Session 24 – The Amber Temple

6th Day of the 4th Quarter of the Moon of Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.

Days in Barovia: 9. The moon waxes gibbous.

Diplomatic Relations

Black tentacles writhed across the floor, coverting the west side of the room; within their grasp there was no sign of the shaman, the barbarian or the hell hound. The three charmed warriors and the dog look dejectedly at Paris as Cornelius dumped the corpse of their comrade on to the floor.

It was cold- deathly cold, here, colder than the waters of the Luna river, colder than the wind that howls through the chasm in mount Ghakis, well below freezing. Cornelius did not feel the chill, but Dickie and Paris’ teeth started chattering as their breath steamed from their mouths. The Tergs, flesh coated in grey  mud, wore heavy furs that appeared to be keeping them warm.

“My dear fellows, I really am awfully sorry about that-“ Paris gestured to Cornelius’ kill- “but we’re still pals, aren’t we? You won’t hold it against us?”

The Tergs did not appear to speak the same language as the Bullingdon Boys, but were able to communicate with Paris through empathic cues and gestures.

“Pals, Paris?” Cornelius spluttered, “you’re pals with these degenerates?”

“Yes!” Paris said emphatically, winking at Cornelius. “I think they’re absolutely… Charming!” He winked again.

“Paris, something is wrong with your face.”

“I charmed them with my ‘personality’,” Paris said pointedly, subtly gesturing to his wand.

“Ah, I see what you mean,” said Cornelius as he cottoned on, “you charmed them with your magic?”

Clarence had stuck his head back through the fissure, and seeing the peaceful scene he dismissed his tentacles. As they puffed away into oily smoke, he clambered down, turning on Paris.

“I can’t see very much of a difference between that and what you assured me were charmed individuals!”

“Well, these ones aren’t attacking us because they think I’m friends with them. What I was saying was, if you’d stopped attacking the priest I’m sure I could’ve persuaded him to cease the attack. But you made it incredibly difficult for me to make peace!”

As Paris’ voice was raised against Clarence, the Tergs turned on the Bullingdon, moving towards him menacingly. Thinking quickly, Paris said “Ah, but I forgive you!” and pushed past his new friends to wrap Clarence in an embrace. The Tergs stopped as Paris gave them a big thumbs up- one sheepishly smiling and reciprocating the gesture- but another pointed at the corpse Cornelius had deposited on the floor and communicated something like “I’m not very happy that Cornelius has sauntered in and thrown the dead body of my comrade at my feet.”

“I don’t think they’re very happy you’ve dumped that corpse there, Cornelius. I think maybe we should-“

“No, hold on Paris, I can explain.” Cornelius turned to the mud-clad warriors and spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “This was a ‘misunderstanding’. My brother and I thought you were trying to kill us. And we responded in kind. I apologise. I am sorry for the death of your friend, OK?” He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.

It appeared to work, as the Tergs looked at each other; at Paris; narrowed their eyes at Clarence, then looking from Cornelius to the corpse morosely. One of them gave a forgiving shrug.

“Very good, very good. Here, you can each have a shiny coin for your troubles!”

As Cornelius pressed the coins into mud-coated hands, Dickie slid over to the south wall of the room where something in the pattern of the stonework looked… wrong. His fingers probed the discrepancy and found a mechanism; with a click, a section of the wall slid backward revealing a dusty cloister. Cylindrical holes fit for scrolls were carved into the south wall, but any papers that may once have been there had long since crumbled to dust.

Dickie sighed. “Well, that’s a disappointment.” Then, to his companions, “Bloody cold in here!”

“Is it?” Cornelius asked. “I feel quite comfortable.”

Paris did some pantomime with the Tergs to indicate that he was cold, and they should give him their furs. The Tergs pantomimed back that indeed it was cold, and their furs were keeping them nice and warm. Paris tugged one of their coats, pointed to himself, and indicated that they were friends. Cornelius loudly cleared his throat and tapped the dead Terg, also wearing a rough coat, with the toe of his boot. Paris dove for it.

“Right,” said Paris from within his new furs, “now we’re all warmed up-“

“Speak for yourself, I’m bloody freezing,” said Dickie, his hands under his armpits, teeth chattering.

Cornelius suggested his companions share the fur coat- Paris wearing it for ten minutes, then Clarence for ten, then Dickie for five. This suggestion was not popular.

Dickie suggested killing the remaining Tergs and taking their furs. Paris wasn’t comfortable killing his new friends- Clarence was less squeamish.

“Now, look here,” Cornelius said after some discussion. “We don’t need to kill them. We could trade with them!” He turned to the Tergs with an electrum piece in his hand. “I will give you this shiny bead for your furs!”

The Terg muttered at Cornelius, showing him the gold piece the Marquis of Saxonia had paid him a few minutes previously. An electrum piece obviously wouldn’t do, seeing as Cornelius had been so free with gold already.

Paris conjured a small carving in his hand; a lewd statuette of a naked woman in posed provocatively. He gave the Tergs a wink and showed them his work; one chuckled, reaching for the trinket, but Paris snatched it away. The barbarian shrugged off his furs, handing them to Paris, who gave him the statue. The Terg laughed deeply, then turned, shivering, towards the fissure and left. The dog followed him, and the two other mud-clad warriors as well, bereft of their furs once Paris made them similar rude idols.

“There we go- clothing for pornography,” said Paris, tossing a fur cloak each to Dickie and Clarence.

“Say chaps,” said Dickie through chattering teeth, “before we push any further into this… Citadel of Darkness, I could really do with a rest.” Leading the long, hard journey from Berez had left the manservant exhausted.

It was early evening now, and the Bully Boys retreated from the temple- out through the crevasse- back to the mountainside façade. Paris conjured the Golden Bully Hut, and they settled down to while away the evening and recover their strength. The temple could wait until morning.

This night, they set watches, lest the Tergs return in anger. They did not, and the night passed uneventfully- except for Clarence, who heard the beating of some huge wings passing over them in the darkness. And then silence.

When morning came the Bully Boys entered the Amber Temple. Cornelius led the way, striding confidently through the entrance guarded by amber statues. As he descended the steps into the sepulchral darkness, Cornelius snapped his fingers and his holy symbol beamed with light; a glow then joined by Paris’ luminous orbs.

Cornelius strode through the entrance corridor out on to the balcony where he had killed the Terg warrior, but coming in behind him for the first time, the other Bullingdon Boys payed some more attention to their surroundings. There were slits in the stone- murder holes- along each side of the corridor.

“Ooh!” Paris pressed his eye right up to one, and sent a floating ball of light through to the chamber beyond. The room appeared to be empty… Except for a skeleton in one corner, in a blue wizard’s robe, clutching a wand to its chest and lacking a skull.

“Err, wand in there, Clarence.”

“Really?”

“Yes, have a look. Press your eye to this murder hole.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Pressing your eye to a murder hole?” Clarence emphasised murder.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

From the limited perspective of the murder hole they could not see an entrance to the chamber- only bare stone, no doors along the walls or traps on the floor or ceiling. The chamber on the other side of the corridor was the same, minus the skeleton.

“If there’s a way in, I’m sure we’ll find it,” said Dickie, joining Cornelius. Clarence and Paris followed, and Paris’ lights illuminated the chamber before them.

Skulduggery

They stood on a wide balcony of black marble with shattered railings, overlooking a vast temple. Black marble staircases at each end of the balcony descended to the temple floor, thirty feet below them. The walls and ceiling were covered in an amber glaze, weirdly reflecting the magical lights. A set of amber doors stand closed to the west- to the room where the Tergs had camped- and another set stand open to the east.

Below and before them, four black marble columns held the vaulted ceiling of the temple, where at the far end stood a statue, forty feet tall, of a cowled figure in flowing robes. The statue’s hands were outstretched in some arcane gesture, and its face was a void of utter darkness, even as Paris’ lights washed past it.

The ominous statue stood between to black marble balconies, the easternmost partially collapsed. The walls of the temple are sheathed in amber, and the doors are of amber as well. Arched hallways coated with amber led to the west and east, and these exits were flanked by alcoves which held white marble statues of robed figures with pointed hats and golden staffs. One was shattered upon the floor.

Along the walls of the upper level, arrow slits looked down into the temple. Those along the eastern wall- just north of the Terg’s chamber- flickered internally with green light.

Dickie looked from the cowled statue, to Clarence, to the cowled statue. “Blimey, Clarence, I didn’t realise you had this big a following.”

“It is not that I am followed, but I am the follower.”

“Yes,” Cornelius nodded, “you are all my followers.”

“Precisely.”

Dickie raised an eyebrow. “Yes, clearly.”

“I’m glad you both agree. Now, where shall we go from here?”

A door on the south wall just next to the Terg camp entrance them lead into what looked like an empty guardroom or barracks. It would be adjacent to the western murder hole chamber, and while there was no door, investigating the wall between the two spaces Dickie found once again a disguised mechanism that hid an entrance. The chamber looking onto the corridor was empty but Dickie was getting a knack for finding these secret doors.

Dickie was staunchly against going into the Terg’s camp, as they may be back and hostile; additionally, the flickering lights behind the arrow slits gave him pause. They went through the open door to the east of the balcony which led into a large stone room. Double doors of amber stood open to the north, where the marble floor was cracked. There was a single door just south of the doors they came through, and a rough-edged hole ten feet in diameter in the floor of the eastern side of the room.

In addition that cast by Cornelius’ holy symbol and Paris’ dancing lights, a flickering green light emerged from the well. Paris and Dickie watched as the source of the light revealed itself: green flames, rising out of the hole, flames enshrouding a skull which floated upwards, eye sockets holding menacing flames. Two other flaming skulls followed it, as Paris screamed, gibbering and cackling as they emerged.

“Clarence, stop that gibbering and cackling,” Cornelius said obliviously as he studied the stonework of the walls. Clarence and Paris recognized these things, aptly known as “flameskulls”, fashioned from the remains of dead wizards in a ghastly ritual.

Dickie did not know how they were made but he had an idea on how to unmake them: his dagger flashed in one hand, and the sword-cane struck in the other, smashing the jaw clean off the closest skull. Cornelius appeared next to his manservant and the skull collapsed into fragments beneath his fists.

The golden bully sword appeared and Paris, waving his frost-enchanted wand, focussed through the crystal orb he had claimed from a vampire-wizard when they left Vallaki; and rather than the usual finger of ice flowing from the wand, a shower of warm golden light fell upon the skull.

The bully sword swung wide as Paris and Clarence scrambled out of the room, equally aware of the explosive infernos these flameskulls were known to cause. Blasts of eldritch energy covered Clarence’s retreat, scattering teeth from one skull, but both of the undead constructs opened their mouths wide cackling and balls of flame erupted around Cornelius and Dickie.

The pair flung themselves away, rolling with the explosive force, and were left singed and smoking but still alive. Dickie rolled to his feet, slashing and striking again, and Cornelius reared behind him, reached through green flame to grasp both skulls and smashed them together. The fires died as the skulls fractured, and Cornelius stomped his boots on the pieces.

“That’s not… I’m not a fan of those. They’re more dangerous than they look!” said Dickie, brushing embers off his coat.

“No no no- this fight is not over!” Paris cried, “Does anyone have holy water?” 

“Why?” Dickie asked.

“I’m a very experienced wizard, I know what I’m talking about. These things will regenerate in no time if they’re not covered in holy water.”

The skull fragments were swept into a pile and doused with a vial of holy water Cornelius had pilfered from Van Richten’s wagon. Some theological discussion as held as to Cornelius’ personal capacity, as prophet of the Morninglord, to make holy water; which led to discussion about Cornelius’ credibility as said prophet, and whether the Morninglord was gullible enough to empower his blessings.

The single door behind them led to another empty barracks, where Dickie found another secret door leading to the chamber with the headless wizard skeleton. The wand clutched in bony fingers was clearly magical, but its exact properties would require more study to discern. Paris claimed it, tucking it into one of his pockets amongst his other wands. Clarence explained how the head had likely been removed to make one of the flameskulls, much to everyone’s discomfort.

The well through which the skulls had emerged opened into a chamber with a red marble floor, some thirty feet below. They left it, for now, and exited the annexe through the northern amber doors, entering the corridor with a floor of cracked marble.

Paris’ lights flickered off the glazed amber covering the walls of the corridor. The western wall held a number of arrow slits looking down into the temple proper and across, where now familiar green lights flickered through arrow slits in the opposite corridor. The amber doors at the far end were open, and another set of double doors led east from the corridor. Cracks in the black marble floor led the length of the corridor, and through the doors at the far end.

Dickie opened the eastern doors to reveal a chamber brightly lit from red copper lanterns that hung from the ceiling. The walls were sheathed in amber, shaped in a bas-relief of wizards with spell books. Wide stairs descended to an obsidian lectern, behind which a board of slate hung from chains. Between the stairs sat descending rows of red marble benches- this was some kind of lecture hall.

The Bullingdon brothers were immediately whisked away in their memories of the university of Jotun; Cornelius’ joyful, Clarence’s fraught with terror. Dickie and Paris, less whimsical, noticed a man making a terrible effort of hiding behind the lectern: his feet stuck out from one side, and they could see him covering his head with his arms around the other.

“Show yourself!” Paris’ voice boomed magically, snapping Clarence and Cornelius from their reveries. A startled scream answered from behind the lectern; a face peered up at them, tight with terror, but relief swept across it when it registered the party.

“You, you can’t hide here! This is my hiding place, you can’t, you go away and shut the door!” the stranger’s reedy voice rattled up the stairs. Dickie casually shut the door behind him.

The man stood, revealing scorched robes; unkempt hair half burned away, arms and face covered in blisters. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Paris demanded.

“I’m, I’m Vilnius. I came here with my master, looking for magical secrets but it’s, it’s all gone horribly wrong.”

“Who is your master?” Clarence asked.

“Who was my master! Jakarion, he’s dead now. The flameskulls did for him what they’ll do for the rest of us, if not that… Thing, before them.”

“Thing?” said Paris, “What thing?”

“Didn’t you see? You must have come down the corridor. The Thing!”

“Well, what does it look like? What kind of thing?” Paris was sceptical.

“I don’t know!” this Vilnius cried despairingly, “I’ve never seen it! But it goes stomping up and down the corridor and it’s broken the floor- you can hear it going!”

“I have little doubt whatever it is shall fall before our might,” Clarence boasted.

“Well I’m glad you’re so confident, but you could just leave me here  in peace, couldn’t you? Have you got any food?”

Paris approached Vilnius and offered the man a hard biscuit, which was snatched out of Paris’ fingers and devoured. Up close, Paris could see an amulet hanging from the man’s neck, a pendant shaped like an upside down V. As he saw Paris’ eyes upon it, Vilnius shoved the amulet inside his robes.

“Now, what was that, what was that symbol?”

“It’s mine, I found it!”

“What did it say?”

“It doesn’t say anything, it’s none of your business, it’s mine!”

Dickie coughed pointedly. “It’s clearly magic or he wouldn’t care so much.”

Vilnius narrowed his eyes at the manservant. “What do you know about magic?”

“I know a lot about crazy wizards,” Dickie replied flatly.

“There aren’t any crazy wizards in here,” Vilnius said obliviously, “they’ve all been turned into bloody flameskulls!”

Cooking With Gas

Vilnius did appear to have cracked somewhat from his experience in the Amber Temple. He wanted the party to leave him in peace; he wanted them to take him home. He wouldn’t let them leave without him, but he wouldn’t leave until they’d killed “the Thing” in the corridor. He had a magic amulet, but declared he had nothing to pay them with. He didn’t want to go deeper into the Temple, but he didn’t want to leave without his master’s magic staff, and he didn’t know the way he’d come as he had fled in panic.

The Bullingdon Boys tired of him and left him in the lecture hall, promising they would destroy “the Thing” and see him safely home before shutting the door.

They followed the cracked marble flooring north through another pair of amber doors, into a room where the walls and ceiling had collapsed. Amber doors led west onto the balcony abreast the huge statue in the temple. In the centre of the room stood an enormous statue of a hawk headed warrior made of cracked amber. Large chunks were missing from its form and the whole thing, near twice the height of a man, flickered: disappearing and reappearing, sometimes in whole, sometimes in a fluttering of different parts rendered invisible and then visible again.

“I bet it’s that,” said Dickie as they approached the room, “I bet that things going to bloody go for us.”

“It’s just a statue,” said Paris incredulously.

“Paris! We just fought flying skulls.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Skulls are living things, Dickie, statues are just inanimate objects!” Cornelius explained.

“Not to contradict you milord, but skulls are the opposite of living…”

“You know what I mean! Skulls used to be alive, a statue is always just a statue.”

“You’re getting paranoid,” Paris said.

“I don’t trust it. It’s flickering! It’s weird.”

“I do agree with Dickie,” said Clarence.

“You know what, if it’s so safe, you can go first,” Dickie said to Cornelius.

“I always go first,” Cornelius said, striding through the amber doors, “for I am the leader.”

The statue turned to face him, and clenched its enormous fists.

Clarence, unsurprised, blasted energy at the statue while stepping back the way they had come. Dickie, likewise unsurprised, nocked an arrow but the missile when skidding off the flickering amber surface of the construct. The amber golem held its hands forwards and a wash of pressure rippled down the corridor, wrapping around Paris and Clarence who’s limbs became heavy, minds sluggish as they were ensorcelled.

The statue stepped towards Cornelius, the marble floor cracking further under each footstep. Cornelius took a deep breath, turned on his heel and ran back down the corridor, propelled on his way by the crushing impact of an amber fist.

Paris waved his wand, invoking a magic specifically designed to shatter inorganic material; a painfully intense noise reverberated from behind the statue, and the cracks in its form spread, amber flaking from its surface. Paris backed away, having to push his muscles as if he were in water.

There was a stink of brimstone and sulphur as Clarence conjured his hell hound, between the golem and the retreating party. The slowing effect faded as Clarence willed himself to move away, while another of Dickie’s arrows clattered against an amber shoulder to no effect.

The hell hound’s fangs skidded off of solid amber as two huge arms smashed down on it, almost crippling the demonic dog. Cornelius stopped his retreat: he turned, ran, and launched into the air crying “Cornelius Bullingdon!” He bodily slammed into the huge statue, which already thrown off balance by its assault on the hound…. Toppled.

Paris’ shattering spell rang out again and more cracks spread across the flickering form of the golem. Dickie gave up on the bow, and raced forward with his dagger, but that blade too simply skidded from the amber as the colossus climbed to its feet, energy lashing towards it from Clarence. Amber fists swung to Cornelius but a flash of light from his holy symbol diverted the blow, as a statuesque foot smashed into the ground inches from the waning hell hound.

The hound’s mouth opened, and flame rippled up from its gullet, scorching around Cornelius, Dickie and the statue: Dickie avoided the inferno, Cornelius was singed some more, and amber cracked and flaked from the golem.

The flickering statue was starting to fall apart, Cornelius’ fists pounding cracked amber, frost from Paris’ wand and swings from the Golden Bully Sword; Dickie’s dagger finally struck true in a deep crack in the statue’s thigh which caused the whole leg to rupture and collapse, the golem taking a plaintive swing at Dickie who was clobbered as it fell. Finally it shattered into chunks of amber, the flicker between visible and invisible stopping as Cornelius’ fists reduced it to rubble.

The hell hound breathed in, about to unleash its firey breath over the party once again, but a ray of frost flitted from Paris and the inherent flame of the creature was put out- it collapsed in a pile of brimstone-scented steam.

“I have to admit, on this one occasion, Dickie, you were right about that statue,” said the flamboyant mage as the fracas closed.

Some discussion followed on where whoever built this place got their hands on so much amber; and what amber even was, the conclusion being that it was probably all the fault of wizard nonsense. Dickie wanted a breather, but Clarence wished to push ahead. Vilnius had mentioned his master’s staff, and the younger Bullingdon was excited at the prospect of more arcane artefacts.

The balcony overhung the northeast corner of the temple, beneath one arm of the huge faceless statue. The next room held a shrine, in which the fragments of a shattered obsidian statue were scattered. There were empty alcoves to either side and Dickie, knowing what to look for now, found another concealed door.

The door opened into a dusty corridor where a dark staircase curved down. The air was thin, but carried the heady stench of death. “Phwoar, blimey,” exclaimed Dickie, “Do you smell that? Death!”

The Bullingdon Boys advanced with uncharacteristic caution. Dickie led, catlike, silent, down into the bowels of the temple. The stairs descended to a collapsed hall with a high ceiling and walls of amber. Rubble was strewn across the floor but a path led to an open doorway, from whence the stench issued.

Dickie held up a hand to stop his comrades, and moved across the rubble, not even a pebble shifting in his wake. Silently, he reached the door and looked within. The room had amber glazed walls and a floor of green marble, strewn with bones. In alcoves to the north, east and south stood sarcophagi carved of amber blocks, points of darkness flitting within them like shifting shadows.

Two feral-looking humanoids with ghastly grey skin and long black claws crouched chattering in hushed tones, and Dickie saw they had three eyes: two as one may expect to see upon a man, with a third, lidless and clouded in the centre of their heads. Five more creatures clung to the ceiling.

Dickie returned to his comrades and described what he’d seen. He suggested Paris throw a fireball into the room of monsters- Paris was wholeheartedly on board, and worked his way towards the door. He was not as stealthy as Dickie- a stone skidded from his boot, and he paused with his heart in his mouth, but whatever was within did not seem to notice. He moved into position undetected, and, glancing back at his comrades, twirled his wand.

An ember floated from the tip, growing rapidly as it spiralled into the room. A three-eyed head turned to Paris and then a great explosion of heat and fire washed out of the amber door. There were brief screeches of agony, and a thud-thud-thud-thud-thud as five bodies fell from the ceiling; the death-stink was lost beneath the equally unpleasant smell of burning flesh, and a lone creature came stumbling from the room, horrifically burned and wailing, flesh sloughing from its body.

Cornelius stepped forward and, with a single blow, put the creature out of its misery.

Session 23 – River, Mountain, Temple

6th Day of the 4th Quarter of the Moon of Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.

Days in Barovia: 9. The moon waxes gibbous.

Off the Beaten Path

Dickie lead their way out of Berez, following the path of the Luna River. The flies dissipated, and the earth grew more solid as the Bullingdon Boys come into the shadow of the mountain and leave the swamp of Berez. The grey clouds roiling above finally broke in a thick sleet, swelling the river. Further south the sleet turned to snow, thick and wet and cold. Mount Ghakis rose to the east, a sheer wall rising from the other side of the river into the leaden sky.

There was no beaten trail. At times, the mud and wet rocks across the western shore threaten to send them into the river below; sometimes thick brush or impassable stone impeded them, forcing backtracks, but Dickie always found a passable route.

At one point the Bully Boys had to push up against a rock face, shimmying along twenty feet above the river rushing below. A few pebbles came clattering from the lip of the bank above, and as he looked up Dickie saw a flash of white and black: a white face and a cloak? And then the earth and stone above them came loose.

Paris fell screaming into the river below as his companions hung on to the cliff face. The breath went out of him as he struck the freezing water, managing to cry “I can’t swi-“ before water filled his mouth as he was swept away by the strong current.

Without hesitating, Cornelius threw off his jacket and dove gracefully into the water after his employee; Dickie fixed his grapnel to the rock face and began to ascend down, while Clarence simply held on, watching. From just above the water, Dickie turned with a hand outstretched to see two bobbing headings being carried further off.

Cornelius was thrown off by the current as he struck the river but managed to right himself, pushing his head above water, and catching sight of Paris not far ahead of him he raised his holy symbol up high. Divine energy flowed from him and the waters parted: A man-sized trench forming a path from Paris, to him, to the shore. For a moment, Paris flailed as he fell onto clear riverbed, but quickly scrambled as Cornelius called to him.

The elder Bullingdon reached the shore first, a narrow beach of pebble, and turned reaching for Paris who clasped his hand just as the river remembered to flow and smashed into his flank, almost buffeting him free but he hung on and Cornelius hauled him free. Paris, soaking, frozen, collapsed on top of his employer, shivering; and after a long moment, rolled off.

“Dickie!” Cornelius called upriver, to where Dickie was progressing towards them, “Dickie, bring me a towel! Clarence! Who threw those rocks at us?”

From where he clung to the cliff his brother replied, “Whoever it was, they haven’t shown their face.”

“Someone threw the rocks?” Paris sputtered.

“Seems that way,” Dickie said as he approached Cornelius with a towel, “pale feller, black cloak.”

“Clarence?” Clarence had, however, been on the cliff face when Dickie saw whoever he saw above.

Paris, shivering, dried and warmed himself by waving his wand over his head. Cornelius was unaffected by the cold- in fact, wearing the ring he found at the Abbey, he felt a balmy warmth. But he was wet, so he had Dickie towel him off.

“Seems a pretty mild day to me,” Cornelius said, as snow fell around him.

Clarence shouted down from the cliff, his voice booming unnaturally, said he was going to investigate, and stepped off the cliff- stepped into the air, where he did not fall but hung as if suspended, his arms spread, his robe rippling in the wind.

“Ah, that’s one of mine,” Paris lied as Clarence demonstrated his new magical ability. “Very good, Clarence!”

“You should have done that instead of falling into the river, then, Paris,” Cornelius told him.

Cackling quietly, Clarence shot up, above the lip of the steep bank they had been traversing, over the desolate Barovian landscape where a few hundred yards back the forest ran parallel to the river. In the flurrying snow he saw nobody as he swept back and forth above the ground; only the few feet of collapsed cliff-edge indicated what had happened. He collected Dickie, keener eyed than he, flying him to the cliff top, but all Dickie could find were some footprints- with no tracks leading to, or from- and a faint hint of brimstone in the air.

It was, in the end, a mystery, and one they didn’t have enough information to solve. So they set off, south again, following the river. The next two hours went by without incident; a dull, hard slog across wild terrain, difficult even with Dickie’s guidance, even with the Beacon of Argynvost having lifted the fog.

Everything was wet, the river, the slick rock on the banks, the mud beyond, the sodden underbrush- the Bully Boys. They were cold and tired and aching, numb of body and mind, when the grey skies finally revealed the bridge: old black stone, high above them, spanning the gorge cut by the southbound river. A faint glimmer of orange came from one end of the structure On the eastern shore the mountain rose sheer above the level of the bridge, hundreds of feet higher on either side- the road must lead into a chasm in mount Ghakis. The western shore climbed less steeply, the rock face forming natural steps leading five hundred feet to the level with the bridge.

This was not going to be the stroll up the cliff face path in Krezk. There was no path here- it was a mountain face. At best, it would be a steep hike; likely they would have to scramble, and climb sections. It would be possible, but it would be hard. Dickie was a sure climber, and between them they had plenty of rope, and Cornelius was in peak physical condition; but Clarence and Paris had never been particularly athletic.

They roped themselves together- Dickie, to lead, Cornelius at the back, with Paris and Clarence between them- and began the ascent. Dickie began to flag. He had been navigating them from the swamp, leading the way for hours, finding the best path which meant finding all of the wrong paths first, while the others simply followed once he was sure. And the same was true here: first to test every handhold and foothold, the ones he failed on the others could avoid; then, whenever the weaker Paris or Clarence slipped or lost balance, it was Dickie who had to anchor himself and right them. He was exhausted.

Around half way up the face, as he heaved himself onto a narrow, outthrust ledge, Dickie heard a heavy snorting. Looking up he found himself face to face with an enormous goat, black furred and white faced, crowned with huge curled horns, a black rectangular pupil staring at him from one orange eyeball. As the others clambered up behind him, the goat snorted, one huge hoof pawing the ground.

“Oh look, a lovely goat,” said Cornelius, terrified of goats, his heart fluttering, “Well, let’s move on.” He furtively began to climb, up and away from the creature separated from him by his party. Clarence, adjacent, followed after him, flinging a blast of eldritch energy at the creature for good measure. “That’s what you get for throwing rocks at us!”

And the goat rammed Dickie. It hunched back then sprung towards the manservant, Dickie spun away, somehow keeping his feet while avoiding being gored, and being pushed into the mountain instead off flung off of it. Paris, suspecting this was some kind of magic goat given its unnatural size and attitude, attempted to nullify any enchantment upon it: he clicked his fingers and… “Ha!” Paris shouted, as the goat transformed into a man swathed in a black cloak with a featureless white mask upon his face. “I knew it!”

“Heh, heh,” the man laughed horribly as he stood, “polymorph!”

Dickie’s dagger was in his hand, the blade thick with black venom- it slammed into the masked mage’s side, who gasped then shuddered as the poison took. Cornelius, from his vantage point above, saw that the goat was gone- “Clarence! A badly dressed fiend is terrorizing our servants!” and he leapt from his perch, pulling Clarence down behind him.

Cornelius fell onto the assailant, clobbering him with his fists, and then there was a puff of smoke and a stink of brimstone and the masked mage was gone. Dickie caught a momentary flicker around the glowing light of the bridge, hundreds of feet above them, but through the falling snow he could make out no more.

“What a coward!” Paris exclaimed, disappointed, “too frightened to face the Bullingdon Boys?” He shook his fist in the air.

“He’s probably heard of our fearsome reputation,” Cornelius said, “now come on Dickie, let’s get back up this mountain.”

A Bridge Too Far

Exhausted, Dickie led the Bullingdon Boys on to where the ground levelled out, five hundred feet above the Luna river. They climbed without incident. As they reached the top, and an exhausted Dickie dragged his weary feet towards the road, Cornelius noticed something odd on the ground before his foremost servant’s feet.

“Dickie! Wait! There’s some sort of sigil on the rock there! Perhaps some other noble has tread this way?”

And he was correct: in the thin layer of snow on the ground a small pattern was traced out where the snow refused to fall, or was diverted, or melted as soon as it hit the ground.

Unsure was a ‘sigil’ was, Dickie came to a stop inches from the device and sat down heavily. Now Cornelius had pointed it out, Dickie could see the strange mark.

Clarence and Paris investigated the mark, which likely was some arcane glyph- indeed, Paris knew it, although Clarence was not sure.

“It looks something like the teleportation circle Victor was attempting to make, does it not? Perhaps he used this to escape the fire?”

“Ah, now Clarence, you’re very very close. But that’s not quite right. Just think a little harder for a second. What kind of spell might you use if you wanted to lay, say, an explosive trap?”

Clarence opened his mouth to reply, but Paris spoke over him- “No, wrong. It’s a Glyph of Warding.”

“Ah, well, now I remember,” and he did, for they had encountered a glyph of warding on the handle of the door to Victor Vallakovich’s attic workroom, under a sign saying “KEEP OUT”. Clarence had Dickie, and everyone else, move away, and summoned a spectral hand which poked the glyph.

A fountain of churned earth and stone erupted around the sigil, cascading out in a blast that would have not only bludgeoned and battered anyone caught in it, but likely thrown them back down the mountainside.

“So, that’s what a sigil is,” said Dicky from where he sat.

To the west, the road was blocked by a black stone fortification they would have had to pass had they come that way. To the east was the gorge, the Luna River far below, the gap spanned by the black stone bridge. At each end of the bridge stood thirty-foot tall stone arches, and the nearer one held beacons, glowing flames on the end of ropes dangling from the arch. As they drew close, the nature of the beacons became clear: bodies, each in unique costume, licked by flickering flame that did not burn them. There were four, corpses all.

One was held by a noose about its neck. Shirtless, head shaven, a crude moustache drawn on its face, it’s hands were painted red.

The second wore a servants garb, and “THIEF” was scrawled across its forehead.

The third, a woman’s corpse, had long, straw coloured hair; its face was garishly made up, and it wore a blue dress. A short wooden shaft had been skewered through one hand to dangle from the palm.

The final corpse had its hands nailed to its chest over a thick book. It’s face was enshrouded by the hood of the volumous black robe it wore.

“The woman is supposed to be you then, Paris?” Clarence said, catching on to the nature of these grim lanterns.

Paris was affronted. “What do you mean it’s supposed to be me? I don’t see any evidence that these are supposed to be anyone at all.”

“That one is Cornelius, that one is Dickie-“ Clarence pointed- “it’s got ‘thief’ scrawled on it, that one is clearly me- which only leaves one.”

“It’s just a coincidence!” Paris protested. “It’s probably meant to remind us of Ireena and make us regretful.” Ireena, Paris well knew, had raven-black hair and hadn’t regularly worn dresses. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

“Much as I hate to say it, for once I think Clarence has a clearer grasp on reality than you do, Paris,” Dickie said.

“Thank you! Regardless, shall we cut them down and see if they hold anything of interest?” Clarence was particularly interested in the book.

“Dickie will handle that sort of thing,” designated Cornelius, “the rest of us deserve a well-earned rest after all that climbing!”

Dickie, dog-tired, glared daggers at his master. However, his facilities were not required as Clarence summoned his spectral hand to take a knife and saw through each rope in turn. The flaming corpses fell onto the bridge before them, where they continued to flame, releasing no smoke or heat: the wizards recognized this continual flame enchantment.

 “Someone is beginning to take our actions in Barovia very seriously,” said Dickie.

“What makes you say that?” Paris asked. Dickie sighed, then stepped over to kick the corpse he took to represent Paris… and a sound started over the wind, a delivered from lips of stone that formed in front of Dickie as he walked onto the bridge, a voice that was harsh and dripping with venom and altogether unfamiliar:

“Brothers two, of empty claim, their house long fallen silent

Come to save Barovia with bloody handed violence

Followed by two faithful dogs: while one is cutting purses

The other shows off parlour tricks and threatens empty curses

Claiming friendship, faith and trust, all lies while plotting treason

Unprovoked with fire and steel you slaughter without reason

Vengeful is the spirit that has risen from the ash

Heed this warning, Bully Boys: you can’t outrun the past.”

Paris paused. “I’ll admit that this is pushing on the personal.”

Clarence stared at the space where the magic mouth had been as his mind raced- who could have risen from the ash, with a personal grudge against the Bully Boys? “No, no, it can’t be… Him. No, I checked, I checked.”

“Care to share?” Dickie asked, looking at Clarence strangely.

“No- no, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a tone that suggests its relevant and probably matters.”

Clarence looked around, and wilted under the gaze of Dickie, Paris and his brother. “He spoke of fire. And ash. The way that the Vallakovich house burnt down- it could not be Victor. It’s not Victor!”

“Victor died in the fire,” Paris said.

“Or was horribly disfigured by the flames, forcing him to wear a mask, then escaping through his circle of teleportation with an acrid smelling ‘poof’ and now seeking revenge upon us?” posited Dickie.

“You’re seeing patterns that aren’t there,” Paris insisted, “first me in a dress, now Victor back from the dead? It all seems incredibly farfetched.”

“All of the mysteries we’ve faced so far have been revealed sooner or later,” Cornelius said wisely. “There’s no point in us standing out here in the snow worrying about it. We should just head on, and we’ll find out what’s happening once we head up this mountain. Now, Dickie- put some coal in the fire and let’s carry on riding these rails! Bully bully bully!”

“Oi oi oi!” called Paris, but Dickie and Clarence didn’t join in- they were both still mulling over the thought of Victor Vallakovich, alive and out for revenge.

Clarence wanted to search the bodies, but found no valuables upon them; the book was a book of prayers that had been ruined by the weather and having bloody nails driven through it. Each appeared to have been slain in the same sinister fashion: no wounds upon them except for two pin-prick bite marks upon each neck.

Clarence drew a vial from within his robes, and tipped the contents- a murky green liquid and a fat worm- into the mouth of the shaven-headed, moustachioed corpse.

The corpse drew a shuddering, gasping breath. Its eyes flickered open, and met Clarence’s. It shuddered, and weakly, in a Barovian accent asked what was happening. 

“What happened to you?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know… Where am I? What is this place? I was just walking home and then… Darkness… Please…”

“Did you see who killed you?”

“I was killed? But I never hurt anyone…”

Clarence stood, and stamped one foot on the ground in anger. “You mean you got no view whatsoever of whatever killed you?”

“No, I didn’t see… Who killed me?”

“Where were you from in life?”

“I was born in Vallki, I lived there my whole life. This isn’t Vallaki, is it? It’s so cold…”

“Vallaki’s all burned down now anyway,” Cornelius called over.

Clarence turned to his comrades. “Do we have any other questions we would ask this… Gentleman?”

“What is the last date you remember?” Cornelius asked the corpse.

“It was only a few more days to the full moon…” which, they surmised, would have been no more than two days prior.

But as the man answered the fifth question, there came a deathly rattle from the man’s chest: his eyes rolled back and closed, and he spoke no more. His lips gently parted as the fat worm crawled out of them, then shrivelled and curled up dead in the cold, despite the heatless flames.

Clarence kicked the body.

They crossed the black stone bridge, the wind howling around them. On the other side, a snow swept gravel road climbs the mountainside, travelling north form Tsolenka Pass. It is cold, bitterly cold as the mountain wind is channelled through the chasm.

Eventually, the road fades away under a covering of snow but the Bullingdon Boys didn’t need the road to navigate: Clarence was being drawn, like filings to a lodestone, by the bronze hand.

Finally, they saw the Amber Temple.

How To Make Friends And Influence People

Carved into the sheer mountainside ahead, fifty feet high, with six alcoves each containing a statue four times the height of a man. Each statue carved from a single block of amber, each depicting the same faceless hooded figure, hands pressed together in a gesture of prayer. Between the innermost statues a staircase led down below an archway.

Dickie blew a frigid breath. “Well, this might be the worst place we’ve seen so far.”

“I can hear something,” Clarence muttered to himself, “the ocean, or… gurgling water…” On the very edge of his hearing came the maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes; his comrades heard nothing.

Cornelius dragged his gaze away from the façade and noticed a crack in the mountainside. “Look over there, Dickie! A natural fissure, and why, it looks just big enough for a man to squeeze through.”

Glumly, Dickie noted the feature, pre-empting Cornelius’ next suggestion. He reluctantly approached. A cold breath exhaled from within, colder than the mountain air outside, and carrying the faint smell of woodsmoke.

 Clarence suggested that this may be an opportunity to be the ambushers rather than the ambushes, and Dickie reluctantly started edging through the crevasse, followed by Paris, then Clarence, then Cornelius. Paris wiggled his wand and bobbing light appeared above each of their head to illuminate their way but Clarence hissed at him to cease so they could preserve the element of surprise.

Dickie shuffled through the gap, blinded now Paris’ light was gone. After no more than a few yards, the floor fell away before him in a small step and as he lost his balance and fell forward he was caught: two pairs of strong hands, one either side, grabbed him by the arms and hauled him into darkness.

“Shit, something’s got me!”  Dickie shouted, and from behind him Paris one again summoned his dancing lights. Two feet ahead the fissure opened into a large stone room, where wild looking men in caked in grey mud held weapons of stone ready; two were hauling Dickie into one corner of the room, and three more were reaching toward Paris. A fourth was dressed more colourfully than the rest, decorated in feather and bone and wielding a stone-tipped spear; beside him, a huge beast more wolf than dog crouched in a silent snarl.

Paris had seen the like of these before, peacefully negotiating a passing in the night while the Bullingdon Boys camped above Tser Falls. Dickie, from his information foraging in Vallaki, knew them from rumour as Tergs- untamed mountain folk.

Paris raised his hands. “Friends- we have met before! We mean no harm to you, release our friend and we’ll be on our way!” The feathered shaman shouted something back, gesticulating with his spear, and Paris felt suddenly weak. As he sagged, mud-caked hands closed on him and pulled him down, two barbarians dragging him over to the eastern wall where they held Dickie.

Clarence stepped forward as the two companions ahead of him were pulled away across the room ahead of him. He raised his hands and black tentacles slithered out of the floor, swarming around the shaman, the hound and the remaining barbarian; the wolf-dog slipped out of their grasp, scuttling away to the other side of the room, but the other two were wrapped tight by slimy limbs that began to constrict. Clarence stepped back in the fissure, happy with his work.

Dickie struggled against his captors- his dagger found its way into his hand and slashed at either side but the Tergs kept him at arms length, pushing him into the corner with the hafts of their crude weapons.

Cornelius squeezed past his younger brother but stopped short of entering the chamber. He was separated from Dickie and Paris by a wall of black tentacles, writhing, grasping, crushing. He paused for a moment, considering his options- there were two doors to the room beyond the tentacles, and this was not the only way in to the temple, and Paris and Dickie needed his help.

He pushed back past Clarence, swiftly wiggling his way out of the crevasse to the mountainside, and sprinted around past the amber statues to the entrance to the temple.

Paris, held between two burly mud-coated tergs, raised his hands as best he could. “Now look here- why don’t you let me go? I’m no threat.” Magic laced his words, and the demeanour of three of the four holding him and Dickie shifted from aggressive to friendly- they released their holds, smiling jovially at Paris while the fourth gaped at them in confusion.

“Ah, now you recognise me! Why don’t you get your companions to lay off my pals, and we’ll all go and gave a drink?”

They friendly Tergs nodded, smiling, but the wolf-dog barrelled past them and lunged at Paris, knocking him from his feet. Paris screamed but one of his new friends pulled the hound off by the scruff of its neck, chastising it as it came away with a chunk of Paris’ shoulder.

The fourth barbarian barked something in their strange language but his charmed comrades weren’t interested in what he had to say. He moved away from them, putting his back to one of the amber doors that lead from the room, then with one last desperate look to where the shaman was being crushed by black tentacles, he threw the door open and fled.

The door slammed shut behind him as two of Paris’ new friends secured them in a panic. The fleeing Terg sped out into the unlit temple, feet pattering over the cold marble floor, and ran into something hard that threw him back. Cornelius grinned as he stood over him, his hands closed into fists.

The tentacles writhed and constricted around their two captives, shaman and warrior. From the fissure, Clarence called out “Give back my friends and you will not be harmed further!” The shaman let out a pitiful moan, but the barbarian warrior roared, heaving forward, tearing tentacles at the stem and lunging up into the crevasse. Clarence stumbled back as the savage figure advanced on him, fumbling in his robes for the Grimoire of the Four Quarters.

A stone axe flashed, smashing into Clarence’s midrift, then down on his shoulder, and Clarence crawled backwards muttering esoterically. There was a stink of brimstone as Clarence invoked the works of the diabolist Devostas, and the barbarian assailing him was suddenly faced with a huge, black-furred, red-eyed, monsterously clawed hound, smoke billowing from its nostrils.

One of the friendly Tergs was able to communicate to Paris that the black tentacles eating its shaman were somewhat of a concern to him and his companions, and while they found Paris very charming they would much prefer for this not to be the state of affairs: as he concluded this explination through hand gesture and sympathetic sounds, thus overcoming the language barrier, there was a sickening crunch and the shaman was completely consumed by Clarence’s conjuration. The diplomatic Terg stopped, sharing a sorrowful look of disappointment with Paris, while Dickie stood by nervously, hoping for the peace to hold but ready to strike if things turned.

Fire bellowed into the room from the fissure, and a flailing, flaming figure flew out from the gap into the tentacles where it was smothered and crushed. Clarence’s hell hound came charging through in chase, turning its baleful gaze onto the now peaceful congregation within the room, but it too was caught by the black tentacles; Clarence’s cackles were lost under the bellows of anguish from the daemonic beast as it was slowly constricted.

A voice bellowed from beyond the door through which the un-charmed Terg had escaped. “Open these doors! I am Cornelius Bullingdon and I will not let primitives like you stand in my way!”

The two warriors holding the door closed were reluctant to acquiest, but did so at Paris’ bidding. They slammed the doors shut being Cornelius as he strode in triumphant, throwing down the body of the last of the Terg warriors, its head twisted at a horrible angle.