Our Heroes are still searching for Mirafir, who unbeknownst to them is in the Flooed Cells, and they are getting warmer.
Chapter Fourteen – The Flooded Cells
MIRAFIR’S DREAMS:
Mirafir is still unconscious, or is he?
Mirafir suddenly finds himself back in the corridors of Castle Ravenloft, no not Ravenloft as the walls are not cut stone but carved from solid rock and they look familiar. Illefarn, Mirafir is back in Illefarn, alone and he is coming towards Mirafir but he can’t move. Mirafir looks down and can see he’s smoked and freezing cold. The figure comes even closer and its dark visage socks Mirafir into realising its Kelthas the Dread, No…Not Kelthas, its Strahd. Mirafir beings to have difficulties breathing as Strahd stretches out his arm, darkness takes you.
Mirafir wakes again and he is in Strahd’s study holding the holy symbol of Ravenkind. The walls are lined with many doors, more than Mirafir can remember. Then that voice, cold and without felling, chills Mirafir’s marrow.
Count Strahd: “You cannot run and all eventually serve me, I offer my patronage for eternity”.
Mirafir turns and runs, open the first door he comes to and runs down the stairs, down and down you go are you begin to tire and AGAIN, difficulty’s breathing.
Darkness returns.
Finally, Mirafir hears a voice in the distance offering hope and light in the darkness that Mirafir finds himself in. Still Mirafir cannot respond and is somehow impeded. Again Mirafir shivers as he is surrounded by Darkness, Cold and Clammy. Mirafir again try’s to talk and feels his lungs fill and can see the misty form of Strahd enter his mouth. Chocking Mirafir stops breathing and hangs bound and in Darkness.
Mirafir wakes up and has had many dreams, nightmares. Suddenly he comes to. He is in water gulping. Chained and manacled but floating. He can taste stagnant brackish soiled water. It is rank. There is something covering his eyes. The water is lapping around him but he can crudely swim and barely touch the ceiling.
THE FLOOED CELLS:
Mirafir: “Strahd! Count Strahd! I want an audience now!”
He hears;
Voice: “Hello my friend! Are you alive? My name is Emil. Are you alive? Then you have truly pissed off the Count!”
Mirafir: “I want to speak to him. What are you here for then?”
Emil: “Greed, same as everyone. I rue the day I picked up my staff. Now we are in a prison cell. Perhaps this is all a trick.”
Mirafir: “When was the last time you saw him.”
Emil: “I do not want to speak to him? You are a Wizard? Strahd likes Wizards!”
Mirafir: “I am Mirafir Roven, liberator of Runedardath, under Mount Illefarn, great wizard of the Forgotten Realms!”
The Adventurers are going up the tower. Around the fourth floor a bridge can be seen connecting the tower they are in with another small tower and also a flat crenulated roof and a trap door in it tower.
What to do now? Go down the hollow shaft of the tower they are currently in? Go back the way they came – and waste chimes to open the locked doors? Drop 100’ feet to the roof of the tower below?
The decision is made to go back down the stairs and through the chapel, using the ‘Chime of Opening’. It seems the safest and wisest option. Back in the chapel, the Adventurers make their way through the remains of hundreds of skeletons scattered across the floor. Father Tobias hesitates and considers getting the cloak from the armoured figure but decides discretion is the better part of valour. Galan uses the chimes to open the main double doors to the chapel.
The party is looking quite battered.
Sigune is down to half of her normal strength, and others are in a similar condition. Father Tobias uses the ‘Icon of Ravenloft’ to restore the strength of himself. He’s now looking much better but still not ready to plunge into hand-to-hand combat. It is past midnight – actually closer to dawn, around 4:30 in the morning? Sir Ly heals himself and is back to full strength. Galan takes and strikes the ‘Chime of Opening’ and the double doors are unlocked.
The party moves slowly and cautiously down the figure-lined hallway towards the double doors at the end… Frimly listens at the doors and hears the sound of wind and thunder and nothing else.
Galan: “Try the door, Frimly.”
Whispers Galan. It opens without requiring another use of the chime. The party enters the Octagonal room and heads towards the other spiral staircase. Sigune and Thora lead the way. Sir Ly puts on the plate armour that the zombie was wearing but it is too small for him. The party goes around to the spiral staircase.
Father Tobias uses his Augury spell:
FatherTobias: “Will we encounter a trap on this staircase?”
The answer is inconclusive. The adventurers continue down the staircase…
At the very bottom of the stairs, the sound of water lapping against the walls can be heard. The party proceeds and about 3’ feet from the bottom there is inky black water. It stinks. It is an approximately 100’ foot corridor, full of dark, black water, at the halfway point there are two archways to the east and west at the mid-point of the corridor, and another archway at the end. Father Tobias steps into the water. It is foul. He spends some time doing ‘Locate Object’. He gets a faint sense of Mirafir’s location!!!
DUNGEON HALL:
The stairs descend into black, still water that fills an arched hallway before you. The water’s surface is like dark, mirrored glass, disturbed only occasionally by the “drip” of a drop falling from the ceiling. Twenty feet ahead, arched doorways lead downward from each side of the hallway.
In each arched doorway, an iron door stands closed and partially submerged.
Mirafir heart’s the party and calls out:
Mirafir: “I am chained and blindfolded! There is another prisoner here in the Cells, he is called Emil.”
Sigune uses the ‘Cloak of Arachnid’ to climb along the wall of the Cells, above the water. They now see that the other arch at the end opens into a wide chamber. Father Tobias is also levitating along the corridor using his ‘Boots of Levitation’. Sigune sees that there is a door which is deeper below the water. There must be steps leading down to it. Sigune climbs down.
DUNGEONS:
The water is 3′ feet deep in the hallway and opaque. The steps, on both sides of the hallway, descend another 2′ feet before ending at the iron door to the NORTH and SOUTH.
Father Tobias scouts ahead and looks into the large chamber. Meanwhile, Sigune sees that there is no way to open the door to the Cells without going under water. Tobias reports back that the large chamber is full of torture equipment. There is also a balcony, some 10′ feet high, with two thrones for someone to view victims being tortured? Macabre! No doors could be seen on the balcony.
TORTURE CHAMBER:
Dark, low shapes thrust up out of the still, brackish water that fills this 50’ foot square room, the ceiling of which is festooned with hanging chains that look like thick, black web strands.
Dark, low shapes thrust up out of the still, brackish water that fills this 50’ foot square room, the ceiling of which is festooned with hanging chains that look like thick, black web strands.
Frimly doggy paddles through the water up to the door to the Cells. Sigune holds the rope he is attached to while he attempts to pick the lock on the door below. Frimly struggles at first but eventually opens the door. Suddenly two large jets of water engulf the two and cause both Thora and Frimly to vanish!
Sigune reaches into the water to see if she can find Thora, but there is nothing there. The Dwarf maiden has vanished! But their voices can be heard to the south!
A voice from the Cells opposite Thora says:
Thora: “I am a prisoner here, too now!”
Sigune successfully bends the bars of Mirafir’s cell. Now to break his chains.
Mirafir explains what happened to him.
Meanwhile, Emil Toranescu tells the adventurers where he is from and how he got there.
Thora: “Why are you still alive?”
Emil: “Strahd is evil. I came here looking for wealth. I was with my fellow adventurers.”
Thora; “Aye, well they will be dead then.”
Emil: “I am embarrassed to say we did not make it past the front hall. We were attacked by the Gargoyles and we were all captured. Many have already died.”
Galan: “I will use the ‘Chime of Opening’ to free Mirafir from the Cells!”
Sigune: “Vait! Free first Frimly and perhaps he can pick zee locks vithout vasting zee chime!”
Thora: “I am not sure about you Emil. You’ll have tae prove y’self!”
Emil: “Who do I have to kill?”
Father Tobias sees that there is a ‘Glowing Sword’ in one of the cells and missed by all. Frimly and Thora are freed.
Then Mirafir too. He seems to have some of his equipment but can’t be sure if anything is missing.
Galan swims down to try and get the Glowing Sword, secured by a rope. He grabs the Sword and swims back to the surface.
Ismark hears something coming down the stairs towards the Cells – he suspects Vampire Minions. Suddenly, out of the darkness a shadowy figure appears followed by a second one. Are they the Wraiths Mirafir encountered previously?
The Wizard casts ‘Wraithform’ on himself again and is ignored by the undead monsters. Ismark and Galan engage in combat. More undead servants of ount Strahd are pressing down the spiral staircase behind them!
Father Tobias runs up the passage and tries to turn the Wraiths! The Paladins also move up to join the fray while Galan attempts to parry the blows reigning in on him! Ismark is struck by a Wraith and loses a point of Strength and several hit points of damage!
The situation is becoming desperate! The Vampire Spawn are swarming along the walls and ceiling! Mirafir, in ‘Wraithform’ moves up the stairs, simultaneously, Father Tobias tries to turn the abominations! Sigune closes on the Vampire Spawn that are swarming around Galan. Galan strikes back with the new sword, which hits and then suddenly glows brighter! An aura suddenly surrounds Galan, Ismark, Sir Ly and Father Tobias.
They continue to fight. Sigune is bitten by a Vampire Spawn but she strikes back and inflicts a heavy blow on the Vampire Spawn! The damage inflicked seems to be improved by the ‘Magical Aura!’
Father Tobias uses the power of the Holy Symbol to turn the abominations and only turns one of them!