D&D Campaign Journal

Session 20: The Wizard’s Crypt

Characters Present: Zoran, Luan, Brannor, Andy, Grusnarv

Recap

After striking a dangerous bargain with Madame Eve for a resurrection diamond, the party rests at the Vistani camp. Morning brings new decisions about where their prophesied path will lead.

Narrative Summary

Morning at the Vistani Camp

The party woke to the smell of grass — not quite right, but better than the choking miasma of Barovia’s mist. The Vistani camp remained an island of relative safety, though looking beyond the wagons revealed the truth: the mist pressed against invisible barriers, held back only by whatever deal protected this place.

Grusnarv recovered from his exhaustion. Andy successfully crafted silver ammunition with Vistani assistance, coating bullets and bolts with their limited silver supply. Brannor prayed to the morning sun he couldn’t see, speaking meditations to the monks’ memory.

The conversation turned to Madame Eve’s prophecies. “Search for the crypt of a wizard ordinary is the key.” The party debated their options: return to Vallaki, travel far north to Kresk through dangerous territory, or investigate the mountains to the south where a secret tunnel was rumored to exist.

Leo, a Vistani man, shared what he knew of Barovia’s geography. Three cities dominated the land: Barovia village, Vallaki, and Kresk. He spoke of a tunnel through the mountains — a passage few had seen but many whispered about. It was said to be a secret route, though dangerous.

The promise of adventure won out. They would seek the tunnel.

Conversations in the Mist

As the party prepared to leave, Zoran and Luan found themselves alone at the camp’s edge. What began as Zoran punching a tree in frustration became something more honest.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” Zoran admitted. “The lightheartedness. Pretending like everything is fine. We just lost the only person that actually had some brain in him.”

Luan understood, though he didn’t have a voice of his own. But Zoran did — the voice whispered to him, offering power. “It says there’s something to give me that I just need to take,” Zoran confessed. The voice had promised him power and revealed a strange truth: “sins can’t hurt each other.”

Both knew accepting could end badly.

Their conversation shifted to Andy, who had spoken with Zoran the night before. Andy was trying to change, trying to be better. Zoran wasn’t sure he believed it would last, but they’d give him a chance. They had to. They were in this together, whether they liked it or not.

The Path to the Mountains

Brannor cast Aid on the party’s frontline fighters, his divine magic granting Zoran, Luan, and Andy a surge of resilience. Then they departed, stepping from the camp’s protection back into the mist.

It felt wrong. Cold and hot at once, dirty and intrusive. Brannor’s paladin aura helped push back the worst of it, creating a small sphere of protection around him like an invisible shield.

They traveled east, then south, following a river that ran toward the mountains. The path climbed steadily higher and grew colder. Luan heard something on the wind — a voice, or perhaps just the wind itself, whispering “hunger.”

Something followed them through the mist. Small, elusive, always just out of perception’s reach. Luan cast Pass Without Trace, cloaking the party in magical shroud that made them move like ghosts through the fog.

The Fire Gate

The mountains rose before them, slopes disappearing into mist that fell like a waterfall from the peaks above. Eventually they reached a plateau with a perfectly circular pool of crystal-clear water. Beyond it, carved into the mountainside, stood a half-moon entrance.

The carving was covered in druidic script — a secret language shared among druids to keep knowledge from falling into the wrong hands. Three concentric stone rings decorated the entrance, wheels within wheels. Below them, a riddle:

I am not alive, yet I grow.
I do not breathe, yet I need air.
I have no mouth, yet I consume all.

Zoran recognized it immediately: fire.

Grusnarv cast a firebolt at the wall. The moment flame touched stone, the rings blazed to life and began rotating in opposite directions. The mechanism rumbled, and the cave entrance began to slide open. Light grew from within — growing brighter, growing closer, growing hotter.

It was a fire trap.

Everyone scattered. Luan, with a natural twenty on his dexterity save, spotted a druidic symbol for “water” carved beside the pool and intuited the pressure mechanism. He extinguished the incoming flames with druidic magic before they could hit Brannor. Water and fire — both keys to this ancient lock.

Zoran drank from the magical pool. The water was crystal clear and tasted perfect, though this being Barovia, that probably meant trouble. When Luan pressed the water symbol, a wall of water rose from the pool like a reverse waterfall.

The door stood open. They stepped inside.

Gary the Water Weird

Inside the tunnel, a droplet of water detached from the ceiling and began following Luan. When he moved, it moved. When he stopped, it became a puddle. When he approached it, the droplet skittered away across the ceiling like a game of tag.

Grusnarv cast Detect Thoughts. He didn’t find a mind exactly, but he sensed intention — purpose and direction. The water had consciousness of a sort, playful and curious.

“Guys, the water is following me,” Luan announced.

They decided to keep the water elemental, naming it Gary. It seemed harmless enough, and perhaps it would prove useful.

The Secret Entrance

The tunnel descended into darkness beyond Brannor’s torch light. Eventually it opened into a larger cavern with three paths: one leading deeper down, one climbing upward (smelling of fresh air), and one heading further into the mountains (smelling stale and ancient).

While the party investigated, Brannor leaned against a wall — and vanished.

He’d triggered a hidden pressure plate. In an instant, he found himself in a small chamber, torch falling from his hand. In the dim light, he could see the walls were made entirely of bones. Skulls and skeletons stared from every surface. And there, obvious as day, was another pressure button.

He pressed it. The walls rotated, swapping him back with Zoran, who now stood in the bone room.

“There’s a button right here,” Brannor called. They swapped a few more times, testing the mechanism. Hidden passages and bone crypts — this place was built by someone who valued secrets.

The downward path beckoned. They followed it deeper.

The Dome of Bones

The tunnel was cramped for Brannor but eventually opened into a massive domed chamber. The entire structure was made of bones — thousands upon thousands of skeletons arranged in perfect anatomical order. The walls showed complete human forms laid out in repeating patterns: skulls above ribs above hips above legs. The ceiling was a chandelier of skeletal remains.

In the center of the room stood a stone altar with deep grooves carved into its surface. The grooves radiated outward across the floor, forming an unfamiliar symbol in the chamber’s center.

Brannor activated his Divine Sense and immediately recoiled. The chamber reeked of unholy power — necrotic energy so concentrated it burned in his divine senses. “This is a terrible place,” he warned. “Everything smells like unholyness.”

Grusnarv examined the altar. The grooves suggested offerings — something meant to flow from the altar to the central symbol. “Probably some sort of offering should be brought here,” he reasoned.

The prophecy had said: “Search for the crypt of a wizard ordinary is the key.”

They’d found the crypt. Now they needed to find the key.

The Blood Altar

Zoran drew a blade. Before anyone could stop him, he cut his palm and held it over the altar.

The effect was immediate and horrifying. Blood didn’t drip — it was pulled, flowing up from his hand in streams. The grooves in the altar channeled it toward the central symbol, and more blood came, drawn from Zoran faster than any natural bleeding.

His hand turned blue. His arm went pale. Zoran’s face drained of color as his lifeblood poured into the stone.

“Pull him away!” Andy shouted.

Luan grabbed Zoran’s shoulder to yank him back. The moment he made contact, he felt his own blood being pulled. It was like touching a powerful magnet — every muscle strained to pull away, but something stronger held fast.

Brannor tackled them both, his massive weight bearing them to the ground. The grooves grew larger, drinking from all three now. Brannor’s veins bulged as blood flowed up from wherever his skin touched theirs. Grusnarv tried to block the grooves with a skull — bone hands grabbed him and slammed him against the wall, pinning him there.

Luan summoned Gary, pressing the water elemental against Zoran’s bleeding hand. Water mixed with blood, diluting it, sealing the wound. The blood flow changed — now water gushed from Zoran, mixing with his blood, flowing faster into the grooves.

Gary grew. What had been a playful puddle became a substantial elemental, sacrificing itself to save Zoran’s life.

The Bargain with Greed

In his fading consciousness, Zoran heard the voice more clearly than ever before.

Is this really worth dying for?

“Seems like I’m pretty important since you keep coming back,” Zoran managed.

We kind of need each other now. Though I think you need me more than I need you.

The entity — Greed, the sin that had been following him — offered a deal. Take its blood. Accept its power. Or die stubborn and bleeding.

“I’ll accept what’s yours,” Zoran gasped, “if you accept what’s mine. Take my warmth. The heat that fills me from the Radiant One.”

Time seemed to stop. The conversation happened in heartbeats while the party fought to save his life.

I am that shadow to the light you search. And you must accept the shadow to have that light.

Zoran felt balanced on a knife’s edge. Accept or refuse? Live transformed or die pure?

He rolled the dice.

Lucky thirteen.

“I accept,” Zoran whispered.

Rebirth

Power flooded through Zoran like lightning through a circuit. His heart, which had slowed to near-silence, suddenly beat with a crack like thunder. Blood surged through his body — not just his own blood, but something more. Something perfected.

Where his flesh had been lean, it became defined. Every muscle stood in sharp relief, carved like a Greek statue. His senses exploded into hyperawareness: Brannor’s torch burned like a sun, every scent became distinct, every sound crystalline. He could feel where Luan’s hand rested on his shoulder, the warmth still lingering minutes later.

Brannor used his paladin magic to transform, growing to enormous size in a technique he’d never shown before. With his enhanced giant’s strength, he pulled Grusnarv free from the skeletal grasp and placed him safely away from the altar.

The blood ritual completed. Three of the circular grooves had filled completely with the mixture of blood and water before Gary’s sacrifice diluted it enough to stop the drain. The blood collected in the center of the chamber where it pooled around a red stone. The stone pulsed once with blue light and cracked apart.

Then the center section of the floor rotated, revealing a hidden compartment.

Inside lay an amulet.

The Race for Power

Multiple people moved at once. Andy tried to cast Mage Hand. Grusnarv ran forward. Luan began to run. But Zoran — enhanced, transformed, senses heightened to impossible levels — saw the amulet appear and moved.

His speed was supernatural. Luan had cast Long Strider on him earlier, and now combined with Greed’s enhancement, he moved like a bolt of lightning. In less than two seconds he crossed the chamber, grabbed the amulet, and could have run back before anyone else took three steps.

Grusnarv tried to cast Ray of Frost beneath Andy’s feet to slow him, but Zoran had already claimed the prize.

The moment Zoran’s fingers closed around the amulet, every skeleton in the chamber clicked and began falling from the walls like rain.

“RUN!” someone shouted.

They ran.

Skeletons fell. Some clattered to the ground as lifeless bone. Others began pulling themselves together, animated by whatever necromantic power had built this place. Brannor dropped his giant form so he could run faster through the cramped tunnels.

Zoran led the way, moving with impossible grace even while clutching the amulet. They burst from the bone dome into the cramped tunnel, scrambled up toward the cave system, and kept running until they’d put the crypt far behind them.

Only when they reached the cavern with the three paths did they stop to catch their breath.

They had the amulet. They’d survived the wizard’s crypt. And Zoran had made a bargain that changed him forever.

Key Discoveries & Decisions

Open Threads

Notable Quotes

“I couldn’t take it anymore. The lightheartedness. Pretending like everything is fine. We just lost the only person that actually had some brain in him.” — Zoran, to Luan at the camp’s edge

“He says power. Of course. Why is it always power? Why is it never like butterflies or pretty flowers?” — Luan, on what the voice offers Zoran

“I’ll accept what’s yours if you accept what’s mine. Take my warmth. The heat that fills me from the Radiant One.” — Zoran, bargaining with Greed

“The brighter the light, the longer the shadow. I am that shadow to the light you search. And you must accept the shadow to have that light.” — Greed, to Zoran

“This is a terrible place. Everything smells like unholyness.” — Brannor, after using Divine Sense in the bone crypt

“Guys, the water is following me.” — Luan, introducing Gary

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