19/07/2024 - 'Dying to go back'

 Having traveled for most of the day, the party decided to make camp just off the road. After a small meal of rations, Abe and Francesco took the first watch as the rest of the party slept...

Tariel stirred awake from the voice of a young girl calling from the distance. Sitting up and looking about, the Paladin notices that Abe and Fran seem to not have noticed the loud voice. Standing up, Tariel sees a familiar face that surprises her: Rose, the girl from the Death House that she and the party had helped put to rest was standing before her.

Confused, Tariel asked what was happening. Rose explains that Thorn, her younger brother was refusing to rest and making it impossible for them to pass on. As the two talk, Tariel notices that the fog surrounding the camp is thicker than usual and the two keeping watch haven't noticed her or Rose.

Looking below her, Tariel finds herself standing over her own body. She was still asleep, but consciously outside of her own body!

 
She moves over to Slate and wakes him up, seeing his spirit rise out of his body like her own. Before explaining what was going on, Slate and Tariel wake Torbin and Summer for the same thing to happen to them. Slate is also confused to see a familiar dog sleeping with Tobin. Isn't that the dog that died in the Death House?

With Summer and Torbin now 'awake' as well, Rose explains that someone called 'Mother Night' had requested them to help Rose and Thorn. Summer mistaking Thorn for Walter is eager to beat up a child until Slate corrects her: Walter, the baby the party faced in the dungeon under the house, did move on and it was the middle brother keeping Rose tied to the house. As the party begin to follow Rose into the mist, they hear a sharp voice call out to them, 'DON'T CROSS THE THREAD'.

Standing before the house once more, Torbin notices a strange glowing thread coming off of Tariels back that leads into the fog they exited through. Before he can bring up any queries, Tariel had cast her Divine Sense toward the house and was overwhelmed by the evil aura emanating from it. Enough for her to pass out! Slate wakes the paladin, being startled by the whites of Tariels eyes having turned black. Meanwhile, Summer started moving toward the house only to be blocked by a shadowy figure that manifests in front of the kobold.

The feminine figure introduces herself as Mother Night, the goddess of the night and the dead. She asks the four adventurers for their aid in helping Rose, as her powers are severely limited within the lands of Barovia and cannot lift the curse upon the house to set Rose free from the Death Houses walls. With Rose heading into the house, Mother Night tells the party that even freeing Rose from the house will not be enough as those who die within the boarders of Barovia are unable to pass on. Or pass in, as those born into Barovia are either born without a soul or are born with the soul of someone who had died here.

Torbin asks if Mother Night knows what prevents her powers, but she seems unwilling to say...

She tells them though that an artifact within the House needs to be destroyed to destroy the barrier preventing Rose and Thorn from leaving the house. 'Destroy the items that want to destroy you'.

Torbin asks about the strange threads behind each member of the party, Mother Night explains that it is the tether between their soul and bodies, if they happen to get severed or tangled something bad will happen...

With that warning, the party enter the Death House once more.

The house seems almost exactly how it was when they arrived last time: no death traps. Yet.

Slate examines the main hall, noticing a longsword mounted on the wall. Seeing the Windmill emblem on the hilt, he picks it up and follows the group into the fathers study. While Summer and Slate check the cabinets like they did last time, Torbin notices a gap behind one cabinet. With Tariel heaving it forward, the party find a ladder leading down. into the basement?

The party argue over who should climb down first, Torbin being voted to take the lead. Once all four reach the bottom, they recognize the room they find themselves next to: the room where Abe was attacked by shadows that Summer and Tariel had to drag him from to escape the strange entities. Along with that sinister orb in the clutches of the pale wooden figure at the far end of the room. Poking their heads into the room, the four see five cloaks laying on the floor.

Cautious of the cloaks, Slate casts his Mage Hand to carry a candle over to one of the cloaks. The purple cloak bursts into flame, the chair near it starts to smoke as the wood begins to slowly burn. Seeing their chance to try and destroy the orb, Torbin casts Mage Hand too. The two Mage Hands begin carting all sorts of wooden objects across the room to the statue, forming a small bonfire around it with the cloaks draped over it to help spread the flames.

With a small Flame Orb formed in his hands, Torbin bowls it across the room into the pyre of tables and chair, the fire bursting to life and engulfing the statue in seconds! Torbin cheers with glee.

Then the orb cracks and explodes, throwing Torbin out of the room.

With the rest of the party able to get out of the way in time, Tariel is able to scramble over to the now baby-faced Torbin (his beard having burnt up in the explosion) and heal him just enough to get him back on his feet while the corridor started to fill with smoke. Summer and Slate start navigating the corridor, finding themselves in the dining hall where the party faced the  Grick. While Summer checks the next hallway, Slate notices that parts of the Gricks decaying body had been surgically removed... What's been down here after the party left? Once Tariel and Torbin catches up, Summer calls out to them to tell them she found the kids crypts. And Thorns was wide open.

Looking inside, the group finds Thorns remains. Along with Grick parts. and Rat parts.

Something had stitched them onto the boys remains!
Tariel yanks off one of the Grick limbs with a sickening crunch followed by a loud shriek as Thorns ghost flies into the room, scolding Tariel for pulling apart his new body.

Confused, Tariel asks what he meant but the ghost boy vanishes as Roses ghost comes into the room.

Torbin tells Rose that he saw Thorn hiding in the study, the ghost girl heading off to find her brother.

Thorn reappears, telling them he'd been reading a book in his fathers room that could help bring him back to life if he had a new body.

The party asks if he can show them the book, which he agrees. Leading the party up the stairs to the attic, Thorn starts heading down the stairs to his parents bedroom.

Reaching the landing of the third floor, the party are relieved to find the place isn't filled with saw blades again.

That is until the suit of armor near the stairs punches Tariel in the face, starting a brawl leading to Torbin and Slate falling halfway down the stairs with the armor as they tackle it off the paladin!

As the armor grabs onto Torbin, Summer races down the stairs to lay into the armor with a flurry of kicks and punches, leaving it open for Slate and Tariel to fire arrows into the suit until it collapses. 

While Tariel and Slate gather the armor into their packs, Summer and Torbin follow Thorn into the bedroom where they see a strange book open on the desk. As they get closer, they can hear whispering coming from the book as Thorn gets between them, telling them that the book doesn't want them anywhere near it. As Tariel and Slate arrive, Torbin promises Thorn that everything will be okay if the young boy leaves the room with him to check on their dog.

With the books whispering growing more manic, Tariel and Summer begin barraging the book with all the radiant energy they can muster. Summer hurls radiant balls of energy into the book, making the cover and pages begin to burn as Tariel charged up her Divine Smite and split the book in two!

The books remains explode in a sudden burst of darkness and light, the house imploding around the party before they all suddenly snap awake back in their packs on the side of the road!

Seeing the rest of the party get up, Abe, Francesco and Ireena look annoyed having been up all night since they couldn't wake the other four.

While the three complain, the other four are left wondering if their strange side-journey helped Thorn and Roses spirits or damned them further in these cursed lands...