Session 15 — The Puzzle Was Designed to Hurt You

Session 15 — The Puzzle Was Designed to Hurt You

The tower's front door featured a stick-figure dance puzzle. Solving it incorrectly summoned a blue dragon. Solving it correctly also required being struck by lightning twice first. Stanley did not survive the educational experience. A woman arrived on horseback afterward, sat down on a bed, and was surprised to find someone underneath it.

What Happened

Celeste's ring upgraded. The session began with the morning ritual: the Dream Weaver's Thorn graduated from a D4 to a D8. She rolled four. She took four damage. The ring now holds sixteen points. This is progressing at a rate that will eventually become someone's problem.

The tower loomed. The party approached it. Ten feet from the front door, the air went heavy and noticeably wrong — a leaden blanketing sensation that, combined with the sudden disappearance of Celeste's cat familiar and the failure of any spell to fire, gestured unmistakably toward anti-magic. The two party members who tried Arcana rolls did not identify this. They were completely in the dark. This is fine.

The door was iron. No handles. No hinges visible. Carved into the lintel above it: Kazan. Centered on the door's face: a large embossed symbol — a connected series of lines with eight stick figures arrayed around it. A keyhole. No key.

Merich knocked with the door knocker. Lightning enveloped the tower. Everyone made a DC 15 Dexterity save. Everyone took 11 lightning damage. This was the first piece of feedback about the puzzle.

After ten minutes, the lightning subsided. Sable reached out and turned the wheel. Lightning enveloped the tower again. Eleven more lightning damage for the whole party. This was the second piece of feedback. The puzzle had now collectively removed approximately 80% of Sable's hit points, a figure she raised with the designers in a brief editorial.

Sable proposed her interpretation of the symbol: an Euler-path diagram, two open endpoints, a correct traversal. She had started with arms up. Brother Moro tried arms down, following the connected lines to their logical conclusion while the party watched from various degrees of near-death. He had been in better health for this sort of thing. The door swung open on rusty hinges.

The woods around the tower, which had been merely ominous before, became urgently ominous. Howling in the distance. Something had been drawn by the beacon of repeated lightning. The party's strategic options reduced to: go in now, or stand outside and greet whatever was coming. They went in.

The first floor: debris. Flagstones. Old crates against the east wall. A five-foot-square indentation in the center holding four pulley-mounted iron chains attached to clay statues. A torn curtain at the southern vestibule. A ceiling hole that the chains disappeared through.

Sable shot one of the statues in the face. The anti-magic field made her magical crossbow non-magical, so the bolt did zero damage, and the clay golem did not notice it. The party took a moment to appreciate this outcome and moved on.

Celeste stood on the elevator platform and said up. The golems animated and jerked the platform five feet upward. "Two uppies per floor," someone confirmed. The party took turns ascending one at a time: first floor empty, second floor empty and rotted, third floor partially collapsed with a large gash in the northwest wall, fourth floor — signs of habitation. Cozy bed. Desk. Matching chair. Iron stove. Bright tapestries. A standing suit of armor. A wooden chest.

And a lavender smell from the chest.

Sable rolled 18 on Investigation. The chest was unlocked and safe to open. Inside: a severed head. Its flesh had a waxy complexion. It had been embalmed with magic oils. It looked Vistani.

Merich picked it up and tossed it across the room. It bounced squishily. Celeste looked under the rug. Nothing. Brother Moro checked under the bed. Nothing. Merich said "Kazan" aloud to see what happened. The suit of armor came to attention, visor rotating until it faced him. Esmeralda, who arrived later, confirmed this is normal. Brother Moro told it to sleep. It went back to sleep. This is also apparently normal.

Sable climbed out a window onto the roof. From up there: Lake Baratok behind them to the north, the road south splitting toward Vallaki, large trees on both sides, wolves retreating into the woods, and — along the road — a horse galloping toward the tower with a figure slumped on top of it.

She came back inside. "Incoming. Slumped figure on a horse at speed."

The party distributed itself around the fourth floor. Brother Moro sent the elevator down and positioned himself to grapple anything that came up. Sable found the darkest corner and disappeared into it. Several minutes passed. Below: the sound of someone painstakingly getting off a horse, then a woman's voice at some distance saying what the fuck. Then, ten minutes later, the tower door opening and someone slowly limping upstairs.

A Vistani woman entered the fourth floor. She saw Merich standing directly in front of her. She was startled. She was hurt. She went over to the bed and sat down on it, at which point the bed compressed slightly and Sable said something from underneath it.

"There's another one under the bed, isn't there?"

"Hi," said Sable.

The woman, once satisfied that the party was not going to murder her, explained matters: her name was Esmeralda. This was where she lived. They had broken into her wagon, blown it up, broken into her tower, blown themselves up, killed a dragon (not hers), and were now in her bedroom. She found this tiring but was willing to continue the conversation. She asked if anyone had potions.

The party gave her their last healing potion. She drank it. She was also eating SpaghettiOs from her pack, which she seasoned.

Conversation turned to the tower's previous owner. Kazan: arch-wizard, hired by Strahd von Zarovich to assist in the construction of Castle Ravenloft, retired afterward to this valley, built the tower, then visited the Amber Temple in search of the secret of becoming a lich. He found it. It did not go well. He attempted demi-lichdom specifically to project his spirit beyond the confines of Strahd's domain. He destroyed himself in the attempt. He is entombed somewhere — probably in the castle. Strahd was not fond of him.

The severed head: a Vistani man named Jan. He had traveled with Esmeralda's mentor and attempted to steal both the mentor's wagon and his pet monkey. The mentor dueled him. The mentor won. Jan was then deemed still of use after his expiration, which is the kind of thing a mentor does. Esmeralda did not elaborate on what use.

Brother Moro produced the charred journal page. "Does this belong to your mentor?" Esmeralda looked at it and confirmed it did. Everything else from the wagon had been destroyed. She seemed briefly resigned. "Just me and this page," said Brother Moro.

Her mentor's name, she said, was Van Richten. He goes by Rictavio. He had been in Vallaki last she knew. She hadn't seen him in two years.

The party informed her that they had taken all his belongings, destroyed his wagon, and that his tiger had been killed by the dragon whose corpse was now outside. She was surprised to learn he had acquired a tiger. She had not seen him in two years.

Merich mentioned they were heading to the Wizard of Wines Winery. Esmeralda had just come from Castle Ravenloft. She survived. She considered this a win. She was going to find Van Richten — collect his weapons, establish contact, continue the work of finding a way to defeat Strahd. The party pointed out that Van Richten was, last anyone knew, still at the Blue Water Inn in Vallaki, unaware that both of his wagons had been destroyed and that a stranger had adopted and then lost his tiger to a dragon.

"We saved you a step," said Brother Moro.

She would like a nap and a meal. Then they could set out. This was agreed.

Key Decisions

NPCs Met

Locations Visited

Items Found

Nothing notable. The chest contained a severed head. The desk was empty. The armor is standing.

Loose Threads