While gargoyles clawed at the chapel doors, Izek and Ghalwin opened them on Tobias' cue. The gnome channeled his helmet's energy into a prismatic spray that tore through their eight pursuers. Suffering only minor injuries, the Heralds fought off the rest and examined the chapel. Ghalwin sensed undead energy from the figure on the altar and radiant power from a silver statuette. Qiphir Harized's ghost rose from the corpse, an adventurer who had been killed after dining with Strahd. Qiphir sought remnants of his former party members Ipniani Oxoryn, Yenduza Yunae-Maqem, and Jassarian Sala-zan; when Ghalwin revealed Ipniani’s morningstar, the ghost regained clarity. He granted blessing to wield his Mace of Terror and warned that the statuette had killed him, then passed on without a fight.
Tobias recognized that Qiphir’s robe contained symbols of the goddess Ixhis, indicating that the cleric was evil in life. Believing himself to now be good, the gnome risked touching the statuette, and a brilliant celestial energy engulfed him. Despite a powerful destructive ward around the icon, he was marked as worthy and caused no harm. In that flash, Tobias saw the life of Ciril Romulich, once the High Priest of Ravenloft. Father Romulich survived Sergei's wedding due to a miracle of the Morninglord, living long enough to bless the Icon of Ravenloft and grant it divine warding. He escaped the castle on horseback before dying from his wounds. Tobias concluded that Ciril’s will to fight Strahd had lived beyond death, perhaps now as the Bonerider.
The moment’s peace ended when two vampire spawn followed into the chapel, drawn by the gargoyle's trail. Izek raged to giant size and pinned them down with each hand, easily allowing Ghalwin's sunblade to cut through them. Not wanting to draw more attention, Izek used the Tome of Strahd to spider-climb up the balcony and found undead slumped in two thrones. He indicated that the party ascend the creaky landing, and he and Ghalwin destroyed the zombies before they could even rise from their seats. They continued to a hallway, where a pulley system triggered a mock Strahd dummy that flew toward them, cackling. Izek eviscerated the dummy with a hurled flaming greatsword before it could even elicit a scare.
Past a hidden door that opened to the castle trapworks and an elevator shaft, the Heralds moved on through a room of staged skeletons and found another hidden closet. Ghalwin cut down a dummy of Strahd that was strung up inside, accidentally destroying the haunted-house style trap, and placed Strahd in his Bag of Holding. Beyond these haunted-house style rooms, they reached a vast audience hall. Izek believed its hastily-cleaned floors covered the crime scene where Vasilka’s grim wedding had taken place. Rather than take stairs down, they decided to investigate a room where they heard muttering about numbers.
Ajuni invisibly slipped inside to find Lief Lipseige chained to his desk, then threatened the aged accountant into silence while burning a rope that would have let him alert "Strahd's hatred." She learned that the old man had tracked the finances of Barovia for decades, and had been greatly affected by the Herald's actions; Mormeros' document theft, the raid on the treasury, and Rahadin's death had made his job difficult. Lief requested to trade information with the Heralds, but his secrets proved out-of-date. Ghalwin took interest in keeping him as an ally, but the accountant was clearly devoted to Strahd, quite irritable, and vaguely autistic. Their interrogation ended when Izek smashed Lief’s head through the desk, knocking him unconscious, and they stole more gold and platinum as well as a Manual of Bodily Health.
The Heralds descended a spiral stair past storerooms and traps until reaching the catacombs, where high murky waters concealed secret pressure plates. Tobias and Geronimo were teleported to nearby cells in an explosion of water; however, Ghalwin could sense he was nearby. He tracked Tobias using magic but was himself teleported to another cell, and Ezmerelda followed suit, leaving Ajuni and Izek in the lurch. Meanwhile, Tobias easily broke out of his own flooded cell, looting the body of a long-dead rogue for gemstones and a Potion of Heroism. He set Ghalwin and Ez free then broke open more cells, avoiding a Gray Ooze that lurked below while finding other dead adventurers.
Opposite their room, the "Ravager" Kiril Stoyanovich called out to Izek, who was guarding the door. The werewolf leader had been imprisoned for over a month after consulting Strahd on how to revive Shakti. Though still fearful of Ghalwin after being tortured by him, Kiril accepted the paladin's apology when they provided him rations and broke him out of his cell . He agreed to temporarily join them, eager to reach the brazier room and return to his now-leaderless pack. Before they left the cells, however, they found a glowing shortsword with a will of its own. Tobias bore the good-aligned blade, which was devoted to justice and capable of granting radiant spellwork.
Pressing through the flooded hall, the Heralds entered a vast torture chamber, filled with rusted instruments containing skeletal victims and overlooked by a balcony. Ghalwin stepped into the water, expecting the chained skeletons to stir. Instead, the still surface erupted as dozens of undead rose up from below, the echoes of their moans filling the chamber.
"30 zombies. 30 zombies. 30 zombies."
