The party arrives at the vampire castle just after dawn. “No one visible, makes sense, they wouldn’t like the sunlight” Adaly comments while they are observing the castle from a distance. Castle is the wrong word here. It used to be a castle, that is clear, but it is completely laying in ruins. A few towers still stand, but the main building had come crashing down dozens of years ago.
They know the vampires are under it, in the tunnels of the castle. They sneak up to the entrance and find 2 vampires keeping guard, they easily kill the two while they descend.
Amara touches the stones and starts drawing a map. There are 2 main layers, lord Helsar will probably be on the lower layer, Adaly thinks to herself, but Amara clearly agrees while drawing a path towards the stairs. They sneak through the building using the hidden tunnels to avoid the heartbeats Adaly and Amara can both detect.
They walk into a laboratory which has a weird plant growing at the side of the chamber. 5 gemstones embedded in the red vines of the plant “Those look valuable” Amara comments. Adaly swallows, can see the vines moving “Maybe we can collect them after we done our mission here. I do not trust them, this feels trapped.” Amara nods in agreement and they sneak further.
They run into a few vampires, but make quick work of them, continuing sneaking further, deeper into the tunnels. They walk down to the next floor staircase, which splits up, so the party splits up themselves as well. Thanks to Amara they know that the stairs lead to the same room. Amara goes with Livia to the right while Sam and Adaly go left. Amara clearly ready to make a joke on the split, but keeps quiet to not draw attention to them. Adaly is annoyed though, but it just makes most sense to have both groups having a ranged and melee fighter and to have the power level balanced.
Adaly notices 5 vampire heartbeats and 2 normal ones. She takes a few breaths before they storm in.
“Well, hey there” the center vampire, wearing fancier clothes than the other says before Adaly’s spell hits him and a fight commences. The 2 normal heartbeats come from large catlike creatures. They look like big black cats, but their eyes and claws glow purple. They also have four eyes and a glowing rune on their forehead.
Amara immediately hacks one after another of the vampire minions, but the cats clearly notice who is the most dangerous, one of them going towards Amara and the other towards Adaly. One of the vampires gets to Livia and bites her before he jumps backward, clearly in pain, spitting out her blood. Adaly looks at Livia in surprise, but the paladin just continue killing the vampire.
The cat attacks Adaly with its claw and Adaly can feel a spell taking affect before the rooms turns dark and she falls onto the dark floor.
She shocks awake, seeing still only the cats and lord Helsar “You should have let me speak, I would have made you an offer you couldn’t have refused. Now you shall die” Adaly looks up and sees Amara laying unconscious. She rushes towards her friend while killing one of the cats. But Amara suddenly sits upright again, probably was under the same affect of the cats.
Lord Helsar starts casting a spell and the room gets split into 2 by a massive wall of flame, while he retreats. Amara starts rushing after him, while the rest of the party kill the final cat. Amara hits one of the walls, he clearly went in mist form through the tiny holes, so they can’t follow. “We should take a second, we need to find his chest anyway.” Adaly says while lowering herself to sit on the ground.
Adaly looks at Livia, it is weird that the vampire jumped back at the bite at Livia… Maybe she has been making wrong assumptions and is the sin she has been sensing of the weird elf a side-effect of the amulet rather than the elf having any sin in her. Now what would infernal hide… Adaly her thoughts are interrupted when Amara comments “I think I feel the passage way to where his coffin will be. At least there is a massive chamber in that direction.”
Adaly nods “Lets still first take a small breather” Adaly says and at that moment she feels a pain striking her body. She looks up and the vampire is back “Now you little peasants….” But before he can finish Amara and Sam start hacking at him. The vampire clearly struggling with the smites of the Paladin. Such a similar reaction to how the vampire which Livia bite reacted. Could Livia have divine blood? What would that make her? An angel?!
Adaly struggles keeping focus on the fight, but the rest of her party makes quick work of the vampire lord when its mist drifts away again. Adaly rubs her head. She needs to have a conversation in private with Livia, but manipulating this out of her, without betraying Sam… that is going to be hard. She founds herself pacing and the party looks at her in worry, but let her pace.
After about an hour they go to the wall Amara notices and find a weak point crushing it. Sam gently touches Adaly’s shoulder as a support and she kindly smiles at him but they continue to the next chamber. It is a massive library, Adaly can see a few books in infernal, and is concerned. Next to the library is a smaller chamber, a round chamber with at the center a small stage with on top of that a coffin.
Adaly looks at the coffin “This must be trapped” and goes to investigate. She finds runes on the stage “I don’t think we can step closer, the stage is trapped.” Amara brings her halberd up, pushing the top of the coffin. Adaly rolls her eyes and goes back into the library. She picks up the infernal books and grabs a few expensive looking books and stuffs them in her bag of holding.
In the other room Amara jumps into the coffin and stabs the vampire with a wooden stake. Ending the vampire lord’s undeath life.
Stories of my brain 