If you do so, under disadvantage on their saving throws against the effect.

The Blade's Edge: And most importantly, As you flip through the pages in this room, maybe before you start to walk back, actually, ah you pick this up. And as an action, you can expend five charges while presenting the holy symbol to make it shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet.

The Blade's Edge: This light is considered sunlight and lasts for 10 minutes or until you end the effect. No action required.

Kyle Beams: oh

Tommy: oh

The Blade's Edge: And as you pick it up out of this book and you look back at the six vampires on the other side of the room that were with the other sarcophagus waiting to see what you did, toothpicks in their mouths.

Kyle Beams: So good.

The Blade's Edge: At this point, they all get down on sort of Wolverine style, looking at you and something in you just holds the symbol up, presses the center button as sunlight, whoosh,

The Blade's Edge: radiates through and you watch six vampires turn to dust.

Tommy: um don't even know what to say.

The Blade's Edge: Um,

Tommy: I'm i'm so fucking I'm pumped up.

The Blade's Edge: now what Now, with that being said, that was a bit of a bit of theater for our our folks at home here. Sunlight doesn't won't actually turn vampires to dust straight away. However, it does obviously really hurt them and is very bad for them, which is why this is necessary.

The Blade's Edge: But just for the bit of theater here, as you did it with these six, they just turned to dust.

The Blade's Edge: You walk back, Dasan. Um... You walk back lighter than you've been your whole life. You, maybe of everybody, you wake up.

Kyle Beams: you

The Blade's Edge: You're walking back on purpose. you' You're choosing to walk back as you're flipping through this book, reading about Lugdana, reading about Lathander, reading about...

The Blade's Edge: the goodness in the world. um And do you find, you find Abbey with three claws coming out of his knuckles.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Bash, who looks like, ah he looks like Bane, but from like the Batman animated series where he's like too big.

Tommy: yeah

The Blade's Edge: And he's about to fucking explode. um And you see Stalvadak, who is covered in hair.

Kyle Beams: please Please tell me look okay.

The Blade's Edge: ill

Kyle Beams: please tellt me i look okay

The Blade's Edge: um And I think you all sort of come to

The Blade's Edge: You all sort of come to...

Tommy: you

The Blade's Edge: um

The Blade's Edge: No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. think you all come to

The Blade's Edge: when you hear, see Philip with Sila on his back, Philip the goat, Sila the black cat of Valentine.

The Blade's Edge: um And by the time you are all looking at each other, realizing this, Inabi, you're Raven. ah.

The Blade's Edge: ah Valentine says, wait, gentlemen, what just happened? And do you all look back towards the Amber Temple and you watch the entrance close and the face of the Amber Temple meld back into the mountain.

Kyle: oh

The Blade's Edge: What the fuck is going on?

Tommy: I have no idea.

The Blade's Edge: Gentlemen, gentlemen, did you guys have a crazy dream?

Kyle Beams: That place was crazy.

The Blade's Edge: I had a crazy dream. I was thinking of, was dreaming of this thing called a Twinkie. And it was like a puff pastry, but it was ah so delicious, but it had wings.

The Blade's Edge: And it was maybe the craziest dream I've ever had. What about you guys? Do you have any crazy dreams?

The Blade's Edge: Why are you covered in hair? Bash, have you been working out?

Kyle Beams: Ah.

The Blade's Edge: Anabi, your hand.

Trevor: Whoa,

Kyle Beams: Ah.

The Blade's Edge: The sun, you look amazing.

Trevor: whoa.

The Blade's Edge: Have you been worstorizing?

Tommy: yeah

Trevor: do

Tommy: I'm glowing.

Kyle Beams: I'm rationalizing that the best way to get close to werewolves is to fit in with them. So now I'm just going to lean in. I'm going to lean into my new hairy self.

Kyle: Every self.

The Blade's Edge: um Well, Harry's self and the half a blood prince or whatever.

Trevor: Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: um

Tommy: Thousand yard stare.

Kyle Beams: yeah

The Blade's Edge: Gentlemen, it seems you've all had a night, but did we, and are we successful? Did we give away what we were after here?

Kyle: I just looked down at my biceps.

Kyle Beams: i don't I don't have any idea.

Kyle Beams: i look i look across at the group and I'm just like, you look fucked up. You look crazy. What happened to you? And I look at Dasan.

Tommy: ah I pull out the ah the amulet that I got and I go, yeah, we got what we came for. And a little bit more, frankly.

Kyle Beams: What does it do?

Tommy: I produce sunlight out of the amulet.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. We can say for this, just sort of a ah ah sort of um another story beat, the mists above you part for the first time since you guys have been here and you see the sun. This the snow around you begins to melt. Snowing stops as the sunlight persists for um at least 10 minutes.

Trevor: This feels very Chronicles of Narnia for some reason.

Kyle Beams: Wow.

Tommy: Yeah, and I feel like for the first...

The Blade's Edge: Chronic what?

Tommy: and grass

The Blade's Edge: Close of Narnia.

Tommy: Aslan!

The Blade's Edge: Right. Okay.

Trevor: What the fuck?

Tommy: um I feel like for the first time in Dasan's life coming from the Underdark and then almost immediately going to Barovia, he has felt the warmth of the sun. And it feels damn good.

Kyle Beams: Oh, to be to be in Seattle.

Tommy: like Like a nice Seattle spring. Yesterday it was 71 degrees and that's how exactly how it felt.

Kyle Beams: I became a plant and laid in the sun.

The Blade's Edge: The sun, the sun shining off of Stalvodok's oily hair. ah glinting off of ah Bash's muscles, highlighting ah the muscular nature of his body, um maybe reflecting off of the long, monstrous nails coming from the fingers, now coming from Inabi's knuckles.

The Blade's Edge: But it gives you all chills nonetheless, as the sun does provide much-needed warmth. Well, um but nothing happened to me, really. But I guess I had enough, right? I was crazy for like ah millennia. So probably good if I'm... I'm probably good.

The Blade's Edge: I'm probably good. don't need to talk to any Amber Sarcophagi, I guess.

Kyle: This

Tommy: I'm like looking in my pack for so there' something to give him.

The Blade's Edge: I don't want anything...

Tommy: I go, wait, wait, wait.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Tommy: Come on.

The Blade's Edge: No, he's going...

Tommy: We got it.

Kyle Beams: You're probably okay.

Trevor: That's so classic.

Kyle Beams: You're probably okay.

The Blade's Edge: he walks He walks back towards the mountain and goes, I'll do whatever you guys want. Somebody want to give me something?

Tommy: I go.

The Blade's Edge: I'll do anything, dude.

Tommy: I go.

The Blade's Edge: Please, I'll do anything.

Kyle: guy is crazy.

The Blade's Edge: Any powers want to give me something?

Tommy: yeah

The Blade's Edge: i can do whatever you want.

Tommy: I go. I go. but I go behind

The Blade's Edge: I'll kill these guys. You kill these guys? I don't care.

Tommy: I go up behind him and I like, I drop my hand crossbow and kind of bury it a little a little in the snow and I go, look, hey, look. Oh my gosh, it's it's the holy crossbow of the, it's the holy hand crossbow of the Amber Temple.

The Blade's Edge: on

Trevor: Oh my gosh.

Kyle Beams: A sacred relic indeed.

The Blade's Edge: Oh. That is... That's the holy crossbow of Norgannis, isn't it?

Kyle Beams: oh shit.

Tommy: I go, I like, i like step away from it.

The Blade's Edge: I knew it.

Tommy: I go, it's a gift only for you.

Kyle Beams: Oh, you can have it.

The Blade's Edge: ah he he

Tommy: Take a step back from the cross. Can I

The Blade's Edge: He picks it up. i he'll never He'll never use it. um um

Kyle Beams: of Nota God.

Tommy: yeah at least roll a persuasion tech to see if you believe me at all? Alright.

The Blade's Edge: um Sure, yeah. and You can roll advantage. He's still a little cracked out.

Tommy: Don't make me s- Okay, hold on. Let me stand up. Hold on.

The Blade's Edge: i'll roll out I'll roll an insights check.

Kyle Beams: Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Tommy: Alright, alright.

The Blade's Edge: well here's yeah He's got a plus zero for his insights, but you should beat his 10.

Tommy: Stand up. 22? 22?

Kyle Beams: Oh, yeah.

Tommy: twenty two twenty too

Kyle Beams: oh

The Blade's Edge: yeah attend ah Yeah, yeah, and you have advantage. you Oh, you rolled him.

Tommy: No, I rolled it twice, yeah.

The Blade's Edge: ah yeah he Yeah, he picks it up and like puts it on his belt.

Tommy: who

The Blade's Edge: And it's like, this, you got it. ti our Next battle, I'll only use this.

Tommy: Whoa. i mean...

The Blade's Edge: My powerful spells don't hold a candle to the fucking crossbow of Norganas, please.

Tommy: I mean, mean i look look, I mean, I'm not going to tell you...

The Blade's Edge: This has become my whole personality.

Tommy: mean,

The Blade's Edge: This will all is all I'll do from here on out.

Kyle Beams: Ha ha ha.

Tommy: I'm not going to tell you that you should or shouldn't use the giant crossword, but it sounds like, i mean, you've been studying...

The Blade's Edge: Well, no, you were so persuasive that, of course, I'd love nothing but to... Is it a regular crossbow, or is it a plus one?

Tommy: oh It's just a regular hand crossbow that I got as like a level one wizard, I think.

The Blade's Edge: And crossbow, okay.

Trevor: you know

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, let me, ah he he takes it and he goes, watch this. And puts an apple on top of Sila's head. There's an apple on Sila's head on top of Philip and shoots it.

The Blade's Edge: ah With a four.

Tommy: but

Kyle Beams: Oh no.

The Blade's Edge: With a four, he shoots Philip right in the foot.

Trevor: Not the goat, no.

The Blade's Edge: He goes, oh no.

Tommy: Oh no.

Kyle: Oh my god.

Kyle Beams: No, no, no, no, no.

The Blade's Edge: Okay, well, I need to, that's on me, Philip.

Kyle Beams: Oh!

Tommy: It's maybe it's curt maybe it's cursed.

The Blade's Edge: Obviously it wouldn't be Nogannis because make up, make another persuasion check.

Tommy: Maybe you should leave it here.

Kyle: oh

Tommy: don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing here.

The Blade's Edge: ah you You have to beat 22.

Tommy: Do I want

The Blade's Edge: Beat your previous position.

Tommy: but

Kyle Beams: ah

Trevor: Holy shit.

The Blade's Edge: He goes, my God.

Trevor: Yo.

The Blade's Edge: It's true that the the hand crossbow of Noghanis was, I remember the story now, was cursed by the great Xandras.

Tommy: yeah

The Blade's Edge: You're right, Dasan. We'll leave it. In fact, we'll destroy it. He throws it in the air and is goingnna burn a ah he's going to burn a third level fireball. He throws it in the air and just goes, in we'll kill it.

Tommy: Why do I always...

Tommy: Why do I always roll so high on goofs?

Kyle Beams: Oh, because you're the goofiest, man.

The Blade's Edge: And he ah destroys um one of his third level spells.

Kyle Beams: I love it.

The Blade's Edge: ah He destroys the hand crossbow.

Tommy: You know, I put my hand on his shoulder.

The Blade's Edge: At least we figured it out together. Dasan, you're quite inept at... See? Look at that. That's what being a pious man does here. You can root out evil.

Tommy: like put my head on his shoulder i go it was for the best

The Blade's Edge: For the best. Absolutely. and I agree. 100%. As that happens, um but don't I need each of you guys to roll me just a straight luck check. So just a d20.

Tommy: oh my god ah we're back dude two nat ones kyle g

Kyle Beams: A herd, Chef.

Kyle: I'm going to roll 17, I think.

Kyle Beams: I'm to roll a nine.

Kyle: That's a natural one.

Trevor: Holy shit!

The Blade's Edge: Two nines, two ones. Okay, so

Kyle Beams: What the hell?

Trevor: That- what a trip! What the fuck?

The Blade's Edge: um Trevor, Inabi, and Stalvadok, he is going to, as a divination wizard, the way I'm using his portent rolls for this session at least, is each of you guys are going to get a d20.

Trevor: Yzzer.

The Blade's Edge: which you can use on any roll. And this this, you know, flavor-wise, this is him seeing the future and ah affecting the outcome. ah But you guys travel with him.

The Blade's Edge: So Trevor and ah ah Kyle, go ahead and roll me a d20. And you're going to write that number down and you can use it to replace one of your rolls or roll from a bad guy.

Kyle Beams: Ooh, okay.

Trevor: fire. What the fuck?

Kyle Beams: Whoa.

The Blade's Edge: the

Kyle: but

The Blade's Edge: did you roll a six kyle or was that your roll from before

Kyle Beams: I had rolled a six because I thought you were going to have us do a roll off.

The Blade's Edge: okay all right so you rolled a six um cool so just just remember those are just the base numbers so without modifiers so like even if you did want to use it if you had to get like a dc 10 on something and you rolled like a nat one you're like i'll use my six because that'll get me to a 10 or something like that um cool

Trevor: And then I just rolled a six.

Kyle: That is crazy.

Kyle Beams: Sure.

Kyle Beams: Sure.

Trevor: Dude, roll another d20.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, let's see it. Let's see it.

Kyle Beams: ah

Trevor: Damn.

Kyle: Uh,

The Blade's Edge: 720. Dude, blaze up.

Trevor: What?

Kyle Beams: Blaze up. Yeah, dude. 720, blaze

The Blade's Edge: Smoke weed, dude.

Trevor: Smoke them if you got them.

The Blade's Edge: e twenty 720. You guys each have a six, ah which that'll just persist for the rest of this session. um And as you guys sort of bask in the glow, you have these new powers, these newfound things. I think at a certain point, you guys start to determine what's next.

The Blade's Edge: And maybe you guys start to think about Argen Vostholtz, although there are some other... um places that that you could go. What do you guys think?

Kyle Beams: Let's see looking at where we are and the Amber Temple is here. We make made our way back. um Are we over by this bridge now, or are we just outside the Amber Temple?

Kyle Beams: I

The Blade's Edge: No, yeah, wherever. Yeah, you guys are just sort of traveling. You're traveling back.

Kyle Beams: i think we can go up to Argen Vassolt, head back to the north. um We can stop potentially by Luna Lake and see if Yachs Isler can tell me anything more about maya my my fuzzy nature, but going to Argenvossel, it's next on the priority to-do list.

Tommy: Yeah, and it's on the way.

Kyle: Yeah, mean...

Kyle Beams: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: Yeah, we can we can stop by there for sure.

Tommy: i eventually want to go back to the village of Barovia to bury Alma's ashes with gills.

Tommy: That's kind of a self-imposed side quest, if you guys would allow it.

Kyle Beams: Probably before the final confrontation, we try to get back over that way because Kay is, i think, is that where Castle Ravenloft is?

Kyle: Yeah.

Tommy: yeah I think Ravenloft's over here by Barovia.

Kyle Beams: On the east? Yeah, somewhere around here.

Kyle Beams: um Cool. so head up Yachsizzler to have a quick wow what happened and then go to Argenvossalt after.

Tommy: Yeah, works for me.

The Blade's Edge: Is that what you guys are going to Okay, you guys head down to Luna Lake. um It looks like Jimothy is not there at the at the moment, but you do see the lake itself ah no roiling with energy.

Kyle Beams: I dunked my head into the water.

The Blade's Edge: All right, make a dexterity saving throw.

Kyle Beams: That's going to be a six.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. A tentacle wraps around your neck and yanks you into the water ah deep, deep, deep, deep. And i need you to make me a wisdom saving throw.

Kyle Beams: Okay, this is my third time encountering this entity. Or, in a certain way. 17.

The Blade's Edge: Okay, with 17, you guys outside the water wait, ah thinking, you know, this guy's, the oxy-o's not going to hurt him. This is part of it. And after about five minutes, ah you see him being launched out of the water and landing back on shore with you guys.

Kyle Beams: Superhero landing.

The Blade's Edge: No, on your back, eyes rolled back into Stalvodok's head.

Kyle Beams: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: um Stalvodok, what happened down there was far and beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Yeah. You get the sense that it is not for you to know the rhyme or reason of elder gods, ah why they want to do things, but you were you were gifted ah you were gifted some resilience in your fight against Strahd and above and beyond that.

Kyle Beams: Oh yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Whatever happened down there is too much for your brain to handle.

Kyle Beams: Sure. Hell yeah.

Kyle Beams: ah

The Blade's Edge: ah Jimothy comes back at that point with like some firewood what's up guys oh shit dude what happened to you

Kyle Beams: I gaze too longingly into the void again.

The Blade's Edge: But the dude, you can't do that. Yuck's not like us, man. You can't just go like freaking talking to. That's like, you know how people say like, don't get down on like your, your hands and your knees and like look into like a straight, like a dog you don't know is like, I don't get eye to eye with it.

The Blade's Edge: You know what i'm saying?

Kyle Beams: Oh, yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah. It's like that, but like way worse. Like elegantly.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, it's it's got so many eyes.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Kyle Beams: I think I'm kind of addicted to it.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, well, when did you get hair? Have you always had hair? Oh.

Kyle Beams: No, no, this is this is new. This is, this is hey.

The Blade's Edge: Looking

Kyle Beams: I kind of slick my hair back. I'm like, what do you think? Back up.

The Blade's Edge: ah but Parted.

Kyle Beams: Parted straight down the middle.

The Blade's Edge: Right down the middle. Yeah, exactly.

Kyle Beams: Yeah. Right down the middle. Yeah. I like that. Okay. So I start doing that.

The Blade's Edge: yeah I have this bowl here, which I use to cut my own hair. um You can put it on the top of your head, and then you can just cut around the edges of the bowl all the way around.

Kyle Beams: Is that a stylish fashionable cut here in Barovia?

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, absolutely. From ear to ear, all the cool kids were doing it.

Kyle Beams: Can you do that for me?

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, sure. You ready?

Kyle Beams: Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Okay, here we go. And Jimothy gives you a bowl cut.

Kyle Beams: Excellent. So I've got a bowl cut and a part down the middle.

Kyle: yeah

The Blade's Edge: Sweet.

Kyle Beams: Hell yeah.

The Blade's Edge: yeah You ask the nerd what he thinks looks cool?

Kyle Beams: Hold on.

Kyle Beams: Let's see.

The Blade's Edge: He thinks the nerdy shit looks cool?

Kyle Beams: i got ah got to find a good gift for that. You know, we got to find what we look like there.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, well, Cyclops even has a part in the middle, so actually it pretty cool.

Tommy: Cyclops was right.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, we like Cyclops.

The Blade's Edge: um All right, and then you guys head out to Argenvossthold.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, let's head up that way with my sweet new digs.

Kyle: Yuzzer. Shredded.

The Blade's Edge: Okay.

Tommy: Does does bash look like he's too big for his body or is he like well rounded out?

The Blade's Edge: All right.

The Blade's Edge: No, i I mean, it's like like overnight he became jacked like insane. Like he was already jacked.

Tommy: Like, he was already looking good, but now...

The Blade's Edge: But yeah, but overnight he he got like cartoon physics.

Tommy: Okay, all right.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, like is hes he's bigger than he was for sure.

Tommy: But it's not, yeah.

Kyle: shredded

The Blade's Edge: You notice he's wearing this new belt. ah Like it's not hurting him at all. I'm just being um just being silly. But I mean, when you have above, yeah, when you have an above 20 in anything, you're like, ah for example, like a god or a demigod or like ah ah a freak of nature or a monster or supernatural.

Tommy: No, I'm just building it. it I'm just building it my head.

The Blade's Edge: So he no longer looks like any half-orc. that you've ever seen or any maybe humanoid that you've ever seen he looks bigger with a 25 strength

Kyle Beams: He's him.

Tommy: He's looking good. He's looking good.

Kyle Beams: He's one of a kind.

Kyle: Oh yeah.

Tommy: Okay.

Kyle Beams: Iconic.

The Blade's Edge: um

Tommy: And then a Navi with his little extra fingers.

Trevor: Don't look at me.

Kyle Beams: Hey, quick question. Oh, well, I guess we'll probably find out as he uses but with the fingers of death, since there's only three charges, is that three fingers or does one go away?

Trevor: I'm a monster.

Kyle Beams: I don't know. We'll find out when you use the fingers of death spell. One of your fingers explodes.

Trevor: Yeah, that's kind of what I imagine like when it it's used.

Kyle Beams: but

Trevor: It's like used up in a way.

Kyle Beams: Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. And we'll we're going to go, I'm going to go ahead and make a a ruling here, Trev, that I'm actually going to change the, I guess it doesn't matter if I change the damage type of the spell or if I just say that it bypasses resistance and immunities.

The Blade's Edge: Um, just because i don't, I don't know if vampires or if a specific vampires have resistance to necrotic damage or whatever, but what flavor wise for you, what, what what do you think is cooler?

Trevor: oh

The Blade's Edge: Do you think it's cooler if we say it's because it's from Osibis, it bypasses with that resistance and immunity, or should we change the damage type? Although it does the same thing.

Trevor: Honestly, both. ah what look Whatever you want. I'm down with whatever. um

The Blade's Edge: Okay, cool.

Trevor: Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: we'll say We'll say it bypasses that ah resistance and immunity to necrotic damage. I mean, since you only use it three times and necrotic makes sense since it would turn somebody into a zombie. Um...

Trevor: Sick. Yeah, i like that.

The Blade's Edge: Cool. this yeah yeah Yeah, this special brand of of this power. um You guys head to Argenvostol. You probably have to rest at some points.

The Blade's Edge: um Are you guys going to rest at Luna Lake with ah Jimothy and Yachsizzler? Are you guys going to continue along the Silenka Pass, maybe get closer?

Kyle Beams: It's a safe place. We should hang out here for the night and then take off refreshed in the morning.

The Blade's Edge: Cool. um ah Well, I'll say with that, Stahl the Doc, maybe you have um you have visions in your head of ah potential futures, Stahl the Doc. You have ah after this is all said and done where you trim the hair on your body to look like a man, hairy man, to blend in, to become, quote unquote, invisible.

The Blade's Edge: Or you grow it out. You join werewolves to join their ranks because they think you're one of them to become, quote unquote, invisible. Yach the Invisible.

Kyle Beams: yeah

The Blade's Edge: You now have the power to blend in more with societies or or monsters your choice. You get the sense that was the power, the the the bane, because you cannot ever get rid of it.

The Blade's Edge: You're forever covered in this oily black hair, but it is yours to style and do with what you'd like in an effort to... help you become less stand out, which is ironic, obviously, because as it stands, probably stand out just as much as a robot would be standing out.

The Blade's Edge: But ah that in the future, post game in ah epilogue territory, can you use that?

Kyle Beams: Yeah, can choose what society to to live with, where to go, what to be.

The Blade's Edge: Sure.

Kyle Beams: Options, we like it.

The Blade's Edge: you have those dreams at Luna Lake. I think D'Saun, you sleep maybe the most peaceful sleep you've had in a very, very, very long time.

Tommy: Yeah, I think um because Drow can do the whole trance thing like normal elves. I think instead of trancing for like six hours, I think Dasan sleeps like a full like 10 to 12 hours, like just conked out.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah. You, in that dream, Dasan, you are sitting around a fire, valerious moonstone across from you, smiling, sipping a tea with his staff next to him.

The Blade's Edge: ah You're both talking about the book that you have, The Hymns of the Dawn. You're explaining to him the book. he's going through and maybe he even finds like a a punctuation error in the book being a school teacher and you both sort of chuckle about it um you look over and you see ah Gil Graves and Roy Halovich ah sitting next to one another, arms around each other, each maybe having, in this dream, a ah ah turkey leg, and laughing and joking about ah you and Valerius nerding out and being sort of religious and pious and stuff like that as this gentle ribbing goes on.

The Blade's Edge: At the end of the dream, they walk you from the campfire to a graveyard, um And you realize at this moment that you are in the village of Barovia and you see the graves of, as Gil stands there and Valeria stands there and Roy stands there.

The Blade's Edge: And um you see, as you get to the graves, you see sitting on top of a ah tombstone is Alma. And you see that Gil stands in front of his grave.

The Blade's Edge: Valeria stands in front of his. Roy stands in front of his. And where yours was... the tombstone has been rewritten and it says Alma graves and it is open as if ready for a body.

The Blade's Edge: And I think, uh, at this point, uh, Valerius sort of gives you a little smile and grabs your shoulder and just says, um, when you're ready and you wake up.

Tommy: Yeah, I...

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Tommy: Oh, man. and

The Blade's Edge: Yeah. Well, no, you were right.

Tommy: I thought I was there. I'm just kidding. My dream was too vivid.

The Blade's Edge: This is a dream.

Tommy: I thought i was there

The Blade's Edge: It's a dream, just just giving you a place to, you know ah ah in that graveyard where you were from, there's a there's this there's a there's a plot open.

Tommy: was there.

The Blade's Edge: And it's the plot ah plot that you popped right out of.

Tommy: Ready and waiting, yeah.

Tommy: Oh, man.

The Blade's Edge: um ah Yeah, because you know that ah yeah every night the the ghosts from that graveyard get up out of the grave. And they go and they futilely attack ah

The Blade's Edge: Castle Ravenloft.

The Blade's Edge: um All right. Next day, you guys are going to Argenvoss Holt.

Tommy: Yeah, let's hit it. it

The Blade's Edge: Booyah!

Kyle Beams: On the road again.

The Blade's Edge: New map for you guys. And I will go ahead and read some stuff here. um it youre You start to approach what is like a mansion. So here's this this statue right out front. Here's this what this looks like.

The Blade's Edge: Goosh! um It's sort of, as you look, sort of a 20, 30, 25-foot-tall statue, moss around the base of the statue.

Kyle: I am.

The Blade's Edge: um And ah you, you ah high above, as you guys get there, high above this river valley juts a quiet promontory upon which looms a sepulchral mansion, is what you're looking at here.

The Blade's Edge: ah The turrets of the mansion are capped with fairy tale cones like you see in you know many fairy tales of the the the best types of towers, those types of things. um The towers are aligned with sculpted battlements.

The Blade's Edge: A third of this structure has collapsed, as has part of the roof, but the rest appears intact. A dark octagonal tower rises above the surrounding architecture.

The Blade's Edge: and Out of the fog comes a distant peal of thunder, quickly accompanied by the howling of wolves in the woods below.

The Blade's Edge: from below you as you guys are reached this reach this place here. ah But the house stands silent, seemingly like a fossilized remains of some long dead thing smote upon the mountainside.

Kyle Beams: Hard.

The Blade's Edge: um As you guys approach and get even closer, ah ah Perched atop a 10-foot-wide, 10-foot-high cube of granite um is a moss-covered statue of a dragon, its wings tucked close to its body.

The Blade's Edge: um The statue looks east towards the mansion.

Kyle Beams: Okay. um i would walk up to it.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. um they it's it's uh this is a ah upon close inspection you notice that this is ah a a statue of a silver dragon of noble bearing um it's spiny frill cracked and broken in many places uh the statue's 10 feet tall on top of a 10 foot tall platform um but looks more imposing perched on top of this 10 foot granite block um

The Blade's Edge: ah Yeah, and you can make me an investigation check as well.

Kyle Beams: Cool.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, I'll investigate.

The Blade's Edge: or Yeah, absolutely.

Trevor: Can i help him? Give him help action to that.

Kyle Beams: That's going to be 23.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. There was a trap involved with this statue at one point, but has been used. The trap is inert.

Kyle Beams: Cool.

Trevor: Nice.

Kyle Beams: Can I climb up onto the very top of this dragon?

The Blade's Edge: Sure, you can go ahead and give me an athletics or acrobatics check.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, we'll do athletics. It's 22?

The Blade's Edge: Cool, yeah, you climb up. and It seems a little unstable, like a little like it's just because it's brittle and broken and cracked in places that like less of a chance of you falling off and more of a chance of like ah snapping a piece of the statue off. but

Kyle Beams: Cool. All right. I climbed back down.

The Blade's Edge: Cool.

The Blade's Edge: And you guys can each give me a history check if you'd like.

Tommy: And we're here because the Taroka card that Anabi drew said that there was a treasure somewhere Argenvoss' hold.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah. 111166.

Kyle: There's no way that this just happened again.

Kyle Beams: Wow.

Tommy: What is that? Everyone, okay, everyone restart your roll of huh?

Trevor: What the fuck?

The Blade's Edge: eleven eleven yeah

Kyle Beams: since Two 11s, two sixes, wild.

Trevor: What in the world is going on?

Kyle: i knew that. I was looking at it. I was like, he's about to roll a six. I knew that was going to happen.

Tommy: oh wish Don't wish that upon me.

Trevor: That's so crazy.

Tommy: Come on.

Kyle: My fault.

Kyle Beams: Come on now.

Kyle: My fault.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, we can use our portent dice.

Trevor: Oh yeah, i want to replace my six with a six.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, I too would like to replace my six with a six.

Trevor: Perfect.

The Blade's Edge: um Okay, yeah you guys don't remember much about Argenvostel unless you, the players, remember something I've told you. but as as you walk up, you're sort of like, like what is this place?

The Blade's Edge: Who was this place? Who lived here? What's the whole vibe?

Kyle: Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Kyle Beams: What do we know about silver dragons?

The Blade's Edge: With an 11, not much. I mean, you know, silver dragons are, ah you know, in the in the history of of things, generally good. Metallic dragons are generally good. Chromatic dragons are generally bad, although that is more of a case-by-case basis, but general rule of thumb.

Kyle Beams: Okay. um Well then, yeah, I'd say let's, a Let's head in. You coming? Dasan, lead the way, bud.

Tommy: Me? Okay, alright.

Kyle Beams: It's always you.

Tommy: Shield out?

Kyle Beams: You're the emotional heart of the team.

Tommy: Shield out? Not shield- okay, take my shield out. One-handing. um Okay.

Kyle Beams: Sun sword and sun gem in hand.

Tommy: trip

Kyle Beams: Cha-cha.

Tommy: I'll go up to the door, and I-

The Blade's Edge: Nice. Yeah, this is the the flag flagstone steps flanked by stone railings climbed to a landing in front of a pair of tall wooden doors with rusted iron bands and knockers shaped like small dragons.

Kyle Beams: Oh.

The Blade's Edge: Carved into the lintel above the entrance is the word Argengossholtz.

Kyle Beams: great

Trevor: Do now?

Tommy: Come on, don't laugh. Come on.

Trevor: Sorry.

The Blade's Edge: Got you with knockers?

Tommy: Come on. We're serious here.

Trevor: I'm 14 years old.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, large knockers.

Kyle Beams: Shade-like dragon.

Kyle: yeah.

Trevor: She got a dragon boobies?

Kyle Beams: but Get a look at those dragons.

Trevor: That's crazy.

Kyle: I like this place.

Kyle Beams: damn

The Blade's Edge: Um, the, uh, dragon behind you guys at the, um, uh, there, as you approach, you hear a creak and the mouth of the dragon opens and you hear a c click and then nothing happens as, uh, Valentine says, ah, well, good thing that trap already went off. Otherwise I think we would have just been hit with something.

Tommy: Well, just my luck, huh?

Kyle Beams: Lucky us. Yeah.

The Blade's Edge: And the doors seem unlocked and not trapped. And I think you can click them to open them.

Tommy: Ooh.

The Blade's Edge: Let me know if I'm correct on that. Nice.

Kyle Beams: He's got the power.

Tommy: Oh, yeah, there we go. So I open the door.

The Blade's Edge: ah You head into the foyer.

Tommy: ah

The Blade's Edge: This room feels like a king's tomb.

Tommy: okay

The Blade's Edge: a grand staircase leads up to stone balconies. So you see there's balconies above you ah that are held aloft by stone pillars. That's what these are to the north and south of you. um And arches. ah A tall, faded tapestry depicting a nobleman in silver armor hangs from an iron rod above the staircase landing.

The Blade's Edge: ah This you get the senses, maybe whoever owned this place. um Six sets of double doors lead from this foyer. Along the walls displayed on marble pedestals are three alabaster busts of handsome men.

The Blade's Edge: A fourth bust and its pedestal have been knocked over and their shattered remains lie strewn across the mosaic floor. Two chandeliers of wrought iron hang from the ceiling like monstrous black spiders.

The Blade's Edge: And as you look up, you see the spiders and maybe for the first time ever, D'Saun, instead of maybe wincing or shirking back, maybe a little curl of a smile comes up on the side of your lip.

Tommy: Yeah, I think I would like let my finger down and like have the spider kind of crawl along my finger and you know kind of like play with it in my hand, give it a little smile, and then kind of like set it back down.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. There wasn't actually a spider. This is the two chandeliers of wrought iron hang from the ceiling like monstrous black spiders.

Kyle Beams: He's manifesting spiders.

Tommy: Oh, dude, the dreams are getting me.

Kyle Beams: That could be an episode title.

Tommy: The spider. Dude.

Kyle Beams: Manifest spiders.

Tommy: Okay. Hold on. I'm sitting up.

Kyle Beams: Tommy got too comfy on is um his couch.

Tommy: I got too comfy listening to Brian.

Kyle Beams: It's like, oh, and then there's spiders. Yeah, I'll touch it

The Blade's Edge: You said, Brian, I get it. I get it. Get through the description.

Tommy: no i No, no, no, no.

Kyle Beams: lock

The Blade's Edge: I got it. I got it. What did he say? What's the last word he said? Spiders? Got it. I take the spider in my hand.

Kyle Beams: ah

Tommy: Okay. You know what? You got me.

Kyle Beams: lock in lock in

The Blade's Edge: ah Your owl guy is stuck. Where is he, Trevor?

Trevor: He was in the door and now he's gone. George was walking around my fucking keyboard.

The Blade's Edge: I think that is less gone and more it's less less stuck and more deleted.

Trevor: Nice. Thank you, sir.

The Blade's Edge: He was deleted from this. So let me go ahead and gouge. There you go. There he is.

Trevor: nice thank you sir

The Blade's Edge: And then I will go gouge.

The Blade's Edge: All right. You see the stairs going up.

Tommy: Thank you.

The Blade's Edge: Tapestries, busts, doors. What do you guys do?

Kyle Beams: I'm peeping at the busts.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. Give me a perception or investigation check.

Kyle Beams: I head to this one in the north. Yeah. Perception, and investigation. What's the move?

The Blade's Edge: Yeah. Either one.

Kyle Beams: Okay. Investigation. Coming at you. Is it 24?

The Blade's Edge: Nice. So there's no names on the busts of men. There's theres sort of three of handsome men. One's knocked over. You can see it down here. It's sort of cracked and And destroyed, there's a two on the top, one on the bottom. There's no names on those, but the big tapestry with the guy in silver armor as you're sort of investigating around the room, you see on that is the is the words Lord Argenvost.

Kyle Beams: oh Okay. Lord Argenboss.

The Blade's Edge: Which maybe lets you guys know that Argenvost Holt means the House of Argenvost.

Kyle: Oh. oh

The Blade's Edge: um

Kyle Beams: Cool, I like that.

The Blade's Edge: And as you're doing that as well, Stal the Dock, and you guys are sort of, everybody's kind of doing something, a great shadow with wings moves across the walls and disappears.

The Blade's Edge: And you all hear a soft, bestial hiss in the darkness.

Tommy: I swear to god if there's a shadow dragon lurking somewhere around here, i gonna be pissed.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, I was i was going to call for a robe because you used the exact word. That is definitely the hiss of a dragon.

Trevor: Oh, shit.

Tommy: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: Valentine says, so and the the The roof is ah destroyed.

Kyle: That's not good.

The Blade's Edge: i don't I didn't see it to pass overhead. um Did you? I didn't see it. I think it's playing tricks on us.

Tommy: No, it like went along the walls, right?

The Blade's Edge: Oh, it this shit it was along the walls. Well, let me show the walls a little what for. And he's going to shoot a, uh, shoot a cantrip at the wall.

Kyle Beams: ah Maybe.

The Blade's Edge: It knocks over this bust, and this bust falls and chatters as well.

Kyle Beams: Oh, geez.

The Blade's Edge: i Oops, ah, well, that is kind of a shithole anyway, right?

Kyle Beams: Maybe.

Kyle: So...

Tommy: You know what?

Kyle Beams: Maybe.

Tommy: He's not wrong.

Trevor: What has gotten into you?

Kyle Beams: you You're you're on silly mode today.

Tommy: but

The Blade's Edge: What?

Kyle Beams: You're crazy.

Tommy: where your Where's your family at, Valentine?

Trevor: ah

The Blade's Edge: Uh, they're waiting outside. i'm not going to bring them in the friggin' Dragon Wall place. Oh, I'm sorry.

Tommy: fair Hey,

The Blade's Edge: Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Tommy: fair enough.

The Blade's Edge: done You want me to bring the 3 HP cat inside the Haunted Mansion, You want to look after my goat when the wall Shadow Dragon attacks?

Tommy: Okay. I'm sorry for even bringing it up.

Kyle: Guy is such a smartass. Oh

Tommy: but My mistake, Valentine. My bad.

Tommy: ah

Kyle Beams: i i would make my way over towards this broken bust and just investigate the pieces.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. Yeah, with 24, it's just a broken bust of what was once a handsome man.

Kyle Beams: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: ah Valentine heads outside to check on his family, and you guys are each going to get inspiration.

Tommy: I feel bad.

Kyle: oh yeah.

Tommy: I didn't want to make him feel bad for not bringing his family in here. I didn't think it was going to be a whole thing. I didn't think I was going to spark a... didn't think he'd leave.

Kyle Beams: if

Kyle Beams: Can I check out these doors to the south too?

The Blade's Edge: um Sure, yeah, none of them seem locked.

Kyle Beams: Okay. I'm just going to open this door.

The Blade's Edge: Cool.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. As you look in this place, rubble is strewn throughout much of this vast chamber caused by the partial collapse of the rooms above it. Because as you guys saw from the outside, this place is pretty much like it's like half destroyed.

The Blade's Edge: um On the pink marble floor, fallen chandeliers lie amid broken chairs and other furnishings. You also see thick webs, like spider webs, stretch from wall to wall.

The Blade's Edge: And moving among them are like a lot of tiny little spiders. Yeah.

Kyle Beams: Uh, gross.

Kyle Beams: Um, I'll look back at the boys and see if anyone else is, uh, moving in any particular direction. Scene change.

Tommy: ah I was going check around the stairs and maybe start maybe start like slowly walking up the stairs. i'd I'd like to use Divine Sense, if I could, to detect ah the presence of strong evil in my area.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. I think 60 feet. 60 feet. 60 feet.

Tommy: a Celestial Fiend Undead within 60 feet of me, or the Hollow Spell, if anything if this place has been affected by the Hollow Spell.

The Blade's Edge: feet. um well to do to

The Blade's Edge: sixty feet sixty feet

Tommy: He's bringing out the measuring tape, folks.

The Blade's Edge: um Yeah, I'm measuring around the the staircase. I don't think you ping... let me just go check the second floor. I think you ping a general undead.

The Blade's Edge: um As if to say, i think you're you are pretty certain this place is haunted. I mean, this place stands like a relic in time and with that shadow. Something's not adding up here. This place definitely feels like a...

The Blade's Edge: haunted house but you're not picking up like fiend vibes it's not like there are there's some fiend waiting to attack you with your divine sense but i think you do sense the presence of undead

Tommy: It is Barovia after all.

The Blade's Edge: yeah and this is this is the tapestry that stal the doc uh had walked up to earlier during his investigation and scene that said lord argenvost you now see that as well

Tommy: Okay. i'll um I'll be waiting to head upstairs and when everyone's ready, um I'll lead the charge upstairs.

Kyle: Yeah, same. I'm ready to go upstairs.

Kyle Beams: Okay, I'll close these doors behind me and follow the group.

The Blade's Edge: OK.

The Blade's Edge: All what about you, Anabi? You just heading upstairs?

Trevor: Easer.

The Blade's Edge: OK, I'll go ahead and just grab your guys' tokens all together and move you guys. Same map, but just up further. um and i go, whoop.

The Blade's Edge: OK, you guys are up here. I'm going to focus ping you.

Tommy: Love a focus ping.

Kyle Beams: um you

The Blade's Edge: um So yeah, you can see this is sort of to represent floor below. um and then these are the, you see that it goes up here to the north.

Tommy: More stairs going up.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, north yeah some stairs that go north and some stairs that go south. and

The Blade's Edge: The choice is yours.

Kyle Beams: Step into this room here.

The Blade's Edge: This is just ah below. This is just to represent what was below. This is where you guys came from.

Kyle Beams: Oh, oh, oh, I see.

Tommy: I think we still gotta go up.

Kyle: Yeah.

Kyle Beams: OK. I can't see the stairs.

Tommy: ah I'll just keep heading up the stairs. i I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.

Kyle: yeah

Kyle Beams: sure

The Blade's Edge: Cool. I don't know why that's there. This is here. It shouldn't be. Gotcha. Okay. All right. You see that there's a hallway that goes to the north, and this place also goes to the east and west.

The Blade's Edge: um To the west of you there, ah you noticed

Kyle Beams: Can't get my token through here. Thank you.

The Blade's Edge: All right, I got you.

Kyle Beams: There we go.

The Blade's Edge: we gu gu um You notice two stone balconies. So sort of, D'Saan, you're looking at this right here. This just a balcony overlooking the main area.

The Blade's Edge: um You see two stone balconies flank the main foyer.

Tommy: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: So you this is how you can look down the foyer. ah Balusters carved to resemble knights in shining armor support their elegantly curved carved stone railings. weapons and shields festoon the walls along each of these walkways. So this this walkway, and you get the sense, another walkway to the south.

Tommy: Mm-hmm.

The Blade's Edge: ah While alabaster busts of handsome men flank hallways that lead north and south away from the foyer. At the west end of each balcony is an archway that leads to a spiral staircase going up.

The Blade's Edge: So you see the spiral staircase over here at the west end of the balcony going up.

Tommy: What do you guys think?

Kyle Beams: Keep moving forward.

Tommy: Yeah, there's like a good doorway over here. There's a hallway this way. that.

The Blade's Edge: yeah as you look to the east, you see a red velvet curtain hangs in front of an alcove in the northeast corner of this hall.

Tommy: i see like

Kyle Beams: I head over there.

The Blade's Edge: That's sort of what that door, that door right there in front of you, Stalvodok, is supposed to represent a red velvet curtain hanging in front of an alcove in the northeast corner of this hall.

Kyle: That sounds inviting.

Kyle Beams: Okay. um Can i investigate

The Blade's Edge: Absolutely. How do you investigate it?

Kyle Beams: Um, I will kind of look up towards the top of it to where it might be hanging and just see like how it's connected.

Kyle Beams: Is it like, is it like a shower rod or is it like a draped over? Let's do investigation.

The Blade's Edge: Cool.

Kyle Beams: 25.

Kyle Beams: Okay.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, it's like a rod, and it can be parted in the middle and be opened.

Kyle Beams: okay

Kyle Beams: um Yeah, I would just open it.

The Blade's Edge: You open it and ah you're sort of in ah there's a little alcove with like some windows that look outside, ah but appears empty.

Kyle Beams: I see another dragon statue out there.

The Blade's Edge: ah Yeah, you do in the all the way in the back of this place at Q16. ah You see tarnished silver plated gargoyles shaped like dragon wyrmlings cling to a stone tiled roof of a mausoleum.

The Blade's Edge: an eight foot tall and four foot wide white marble door. It looks like it's in the southwest wall is engraved with the name Argenvost.

Kyle Beams: Cool.

The Blade's Edge: This is what you see ah from the windows of that.

Kyle Beams: Awesome.

The Blade's Edge: Alcove.

Kyle Beams: Nice view.

The Blade's Edge: There is.

Kyle Beams: And then there's a door behind me too.

The Blade's Edge: ah there is

Kyle Beams: Yeah. um I'd say, hey, Bash, you want to ah check this door out with me?

Kyle: Yeah, let's do it.

Kyle Beams: And you're you're huge, dude. I bet you could just kick kick this door down.

Kyle: Thanks.

Kyle: I could, unlike you.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, I definitely couldn't.

Tommy: it's just i I just imagine he just like kicks Doc in the back. He goes, yeah, I'd like you. Just fucking Spark kicks him in the back. Hit the gym, idiot.

Kyle: um

Kyle Beams: Damn.

Kyle: Pathetic. I will open this door.

The Blade's Edge: You got it. It starts to rain outside. You saw the thunder earlier. Rain. And you see in this room, rainwater seeps through the the cracks in the ceilings and flows into a pool on the sagging wooden floor.

The Blade's Edge: ah The pool fills to about half the room, ah but you see bare stone shelves line the walls. Looks like a storage room.

Kyle: Anything on the shelves? Anything in the water?

The Blade's Edge: um How much do you think Bash weighs?

Kyle: be pushing like...

Kyle: 200?

Kyle Beams: Oh, he's gotta be he's got to be more than that.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, i listen, I got news for you.

Trevor: Fucking three, dude.

The Blade's Edge: I got news for you.

Kyle: Listen.

The Blade's Edge: I'm pushing 200.

Kyle: Listen, I'm a very skinny person in real life.

Trevor: like

Kyle: I have no idea like what people are supposed to weigh.

Kyle Beams: at

The Blade's Edge: probably he I imagine he's like 280 of pure muscle.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, I was saying 280 to 310. Fucking linebacker

Kyle: Okay, yeah.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Kyle: I mean, I truly have no idea.

Tommy: your arnold You're Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, brother.

The Blade's Edge: um Okay, so so go ahead and make me a deck go ahead and make me a deck save as you as you step into the room.

Kyle: yeah I'm super...

The Blade's Edge: We'll call it DC 12.

Kyle: extras. Oh, okay, a little 17.

The Blade's Edge: Nice. So as you step in the room, the wooden floor is super soft and spongy, and it can't support your weight. So as you step there, you get the sense that if you were to fully step in the room, the floor would collapse.

The Blade's Edge: But because you rolled a 17 dexterity saving throw, as you put your first foot down and the floor sort of bows under your weight, the soft, spongy floor, you take a step back.

Kyle: Gotcha.

The Blade's Edge: and realized that it it it probably wouldn't wouldn't be able to hold maybe any of your weights unless maybe a Nabi or if somebody took off their armor or something like that.

Kyle: Gotcha, yeah, I look at Solid Doc and I'm like, yeah, that room can't hold me, but it could probably hold like 30 of you. I know.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, that's math, dude.

Kyle Beams: actually I actually, I'm made of actually pretty, pretty light parts. So you could, you could toss me around pretty easily, I bet.

Kyle: i know

Kyle Beams: Hey, give me high five.

Kyle: I walk away.

Trevor: What is cotton into you?

Kyle Beams: Dang, what happened to this guy?

Kyle: just

Tommy: He's chit.

Kyle Beams: Damn, he's hard.

Tommy: He's changed.

Kyle Beams: All right.

Kyle: As I walk away, i i so i look at the window and see myself in my reflection. I just start flexing.

Kyle Beams: and

Tommy: His final form, dude. Just absolute himbo.

Kyle Beams: Bash has gone vain. D'Saun, where are we heading?

Tommy: um I kind of want to go check out this Spire.

The Blade's Edge: Did your token get deleted, Trevor?

Trevor: What's that?

Kyle Beams: It's right here.

The Blade's Edge: Did your token get deleted?

Trevor: Nope.

The Blade's Edge: Oh, okay.

Tommy: It just made a shadow.

The Blade's Edge: Oh, okay.

Tommy: It's hard to see.

Trevor: That's true.

The Blade's Edge: There are things on my GM layer that were covering you. Sorry.

Tommy: um

Trevor: No, it's okay.

Tommy: i

Trevor: What was covering me, dude? well i well What was on top of me?

The Blade's Edge: I'll i'll actually i'll actually show you.

Kyle: go

The Blade's Edge: This was covering you.

Tommy: Shadow Dragon?

The Blade's Edge: these are These are everywhere. That's how I know where we are.

Tommy: Shadow Dragon's name is Q21.

Trevor: Oh, that's crazy.

Kyle Beams: Oh my gosh.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, there those are everywhere.

Kyle Beams: It's Columbus.

Trevor: Oh, shit.

Kyle: Quentin the 21st.

Tommy: yeah

Kyle Beams: Columbus 21. I'm with you.

Tommy: um i kind of I kind of want to go higher. Can we get much higher? um

Trevor: So high.

Tommy: Yeah. umm I'm going to head this way and go up more upstairs.

Kyle Beams: I'm with you. i wint you

The Blade's Edge: let me go ahead and um not

Tommy: The hallway with the mirrors, or not the mirrors, it was tantalizing, but think about it. You could go upstairs.

The Blade's Edge: Yes, I will have to move you guys to a.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, does Bash ignore the Hall of Mirrors?

Kyle: No, i would I would go into the Hall of Mirrors for sure.

Kyle Beams: He's going to do it.

Tommy: He's getting ready for Mr. Olympia.

The Blade's Edge: um OK. All

The Blade's Edge: right, so why are you guys just all heading upstairs or or were you doing something else bash?

Kyle: um if everyone's heading upstairs, I'll just head upstairs.

The Blade's Edge: Okay.

Kyle Beams: You can absolutely have your moment.

Kyle: No, there will be plenty of those.

The Blade's Edge: Got it. I moved you guys. You can, I'll ping you. I'll ping you. push good age As you get to the next floor, you see in front of you ah some rubble. You assume that is probably from the um destroyed ceiling from whatever this whatever this place was involved with long ago.

Kyle Beams: um Tommy, I'm getting Karazhan vibes. Like, we're going to Nightbane?

Tommy: I agree. ah enjoy it. And you know what? Dragon.

Kyle Beams: um

Tommy: ah

Tommy: I'm going to go check this rubble.

Kyle Beams: Yeah, go ahead.

Tommy: i'm looking We're looking for ambiguous, quote, treasure. And I don't know what it looks like, but I'm just going to search this rubble I see in front of me.

The Blade's Edge: Sure.

Tommy: Like kind of with my sun sword and kind of just sift around, kind of look for something shiny.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, friendly reminder for you listeners, the what we got was the One of Swords, the Avenger.

Kyle Beams: And can I ahead?

The Blade's Edge: That was the card drawn in the tarot deck, and it said, the treasure lies in a dragon's house, and hands once clean and now corrupted. You knew that was Argonvossault.

Kyle Beams: Mm-hmm.

The Blade's Edge: Um, just on when you get there, the roof over this part of the mansion has collapsed, creating a 20 foot diameter gaping hole with broken rafters bisecting it. Uh, dark storm clouds roll across the sky overhead.

The Blade's Edge: Uh, the, the, the floor is piled with rocks, broken tiles, shattered beams, and other debris beneath the rubble lies a sagging floor and puddles of rainwater.

Trevor: They see me rolling.

The Blade's Edge: um uh and you don't uh you don't see anything uh any treasure among the rubble yeah so that would be 10 minutes cool

Kyle Beams: um Can I start ritually casting Detect Magic?

Kyle Beams: Yeah. um And then i would kind of just start walking around up here and investigating with Dasan.

The Blade's Edge: okay well we'll see let's uh what does everybody do during that 10 minutes because that's uh It takes a little bit time to ritually cast that spell.

Kyle Beams: sure

Tommy: I'm going through the rubble, so that's what I'm doing.

The Blade's Edge: Okay. So that's what you determined through that 10 minutes bashing in Navi.

Kyle: um

The Blade's Edge: What about you guys?

Kyle: I can't move my token.

Trevor: I also can't move the Raven token

The Blade's Edge: Sorry. I'm

Trevor: for whatever reason.

The Blade's Edge: just going to put your guys' tokens past this door over here. Goosh, goosh.

Trevor: Oh, nice. Thank you, sir. Um, I would probably be looking for any signs of the dragon.

The Blade's Edge: Oh, cool. Yeah, why don't you go ahead and make me a perception check.

Tommy: Yeah, because the Taroka card said it was like hands once clean or something like that.

Trevor: Yeah, now corrupted.

Tommy: but maybe the dr yeah Maybe the dragon, if he was corrupted, has the treasure.

Trevor: right

Tommy: okay

The Blade's Edge: With a 17 in Nabi, you guys are going further up, and a lot of this place is destroyed. There's no drag. I mean, if there was a dragon here, it would have to be pretty small. You look up in the skies, don't see one passing overhead.

The Blade's Edge: You're looking at the sizes of each of these rooms. If there was a dragon that was here, i I'd hear it. Obviously, you heard the thing on the first floor, but like i hear it or I'd see it or where could it possibly be? We're going up further to more destroyed stuff and I don't see one anywhere.

Trevor: Right. Okay.

The Blade's Edge: ah So Anabi's doing that. What about you, Bash?

Kyle: yeah I'm kind of just flexing.

The Blade's Edge: performance check.

Kyle: I set up my axe against the wall so I can look at myself in the reflection. 12.

The Blade's Edge: Yeah.

Kyle: well

The Blade's Edge: Nice. it With the only bit of yourself to look at through the acts while your performance might not have been that great. The part that you can see was amazing.

The Blade's Edge: um

Kyle: Amazing.

The Blade's Edge: All right, lovely. At the end of the 10 minutes, um the Saan is done looking through the rubble, and Nabi has determined that if there's a dragon here, it it ain't it ain't here anymore. It ain't close.

The Blade's Edge: um And Stalvadak has finished his Detect Magic. um With that Detect Magic, Stalvadak, I think you get a ping both from this room to the north past these double doors and from this room to the south into the rubble.

Kyle Beams: Okay, I would walk over to Bash and say, ah let's ah let's check out in this room.

Kyle: Which one? Sure.

Kyle Beams: The one to the north view.

Kyle: and I'm going stand kind of on the opposite side of the door. How you're so kind of standing just outside of it. And is the can I try the door handle? Is it locked?

The Blade's Edge: ah Yeah, make me ah make me an investigation check.

Kyle Beams: I can assist him.

The Blade's Edge: Cool, you have advantage.

Kyle: Interesting. Thank you. It'll be 16.

Tommy: Huge.

The Blade's Edge: doesn't look locked, doesn't look trapped. However, with a 16 investigation, I think you hear um you hear the sound of cutlery on the other side of the door.

The Blade's Edge: as you Maybe this the the sounds of eating.

Kyle: How much calorie?

Kyle: Does it sound like one person?

The Blade's Edge: Had multiple people.

Kyle: Multiple people?

Kyle Beams: Well, probably better to catch him now than later. See what's going on.

Kyle: Do we let...

Kyle Beams: We can open the door gently. And I'll walk in.

The Blade's Edge: Cool. Feel free to open the doors.

The Blade's Edge: You guys open the doors, and you see there's a bunch of these guys sitting around a table. um These guys are all wearing ah ah broken chain mail, ah which they they all look ah like they are dead.

The Blade's Edge: And you see this guy at the head of the table. Yeah.

Kyle Beams: Oh, hi. Hey there.

The Blade's Edge: Through the dust and cobwebs of this room, there's dust all over this room, cobwebs hanging everywhere.

Trevor: Sick.

The Blade's Edge: You see faded war banners adorning the walls of this spacious chamber. In the center of this chamber stands a heavy wooden table. An iron chandelier hangs over the table, and the table is surrounded by six high-backed chairs with wood-carved dragons perched atop them.

The Blade's Edge: Slumped in five of the chairs are the skeletal humans in tattered chain mail. And um ah then in this final chair, look almost at the head of the table looks to be ah whoever is in charge.

The Blade's Edge: ah The corpses all at the exact same moment tilt their heads in your direction. And the guy at the head of the table says, Why do you disturb the living dead?

Kyle Beams: Truthfully, we didn't know you guys were <unk> hanging out in here. what are you ah what are you What are you eating?

Kyle: you

Kyle Beams: What are you going for?

The Blade's Edge: ah You see there are like maggots and rats on the table and stuff.

Kyle: Oh god.

Kyle Beams: Damn. ah looks pretty gross.

The Blade's Edge: What brings you to Argenvasthold?

Kyle Beams: Kind of just looking at for cool stuff, and I pushed Bash forward.

Kyle: What?

Trevor: ah like Just looking for cool shit getting in there, dude.

Kyle: We're not here for anything in particular, but we also...

Kyle Beams: but

Kyle: don't mean anything and I also am like I'm not trying to be confrontational but I'm also looking at them with like a sense of judgmental disgust because they're all these like scrawny undead looking twinks

The Blade's Edge: Yeah, make an intimidation check.

Kyle Beams: And I'm going to give him a spark of genius for an extra five.

Kyle: it'll be a dirty 20 so just add plus 5 to that for 25 perfect

Kyle Beams: e

The Blade's Edge: All right, with 25, you see none of them look to challenge you, although they seem maybe equipped to to do so in terms of weaponry and armor. ah This one at the top of the the table gets out and walks down.

The Blade's Edge: towards your way and approaches you and says, Hey, is it just you two or do you have friends?

Kyle Beams: we got We got some boys out there.

The Blade's Edge: Hey, do you mean harm? Do you mean to help?

Kyle Beams: You guys are kind of just living here, right? Just kind of fucking around.

Kyle: Do you need help with something?

The Blade's Edge: He squints his eyes at the verbiage. You guys are just kind of fucking around. As if I'm not sure how to answer.

Kyle Beams: ah

The Blade's Edge: um He says, I

The Blade's Edge: i am Sir Godfrey Quillam.

The Blade's Edge: Sir Godfrey Quillam.

Kyle Beams: That's free.

The Blade's Edge: And he looks a little bit alike. A nice guish.

Kyle Beams: Cool. Yeah, he's pretty awesome.

Kyle: Yeah.

Kyle Beams: Like a white walker with red eyes.

The Blade's Edge: um

The Blade's Edge: And yes, like a white walker, red i thank you for describing. I sometimes forget to do that. And he says um to you guys, Well, I can't help unless you tell me why you've come.

Kyle Beams: ah we've come in search of power.

The Blade's Edge: He sort of cocks his head to that and looks at you in this dark gift hair with your items and bash big and strong with the belt. And he says, Power for what?

Kyle Beams: um

Kyle Beams: Well,

Kyle Beams: ending the ah the vampire reign.

The Blade's Edge: um he ah begins as he ah talks about this inno and Nabi and D'San, maybe you guys ah hear this and are at the doorway listening in or, but you know, peeking in.

The Blade's Edge: And as he begins talking, the room behind him with cobwebs and, you know, spider webs and dust, ah you guys see almost a almost like a minor image, major image, sort of picture of the past be built as he says, well, long ago. And then he continues, and I will continue my normal voice.

The Blade's Edge: ah Long ago, when Strahd drove his enemies into the valley, determined to annihilate them, the last thing he expected to encounter was a silver dragon.

The Blade's Edge: The dragon who car who called himself Argenvast had come to the valley years earlier in the guise of a nobleman named Lord Argenvast. ah The dragon didn't lair in the valley solely because of its idyllic beauty.

The Blade's Edge: He knew of a place called the Amber Temple, a repository of evil power guarded by the forces of good.

Kyle: you

The Blade's Edge: Argenvast wanted to make sure that whatever was trapped inside the Amber Temple wouldn't be allowed to escape, so he built his fortified mansion, Argenvast told close by. Like many silver dragons, Argenvast was extraordinarily wealthy, and he was comfortable living among humans while disguised as one of them.

The Blade's Edge: He used his resources to attract other champions of good, and valorous knights flocked to the valley to join Lord Argenvast's prestigious Order of the Silver Dragon,

The Blade's Edge: Only those who were initiated into the Order were told of or Lord Argenvoss' true nature. During the war between Strahd and his phone foes, the Order of Silger Dragon was drove ah drove away malefactors searching for the andber Amber Temple.

The Blade's Edge: It also sheltered Strahd's enemies and ah proved ah more than a match for Strahd's battle-weary soldiers. But the early victories of the Order didn't win the war. Even with Argenvast on their side, the knights were ultimately overwhelmed when Strahd's reinforcements swept into the valley.

The Blade's Edge: Those forces slew the last of the knights and battled the dragon inside Argenvastolt. After the dragon was slain, Strahd had its corpse hacked to pieces, stripped to the bone, and transported to Castle Ravenloft as a trophy.

The Blade's Edge: Since the dragon's death, Argron Vosthold has become a haunted ruin, a former bastion of nobility and light, turned into a place of desolation and unrest.

The Blade's Edge: And as he finishes this story about the um order of the Order of the Silver Dragon, which I just will put that entire thing there.

Kyle Beams: Gnarly. harly

The Blade's Edge: He says to you guys, um... He says, Well, I can tell that the spirit of Argenvast isn't at rest and isn't happy that the Order has been reduced to such a state.

The Blade's Edge: Ah. He says, um...

The Blade's Edge: Uh... He says, However, if you are able... Um...

The Blade's Edge: do do do Hold on, hold on.

The Blade's Edge: He says, if you are able to put the spirit of Argenvast to rest. He looks back at the soldiers in this room.

The Blade's Edge: He says, you will have our swords in the battle against Strahd.

Kyle Beams: Wow.

The Blade's Edge: As he says that, lightning behind him cracks through an opening in the ceiling, and you hear thunder. And with that thunder, a roar.

The Blade's Edge: As you look and you swear, you see in the clouds, up in the sky, the silhouette of a silver dragon. And that's where we'll end this week.

Kyle Beams: Oh, yeah.

Kyle: Damn.

The Blade's Edge: ah Thank you guys for joining and we will see you next week for part two of the Argen Vostelt and, and beyond ah once again, ah for the blades edge signing off.

Kyle Beams: Ooh. woo

The Blade's Edge: Thanks so much. ah Bye.