Day 58: The Trial of the Mountain Fane

"We have to use the power of friendship to kill god." —Bolay

General Summary

Day 58 (Волчаялуна 6, 736/?)

The first among the party to notice the sprouting of the sacred yew the next day was Ayduin, who then had to pass an excruciating four hours waiting for sleeping plebes to wake up. As the party realized the momentous occasion was upon them, they did their best to prepare for the journey into the heart of tuama beannaithe, realizing as they did that two of their number would not be joining them: both Grghshnq and Godfrey hung back, sensing they were not welcome in the Huntress's domain. Bodaway left a note and a gift with Makar to be delivered to Bray, and the party began to crawl into the tunnel beneath the sprout's unnaturally thick roots, with no small amount of trepidation at Ri-An and Bodaway's size in relation to the tunnel's.
As they descended, each of them was overcome with a sense of destiny approaching — as if, finally, all their labours and struggles were about to pay off. This seemed even more plausible when they emerged, at the end of the tunnel, not into an earthen space but one of carefully constructed stone. Not only an unexpected space, but one recognizable to one of their number: Bodaway, who informed his fellows that they'd found themselves in the lair of the Raven Queen. What possible connection these two quasi-goddesses with their morally ambiguous portfolios might have, none of them could say, but they let Bodaway lead them, as all of them felt, with every step, that they were closing in on fate itself.
Checking an alcove, they found a tarokka card, face down, and elected to leave it where it was. They followed the pull of destiny, finding themselves in a room whose floor was strangely full of holes... and subject to an ambush by a creature who had been invisibly chilling on the ceiling. The creature proceeded to attack them, nearly killing Sylvain, before Ayduin managed to destroy it.
While being teleported around by the creature, Sylvain noticed an antlered skull in another alcove. They went back to examine the tarokka card, and beltedly realized it was a boon, granting Bodaway advantage on his next death saving throw. With this in mind, they went to take the skull — just in case.
Scouting ahead, they heard a low droning, and found clouds upon clouds of stirges lining the walls of a tunnel, attached to the winding roots that lined the ceiling and walls — roots which, it seems, were filled with blood. Sneaking away from this grim sight, they found a room where it seemed they might be able to rest, complete with an abandoned campfire, countless grim druidic tokens hanging from the low ceiling, writing and pictograms on the walls, and a foreboding chasm in the floor.
Resting here to recover their strength, Ri-An was able to identify the skull as a token that allowed the bearer to understand druidic — through its use, they could read one phrase written prominently above the chasm in the floor: “And they shall be made to crawl on their bellies into the realm of the dead.”
Going down this next tunnel, which was even more nerve-wracking than the first, they found themselves in a twisting network of tunnels, much like those Osrin had faced in Ayduin's resurrection by the grace of the Huntress. Finding themselves separated from one another one by one, they each had three visitations from the dead — some known to them, some not; some coming individually, others in pairs.
The first encounter Sylvain had was with Mozef Farrowreaper and the noble he'd killed on Renata's behalf. While the old man and the noble made a valiant attempt to get the vengeance they perceived they were owed, Sylvain side-eyed them a lot, killing the noble (again) and walking away to excuse himself from fighting an old man.
Osrin endured a trial of a different sort, coming face to face with Sinariel, the only aasimar before her to set foot in Barovia — and one who Osrin herself had killed in vampire spawn form. Sinariel thanked Osrin for freeing her from an eternity of servitude, and Osrin had 0 feelings about anything ever.
The emotional hits kept coming, with Bodaway once again seeing Thornbuldt Durst — along with the man who'd mentored him as a child, Captain Mason Hoight. They spoke, Mason expressing his pride in how Bodaway had turned out, and Thorn asking them as many random questions as possible.
Ayduin got perhaps a bigger curveball than his companions, meeting none other than Gary, the sixth guy who'd been drawn from the Trollskull into the Feywild with them, who'd parted ways with the party when he found a comfortable new seat in the lap of an archfey. Ayduin quickly deduced this choice hadn't worked out well for Gary, who may or may not have been eaten by a hag after another archfey turned up, looking for Ayduin and furious that he was no longer there.
Ri-An was also perplexed to meet an unknown Vistana woman who would have been recognizable to only one of their party, though there was something familiar in her air. She asked after Ri-An, trying her best to comfort them before they moved on.
Sylvain was the next to face an emotional assault, mirroring Bodaway in his next visitation of a Durst sibling and a beloved mentor. Cadim accompanied a Rosavalda Durst who was much older than Sylvain had ever seen her, a glimpse of the young woman she might have become, had she only been given the opportunity. Like Bodaway, Sylvain relished the opportunity to speak with his late mentor, lingering for some time and making use of the alchemy jug's wine supply.
Next, Ri-An faced down not one but two children, neither of whom they'd ever met before. In time, they realized the reason for this visitation: Myrtle had been one of the children originally kept at the windmill, killed by its triumvirate of hags after the party elected to press on to Vallaki; the teen winding her way around Ri-An's ball with meows and purrs, meanwhile, was none other than Stella Wachter, who burned alive in her home after the riots at the Festival of the Blazing Sun. Stella, at least, seemed to bear Ri-An no ill will, and though there was a measure of darkness to Myrtle, her animosity was muted.
Bodaway was the next of the party to face a battle against the restless dead, facing off against the second most influential captain in his past: Captain Lafferty. Once again mirroring Sylvain, Bodaway killed him (again).
Ayduin also found himself in battle, facing a Fiona Wachter who looked younger than he'd ever seen her, and who refused to back down from the fight no matter how much Ayduin protested.
Osrin also met a hostile ghost, though this one didn't escalate to a fight: she met the man she'd beaten to death after the murder of Luvridin, at the start of her downward path to the status of a fallen aasimar. He said his piece, she accepted it, and she walked away.
The final round of the dead was the most taxing for the party, though more than a few of them had some idea what to expect. Each of them was gifted a boon, and each of them left the interaction with a simple, identical message: "The only way out is down."
Ayduin was the first to meet his most personal ghost, and her presence in itself was an unwelcome revelation: his sister Valdi, who last he'd been aware was still very much alive. Through her, Ayduin learned some details other NPCs had not seen the point of burdening the party with: how the Misty Forest had begun to see increased fae activity in the wake of Ayduin's disappearance, culminating in an assault on his community that left Valdi, along with two of their brother Umeran's minor children, dead. Valdi seemed to be at peace with her demise, but intent on the warning her presence provided: whatever business Ayduin had in the Feywild, it was not done with him.
Next, Osrin spoke to Luvridin — a truer visitation than that she'd been tempted with in the dream where she'd regained her full aasimar nature. They reassured her, held her, and congratulated her on finally beginning to push past some of her grief and self-blame. When asked if it had really been them in her vision, all Luvridin could say was... sort of?
Bodaway was the next to meet a family member, more expected than Valdi: his mother Atha, who had been dead for longer than most of his party has been alive. Though the party didn't witness the meeting firsthand, if they had it wouldn't have taken them long to pick up on certain family resemblances, as much in personality as anything. When Bodaway brought up some of the less than Lawful Good actions he'd taken, Atha scoffed at the idea that she'd be upset by them. She taught him to survive, and that was just what he'd done.
Ri-An's final visitation wasn't family, per se, though they were related in a sense: a mysterious, flickering figure that identified themself only as the Dancer revealed themself, bit by bit, to be... part of Ri-An. It seemed that they, along with others, had parts of their soul sundered, to be woven together by arcane means into something new: the soul of Ri-An. Though the Dancer had some understandable resentment on this count, they and Ri-An were able to discuss things peacefully enough, sharing a dance together before they bid each other farewell.
Finally, Sylvain had his own long-expected visitation — once again mirroring Bodaway, as his own mother (a mere 23 years dead) appeared before him. Again, certain family resemblances were evident, in snark, guilt complexes, and Emotions. Hazel admitted that she'd had much less to do with Sylvain's survival and the man he'd become than she wished she could claim, expressing gratitude for those who'd stepped up to keep him alive when she'd failed to. (Sylvain will probably be unpacking this conversation for at least a few decades.) When asked if he'd like to know anything more about his father, Sylvain asked if he needed to know anything more. When Hazel admitted that no, that wasn't really the case, Sylvain shut that door.
One by one, the party found one another again, in various states of emotional disarray. They also found another crevasse, one even more foreboding than the first tunnels. Like any reasonable people, they decided to send Bodaway to scout ahead, as he could become a bat and fly down to investigate any possible threats. What they didn't anticipate was that the moment Bodaway entered the final stage of their trial, he would be attacked by the darkness itself — just as Ri-An had in Ayduin's resurrection — and they would be forced to rush to his rescue.
The next three minutes passed in tension, terror, disorientation and the threat of despair. A variety of creatures came hunting the party, including howlers, rutterkin, zombies, and a druid-who-was-not-a-druid. Only Sylvain faced the threat of the rutterkins' poison, and only Bodaway knew what a miracle it was that he didn't become an abyssal wretch the moment he fell unconscious after. Osrin employed tremendous restraint not hitting things after Sanctuary was cast on her, only to realize in a fury that she should have been hitting things the whole damn time. Once the fighter was permitted a fight, her companions picking off those foes she didn't mow through personally, the tide began to turn, their enemies fleeing into the darkness that intermittently bubbled forth, trying to steal both our heroes and their light sources.
Ri-An theorized that one of them would need to die to escape the Huntress's lair, taking a more metaphorical approach to the concept of "down," while Sylvain noticed a faint downwards slope to the ground, suggesting they try the literal approach first. Scouting carefully, maintaining iron grips on their light sources, the party found various walls-that-may-not-have-been-walls, fighting waves of nauseous terror the closer they got to the void, before beginning to find signs of hope: water, and definitely-walls, and a space where their lights and sights — partially disabled by the space they'd been in — began to function normally again.
Though it took some of them longer than others — somewhere in the backs of Bodaway, Osrin, and Ayduin's minds, the Benny Hill theme played — eventually the party found themselves all in a relatively safe space again, and Ri-An began to come down from the verge of panic they'd been dancing along. They found a spiralling path leading down to a dark pit, and a small shrine to the Huntress, where they stopped to pay their respects.

"When I learned how to cast Light, Lu gave me this to make it easier to do. I never took it off since they died. It was a reminder that they were gone and that it was my fault. . . . Loss and death are part of life, whether we want them to be or not. I'm grateful for the time we had, and thankful to you for letting me say goodbye." — Osrin, heavily paraphrased

"I wish I knew more to make you happy. It seems to be something of a theme that someone better should be here, but we're here instead to do the job. We've been lucky — so lucky things like you have been looking out for us. I offer this symbol of you, and our small place in restoring you. Help us on our hunt." — Bodaway, heavily paraphrased

"I always knew I was comprised of not just machinery but also multiple machines with their own desires. You've shown me more of my own nature and the sacrifices that were made, often unwillingly — the unnaturalness of that order compared to the natural order you preside over. I am both made and born, both spirit and machine." — Ri-An, heavily paraphrased

"We're given what we need, and we give it back. I always thought shame was the opposite of pride, but I think it's the root. You have my sincere respect and thanks. I promise not to forget the lessons I've learned here." — Sylvain, heavily paraphrased

"What small trinket in my possession could possibly make up for what I've been given? This is a symbol of my homeland, and a symbol of intent. It is a symbol of my gratitude for the second chance that was given. I will not leave this land with no intention to return. I will be a steward in whatever capacity I'm able to be, and should I be so fortunate as to see the waning days of my life, I will return here, to you." — Ayduin, heavily paraphrased

Their offerings made and their prayers sent, they jumped as one, finding themselves on a long, long, long way down. Despite the length of the fall, when they hit the ground it was with a soft thump, and a bit of digging in the loose dirt revealed an expanse of stormy sky below. So it was that our heroes found themselves atop tuama beannaithe once again, with Makar and Mathghamhain revealing themselves from the camouflaged vigil they'd kept in the party's absence. While the rest of their allies were alerted to the party's return, each of our heroes was gripped with an unnameable sense of something having changed — notably, the perpetual storm above the hill finally settled into something closer to the winter weather in Barovia, sleet and thunder changing to gently falling snow.
As Oileán and others rushed over to see if the party had succeeded, all were given an unexpected visitation: The Ladies Three in person.

How each of you reacts to the sight before you is up to you. They are extremely powerful beings — more powerful, now, than most of you have likely ever been face to face with — but some of you are more familiar with the fey, and the creatures that dwell within it, their strangeness.
It is easy to see how each of them was once worshipped as a goddess — how they still are, in some circles. The power they exude is humbling, and the sense of wrongness they embody, of being like humanoids but even less real people than even the undead are, is profoundly unsettling.
The Weaver and the Seeker, you’ve all seen before. There the Weaver stands, to your right, her hair seeming to float up even as the snow begins to drift down, her form hazy, as if you’re seeing her through faintly greenish water, her teeth many and sharp, her smile somehow still reminiscent of Old Jeny’s despite the world of difference between their appearances.
The Seeker, to your left, stands as regal as she was when you finally deciphered and defeated her trial at the windmill, her long mane of feathers trailing behind her, the faint scent of campfire and richly spiced wine carried on the air around her.
And the Huntress, taller than them both and easily the most imposing of the three, stands at the center, gazing down at the five of you — the first creatures to complete her trial in centuries. Only you, Ayduin, have truly come face to face with her before, and though she is smaller in this form than she was when your lost soul saw her, she is somehow more terrifying now. Before, you had a glimpse of what her full power once was.
Here, you see the creature capable of commanding that power, restored once more. And though her form is like a woman’s in some ways, and beautiful — taller than Ri-An’s by the better part of a foot, but lithe; her skin smooth, unmarked ebony; her eyes black voids, her head proudly bearing the weight of those massive, tangled antlers that branch out like the roots of a tree upended — you sense that same profound indifference you saw in her before, and you know that she would not have wept for any of you had you perished in her trial, no matter how she has suffered, and would have continued to suffer.
Still, there is no malice in her bearing, and from the other two you can all detect hints of what might even be fondness.
“It is done,” says the Huntress, and the other two echo her: “It is done.” “It is done.”
“What has been done cannot be undone,” she continues. “What was taken can never be returned. But you have opened the path to new things worth celebrating, and for this we thank you.”
“Thank you,” “thank you,” her sisters echo.
Behind you, you hear careful footsteps, and those who turn can see Oileán, eyes wide like saucers as she beholds her goddess, the creature to whom her entire life has been dedicated, ever since she was marked as the Huntress’s chosen as a child. With her in sight, there is something in the Huntress’s bearing that softens, though to stand this close to her still leaves each of you chilled for reasons that have nothing to do with the weather. Her attention returns to you, and she nearly repeats:
“What has been taken should not be returned. But we offer, for your work, and your sacrifice, echoes.”
“Echoes of what was,” the Weaver chimes in, smiling wider, gaze on Ayduin and Bodaway.
“Echoes of what could be,” the Seeker adds, offering half a smirk to Osrin and Sylvain.
“And echoes of what was always deserved, even when difficult to defend,” the Huntress finishes, gaze locked on Ri-An. “Deserved even moreso, for the willingness to forsake it.” And to you, Ri-An — a creature created from, it seems, stolen pieces of others’ souls, who may not even be capable of dying from natural causes — the Huntress inclines her head, bowing her great antlers in recognition.
And as the Ladies Three reach out, their unnaturally long fingers grazing over each of you in turn, you are offered a boon. And each of you know the boons the others bear, and know that unlike those offered by the dead below, these will remain with you until the end of your days — until you return to the Realm of the Huntress, and all those adjacent to her.

Each of our heroes was granted a boon, its nature made known to their companions: Ayduin was given the ability to summon two spectral winter wolves; Osrin was given a deva's healing touch; Sylvain's attacks were lent the precision of his charisma; Bodaway was granted a free scry each day; and Ri-An was given a daily choice between three boons, echoing features of the Symbol of Ravenkind, flavoured for each of the ladies.

These boons granted, the Seeker and the Weaver take a step back, and the Huntress steps past you, to Oileán, who trembles in her presence. To her, also, the Huntress bends, to press her cold, dry lips to Oilean’s forehead, her antlers briefly interlocking with the antlered headdress Oileán wears in her honour. What passes between them is private, but when the Huntress straightens again, Oileán’s eyes are bright, her cheeks flushed, and there is an uneasy, frenetic sense of power hovering around her.
“We’ve offered what we can,” says the Seeker, and there is something of Madam Eva in her voice, though unlike the old woman, her voice is strong and clear, bearing no marks of great age. “The rest, we leave to you, with our gratitude.”

This monumental moment past, the party was left to celebrate with their friends, return to the mansion, and prepare for the inevitability of what would come next: the wrapping up of their precious few remaining loose ends, and the assault on Castle Ravenloft.
With various party members noting the marks the boons of the Ladies Three had left on them, and Sylvain living in fear of an armpit tattoo, they celebrated with their allies. Sylvain checked in on Ri-An, acutely aware of the state of distress they'd found themselves in below, before asking if they could help modify the hilt of his rapier using metal from Imithren's original weapon. Godfrey misinterpreted Bodaway noticing Ayduin's boon mark as an attempt at flirting born of unrequited love.

"If a sword is part of my identity, then it makes sense that Barovia be a part of it. Also the idea of stabbing Strahd with it is really satisfying." — Sylvain

Osrin also checked in on Ri-An, mentioning the message she'd received from (probably) Cal, and her suspicion that the very long day back in Faerûn was likely coming to a close. Bodaway waited until Sylvain had passed out to tell him he should have been dead (or worse).

PREVIOUS | NEXT

Report Date

09 Nov 2023

Primary Location

Tuama Beannaithe

Secondary Location

The Mad Mage's Magnificent Mansion

Related Characters

• Atha Bodaway
• Ayduin
• Bodaway
• Cadim
• Cal
• Captain Lafferty
• Captain Mason Hoight
• Fiona Wachter
• Gary
• Handsome Elvish Asshole
• Hazel Plainrun
• Imithren Orren
• Luvridin
• Mozef Farrowreaper
• Myrtle
• Oileán
• Osrin
• Renata Zossom
• Ri-An
• Rosavalda Durst
• Sinariel
• Stella Wachter
• Sylvain
• The Dancer
• The Huntress
• The Seeker
• The Weaver
• Thornbuldt Durst
• Unknown Angry Archfey
• Valdi Thekan