Through the Mists

Session 26: The Rite Beneath Watcher House

At a glance

Summary

Footsteps descended toward the dining room where Fiona Watcher had fallen. Rage and Ignatius took positions beside the entrance while Carver scattered conjured caltrops across the foot of the stairs. The first two figures to appear were not acolytes but terrified young women in servants’ dress. One stepped onto the spikes; the other tumbled over her and then fled back upstairs. Rage pursued, only to catch himself in Carver’s trap, while Ignatius avoided it and overtook the runner. By the time the struggle ended, both women were bound. The stair carpet shifted as if trying to help one escape, wall sconces kindled when Carver reached the landing, and distant shutters moved without hands.

Rage restrains one frightened servant among scattered caltrops while another runs up an animated carpet toward Ignatius and Carver clings to the staircase wall.

The house itself seemed to aid the escape while Carver found a very tabaxi solution to his own caltrops. View image record.

Carver tested the upper doors while one captive cried out for Amalthia and David. A man’s scream from below interrupted the search. Ignatius raced downstairs and found a heavyset cook in an apron bolting through the front door—straight into Izek, who was attempting to turn away the two young men the party recognized as Fiona’s sons. Rage tackled the cook unconscious. Ignatius assured the people outside that all was well, shut the door, and locked it. Rage then searched Fiona’s body, taking her personal key and a distinctive amulet that felt like an arcane focus.

Hyskosa sensed something not living upstairs. The party opened a pair of double doors into a library occupied by cats, one of which wore a key on its collar. Ignatius’s attempt to restrain the animals with entangling vines failed, as did Carver’s attempt to catch the key-bearer. Rage solved the problem with his greataxe. Six more cats then swarmed the room, clawing Carver and leaping at Ignatius until Chip’s fire and the party’s weapons killed or scattered them.

Ordinary cats swarm Carver, Ignatius, and Rage inside Fiona Watcher's library while Chip breathes flame toward the tabby wearing the hidden-chest key.

A hunt for one collared cat became an uprising against the party’s own spectral feline. View image record.

Behind a bookshelf, Carver found a secret door and a small chamber containing a locked chest. The cat’s key opened it. Inside were two bags holding 200 gp between them, five notarized property deeds signed by Strahd, Fiona’s handwritten manifesto on devil worship, and a blasphemous treatise titled The Grimoire of Four Quarters. The company took the money, deeds, and books; Carver kept the manifesto. As he lifted it, the drapes moved on their own.

The remaining upper rooms turned Fiona’s neglected household into something stranger. Behind one locked door stood only a strapped iron bed and a young woman who retreated hissing like a cat. Another bedroom appeared ordinary. A third door opened as its hearth ignited, revealing a man in black who looked like Fiona’s dead husband resting beneath the canopy of a bed. Hyskosa said the evil he had sensed now burned much brighter.

Rage resisted the supernatural fear that met him at the threshold, rushed the bed, and severed the corpse’s head. Its preserved appearance immediately collapsed into years of rot. Revulsion overwhelmed Rage and drove him screaming from the room. Ignatius entered and was likewise forced back by terror, but Carver endured long enough to search. In the closet he found ceremonial robes and a human skeleton sealed inside a lead-lined iron chest. Once the room was closed again, Hyskosa confirmed that it had been the source of the upstairs evil.

Downstairs, the party found a barrel of good wine and then a concealed stair in a servants’ closet. It descended to a dirt-floored root cellar furnished with four neatly made cots. The soil churned as the company entered, and skeletons clawed their way free with bows and blades. Carver fired his pistol with radiant force, Rage’s Sun Blade cut down two of the dead, Ignatius shattered others in a flurry of blows, and Chip swept flame across the remaining ranks. The party destroyed them all.

Footprints crossed the cellar and ended at a wall. Ignatius pushed against it, exposing a hidden chamber where four robed acolytes sat among five chairs around a pentagram while other cultists chanted at the edges. Carver lit one of the company’s Boom Sticks and threw it into the center. Rage slid the secret panel shut, and he and Ignatius prepared to strike anyone who emerged. Through the barrier came chanting, conjured spiritual weapons, and then the detonation.

Rage, Ignatius, and Carver enter a hidden cellar ritual chamber as robed cultists channel crimson-violet magic around a pentagram and a lit Boom Stick burns at its center.

The company broke into Fiona’s hidden rite with a burning fuse already counting down. View image record.

The blast wounded the cultists without ending the rite. Rage opened the way, and he and Ignatius brought down the first principal acolyte together. Another spell paralyzed Rage until Carver killed its caster and freed him to charge again. The cultists continued crying out to “the devil, Strahd,” but Rage and Ignatius combined against another while Carver and Chip finished the last of the four principal acolytes. Their ritual collapsed.

One lesser cultist remained alive. He claimed innocence and said he had been misled. Rage blinded him, severed one of his hands, and told him to discourage others from joining cults. The chamber’s lingering energy answered the cruelty with a surge of power through Rage. When Rage then castrated the captive, the power surged again.

Key events

  1. The party subdued two frightened servants and a fleeing cook while Izek kept Fiona’s sons outside the house.
  2. Animate furnishings, self-lighting sconces, and moving shutters revealed that the upper floor was supernaturally active.
  3. A cat’s collar key opened a secret library chest containing 200 gp, Strahd-signed property deeds, Fiona’s manifesto, and The Grimoire of Four Quarters.
  4. The party found a hissing young woman in a room with a strapped bed and discovered Fiona’s magically preserved husband in another locked chamber.
  5. Rage broke the corpse’s preservation by beheading it, while Carver found ceremonial robes and a skeleton inside a lead-lined iron chest.
  6. A secret stair led to a root cellar where the party destroyed a force of buried skeletons.
  7. The company exposed a hidden cult ritual, opened the battle with a Boom Stick, and killed the four principal acolytes.
  8. Rage mutilated the surviving lesser cultist and felt the ritual’s remaining power strengthen him twice.

Decisions and consequences

  • The party restrained the household instead of killing it. The servants and cook survived, but several were bound or knocked unconscious and Fiona’s sons remain outside with Izek.
  • The party took Fiona’s private evidence. The deeds, manifesto, and infernal treatise may reveal more about her conspiracy and Strahd’s hold over Vallaki.
  • Carver spent a Boom Stick to break the ritual. The explosion disrupted the gathered cultists and left the company with one recorded Boom Stick.
  • The party destroyed Fiona’s cellar rite. Four principal acolytes and their skeletal guardians fell, but the rite’s purpose and the reach of Fiona’s remaining followers are still unknown.
  • Rage tortured the surviving cultist. The captive’s claim of being misled went unanswered, and supernatural power rewarded Rage’s cruelty twice.

People

  • Izek: Continued guarding the entrance and attempted to turn Fiona’s sons away while the company searched the house.
  • Hyskosa: Located the undead or supernatural presence upstairs and identified the preserved corpse’s room as the house’s brightest evil.
  • Fiona Watcher: Her body yielded a personal key and an arcane-focus amulet; her hidden records and cellar cult exposed more of her devotion to Strahd.
  • Fiona’s household: Two frightened young women, a cook, a hissing captive or resident, and Fiona’s magically preserved husband were all found alive, unconscious, or dead within the house; their identities remain unknown.

Places

  • Lady Watcher’s House: Revealed an animate upper floor, hidden library chamber, preserved corpse, secret basement stair, buried skeletons, and concealed ritual room.
  • Vallaki: Fiona’s deeds and surviving household may now shape the struggle over the town even after her death.

Clues, lore, and notable items

  • Fiona’s amulet functioned as an arcane focus; Rage now carries it.
  • Five notarized property deeds signed by Strahd describe parcels of land, though their practical meaning is not yet known.
  • Fiona wrote a manifesto devoted to devil worship and kept The Grimoire of Four Quarters, another infernal treatise.
  • A cat wore the key to Fiona’s secret chest around its collar.
  • A strapped bed, hissing young woman, lead-lined skeleton chest, ceremonial robes, and preserved husband suggest long-hidden practices within Fiona’s household.
  • The cultists called Strahd “the devil” while channeling their ritual.
  • The ritual left behind power that strengthened Rage when he deliberately mutilated its surviving participant.

Story threads

Rewards, losses, and character changes

  • The company recovered 200 gp, five Strahd-signed property deeds, Fiona’s manifesto, and The Grimoire of Four Quarters.
  • Rage took Fiona’s personal key and arcane-focus amulet.
  • One Boom Stick was expended, leaving one in the company’s recorded supplies.
  • Rage received two unexplained surges of power from the broken ritual while mutilating the surviving cultist.

Memorable moments

  • Rage charged onto Carver’s own caltrops while pursuing a terrified servant.
  • Carver scaled the walls around the trapped staircase like a cat, only to meet a library full of less cooperative cats.
  • Rage’s first answer to the collar-key problem was decisive enough to turn an animal chase into a feline uprising.
  • The party closed a secret door on a burning Boom Stick and waited for the chanting to become screaming.

Open questions

  • Who are the servants, the hissing young woman, Fiona’s dead husband, and the people they called Amalthia and David?
  • What animated the carpets, lights, shutters, curtains, and other parts of the house?
  • Why was Fiona’s husband preserved, and whose skeleton was sealed in the lead-lined chest?
  • What land do Strahd’s five deeds concern, and what did Fiona intend to do with them?
  • What was the cellar ritual meant to accomplish?
  • What power answered Rage’s cruelty, and what price or change accompanies it?
  • How will Fiona’s sons, Izek, Vallaki’s authorities, and any surviving acolytes respond?

Next session

  • Immediate situation: The party stands in the ruined ritual chamber beneath Lady Watcher’s House beside dead acolytes and one horribly maimed survivor, while Fiona’s household and sons remain above.
  • Likely goals: Determine what happened to Rage, decide the fate of the survivor and the household, understand Fiona’s deeds and writings, and choose how to present the fall of her cult to Vallaki.

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