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We queried our wolf buddy about others of these types of creatures and where they may be hiding. He indicated that a number of them live in a stone house in the woods. The wolf leads us to an abbey deep in the woods with twisting trees that block out almost all the light. The road markers indicate its name is Elith Svarbog. It's seen better days. There were signs that despite its apparent abandonment, there is some habitation.

And then we got attacked by 2 shambling mounds and 2 huge evil trees. They dished out a lot of damage, but we eventually got them down. Folks took samples of the wood and the gross, oozy red sap that seemed a lot like blood.

We preceded on in. They saw something weird in a tree. There was a boulder in one of the two trees sitting outside of the main structure. The gigantic trees moved to block our way and threatened to heave their boulders at us. Other trees from the hedge maze came in to surround us as we got close to the door.

We fought the two tree guardians and Gia checked the door and picked the lock. It opened, and we proceeded inside. We came across a diety relief that had been desecrated. Volt took it upon himself to fix the relief while the rest of us went outside to short rest. The floor collapsed under Volt as he cleaned it off, but he was already floating/flying so the trap did nothing.

After resting, we headed in and investigated. We found a desecrated statue of the diety this used to be consecrated to. Plus a hallway, a set of stairs, and a set of double doors (the ferret and badger were not happy about the double-doors). Gia went down the hallway to investigate. Once she determined there was no immediate danger, I headed down with her and helped her search this end of the complex.

She found a room full of scrolls, that had some nasty con-save spores. She grabbed a few scrolls and darted out. We darted out and called for Achellis to detect magic. She came and noted three magical scrolls, so they mage-handed them out into the hallway. They were 3 x 3rd level Cure Wounds. Achellis took them back to Tan. The second room was a kitchen, and the third was a dining room. Nothing of interest in either.

We came back and headed up the stairs. There wasn't much up here but an old warn out bunk room. We found a few silver searching around. It was time to address the double-doors.

Volt threw them open. We got the willies as we walked in. The Vampire Lord Jaromir spoke. Hundreds of years ago, while he was still alive, he helped the villagers, healed them, took care of them, and then when he wasn't able to to the degree they wanted, they turned on him and sealed him in here. His god forsook him, so he found a new god: the “Lord of Revenge”. And he began his revenge on them.

No one among them seemed to recognize the moniker, so we would look it up later.

He requested a deal. Give him the village, and he will double their tribute and leave this place.

Mercy declared she would not stand for this, the people who mistreated him were dead, and these people had no idea who he was at all, nor what their ancestors had done.

“So be it.”

He brought up 8 vampire minions from the coffins surrounding the room, and we engaged them.

Zaxadron and I jumped on one vampire minion. Volt dropped a big stormy sphere to block the other three on our side. The others engaged the closest one on the other side. We each whittled our sides down, but not after taking a ton of damage, much of which was unhealable. Eventually we cleared them out, and prepared ourselves for the next wave.