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• Seir skinned the wolf and put its hide on.
• We walk downstairs. A trap is set off and we all fail our saves. Arkan gets blown up and passes out.
  • Ezmeralda throws some Magic Missiles at the statue's void face.
  • Belial gives Arkan a healing potion.
  • Lilly does a cheeky ol' Moonbeam on the statue.
  • Arkan throws a Fireball at the face of the statue.
  • Seir bolts while yelling, "Kill it! Kill it!"
  • A voice from the statue says, "Hold on, hold on! I didn't know you were real people and not ghosts!"
• We get into an argument because he thought we were ghouls and we are very obviously not ghouls.
• His name is Heinrik. He's a wizard.
• He teleports down from the statue.
• Apparently he doesn't wear underwear.
• We interrogate a bit about River. Apparently he was with an elf.
• He really doesn't want us to stay here. We say no, we're gonna. After some arguing, Arkan starts to threaten him, because he just got exploded and he's not wanting to deal with this shit. Heinrik vanishes so we don't murder him.
• Lilly goes down the left hallway, and notices an open door. There's weird one-eyed creatures inside. She attempts stealth, but fails.
  • The weird creatures attack. One hits Lilly for some necrotic damage. The others come up and try clawing up Lilly. They get in a little bit.
  • Lilly t-poses. Two get scared.
  • Ezmeralda dashes up.
  • Belial roasts one. We're not sure it cared.
  • Seir throws some axes.
  • Arkan tries blowing them up. He does okay.
  • Two run away, two stare at Arkan and fail to do anything. One gets shanked by Lilly as it runs.
  • Lilly makes fun of one and heals herself a wee bit.
  • Ezmeralda shanks the one we've been ganging up on.
  • Belial ding dongs the one we've been brutalising.
  • Seir slices it up.
  • Arkan shocks the shit out of the one next to him.
  • The two beside us all try to run, per Fear. One dies. The other manages to slip away some.
  • Lilly stabs one of the ones beside her.
  • Ezmeralda finishes the other fleeing and moves up to help Lilly.
  • Belial moves up and Tolls the Dead on one, killing it.
  • Heinrik suddenly appears. A bright blast of light appears and a figure emerges from it, stabbing the shit out of him. It's River, with the Sunsword! And a cool pair of sunglasses. The body of Heinrik turns into some fox thing.
  • River says, "Hey guys, looking for this?" And then remembers he should say, "Come with me if you want to live," and does.
  • Seir picks up a handaxe and chucks it at the remaining beast.
  • Arkan turns heel to face River and points his staff at him, saying, "What the hell are you doing here?!"
  • The nothic (which is apparently its name) tries to claw Lilly and fails.
  • Lilly goes for a cheeky lil stab on the nothic.
  • River swings his mace... for some reason and misses. Wow.
  • Ezmeralda stabs up foxy boy.
  • Belial does the ol Shatter.
  • Heinrik tries to cast a spell, but Lilly counters it.
  • Seir moves up to the remaining nothic and kills it.
  • Arkan repeats his question, having not gotten an answer, and seems more on edge. River replies, "We'll talk about it when my hands aren't full."
  • River calls forth Spirit Guardians to fuck up Heinrik, but gets Counterspelled. Wrow.
  • Lilly, free of the nothics, moves forth and Dissonant Whispers Heinrik. He does not react. She inspires Ezmeralda.
  • Ezmeralda tries some swings. She misses mostly, but is inspired and manages to hit Heinrik.
  • Belial casts Enlarge on Ezmeralda. She's big now.
  • Heinrik tries... something on Arkan and Lilly and it has no effect.
  • Seir moves forward and throws a handaxe. It hits Heinrik in the fucking face.
  • Arkan moves to Belial's side and fires Scorching Rays on Heinrik, getting the idea that he has to deal with him first.
  • River holds up his hands like Duke Nukem and Heinrik fucking disintegrates. Not literally but we like to imagine.
• Belial and Seir stare at the body of Heinrik as it dissolves into ichor. Belial realises it's an Arcanaloth.
• Lilly steals his clothes. Among it is a Robe of Useful Items.
• Belial takes its spellbook.
• Arkan walks forward and asks River what the hell he's doing here. He gives vague answers.
• Lilly asks who River came with. Apparently it's a dusk elf (not a drow). He wanted something from the temple to revive his dead sister.
• Finally we get to why River's here. He says he wants to help them get out of the temple. Arkan and Seir are extremely suspicious.
• Honestly I don't remember how the conversation went. Arkan continued to be wary because ultra suspicious and paranoid to the point of violence narcissist suddenly just thinks he needs our help and trusts us. DM got mad at me for that and tried forcing me to make Arkan just move on and I'm too pissed off to rememeber or even rejoin the game.
• Fill in notes from doggo because I wasn't there for the remainder of the session:
  • Group is still generally wary of River
  • River assures that he's real
  • He says the temple is important in their quest, and there's more to the temple than the sword
  • Wants to get dark power, the others are uncertain
  • Origin of Strahd's power: the temple
  • Group wants to leave, enter room the Nothics were guarding
  • Amber statues, they seem to have dark shapes in them
  • She pokes one--DM CHAT TIME
    • A voice whispers "Hello child" "My name is Khirad, I can offer you the gift of secrets"
    • "This....seems very sketchy, why are you offering these things"
  • She ultimately refuses
  • Ezmeralda seems interested
  • River seems surprsed she and River rejected it
  • Ezmeralda opens a door, Seir touches one after being assured by Lilly that it doesn't automatically do anything, but insists he should say no to it
  • Thing offered strength, Seir said of course not "Who does he think he is? Hmph"
  • Ez checks another one, says it's tempting, offers true sight
  • Lilly touches the last one
  • Paarhahh
  • She explains that this one wants to make people strong
  • River explains that he took a gift Saavnak, protection from being charmed
  • Belial explains that he doesn't want to take anything from Barovia with him, and that these things have a price
  • River explains the origin of the spirits, wizards did this
  • He takes us to find his friend who explained this
  • Belial casts protection from good and evil on himself as we follow River he leads us up some stairs, seems to know where he's going
  • The room has a miniature replica of Ravenloft, half smashed
  • The Abbot did it to get to the sunsword
  • River cast Mending on it, Belial Seir and Lilly investigate to get an idea of the layout
  • Belial KILLS IT on the investigation check and checks out the lower floors and how to get to the dungeons
  • River seems pretty confident that nothing's behind that door
• What else I gathered:
  • They came up a secret door to the model room
  • The model is very very very big
  • River got a magic infinite wine pitcher
  • The door River is referring to leads to the hall where we saw flameskulls-- I mean mysterious green lights through arrowslits.
  • There are many more sarcophagi to find
  • River has tried goading the group into taking dark powers. He has been very, very unsuccessful
  • You can't be forced to take a sarcophagus pact.
  • Each pact comes with a downside. If you ask, they'll tell you.
  • We can take as many pacts as we want. The Abbot suggested River only take one.
  • River first came with a dusk elf (not a drow) named Kasimir. He wanted the power to revive the dead, in order to resurrect his sister.
  • The Robe of Useful Items has patches that summon a pet horse and a pet dog.
• Before River can open the door, Arkan asks him to stop so they can talk finally.
• This was a long RP so here's my super TL;DR notes I wrote for our DM
  • River gave Seir the Sunsword
  • Through a lot of interrogation, we put together that...
    1. River's paranoia was not caused by the Abbot, but because he died in Barovia
    2. the Abbot is shady but not inherently for or against Strahd, nor did he do anything to River
    3. River's paranoia was temporary and is over
    4. River has a lot of narcissism now
    5. River was not stalking them and found out where they were from the abbey guards Ezmeralda talked to
  • River is told of the Shadowfell theory
  • Lilly is death glared at by Arkan and gets freaked out, seeing Strahd in him
  • Arkan shares his emo Haunted One backstory where he opened an evil book and got temp possessed by a demon which gave him scarring images of the Abyss. The demon is still chasing him, but isn't in Barovia. Arkan suffered long-term madness from this experience.
  • Arkan also admitted to being wrong about his initial assumptions on River and his intentions. Which is character development. Still doesn't like the Abbot, though.
  • River has a magic wine pitcher. This isn't major story-wise but I feel it's important that you know that we know he has it.
  • We've all agreed to not kill each other, even if Arkan is still a little suspect of River.
  • Party united. A bit awkward, but we're not at each other's throats.