22nd August 2025 - Wine, Fire, and Amber

The wind clawed at them as they woke, sharp and merciless, the kind of cold that sank into bone and whispered of endings. The mountain pass stretched out in both directions, barren and scoured, and above it all loomed the dark reminder of Barovia’s cruel design.

The debate began almost immediately.

“The temple again?” Lars asked, tugging his cloak tight around him. His breath fogged the air. “We nearly died in there. Repeatedly.”

“Kasimir’s sister,” Aeli countered. Her voice was hoarse, but firm. “If there’s even a chance to rescue her, we should try. She might be our only leverage against Strahd.”

Athun muttered to himself, words slipping out like steam through cracked stone. The staff at his side pulsed faintly, hungering.

Marcus held up a hand, ending the argument before it grew teeth. “Doesn’t matter what we decide if that Roc tears us apart before we get two steps off this pass.” His expression softened, almost, almost, into something like humour. “Fortunately, I remembered something. We still have forty-four pounds of goat meat.”

“Forty-four?” Aeli blinked. “Who counts that?”

“I do,” Lars said immediately. “Of course I do.”

The plan formed in fits and starts. Meat, bait, and Athun’s “inspired” idea: soaking the offering in a bottle of Purple Grape Mash No. 3. Wine so sour it could strip rust from iron.

So it was that Lars found himself crouched atop the crumbling tower, arranging wet, purple-stained chunks of meat like some grisly chef. The sky remained clear. Empty. No Roc. The party retreated inside and waited. And waited.

Finally, Marcus shoved his chair back. “Enough. We’re leaving.”

They braced for talons. For wings blotting the sky. For death.

But nothing came.

The pass lay quiet as they descended. Their journey back to the Amber Temple was strangely swift, as though the mountain itself wanted them gone.

The grand hall greeted them with its usual menace: the towering statue wreathed in black mist, and the bobbing green lights of Flameskulls hovering in the corridors like hateful sentries.

“Left wing nearly killed us,” Marcus said. “Right wing it is.”

Aeli uncorked the flask of holy water from Krezk and tightened her grip. The memory of fireball scars was still fresh.

The skulls noticed them almost immediately, their jaws cracking open in eerie laughter. Fire blossomed. The air seared. A Fireball engulfed the hall, tossing them like leaves before a gale.

“Still totally fine,” Lars coughed, singed hair smoking.

Aeli charged, splashing holy water onto the nearest skull. It shrieked and crumbled instantly. Lars actually nodded in approval. “Clever. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Marcus unleashed an Ice Storm, pelting the hall with frozen shards. The skulls dodged, the cold less effective than hoped, but the bludgeoning force rattled them. Athun struck with his staff, only for its curse to bite back. His eyes went wide, and he turned to flee, muttering, “It’s fine. I’m fine,” as terror drove him away.

But together, Aeli’s blade, Lars’s mace, Athun’s reluctant strikes, they brought the skulls down. Their green light dimmed, leaving only shattered bone and glittering gemstones in their wake.

Athun scooped the gems into a pouch, eyes distant.

The next chamber was bare but for the jackal-headed statue of cracked amber. It stared down at them with lifeless eyes.

And then it moved.

Fists the size of boulders swung. The floor shuddered. Lars caught the first blow, the impact rattling his bones and dropping him to one knee.

Athun roared, slamming his staff into the floor. Fiery shackles burst upward, wrapping the golem in chains of living flame. The construct writhed, restrained, but the staff laughed at him, cursed him, dragged him down into madness. He collapsed, weeping, laughing, screaming, useless on the ground.

“Figures,” Aeli muttered, drawing the Sun Sword. Its radiant blade flared, filling the chamber with golden light. She darted forward, each strike leaving searing gouges in the amber. Lars followed with brutal precision, hammer slamming into fractured joints.

At last, Lars landed a crushing blow, and the golem shattered into amber shards.

They barred the doors, their breathing ragged. Athun’s laughter eventually quieted, and Aeli forced the group upright again with her presence, rallying them with sheer stubbornness.

During the rest, she flipped through Van Richten’s journal, eyes narrowing at a line of cramped script. “He was right. Madam Eva… she’s Strahd’s half-sister.”

The words hung heavy. Even Barovia’s mysteries bled together in twisted bloodlines.

Their path led them to a dusty corridor and down a dark staircase, where the air grew thin.

The smell came first. Rot, rancid and wet, crawling into their lungs and clinging.

Ghasts.

They poured from a side chamber, claws scraping stone, their stench overwhelming. Aeli gagged, forcing herself to stand her ground as one leapt for Lars.

Claws raked him down, blood spattering the wall. He hit the ground hard. For a heartbeat, it looked like he wouldn’t rise again.

“Not today,” Aeli growled, forcing healing light into him, yanking him back from the brink.

The battle pressed hard. Ghasts swarmed the walls and ceiling, their claws reaching from every angle. Marcus steadied his staff, lightning sparking between his fingers. He released a bolt that tore through the hallway, searing half the creatures at once. The smell of charred flesh overpowered even the stench of rot.

Aeli finished the fight with brutal efficiency, tripping one mid-climb. It fell, screeching, and she silenced it with a downward strike of the Sun Sword.

The lair held three amber sarcophagi, each pulsing faintly with unnatural power.

Marcus stepped forward without hesitation, hands brushing the northernmost.

The world vanished.

Fog closed in. A robed figure appeared, its voice cold silk. “I am Drizlash. Imprisoned by the Dark One. Free me, and I will grant you power.”

Its form twisted, revealing the truth: a spider the size of a wolf, legs of bone, mandibles dripping venom.

Marcus didn’t flinch. “Power first.”

The bargain was struck.

When his vision returned, only a second had passed. To the others, he merely touched the sarcophagus. To Marcus, an eternity had whispered.

He opened the lid. A wind screamed outward, carrying a shadowy mist that fled the chamber. Power surged through him, strength, agility, the ability to climb walls like the spider itself.

And then the cost.

A new eye opened on his right cheek, unblinking, inhuman.

Aeli stared. Lars swore. Athun just muttered, “Of course. Of course it would be him.”

The party stood among shattered amber and smoking corpses, their wounds deep, their choices deeper still. One more bargain had been struck. And Barovia would never let them forget it.