2 Flamerule 1491

Session 27, 7/2/2021 cont.

We did so, and then met the next morning in the common room as always. We had a long talk that next morning about how to proceed next. From all the information we had gathered, we knew that once we defeated one of the members of the Council of Bones, we would set off a daily appearance of The Reaper. And although we had not yet seen him, we were sure he would show up sooner than later.

That meant that we would want to complete our tasks and defeat the members of the council as quickly as possible. That way we would lessen the number of times we would have to fight The Reaper and limit the damage to the town and it’s people. We decided that our best course of action would be to immediately pick another target and try to resolve that issue. With luck, we might even manage to do so before The Reaper made it’s first appearance.

As our next target we picked Ravenna. And, with all we knew of her transformation and the restoration process, the group decided that the best thing in the end would be to simply kill her in the presence of the crystal and return her to human form. I was against this at first, but the argument that ultimately prevailed was that Ravenna’s soul was not actually currently in her body. Her body was currently being animated by evil powers from the negative plane, like most undead, and that giving that evil entity a say in what happened to Ravenna’s body and soul would be morally wrong. And, in fact, if the vampire did decide to voluntarily revert, she would then risk Ravenna suffering a true death, with Ravenna never having a say in the issue.

We left the inn and headed towards the vampire’s castle. We were not 100% sure of our approach at that point, but figured we would sort it out on the way. About half way to the castle, we had to cross a market area. As we got closer, we could hear screams of pain and see people fleeing the area. On the other side of the market square was a large hooded figure wielding a scythe.

Battle was quickly joined. It was short and furious. Evelios and Sylrel dished out large amounts of damage quickly, but then Evelios made the mistake of making eye contact with the creature and was struck dead on the spot. We manage to finish slaying the creature and then resurrect Evelios. Taking stock after the battle, it was a fairly mixed bag. True, Evelios had died, but the battle had lasted only a very short time and most members had not used many resources on the fight.

Session 28, 7/16/2021

We thought about retreating at this point, but decided that, although Evelio’s death and resurrection had been shocking, we had really not used much resources and it was better to move on Ravenna as soon as possible. The longer we took, the more likely she would have heard something had happened and maybe increased her protections at the castle or moved up the plague’s release.

We decided on a plan. We would approach the castle in the name of a social visit. The Professor would be looking to engage Ravenna once more in a game of Chess. At some point he would sacrifice his queen and we would know that to be the sign to attack immediately. We hoped to surprise her and overwhelm her without having to fight too many of the castle’s guards.

When we arrived at the castle The Professor knocked on the door. The door was shortly answered by one of Ravenna’s human servants, Luthor. The Professor explained the reasoning for the visit, and asked Luthor to see if the lady would receive us.

Luthor led us to the ground floor waiting room we were familiar with. We were served some refreshments while Luthor went to ask Ravenna is she wished to see us. When he returned he said an audience had been granted and he would lead us to the game room.

He lead us on a different route through the castle this time than he had previously used. When asked about it, he said that security had been increased due to Ravenna loosing contact with some local allies. He then questioned us on if we knew anything of the cultists and what might have transpired. We denied everything, and he must have believed us.

We went up to the third floor and then arrived outside of a wooden door. It was not really a waiting area, more like just a widening of the hallway with a single chair. Luthor opened the door and invited The Professor to proceed, but told the rest of us that we would have to wait here. Only The Professor would be allowed in the presence of Ravenna, again due to increased security.

The Professor refused to leave the group, saying that the rest of use were needed and claiming that one of the reasons for the visit was to introduce the newest member of our group, Pacha, to Ravenna. After a short argument Luthor left to talk to Ravenna again and verify if she would see the whole group. Apparently The Professor’s arguments were persuasive, and Luthor returned to collect all of us and lead us to Ravenna.

The meeting happened in the same game room as always. There was a small table with a game set and two chairs and then a few couches and chairs along the walls. Ravenna and The Professor took seats at the game table and the rest of use sat along the wall. This time, unlike before, Luthor remained in the room with us and stood against the wall across the room from us.

Ravenna and The Professor played their game while exchanging news and pleasantries. The Professor was winning, as usual, when he made a “horrible blunder” and exclaimed out loud something to the meaning of, “Oh no, I have exposed by queen”. It was a bit awkward to be honest, but Ravenna was so excited about the opportunity, she did not notice use subtly preparing ourselves.

As Ravenna captured the queen, The Professor retaliated with a magic missile spell, and the melee began in earnest. Pacha moved to close with Ravenna in melee and Sylrell summoned a set of bears into the room to corral Luthor while the rest of us sent our most powerful attacks at Ravenna.

Ravenna took quite a beating and transformed into a cloud of mist and fled up a set of stairs towards the next level. Evelios and Pacha were quick and followed right on her heels. The rest of us were a bit slower and battled Luthor as we ascended the stairs.

On the upper floor, Evelios and Pacha were surprised by two vampire spawn who leaped out and attacked. But Evelios kept his head clear and continued to focus on Ravenna. He quickly brought her down in flurry of arrows. The gem we had retrieved from the cultist flashed in a brillant light and crumbled and Ravenna transformed from her vampire state to a normal human appearance.

After finishing off Luthor, the rest of us rushed up the stairs and quickly put down the vampire spawn.

Session 29, 7/23/2021

For some reason, I and other group members, and thought that Ravenna would automatically recognize us as her rescuers and be grateful for what we had done. That was not the case and in hindsight it makes complete sense.

Ravenna had agreed to the transformation willingly, although it was under false pretense. She believed that agreeing to undergo the transformation had both saved her soul as well as put her in a position to maybe enact revenge. On top of that, as far as she knew, she was still under punishment from the church for the crimes she had been falsely accused of.

Ravenna, upon regaining consciousness immediately began to freak out. She was certain we had put her soul in danger as well as her body since the inhabitants of the castle would no longer consider her their master. The Professor began to calm her down and explain the situation, but did not have much success. I realized he was skipping over some important information, mainly that we were sent from the Church of Tyr to locate her and return her so that her punishment could be lifted.

This mollified her somewhat and we were able to focus on making our escape from the castle. We felt we needed to flee quickly while Evelios was gravely hurt from the battle and Ravenna was not in good shape herself. She also was still in a mood where we thought she could try and flee from us at any time.

Without a better plan, Pacha noted that there was a window in the room and we were three stories up. While jumping from a three story window could be dangerous, he was pretty sure that our armor and general fitness would protect us from such a fall. Ravenna had no such protections, but The Professor said he would be able to use magic to protect her.

This sounded like a good plan to us, but Ravenna thought we were insane. She still did not trust us, so I believe she thought we were just going to throw her out the window to her death. Evelios became frustrated by her resistance to the plan and in the end he simply picked her up and jumped out the window. The Professor mitigated her damage as promised and the rest of use followed Evelios out the window, simply landing the best we could.

With this move we were out of the castle, but we were still on the castle grounds. In fact, we were up next to the castle wall on a small portion of land with a cliff drop off of over 100 feet. We tied several ropes together and climbed the rest of the way down and made our escape.

We started to head back to the Roc’s Nest, when The Professor raised the idea that returning to the inn would maybe not be such a good idea. Ravenna was, until 30 minutes ago, an evil vampire and her face may be known to the locals. Also, any remnants of the Cult of the Grey Master may see her and cause issues.

We decided that we would take Ravenna to the “Wynter” house which was still empty after the murder. We arrived and then sent The Professor and Pacha to retrieve supplies from the inn as well as a set of spare robes from Sylrel’s room so that Ravenna would be able to change clothes.

When they returned Pacha cooked a wonderful meal while I tried to slowly explain all that had transpired to Ravenna. We agreed that we would help her return to Tanimere to see Gavrus as soon as possible so that the punishment could be lifted. After eating a warm meal and catching her up on everything that had transpired, she began to warm up to us and seemed she would trust us as long as we were making her a priority.

At that point we decided to get some rest and come up with a plan in the morning.