Session 3 — The House Was Always Going to Make It Personal

Session 3 — The House Was Always Going to Make It Personal

The empty coffins were the first clue that the Dursts had not stayed put. The party investigated them anyway.

What Happened

The basement crypt contained four tombs: Rosavalda, Thornbolt, Elizabeth, and Gustav Durst. The first two held empty coffins. The third held a swarm of centipedes. Merich opened it, received the centipedes, and dispatched them with an Eldritch Blast before anyone could suggest fire. The bugs, in dying, dislodged a section of stone in the back wall, behind which a silver necklace with a moss agate pendant had been sitting, engraved with the initials ED — for Elizabeth Durst, a detail the party noted and filed away. Gustav's coffin was also empty. This information did not become urgent until much later.

The party continued into the sub-basement. Sable scouted, with characteristic results: a natural 20 on one check, a natural 1 on the next, and the discovery of a spike pit the hard way. The Lucky feat absorbed the fall. The spike pit did not.

In a side crypt — coffin-less, just a body slumped against the wall — they found someone alive. Technically. The figure made a move for a weapon, gave up, and said "just kill me now." This turned out not to be a dramatic request but a fair assessment of her circumstances. Danki Kane was an emaciated halfling cleric who had come to Death House some time ago after two children told her their parents were trapped in the basement with a monster. She had killed some ghouls, run out of food and water, found she could not leave, and resigned herself to dying under the sink. The party gave her rations. She asked if they had meth. They did not.

Danki joined the party on a provisional basis.

The well room contained five adjacent chambers, each with a moldy straw pallet and a locked chest. Sable picked locks. The others broke locks. The chests yielded, collectively: 11 gold and 60 silver in a pouch made from human leather (Danki claimed the pouch), a moss agate and a garnet wrapped in black embroidered cloth, an ivory hairbrush with silver bristles, a black leather eye patch with a carnelian sewn into it, and a silvered short sword. Brother Moro punched a padlock off a chest and kept the sword. The chain shirt from a later chest was assigned to the party sell pile after Sable discovered it capped her dexterity bonus.

Past the well room, the party found the reliquary: a chamber lined with alcoves containing an inventory of cult paraphernalia. A desiccated hand on a rope. A knife carved from goblin bone. A dagger with a rat skull on the pommel. A varnished orb made from something that was not mentioned by name and did not need to be. An aspergillum carved from bone. A cloak made from odd leather. A frog tied to a stick. A bag of unspecified contents. A severed human finger. A six-inch wooden mummy figurine. An iron pendant bearing a devil's face. A shrunken halfling head, which Danki observed without comment. A small wooden box. Sable correctly identified the room as a setup for ritual sacrifice and suggested not touching anything. Nobody touched anything. This was unusual.

The hallway south of the reliquary had a pit trap, which Sable had already found. The hallway north led to the prison: alcoves with rusty shackles, bones, and — in one cell — a skeleton still chained to the wall in a tattered black robe similar to those found in the attic wardrobe. Inside a pile of prison bones, Sable found a key. A notch in the prison wall, shaped like a keyhole, was found by Celeste. The key fit.

The door opened into the ritual chamber.

Forty feet square, smooth masonry, excellent acoustics — the chanting was louder here, though no one was visibly chanting. Stone ledges ran along the walls. Murky water covered most of the floor, knee-deep, undisturbed for what looked like years. At the center: an octagonal dais rising above the waterline, rusty chains with shackles hanging from the ceiling above a carved stone altar stained with old blood. Depictions of grasping ghouls ran along its sides. In the east wall: a portcullis, locked, and beside it a wheel that raised it temporarily. Brother Moro held the wheel. Merich jammed a silver table knife into the mortar to prop the portcullis open. The knife held, mostly. In the west wall: a cave mouth heaped with what appeared to be refuse — bones, old clothes, garbage.

Merich climbed the dais to investigate the altar. Thirteen dark apparitions appeared on the ledges. Black-robed figures holding torches — except the fire was black, drawing light in rather than putting it out. They chanted: One must die. One must die.

Sable read the letter from Strahd aloud and rolled insight with advantage, then a natural 20. The cult had been sacrificing to Strahd. The apparitions were its echo. They needed a blood sacrifice on the altar to satisfy the house.

The party declined.

As Merich stepped off the dais, the apparitions changed their chant: Lorgoth the Decayer, we awaken thee. The refuse heap in the west cave was not a refuse heap. Lorgoth the Decayer — a shambling mound, enormous, plant-matter and contempt — rose out of it. The party had effectively summoned a boss by not committing a murder. This is a choice with a clear downside.

What followed: Sable opened with Zephyr Strike and Hunter's Mark. Danki cast Bless on three party members, cast Guiding Bolt for middling damage, and positioned her Spiritual Weapon. Merich used Hexblade's Curse and Eldritch Blast, then Divine Smite for a large turn. Celeste flanked and contributed Eldritch Blast and Toll the Dead (the latter allowed because shambling mounds are plants and not undead, therefore not resistant to necrotic). Brother Moro threw the alchemist's fire — which missed Lorgoth but set part of the floor on fire — punched it repeatedly, scored a natural 20, and used Addle to strip its reaction. Lorgoth grabbed Celeste at one point; she made her constitution save and avoided being engulfed. Sable's final Zephyr Strike, from across the room, dropped it.

The apparitions changed one last time — The end comes, death be praised — and vanished as Lorgoth collapsed into wet plant matter across the water. The ritual chamber was quiet for the first time since the party descended.

They went upstairs. The house was not done.

The doorway had grown spinning scythe blades. Smoke was flooding the room from the fireplace. Merich Eldritch Blasted a hole in an exterior wall. A swarm of rats came out. Celeste destroyed the rats. The hole remained. Ten-foot drop to the porch, manageable.

Rose and Thorn appeared in the doorway.

The party explained that they had killed the house's champion, failed to satisfy the cult, and were now leaving because the alternative was dying. The children listened. Sable persuaded Danki to come through the hole. Danki put her hand through the gap and her hand began to wither. She had been in the house long enough that it had claimed her. She would stay. She would keep the children company. They should come back someday.

The party did not sacrifice anyone on the altar. They also did not recover anyone from the house. They took a long rest in the lawn while Danki and the two ghost children stared at them from the windows.

In the morning, the hole in the wall was gone. The children were visible in an attic window, looking down. The house looked like a house. Everybody leveled up to 4.

Key Decisions

NPCs Met

Locations Visited

Items Found

Loose Threads