01st August 2025 - The Temple and the Flame

The stairs spiralled down like a drill boring into the bones of the world, tight, winding, ancient. Cold air rose to meet them as they descended, each step muffled in silence that felt… heavy. Like the mountain was watching.

At the bottom, the door was thick wood, bound in black iron. It creaked as they opened it, revealing a chamber lit by torchlight, flickering off glistening walls of carved amber and smoothed stone. But it was the brazier that drew their eyes.

A white flame, bright, yet giving off no heat, hovered motionless in a massive stone basin. The fire danced without fuel, cold and ethereal. Set into the rim were seven indentations, each holding a crystal sphere the size of a fist: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Suspended above was an hourglass held in thick iron chains. Its sand, like everything in this place, was still, frozen mid-fall. Beneath it, a verse etched into the base in curling script:

"Cast a stone into the fire.
Violet leads to the mountain spire.
Orange to the castle's peak.
Red, if lore is what you seek.
Green to where the coffins hide.
Indigo to the master's bride.
Blue to the ancient magic's womb.
Yellow to the master's tomb."

Two statues loomed in alcoves, iron knights atop armoured steeds, each nine feet tall, swords half-drawn. Their hollow visors followed movement, watching without breath, without life.

Lars leaned in, eyes narrowing as he inspected the door mechanism. “Trap? No... but this place is a trap,” he muttered.

Marcus squinted into the flame, unease twisting his expression.

Aeli scoffed, tilting her head toward the blue stone.

They debated. Each colour a risk. Each destination a mystery.

Marcus, perhaps driven by logic, or desperation, plucked the violet crystal and tossed it into the flame.

The white fire flared violet. The hourglass moved. Time, held so long in suspension, began to fall again. Light exploded outward, searing their vision, and they were gone.

They awoke inside a crumbling tower.

A howling chill cut across their faces like knives.

In the dark room, the hearth lay cold and black. Shattered windows opened onto an endless, fog-filled void. On the battlements above, gold-plated knight statues stood solemn vigil beside the corpses of long-dead guards, their rusted armor hunched with the weight of centuries.

Lars broke the brittle bows of the fallen for firewood. Alchemist’s Fire hissed as it met the damp tinder, flickering to life.

The others huddled close. Aeli pulled free the Tome of Strahd. Its pages rasped open. She read in silence, then aloud.

Second Moon, 382 BC: The crime of the elves is beyond all measure of forgiveness and justice. I should have eliminated them when I first conquered this valley. I have ordered the death of every female elf in the valley for what they have done to Patrina. The elves will never again sire children, nor know womanly comfort among their own kind. Despite their longevity, they will fade from existence as I outlive them.

The name Patrina tugged at Aeli’s mind, sharp and insistent, yet the memory remained just out of reach. Then, like a spark catching tinder, it flared to life.

Kasimir’s sister.

Aeli recounted that Kasimir had made them an offer when they first met. He would fight beside them against Strahd, but only if they helped him retrieve something from the Amber Temple, something that could bring Patrina back from the dead.

But his offer had carried a grim weight. The Amber Temple was no mere ruin. It was a vault of ancient, malevolent secrets, a place where darkness festered like a wound. Some said the key to breaking Strahd’s curse lay within its cursed halls. But those who sought such knowledge rarely returned. And those who did?

They were never the same.

The thought hung while they all drifted to sleep.

That night, they dreamed not of fear, but of fire. Silver fire.

They stood in front of Argynvostholt, in all it's splendour and glory, not as wanderers, but as knights, clad in gleaming armor, each bearing the crest of Argynvost.

Strahd’s army swarmed in the distance.

“Strahd comes,” said a voice like thunder and wind. Argynvost, massive and majestic, loomed above them. “If we hold, even in death, we may guide the light back to this valley.”

Then Vladimir Horngaard, young, eyes filled with desperate hope, gripped Marcus’s arm. “They’ll remember us as martyrs. But if even one light survives, we’ve done our duty.”

They awoke with the Blessing of Argynvost in their blood, warm, defiant. Hope, reborn.

They had barely left the tower before the storm struck again.

Atop the mountain, a grey-furred beast, nine feet tall and braying with rage, burst through the snow from. Marcus raised a hand, whispering the arcane word for Shield just in time to redirect its charge. Lars ducked low, driving his mace into its flank, enhanced by his hunter’s mark. Aeli finished it with the radiant flare of her Sunsword, carving light through fur and bone.

Lars skinned it. Marcus carved 44 pounds of meat. Crude cloaks were fashioned from its hide. They marched.

At the bridge, the storm cleared just enough to see: a figure, black-cloaked, astride a charcoal horse. Statues of knights lined the sides, some broken, all silent.

The rider removed its hood. Strahd. "You will proceed no further. Consider this your final warning to turn back."

Marcus stepped forward, defiant. The figure dissolved into mist.

“Was that really him?” Aeli asked. No one answered.

They found their bearings, Tsolenka Pass. The far side of Barovia. The Amber Temple lay ahead. There were no other choices left.

Three hours through blizzard-choked paths brought them to the mountain’s heart.

A façade of amber, fifty feet tall, was carved into the cliffside. Six robed statues loomed in silent prayer, faceless and immense. The central arch gaped like a mouth.

Arrow slits lined the descent. Behind one, Marcus spied a skeleton in blue robes. With a flick of Mage Hand, he retrieved the wand it clutched. The bones collapsed.

Deeper inside, they found the shaft.

Ten feet across, it yawned like an open wound in the stone floor. Flickering firelight danced far below.

And then came the skulls.

Three of them, wreathed in flame, rose up the shaft in silence and then struck.

Marcus took the first hit, fire searing his side. Another skull cast Blur, flickering like heat haze. The third prepared a Fireball, Marcus countered, forcing arcane energy to deflect the blast. A second time, he blocked a spell meant to shatter their resolve.

Aeli's Sunsword cut through illusion and fire alike, the radiance flaring with divine fury. Lars fought with brutal precision, his Gravebreaker mace rising and falling with lethal weight.

The skulls fell, shattered, extinguished.

Marcus lay burned. Lars, out of breath and divine grace, healed what he could.

In the cold quiet after the fight, Lars insisted on checking the southern chamber. There, behind a false wall, he found the skeleton whose wand Marcus now held. The bones clattered as he shook them free.

"This will look good on Marcus," Lars said.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Are you hitting on me?”

They laughed. But only briefly.

The party deliberated, then turned north, stepping into a long, arched corridor. The walls shimmered with glazed amber, catching the dim light like frozen fire. At the far end, towering amber doors stood open, an invitation, or a trap?

A single closed door broke the east wall’s smooth surface, while three arrow slits watched like silent sentinels opposite it. The black marble floor bore jagged cracks, fissures running the length of the hall like veins of corruption.

Uneasy, the group retreated, descending instead into a vast chamber coated in amber’s eerie glow.

The hall was dominated by a forty-foot-tall statue, a robed figure with a face of pure void, hands outstretched as if in judgment. Collapsed balconies and arrow slits lined the walls, their purpose long forgotten. Between them stood the shattered remnants of marble wizards, their broken forms hinting at some ancient violence.

Marcus exhaled, breath misting in the chill air. "This place doesn’t want us here."

Aeli ran her fingers along the statues, searching for inscriptions, some clue, some warning, but found nothing.

Then, fire!

Streaks of flame erupted from the statue’s hollow face, searing toward Aeli. She barely dodged, then lunged forward, boots scraping against the statue’s smooth surface as she climbed toward the darkness of its void-like visage. Lars considered toppling the monolith, but the sheer weight of the thing made the idea laughable. Instead, he followed Aeli upward, mace in hand.

They weren’t alone.

From within the void on the statue, a voice shrieked.

“Leave now! Not allowed to be here!”

Flameskulls surged from the arrow slits, their hollow eyes alight with arcane fury. Magic missiles screamed through the air, forcing the party into cover.

Aeli breached the void, coming face to face with a jackal-headed fiend, eyes burning with calculated malice.

Marcus reacted instantly, lightning crackling between his fingers, but the fiend snarled, and the spell unravelled before it could strike. Fire followed, but the Arcanaloth weathered the flames with a sneer.

Lars’ muscles locked as Hold Person gripped him, but he shoved against the magic, will against will, and broke free.

Aeli wasn’t as lucky. The Arcanaloth’s Blight seared through her, flesh withering under its touch. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stand as Marcus retaliated with a barrage of magic missiles. Lars swung his mace, twelve pounds of steel and fury, crushing into the fiend’s ribs.

The Arcanaloth staggered, then bared its teeth in a mocking grin.

"It’s getting a little crowded in here."

With a flicker of distorted air, it vanished.

The Flameskulls retreated, their hollow laughter echoing as they slipped back into the shadows.

Lars pressed a hand to Aeli’s shoulder, healing energy knitting flesh back together. The battle was won, but only barely. And they knew it.

The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken questions.

*Where had the Arcanaloth gone?* *Would the skulls return?* Was the robe Marcus now wore enchanted or cursed?

The Amber Temple stretched deeper, its heart hidden in darkness. They had come looking for secrets, for salvation.

But some knowledge was never meant to be found.