Session 37

General Summary

Boom go the Fireworks

Sintyavr 27th

(1:00 PM)

Victor's not a bad dude, I guess?

Victor directs the party to a ramshackle hut at the mouth of the Luna River to the west, which Szoldar and his partner, Yevgeni Krushkin, have turned into a dressing shack for skinning, gutting, and butchering their kills.
To get there, Victor says to travel north, past Vallaki’s Zarovich Gate, and then travel west along the shores of Lake Zarovich.
Before leaving, Vincenzo asks about Izek Strazni and learns that Victor has no love for him...he despises and fears Izek Strazni, who killed Victor’s childhood cat, Miska, by kicking it across a room when it wandered into his path two years ago. (Victor has since reanimated Miska’s skeleton through the use of his animate dead spell learned from Khazan's spellbook.

Tiptoeing and Trespassing

Vincenzo "drilled" a hole into Izek's room from the attic and misty stepped into into it while Verce stumbled around the entirety of the manor searching for the right door to join him (luckily concealed by Victor's invisibility spell just long enough)
Dolls. This room is full of pretty little dolls with powder-white skin and auburn hair, some of them dressed beautifully, others plainly. Some of the dolls fill a long bookshelf, and others are arranged in neat rows on wall-mounted shelves. Still others are piled atop a bed and a heavy wooden chest. What's most odd is that all of the dolls, apart from their clothing, look the same. They all look like Ireena Kolyana.
After turning out the room, and leaving their mark in various ways (a note, pissed sheets, a sawed off bed leg, molested Ireena dolls, etc.) the party makes their way to Lake Zarovich.

The Wolf Hunters

At the foot of a mountain, nestled in the misty forest, is a large lake. The water is perfectly still and dark, reflecting the black clouds overhead like a monstrous mirror.

The path ahead is uneven, littered with pebbles and overgrown in parts by moss and wild grass. To the left, the trees of the Svalich Wood stand tall and foreboding; to the right, a chill breeze sweeps in from the lake, tinged with a faint, brackish scent and the damp earthiness of old silt. Other than the mournful croak of a distant raven, the only sound that breaks the eerie silence is the squelching of mud beneath your feet and the quiet lapping of the waves against the shore.
It's not long, however, before the air is tinged with the faint scents of fur and a familiar, metallic tang. Ahead, you can hear the sound of rushing water, and see a place where the dark waters of the lake flow swiftly into a river that disappears southward into the dark woods. A small, crudely built shack stands tucked away near the water's edge, its timbers worn and weathered with age.
Not far away lies an old stone slab, resting on a cracked, mossy stone circle.
It bears a carving of a butterfly, the grooves lined with lichen and moss.

The walls of this cramped shack are stained dark with age and use. Knives, cleavers, traps, and chains hang from the walls, each one well-cleaned and oiled. Animal pelts hang from the rafters, their empty eyes seeming to watch you as you pass.
Szoldar instantly recognizes them as the newcomers residing at the Blue Water Inn. Szoldar and Yevgeni (who appears to be mute) are glad to serve as guides if paid, which Verce does in the form of free rides on Fenrir.

Szolder describes the following route:

Exit Vallaki from the western Sunset Gate, then cross the bridge that fords the Luna River.

Take the northern branch of the Luna River crossroads, which is marked “Lake Baratok” on a nearby signpost.

Continue down the path as it bends through the woods, before ultimately arriving at the lake.

Szoldar also warns the players to be cautious of werewolves on the Svalich Road and northern path. The woods to the west of Vallaki—and especially the woods around Lake Baratok—are the preferred hunting grounds of a local werewolf pack.
The werewolves's recent flurry of activity has made Szoldar suspect that the pack has come under the leadership of a new, more reckless alpha. He doesn’t know where the werewolves’ den is, but he cautions the players to keep an eye out for anything strange or unusual.

(2:00 PM)

Follow the Merry Svalich Road

Along the way the players notice a silhouette watching them a distance away from the southern treeline along Lake Zarovich's shore. As the players approach the silhouette, it vanishes leaving no trace.
The road comes to an X intersection, with branches to the northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast.
Scattered across the intersection are four, small dead saplings, their branches and trunks blackened and gnarled. Some lean at slight angles, while others stand stubbornly upright, their twig-like structures idle and quiet in the windless air.
Nearby, a pair of scarecrows appear to have been mounted along two separate trees, bodies hewn of rough straw and weathered cloth clinging to twisted, low-hanging branches. Their painted sackcloth eyes seem almost mocking, and black raven's feathers poke from their stuffed guts.
The lower half of a snapped wooden signpost thrusts upward at an angle near the eastern elbow of the intersection. The top half of the sign, featuring arms pointing in four directions, lies in the weeds nearby.
Szoldar warns the party that the saplings and scarecrows are new additions to the crossroads they were not here since he last passed the area with Yevgeni.
Vincenzo approaches one of the scarecrows to poke it with a stick and it springs to terrifying life and attacks. The saplings also come barreling towards the party as some more come pouring out of the woods.
Yevgeni and Szolder handily assist he party with dispatching the foul beings, with Yevgeni sustaiining a nasty slashing wound that is healed by Verce.

There was a FIREFIGHT!

(4:00 PM)

The Tower Draws Near

The companions come to a cold mountain lake enclosed by misty woods and rocky bluffs. Thick fog creeps across the dark, still waters. The trail ends at a grass-covered causeway that stretches a hundred yards across the lake to a flat, marshy island with a stone tower on it. The tower is old and decrepit, with collapsing scaffolds clinging to one side where a large gash has split the wall. Timeworn griffon statues, their wings and flanks covered with moss, perch atop buttresses that support the walls.

Parked near the base of the tower, within sight of the entrance, is a barrel-topped wagon spattered with mud.
Under layers of mud, this wagon sports a fresh coat of purple paint, and its wheels have fancy gold trim. A brass lantern hangs from each corner, and red drapes cover a tombstone-shaped window on each side. A steel padlock secures the back door.
A trio of wooden signs has been arranged vertically in a haphazard diagonal across the back door. The signs read, in order:

“Keep out!”, “Home & Property of Ezmerelda d’Avenir,” and “Trespassers will be immediately incinerated.”Beneath the warning on the third sign, someone has drawn a small frowning face with crossed-out eyes, surrounded by a stylized flame.

The party approaches the wagon and detects a faint scent of sulfur, and notices that the grass around it appears to have been tramped down by many feet. Szoldar points out after a brief investigation that the tracks were left by a pack of wolves the previous night, which evidently inspected the wagon before leaving it alone and advises them against interfering with the wagon.
The wagon radiates an aura of conjuration magic that was noticed by Vince and confirmed by Hammer.
The wagon has been parked here for no more than forty-eight hours, it seems.
The decision was made to pry open the backdoor with a crowbar, and Verce sets to work.
Unfortunately the inside handle of the door had a wire looped around it, and the wire was connected to a flask of alchemist's fire hanging from the wagon's ceiling. When the door was opened, the flask fell and exploded, igniting one hundred more flasks of alchemist's fire that dangled from wires like ornaments along the wagon's interior walls.
Everyone was blown backwards and sustained heavy injuries, Szolder was unfortunately instantly killed, Yevgeni was knocked unconscious but was stabilized by the party, and poor fenrir was blown back to the ether from whence he was summoned.
The vardo and whatever it may have contained is nownothing but broken bits of wood, smoldering fire and ash.

Open, Says Me

The tower door is made of iron, with no visible handles or hinges. In the middle of the door is a large, embossed, blank red seal. Carved into the lintel above the door is a word: Khazan.
The seal appears to be blank. However, when approached within 5 feet of the door, eight fist-sized buttons grow from its waxlike surface.
When moving away from the door, the buttons vanish once more. The buttons emerge in different places each time, but the order of the buttons as they move around the seal always stays the same.
Vincenzo identifies the runes as the symbols of the eight schools of magic. The order of the symbols, moving clockwise around the seal, is always: illusion, abjuration, necromancy, conjuration, divination, enchantment, transmutation, evocation.
Comparing the signet ring found by Savid to the symbols on the seal shows that the evocation and necromancy runes exactly match the appearance of their corresponding symbols on the door.
Each time a button is pressed, its symbol glows with a color.