Week 18: Ups and Downs

**Week 18: Ups and Downs**

Year 735, Fourth Moon, Day 17 - 18

When we left off...

'*Cyrus Belview**, a mongelfolk who was more than a bit off, vaguely agreed to lead you to a skull, maybe. He didn't seem to be with it, but that didn't stop you from following him. He lead you out of the**Servants'***Hall**, up a LOT of stairs, then through a secret door behind a mirror that dumped you into a HUGE hollow tower, with stairs spiraled around it. At the top was a glowing, pulsing red gem - which was interesting, but not THAT interesting. When the tower shook, Clyde-then-Quintus-then-Nars-then-Selgaard nearly took a tumble into the bottom... but ultimately Clyde felt comfortable taking the fall, and Quintus was happy to oblige. This all still frustrated Quintus, to the point that he threw Cyrus down the shaft. Damn.

The rooms that followed were empty. A little too empty. This activated Ulfar's secret-door-sense, which led into a well dusted interior stairwell, with a room occupied by a one **Helga Ruvak**. She was a distressed prisoner, with an uncertain way forward now that the Chamberlain was dead... and ultimately the burden that finally convinced the party to rest there for the night.

Rest did not come easy. A silver goblet tried tapping on the door to gain entry, and when that was ignored... it proceeded to attract ever louder (and stronger) nuisances that roam the castle. Shadows, Vampire Spawn, Zombies, Other Humans(?)... and eventually, a one **Pidlwick II**... a terrifying clown/child/construct, that had a seemingly neverending bag of tricks and gross pranks. For whatever passes as internal logic, you decided this was OK, and whoever was on watch played along. This excited Pidlwick to no end, and he was more than happy to try and help you find the dragon skull in the morning. Oh, and somewhere in there Selgaard hit a shadow so hard that the universe had to shrink a little to fill in the gaps.

Back down the stairs, down more stairs, you arrived in some dark underground rooms, one of which was the Hall of Bones! This was seriously some next level macaroni art, but with human remains. Ignoring all that, though, there was the **Skull of Agrynvost**... literally hanging over the door that you were on the other side of, back in the Servants Hall. Fuck Cyrus, but less so than Victor (and less so than Demon Hand Joe?).

With the skull secure, the party beat it down to the teleportation brazier, and went with the tried and true Green Stone, which deposited them in Vallaki. At this point, staying attached to this plane was a part-time job, but Quintus managed to throw platinum at someone until they gave you a cart. Then it was all "Cart-go", and you returned to Agrynvostholt.

Returning the skull to the mausoleum was a **truly amazing and momentous happening**, the likes of which Chad is unqualified to commit to written words. Even if he tried spoken words, a lot of them would end up being sound effects. Short story shorter... everyone in Ravenloft opposed to Strahd is bolstered by the beacon. Sound effects and roaring and all matter of noise and light added to the grand show.

Gauntlet = Throwndown

Level = 8

Location = Somewhere a bit southeast of whatever godsforsaken wilderness you got crapped out in last time.

**Around Town...**

Soon you might be somewhere that this segment is meaningfully populated again!

If time has been moving exactly at triple speed, then you're 21 days into a 28 day moon cycle. But who knows.