Session Report 3

General Summary

The ruffians regrouped after battling the slimy beaked creature and licked their wounds. Gunter took head of the exploration arm of the group and headed south, coming to a halt at a four way intersection of dungeon tunnels. As the minotaur halted, loud chanting could be heard coming from the dungeon tunnels leading left and right from the intersection. Though the chanting had become significantly louder by traveling just 10 feet south of the room, the chanting itself was still a garbled mess and could not be deciphered.
As Gunter reached the intersection, two ghastly white creatures phased up through the cracked dungeon floors, scaring all the bugs out of their various crevices. Gunter readied his battle-axe and with the aid of Carlos's dancing lights, was able to see the creature and slam his blade down into its neck.
The first creature fell with ease as Gunter shoved the beast back, causing the creature to stumble and fall on it's head. Blood pooled beneath the creature's head and the body stopped twitching after a second of spasms.
Carlos came in after Gunter Hash Horn and delivered a deadly dagger throw straight to the head of the other ghastly white creature. The creature's body slammed to the ground and the dagger stayed lodged in, standing taller than the lifeless body itself.
After inspecting the bodies and retrieving the dagger of Carlos, the ruffians debated and discussed which direction of chanting to follow. They settled on sending Gunter and Russel right since Gunter could already see a sliver into the room. Thankfully, Carlos transferred his dancing lights into the room and Gunter was able to see the entire architecture of the dungeon chamber.
The chamber was littered with moldy bones that had dropped from skeletal remains hanging from rusty shackles against the walls. A wide alcove in the south wall contains a painted wooden statue carved in the likeness of a gaunt, pale-faced man wearing a voluminous black cloak, his pale left hand resting on the head of a wolf that stands next to him. In his right hand, he holds a smoky-gray crystal orb.
Gunter and Russel inspect the statue and decide that maybe the spirits of the children may recognize the likeness of the wooden carved figure. The party plays telephone and is able to get the spirits to examine the wooden carved statue. The spirit of the girl who identified herself as Rose calls the figure Lord Strahd and identifies him as the ruler of the lands of Barovia.
The rest of the group heads south at the intersection and searches a chamber found at the end of the twisting hallway. A chandelier is suspended above a table in the middle of the room. Two high-backed chairs flank the table, which has an empty clay jug and two clay flagons atop it. Iron candlesticks stand in two corners, their candles long since melted away. In the southwest corner sits a door that looks to lead to the room Russel and Gunter are currently investigating.
Russel decides it is time to regroup with the other ruffians and takes the connecting door south of the chamber yet as he grabs the doorknob the wooden grain of the door shifts and molds into a hideous tooth and tongue filled mouth. The arms sprouting out of the door attempt a swing at Russel yet the human-elf hybrid is able to avoid the swings and pull himself off the sticky skin of the door. As the conscious door seems to have no legs, the party, on both sides of the door, launch range attack after range attack until the beast had been vanquished. Yet the attack that killed the wretched beast was not one of range but one delivered from up close and personal and by the hands of the initial victim at that. Russel the Crow slammed his famed Morningstar "Longsword" into the wooden grained skin of the conscious door and parts of the creatures skin ruptured off at the felling blow. 
The party inspected the creature's corpse and found stumps for legs and a pile of bones beneath them.
After recovering from the fight with the conscious door, Russel, Carlos, and Batholomew searched an attached room to the one currently housing the chandelier.
The room contained a large wood-framed bed with a rotted feather mattress, a wardrobe containing several old black robes, a pair of iron candlesticks, and an open crate containing thirty torches and a leather sack with fifteen candles inside it. At the foot of the bed was an unlocked wooden footlocker containing some gear and magic items inside. 
As Russel pulled out the small wooden container laying in the footlocker, the dungeon walls behind and to the side of Bartholomew disintegrated away, leaving two openings in the walls that housed creatures with pale white skin, long claws, and an even longer tongue.
The creatures had surprised the ruffians in the room and took this chance to brutally eviscerate the leg of Bartholomew. As Bartholomew bled on the ground and began his conversation with death, the rest of the ruffians rushed into the room, fighting off the long tongued creatures. As the party fought, Carlos came to the aid of Bartholomew and was able to stabilize the wood elf.
After the fight Bartholomew was able to regain his composure and quickly deduced a way for him to keep his newly detached leg which took the form of a kitchen chair peg.
The party headed out once again and this time decided to follow the chants coming from deeper down in the dungeon. As the ruffians walked down the stairs the words of the chanting became decipherable to all in the group. The chants repeated "He is the ancient. He is the land." 
At the bottom of the stairwell the party finds themselves in a chamber with a dozen or so alcoves carved into the dungeon cracked walls. In each of these alcoves there sits an item.
The party ignores these items of the alcoves and head further south to a room containing decayed skeletal remains that looked to be at one time prisoners of the cells found within the chamber. At the end of the hallway is a black cloaked skeleton that on its ring finger holds a gold ring. Russel pulls off the ring slowly, this time ready for anything to jump out at him yet nothing happens as he loots the long decayed corpse.
The party finishes the session by finding a hidden door in the wall, thanks mainly to the super sleuthing of one Pablo Herburner. This door leads to a massive chamber and the chanting stops as the party peers into this forty-foot-square room. The smooth masonry walls provide excellent acoustics. Featureless stone pillars support the ceiling, and a breach in the west wall leads to a dark cave heaped with refuse. Murky water covers most of the floor. Stairs lead up to dry stone ledges that hug the walls. In the middle of the room, more stairs rise to form an octagonal dais that also rises above the water. Rusty chains with shackles dangle from the ceiling directly above a stone altar mounted on the dais. The altar is carved with hideous depictions of grasping ghouls and is stained with dry blood.

Report Date

19 May 2021