Session 41 Report: Hidden behind the Sun

General Summary

After an brief pause, the Abbot turned back down the hall towards the courtyard to begin his tour. Wanting to throw the Abbot off balance, Beair called out that he'd like to see the nearby wine cellar first and that the Abbot's silent companion, Vasilka, should come along with them. The Abbot acceded to starting the tour in the basement, but said Vasilka would not be joining them as she needed to rest. As if on cue, Vasilka bowed slightly to the party and exited the dining room, heading up the stairs towards the source of the string music the party had been hearing.   In the basement the Abbot showed them his sizable collection of wine for the abbey, including each of the Wizard of Wines vintages: several barrels and many bottles of the table wine Purple Grapemash No. 3, a barrel and a fair number of bottles of the more flavorful Red Dragon Crush, and a handful of bottles of the sparkling Champagne du le Stomp. Beair wanted to take a look around the room and, noticing some paper stuck in an empty wine bottle on the far side of a wine rack, suggested a distraction in the form of Tavani performing some improv jazz on her flute. Tavani hopped up on one of the barrels and flew into what was, although discordant, a very attention grabbing performance, giving Beair the opportunity to use his mage hand to pop the rolled parchment out of the bottle and pocket it. Dissatisfied with he performance, but satisfied with the amount of time spent in the cellars, the Abbot suggested they continue the tour and headed back upstairs.   The next stop on the tour was a brief walk through the courtyard, where the group once again saw the skittish and flighty Marzena Belview tied to her post. Rather than attempting to tug and fly away however, she was now seated calmly next to the pole, rope slack. It was unclear to the party whether she was just sated and calmed by the food they had offered her earlier, or whether there was something else going on in the presence of the Abbot.   Moving on, the Abbot showed the group to one of his favorite outlooks of the town, nestled in the cemetary behind the abbey's dining room. A cursory look at the graves showed nothing particularly out of place, other than slightly less snow covering some of the graves. When asked, the Abbot explained that none of the graves were new. These graves were all of the previous clergy of the abbey, the bulk of whom had succumbed to some form of craven cannibalistic urge and wiped themselves out nearly a hundred years ago. One of the standout features of the graveyard noticed by Tavani, was a single grave near the back which seemed to be in better repair than the rest, a headstone reading Tasha Petrovna. Pointing it out to the rest of the party, they noticed an engraved sunburst (a circle surrounded by sun rays). It wasn't unusual in its own right, especially on a grave marking a member of the clergy to The Morninglord, except for the fact that the grooves and perfectly smooth edges made it seem less like a simple etching of the symbol and more like a slot made for something to be inserted. Beair had a hunch the sun-engraved plate in the dining room may fit this slot. Noting this for later, and noticing the Abbot wanting to move on, the party followed him back out of the cemetary.     On their way towards the abbey gardens, Beair claims he forgot his flute back down in the wine cellar as they rushed out. The Abbot eyes him suspiciously, not having been the one delivering the memorable basement flute performance, but ultimately lets him head off while the rest wait outside. Beair entered the dining room but rather than heading downstairs, he headed straight back to the hanging disk at the back of the room above the fireplace. Wary of traps he detected magic towards the disk, noticing the disk itself wasn't magical but there were a couple strong auras of evocation lying behind it. From a distance, he used his mage hand to lift the disk off the wall which didn't appear to trigger anything. Beair headed over for a closer look and extracted a flask containing a red, shimmering liquid, and what appeared to be the hilt of a longsword, pocketing both. Upon closer examination of the disk, he determined that while it had a similar shape embossed on it to the grave outside, it wasn't quite the right shape to slot into the opening they'd found and the flat extra material of the circular object would block it from entering the engraving anyway. Beair replaced the disk onto the wall and headed back out.   Meanwhile, Anevia, Sergei, and Tavani kept the Abbot occupied by asking about other parts of the abbey, including the view, the walls, how long the Abbot had been present, who the Belviews were. The Abbot's responses were generally short and hard to read for anything beyond the surface. He had arrived nearly one hundred years ago, though didn't show the age at all. The Belviews were an unfortunate family of inbred and leperous dwarves that made a pilgrimage to the abbey for healing shortly after he'd arrived. While the Abbot was able to cure their leprousy, he claims the treatment had also produced some unfortunately side effects, on which he blamed their animal-like characteristics and varying madness. He continues to work on cures for the family to this day, though his current attentions are more focused on training Vasilka on the finer points of etiquette. After some awkward silence Beair finally reappeared tooting away on his flute, proving he had successfully found it in the basement and attempting to get the Abbot to once again attend their concert later that night to see their band "Southern Red Crush Dragon Legacy". The Abbot was still unsure after the jazz performance, but seemed to be brought around a bit by the more melodious performance of the group's bard.   Next up were the abbey's gardens. Nothing in particular stood out here, though the team helped chase off some rabbits and asked if they could take some of the produce. The Abbot allowed them to take a few of the carrots, yams, and beans before continuing on to the east wing of the abbey. As they approached, the party heard the cacpohonous shouting and wailing of strange creatures echoing out of the wing. The Abbot unlocked the door and led them inside, where they immediately noticed a hulking figure of stitched flesh, lumbering up and down the hall, not sparing them a second glance. The noise continued along the hallway, when asked the Abbot confirmed these rooms werewhere the majority of the Belview family was being held for their own safety and that of any townsfolk that may wander too close. These members of the family were more heavily affected by the madness that seemed a side effect of their medical treatment. Beair detected something with an abjudation aura in one of the rooms and lagged back to observe a bit longer. He listened in and heard the creatures were chanting discordantly and repetitively.

The devil dwells in his dark house,
Upon the misty pillar.
First he'll taste her sweet, sweet blood,
And then he'll have to kill her.

He scribbled a quick note saying "Do you need help? Also, do you like me?" with empty checkboxes for "yes" and "no" and passed it under the door just in case.   Continuing out of the hallway and up the east wing stairs, the group arrived at a small study, where the Abbot mentioned he spends most of his time in study on new ways to heal. Through one of the doors from the study was an old, decaying hospital wing, with offshoot rooms to the south labelled as an operating room, a nursery, and a morgue. The Abbot pointed out that the Belviews tended to avoid this wing, claiming it was haunted. When asked by Sergei if he'd ever attempted to investigate and make sure there weren't any, the Abbot said he didn't, believing the idea was just a manifestation of the family's madness.   Finally, the tour reached its final stop as the Abbot led the group along the top of the abbey's inner walls, past the fake, scarecrow guards, and into the bell tower above the dining room. Here the party met Clovin Belview, whom the Abbot had mentioned several times as the primary caretaker of the grounds and the Belviews at large during the rest of the tour. Clovin was laid back on his bed, playing on his viol, surrounded by a near-carpet of empty wine bottles. He seemed friendly, but quite drunk. Sergei notices a shape lying under a black cloth on a table in the corner of the room, when asked about it the Abbot claimed nothing was there. Deciding the tour had concluded, the Abbot asked if the group would join him downstairs for the glasses of wine he'd promised and a proposition he had in mind. Beair and Tavani wanted to chat with Clovin some more and jam a bit on their instruments, so Anevia and Sergei followed the Abbot downstairs first.   Beair told Clovin they were part of the group called "Chodeswall" and experienced musicians, and the three began to play away on their instruments, falling into place with each other as they jammed. They tried to question some more information out of Clovin, confirming that the rest of his family was indeed mostly mad and that Vasilka was relatively new and he found her very pretty, but for the most part he mumbled and stumbled over words in between hiccups and burps. Since Clovin seemed fine to keep to his music, Beair went over and checked the shape under the black cloth on the table. A brief hallucination triggered and Beair saw the shape was his own body, chopped into parts. The hallucination quickly faded however, showing a mixed set of feminine bodyparts, preserved and long dead, seemingly aligned for some kind of assembly. Beair vomitted. Tavani vomitted. Clovin vomitted.   Meanwhile, the Abbot was sharing his proposal with Anevia and Sergei over a glass of Red Dragon Crush. He identified the group as adventurers, as he didn't recognize them from town and they seemed like they could handle themselves. He told them about his project, Vasilka, and how he planned for her to become the bride of Strahd. His theory was that Strahd had, for as long as he could recall or learn from rumors, been searching for a very specific bride but had never found them. Wanting to free the land, and knowing the failures of challenging the vampire in the past, the Abbot wanted to take a different approach and attempt to appease him. Maybe if Strahd found the bride he'd been searching for, the curse on the land would lift and the people could once again go free? What the Abbot needs from them is to travel on to the dress maker in Vallaki and acquire a wedding gown for Vasilka to wear when he presents her. He cannot leave the Belviews to themselves in the abbey and doesn't believe the townsfolk would be safe on the journey, or even make it at all for this purpose. As compensation, the Abbot promised to provide free healing services and up to two casts of a resurrection for a fallen ally. Anevia and Sergei listen along and ask a few questions about Vasilka's opinion of the plan. The Abbot explained that she has no opinions of her own and cannot speak to discuss the matter. They told the Abbot they'd need to discuss with the rest of the group, so he permitted them head upstairs to discuss.   Once upstairs, Sergei notices the uncovered body parts and the state of the team and ushers them out to the battlements above the courtyard, re-covering the body parts on the way. Outside, Sergei and Anevia regale the other two with the Abbots plan and what he needs from them, a plan which no one seemed particularly on board with. Beair remembered his score from earlier and showed the group the potion and sword hilt he had grabbed from behind the sun emblem plate in the dining area. Upon seeing it, Sergei immediately recalled the couple prophecies they'd received that likely pointed them towards the abbey, and a "power to defeat the dark" that was "lying hidden behind the sun". The group decided to tentatively agree to the Abbot's plans then head down to the pond-side shrine to the Morninglord back in town to take a rest and investigate the potion and sword hilt.   When the group returned downstairs, they saw the Abbot was again training Vasilka on proper table ettiquette. Through some smooth talking, Beair managed to convince the Abbot to give them the dress cost up front rather than a reimbursement. The Abbot provided the party received 30 gold and measurements for the dress he would need. In exchange, Beair gave him two VIP tickets he crafted for the concert they were planning to have later that evening in the town square, claiming it would get them the best seats and free wine. Finally, the group bid the Abbot farewell and hastily made their way out of the unsettling abbey and down towards the small shrine at the north end of the town, where they rested for a bit and determined their haul to be a Superior Healing Potion, a spell scroll of Hero's Feast, and a weapon called the Sunsword.

Rewards Granted

• Scroll of Hero's Feast
• Superior Healing Potion
• Sunsword

Character(s) interacted with

• The Abbot
• Vasilka, the Abbot's ward
• Clovin Belview, the abbey's groundskeeper and the Belview family caretaker