Amber Temple Will Kill You

The party awoke high on the mountaintop feeling tenser than before. Marillion could already feel the presence of the Amber Temple, which was only a few hours away. During the night, the mysterious presence again contacted him, urging Marillion to seek out the temple.

The party set off and soon found a suspiciously nonchalant monastery abandoned centuries ago. Inside, a lonely corpse holding a chisel had used its last moments to engrave the history of the amber temple onto the walls of the corridor leading into the mountain under the temple. The imagery of wizards capturing maleficient forces and sealing them into the mountain, just to have them escape and corrupt the minds of the temple’s inhabitants, filled the walls. Not deterred, the party pressed on and, thanks to some good intel from Cinna, managed to avoid the initial barrage of fireballs reserved for anyone on the outside trying to enter the temple. Soon, a conflict with the resident aracanaloft of the temple broke out. The fiend managed to land a banishment spell on Xuza, which transported them into another plane and a heart-to-heart with Xuzas “patron.”

After catching their breath, the party started exploring the temple. They found a group of teens from the nearby Kavani tribe. The teens were there for a coming-of-age ritual, which required them to stay in the temple for seven nights. They were very impressed with Darren’s possessing the spear of their first tribe leader, going as far as declaring Darren to be the king of the Kavani tribe and urging him to visit the tribe. Darren was not excited about being considered a ruler of a foreign land again, and the party decided to leave the youth to their own company.

Pressing into the temple, the party encountered a variety of traps, including an enchanting statue that magically captured the interest of both Xuza and Bart. Even further into the party, I met Exehanter, a lich that seemed to have lost most of its memory or powers. While initially cordial toward the party, Exehanter soon noticed that a certain opportunistic sorcerer had managed to snag their phylactery. Luckily, diplomacy prevailed, after which Exehanter and the party parted ways under–not so cordial–circumstances.

While studying the multitude of texts kept in the temple library, learning about the ritual used to capture dark powers and the powers themselves, the party was suddenly ambushed by the surviving arcanaloft. In the ensuing conflict, the party finally managed to defeat it, only to realize that Marillion had decided to use the cover of the fight to sneak away to make a run for the tomb holding Zantras, the kingmaker. Marillion had earlier found out that Zantras was the mysterious entity who communicated with him during his trip to Barovia. Before contacting Zantras, Xuza, Darren, Bart, and Cinna manage to stop Marillion, drag him away for a discussion, and get attacked by a mysterious psionic entity.

After a moment’s rest, the party discussed what to do. Xuza was especially adamant about not letting Marillion make contact with Zantras lest the party incur the wrath of Shami-Amourae, the dark power that had been in contact with Xuza during the whole trip. As a compromise, the party first decided to seek an audience with Shami. The discussion went as well as Xuza could hope. Shami agreed to stand down and allow Marillion to speak with Zantras if no alliance would be formed. Unfortunately, Zantras proved too crafty for Marillion, and the rest of the party watched Zantra’s dark power flow into Marillion and empower him. As a consequence, a furious Shami ensured an ultimatum to Xuza. Xuza would either need to stop Marillion from leaving Barovia, or be prevented from leaving himself. On their way out, the party realized that the temple had gotten the best of the teens they had met earlier. One had turned into a spider and killed the others. The party put the transformed teen out of their misery and gave the rest a proper burial.

Exiting the temple, the party realized they were exhausted, but it was still fairly early in the day. With tensions running high, the party decided to delay the challenging conversations and instead hunt the Roc on the top of the mountain. The rest of the day was spent climbing as high up as possible, avoiding yeti attacks, and preparing for the next day.