Session 52 & 53

General Summary

The Whispering Wall

Octyavr 2nd

(6:15 AM)

The Ritual Begins

The dark storm roils overhead — and a single bolt of lightning lances down from the boiling clouds, surrounding the statue in a nimbus of white, blinding light. A deep groan seems to shudder through the very earth of the hill, and the wind around you whips up into a hot and heavy gale, tearing through the tall grass as it shrieks across the hilltop.

The sounds of chanting and drum beats intensify—and sparks of deep, viridian energy begin to arc across the earth and toward the statue.
The thirteen druid naturalists encircling the statue continue chanting and beating their drums. While participating in the ritual, the druids appear immobile due to their feet being lashed in place by oozing, grasping black roots stabbing outward from the hill itself encasing and stabbing into their legs. Their eyes rolled back until only the whites show.
The two druid assailants and two berserkers flanking Ludmilla move forward to prevent the party and Muriel from approaching the statue, by force if necessary, apparently.
Abruptly cutting short her provocations, Ludmilla encapsulates herself within a swirling shroud of shadows and misty steps towards the ritualists’ circle, 30 feet in the air, where she hovers glaring at you all through cold calculating eyes.
As soon as her enforcers move forward. She creates a cyclone of sinister gray fog 60 feet wide and 150 feet tall around the eathernworks statue to cover her retreat.

Unto the Breach

Rumex and Vincenzo blend with the shadows and break off from the group, Rumex dashing between darkened patches and dessicated trees to gain a vantage point from which to set up a sniper's roost, warily eyeing some dug-up patches of dirt, wondering what may be concealed inside. Vincenzo determined to sneak around the outside of the stone circle and attempt to procure the emerald gem from the statue while others are distracted.
Vercinissistrix rides forth upon Fenrir and leaps off his mount's back in a furious full frontal attack, intending to punch a hole through the first wave of attackers, followed closely by Ilyson already doubling his height to a formidible 12 feet, launching javelin-sized arrows as he closes the distance.
Ozan quickly protects his allies reading from the Scroll of Bless he picked up weeks ago in the cursed Durst manor and implores Lathander to send his might in the form of a spectral hammer which burts forth and harries the combatants ahead.

A Lycanthropic Revelation

Ludmilla's Voice carries forth above the din of the windswept hills with mild curiosity. She is speaking to Muriel, "I saw how you reacted when I mentioned the wereraven's death. Did you know him perhaps? Was he someone close to you?"
A small, cold smile colors the words that the wind carries. "Do you want to know why I dissect my test subjects? In their final moments, people reveal their true selves—their deepest fears and regrets. In a way, I know him better than you ever did."
A calculating, predatory shot is fired. "Would you like to know if he was a coward in the end?"
Muriel's face turns white, and she begins to tremble, heaving with exertion and rage. Verce's plea for tactical integrity falls on deaf ears.

An anguished howl bursts from Muriel's lips—lips which, you notice, are suddenly growing longer, harder, and as sharp as an avian's beak. The sound of ripping fabric pierces the air as two enormous, black-feathered, blue-tipped wings tear from her back, her hands gripping two shortswords and feet shriveling into gnarled raven's claws. With a shriek of rage and impotent fury, Muriel spreads her wings and launches into the air. She hurtles at incredible speed headlong into the maelstrom of fog. A muffled, strangled cry of pain is heard through the cyclone.

The Swirling Fog and the Writhing Roots

While the front line mops up the initial defenders with a combination of brute force, runic charm, target practice and sleep spells...lightning crashes down and strikes the circular stone wall, narrowly missing Vincenzo as he crests over it enroute to the cyclone from behind.
He notices the energy crackilng from that bolt, leaping and diving through the ground towards the center of the maelstrom.
Realization begins to set in that time is of the essence, he must get to that damned gem and disrupt the ritual, or we're all in big trouble.
He sprints through the fog, fighting though the voices and specters within, tugging upon his very soul, whispering his doubts and sapping his strength, he emerges on the other side and stops to catch his breath for a moment. The ring on his finger pulses once, almost imperceptably, and a gray hair appears on the back of his hand.

A druid at the center of the circle lifts his hands high, clasping a thin, stone-gray wand in his pale, bony fingers. At his gesture, the ring of black roots that surrounded the chanting druids pulsates as if alive, quivering and writhing as their blackened bark rises into the air. Thorns—long, wicked, and sharp—erupt from the roots' edges, even as droplets of crimson blood bead upon the roots' soft, spongy surfaces. The roots themselves grow vertically, twisting and intertwining, until they form a wall of dark, impenetrable foliage thirty feet high and fifteen feet deep. Black roots pierce from its sides and rise into the air above it, where they tremble and writhe like slick, muddy tendrils. The druid is Svarog, and the wand that he wields is the one mentioned by Kavan.

Verce crashes through upon Fenrir, fighting the same tug upon his soul within the swirling fog and his snarling mount is immediately met with a greasy, sludgelike puddle....tendrils of it rise and snake up the legs and torso of Fenrir and would have ensnared Verce as well if he had not spread his wings and let the currents of the swirling fog at his back lift him him into the air to witness...

Muriel, moving as if shot from a ballista, her shortswords held akimbo, gleaming tips pointed forward, aiming to run the vampire bride through. She strikes true, yet Ludmilla barely winces, the wounds that should have opened on her opened on Muriel instead. Muriel's blood pours onto the ground, forming crimson pools in the muddy earth. As you watch, small black roots extrude from the wall of roots and pierce the pools' surface, bulges of liquid traversing the roots' length as they drink greedily of the spilled blood.

Verce attempts to persuade Muriel to cease attacking Ludmilla after seeing this, and it seems as if his words are beginning to take effect, but for how long?
Ilyson fearlessly treads through the fog, and is confronted by the now 30 foot tall writhing wall of roots, he hefts his great axe and begins to chop away, his mind made up that this dark ritual must end.
Rumex, lightning swift, traverses the first barrier and quickly scans for an opening through this new obstacle...he spots his friend hacking away to the north and makes a break for him, deftly avoiding the thorns that whip out in his direction from the wall.
Ozan makes his plunge and is immediately stuck in the same greasy patch as Fenrir, who has broken free and who begins to chew the cleric free from the snake-like oily tendrils.

Time is Running Short, Curses!

Lightning strikes continue, and that energy crackles through the ground once more and travels straight towards the enormous Strahd effigy; suffusing pure energy throughout the twisted branches, twigs and mud and empowering the emerald-green gem in its chest, glowing brighter with each bolt from the sky.
Vincenzo leaps, using misty step and his momentum to clear the wall of roots, blinking past the dangerous tentacles swaying above it and comes crashing down upon one of the chanting druids, he scrambles to his feet, past Svarog and unleashes eldritch magics directly at the towering statue's chest , nearly blasting the gem free but nevertheless cratering a large flaming opening by which he thinks he can grab it. He begins to climb.
Verce attempts to close in on Ludmilla but she flees from both Muriel and himself with another well timed misty step, retreating behind the statue, buying time for the ritual to be completed.
Verce sees the entire battlefield change for a moment, seeing a peaceful druidical group celebrating the nature of life before shaking off the vision and coming to his senses. The sandpapery ring on his finger changing its shape when he snaps to, and the combatants have moved away from him once more.
Verce changes strategies...the ritual can't be completed if there is no one left to complete it...he exhales his radiant breath, severely injuring a few of the chanting druids. He begins to cut a path through them on his way to confront Ludmilla once more.
Muriel pursues as well, with the same result as she frustratingly can't seem to penetrate the shroud of shadows protecting Ludmilla. Spilling more of her own blood which seems to regrow some of the wall that Ilyson had almost broken through.
Ozan, freed from the entangling slime, uses his Steps of the Night bestowed upon him through his fell heritage, and attempts to fly over the wall of roots where he is grabbed by the razor-thorned tendrils and mercilessly slammed into the ground, held prone by the vines, bearing witness to the carnage and horror before him. He vows to protect his friends and suffuses his surroundings with a pale blue light, granting an aura of health to all near him.
Vince is blown off the effigy and the fire is doused by Svarog's command of the winds, so the tiefling retaliates by throwing bolts of fire towards Svarog, who captures the energy in his hands and gets set to fling it back...if he had stayed alive long enough to return it. Svarog is cut down from behind by a combination of arrows big and small from the duo who burst through the wall behind him, Rumex and Ilyson. Ilyson secures the wand that falls to the ground.
Through a weird cursed twist of fate, one of the arrows pulled from Rumex' new quiver transformed into a swarm of poisonous snakes in his hand and added a new wrinkle that definitely wasn't needed.

This Ends Now

Sparks of green lightning arc from the statue, shocking all within the wall of roots. It seems the ritual is beginning to falter, the more druids are cut down. A gruesome path towards success, albeit an effective one. Verce is reedeming the souls of these forest folk at a fast clip, sending them to Bahamut to be judged, apparently.
Vincenzo blasts more fire towards the effigy's chest freeing the gem within the chest cavity, but failing to knock it loose, he begins to climb once more yet he reignited the flames and finds the climbing difficult, falling once more as the statue begins to crumble.
Rumex, calling upon all the speed and nimbleness his training has provided, makes it up to the chest cavity and grabs ahold of the gem, quickly pocketing it and then also falling backwards off the collapsing Wicker-Strahd.
Ludmilla seeing her experiment falling apart, swings around to an advantageous position an unleashes an immense crackling bolt of electricity drawn directly from the ground towards Verce, Fenrir, Ilyson, Rumex and Ozan (even sacrificing one of her druids)...all conveniently lined up in a row...each bearing the brunt to different degrees, save Ozan.
Ozan is struck direct and is flung againt the wall of roots, which itself is partially shattered and ignites in flames. Ozan slumps to the floor, unconscious...his twilight sanctuary snuffed.

Bolts of brilliant viridian lightning crackle across the statue's surface, and the air within the circle grows thick with ozone. All around you, the druids wail and gnash their teeth, casting down their drums and staffs as they fruitlessly work to free themselves of the roots that bind them to the black earth below. One then lifts the staff from his shoulders to the sky, chanting words of desperation and defiance. The wind whips into a frenzied gale, screaming through your ears, as the bark of the statue begins to splinter and creak. The electric potential suffusing the air grows to a terrible peak around the statue, your flesh prickling with the energy impatiently waiting to be unleashed.

Verce finally gets the better of Ludmilla, pumping divine radiance into his swings and damaging her shroud of shadows directly, bringing her to the ground and making her susceptible to attack, Muriel joins him in the attack sensing revenge.
A portal opens behind Ludmilla, which she falls backwards into with a smile, and vanishes from the battlefield, denying the true taste of victory. Muriel shrieks with rage.
Swarms of ravens descend to gently lift the body of Ozan, who has suddenly stopped breathing mere seconds before Rumex could lift a healing potion to his lips and carry him outside the now collapsed wall of roots.
More swarms descend to carry the party away from the building vibrational energy of the interior of the Druid's Circle of Yester Hill.
The now fully collapsed Effigy of Strahd explodes, releasing blinding white hot energy within the circle obliterating the druids left behind.

Muriel’s Confession

Muriel sincerely and shamefacedly apologizes for attacking Ludmilla even after realizing what her blood was doing for the wall of roots. “Everything felt so far away," she says, quietly. “I thought I was going to lose myself, I was so angry." If the players brought , She is deeply grateful to Verce for bringing her back to her senses.
Asked about her transformation she explains, like all of the members of the Keepers of the Feather, that she is a wereraven—a lycanthrope cursed to assume the form of a raven beneath the light of the full moon (the reason why she stayed behind during the assault on the winery).
Muriel confirms that Elric Martikov was the Keeper who bestowed the curse upon her, and who initiated her into the Keepers of the Feather.
Her lycanthropy allows her to assume the form of a raven or a raven-humanoid hybrid, and provides her with regenerative abilities and flight, though silvered weapons are lethal to her.
Apparently, certain kinds of dark magic appear to be lethal to her as well.
Her betrothed, Elric Martikov, was a wereraven who accompanied Doru’s rebellion in raven form, seeking to provide guidance to the ramshackle mob. He never returned from Castle Ravenloft—evidently, because Ludmilla killed him.

(7:30 AM)

The Whispering Wall

The party makes there way down to where Strahd invited them to meet him should they prove succesful in their wager.

A shadowed wall of impenetrable fog looms above the earth here, stretching forth to meet the heavens far above. Strange shapes and silhouettes seem to drift through its depths, and distant voices seem to whisper just out of earshot.

Strahd is indeed here, kneeling before the wall, thirty feet away from Beucephalus. (Inspecting Beucephalus visually, you all notice that the nightmare's saddlebags appear to be empty.)
He rises and appears to pocket something in his cloak. He welcomes you warmly, and congratulates you on defeating the Forest Folk.
Asked whether he regrets Ludmilla's defeat, Strahd smiles and claims that "a reminder of her place will be good for her" — although, he notes, she is unlikely to forget her humiliation, even after licking her wounds.
Strahd thanks the party for playing "his little game," and congratulates them on winning their wager. He welcomes them to the Whispering Wall, and shares that the ancestors of the Forest Folk believed it to be the corpse or tomb of an ancient god, whose last exhalation of divinity produced this mist.
He tells you these ancestors believed the Wall to offer visions of one's deepest desires, if one entered it as a pilgrim. "It is a powerful thing, to know oneself and one's desires," he says, adding softly. "and yet dangerous, as well."
Asked whether he has stepped into the Wall himself, Strahd nods. Asked what he sees within the Wall, he shares that he sees a "white fortress above a great city, with a church bell ringing through the fog."

Before giving you your reward from winning the wager, he asks you to complete one simple task: You must step into the Wall and view your deepest desires. "I will not ask what you see," he promises. "One's desires are their own." He warns you, however, that many have become lost in the Whispering Wall, too entranced by its visions to depart. "It guides you forward, but you must leave under your own power," he says. Strahd promises that each person who enters the Wall and returns safely will receive an additional gift: a shard of the power of the Whispering Wall itself. He wonders aloud, however, whether you will have the strength of will to do so. "Lesser men often lose themselves to its illusions," he says, a taunting glint in his eye. "They trade life for dreams, and receive neither. They are lost to the mist, doomed to remain there for eternity."

One by one, everyone decides to throw caution to the wind, whether to prove their courage to Strahd, or to see what the land of Barovia thinks of them, personally. Or perhaps it is merely the promise of more loot. Bunch of goblins.
Muriel declines to enter the Wall alongside them. “I’ll take no gift from von Zarovich," she says quietly. “And I know what I’d see, anyway."
Click here to see what our players saw: Whispering Wall Visions

The Payoff

When all have returned from the Wall, Strahd retrieves a small, luminescent object from a pocket within his cloak and holds it into the air. (it resembles a spark of light condensed into solid form.)
"As promised," Strahd says, "your reward." He touches the spark to the edge of the Whispering Wall, and then draws it back toward him. As he does so, several tendrils of mist extrude from the Wall and condense into small gemstones which hover in the air. There are four of them, each no larger than a fingernail. Two are gray, two are silver.
Strahd then presents them to the party, allowing you to choose which you take. He shares only that a gray gemstone will lead its bearer to an object of their desire, and that a silver gemstone will take their bearer to a place they wish to go. "They are, of course, not the most powerful artifacts," Strahd notes. "The Wall is the product of a dead god, after all."
Asked about the nature of the spark Strahd holds, he holds it up to the light and remarks, thoughtfully, "A glede — a dragon's eye, it's called in some cultures. A spark of power, made tangible," asking how Strahd obtained it, he offers a small, tight smile and notes only that, "Some things must be earned."

The Reward

Strahd presents them their reward for defeating the Forest Folk: the twilight crest. “It is said that the god who died here, though its name is lost to time, left several relics behind. This is one of them."
He then mounts Beucephalus once again, bids you all farewell, and notes that he looks forward to seeing you at dinner. He and Beucephalus then vanish into the Ethereal Plane.