- at Saint Andral’s Church, the party takes a short rest
- Brume and Kheldar experiment with Lady Wachter’s amulet. It has the appearance of the The Four Quarters emblem on it. The apparent age of the wearer is lessened, so the wearer appears several years younger. It’s affects seem variable based on the age of the wearer. It’s illusion only, as when the amulet is removed so is the seeming.
- the party asks Father Lucian Petrovich if he has ideas on where to keep Lady Wachter. He doesn’t want his church turned into a prison and suggests they use the manacles that held Udo Lukovich back at the Burgomaster’s mansion.
- Stella Wachter wakes up, and has reverted back to meowing like a cat. Her state of lucidity she exhibited before after Brume cast Lesser Restoration on has vanished.
- Brume is unhappy that Stella has reverted. He’s starting to feel like his best efforts keep being wasted in Barovia. After talking about her with Father Lucian, he suggests a possible solution. He’s heard rumors that the waters at the Shrine of the White Sun (at Krezk) are especially holy and have very strong healing powers. Perhaps they could help.
- the party heads to the former burgomaster’s house. There they lock up Lady Wachter, still gagged, to keep her out of trouble. They talked about going to the Blue Water Inn, but didn’t want Nikolai and Karl Wachter to see her tied up as she is.
- Victor Vallakovich is not back at the mansion
- They party decides they need to inform Urwin Martikov (as prospective Burgomaster) of their actions with Lady Wacther. Bogdan tries to pay the servants to go, but they refuse to leave for any amount of money at night time. “No point in being rich if I’ll be dead, dearie!”
- Deciding someone needs to watch Lady Wacher, the party splits. Zack, Brume, and Kheldar stay behind to guard Lady Wachter while Paloma and Bogdan head to the Inn to meet up with Urwin.
- On the way there, Paloma spots something reflecting the light of Bogdan’s torch. She examines it and finds a brass-looking spyglass. Oddly, when viewing the Inn through it (the only thing with enough light to see), it appeared as if it were raining even though it wasn’t.
- Talking to Urwin, they explain what happened with Lady Wachter.
- Urwin says he’ll speak more with his wife Danika but thinks he’ll accept the role of Burgomaster. He says it would go more smoothly if the party could convince Victor to back him, as Victor is next in line for the role based on traditional inheritance.
- When asked what he would do with Lady Wacher, Urwin suggests banishment for her. Send her with a fortnight’s worth of supplies into the wild blindfolder so she didn’t know where she was, and tell her she was exiled from the town. He suggested the wolf hunters, Szoldar Szoldarovich and Yevgeni Krushkin would handle her for payment.
- The party asks the two, and they agree to guard her for 10g each per day (double their normal scouting/guide fees since Lady Wachter is presumably dangerous).
- Bogdan and Paloma realize they haven’t heard from Ireena and Ismark, and ask Urwin about them.
- The innkeep tells the two that their friends went looking for them, accompanied by Vaz.
- The two return to the burgomaster’s mansion, explaining what they learned to the rest of the party.
- They take turns guarding Lady Wachter
- Brume catches her trying to unlock her manacles with a hairpin and gives her a stink eye, warning her not to try again
- Brume has another dream. Brume sees a young priest standing in a bright sun beam. The priest wears an amulet of the Morninglord, but it flashes white with its own inner light as well of that of the sun reflecting off of it. The young priest blesses a family of peasants around him, but each person he lays his blessing upon becomes sick, writhing in pain as their limbs deform. The sunlight stops shining down on the young priest but he doesn’t seem to notice. He keeps blessing family member after family member, moving from the older generations to the new, even as darkness falls around him, never realizing that those he bless come to harm, until finally the sun no longer shines on him at all.
- The next morning the servants have made a wolf-bacon breakfast for the party. They explain that they worked here for the Vallakovichs, but with them gone they hope the party will pay for their services. Bogdan gives them a silver for the breakfast.
- The party goes back to the Blue Water Inn, and there’s a full crowd there. Rictavio, the two wolf hunters Yegeni and Szoldar, Urwin, Danica, and their boys Brom and Bray.
- Rictavio helps the party out and manages to cast Detect Magic on Lady Wachter’s amulet. He tells them it only has magical auras of illusion, and is not a casting focus
- The two wolf hunters head to the burgomaster’s place to guard Lady Wachter
- The party heads toward Saint Andral’s Church, and along the way run into Ireena, Ismark, and Vaz.
- Those three went looking for the main party. They went to the Lady Wachter’s and saw no one there, and then stayed the night before coming back to the Church this morning
- Vaz and Ireena are flirting quite a bit. Vas has a couple of daggers and is super excited about becoming an adventurer finally. He gets disarmed by Bogdan easily, but manages to snag the dagger right back, slightly impressing the monk.
- Back at the Church, Lydia Petrovna, the former Baroness, is helping Father Lucian tend to Stella as well as just general maintenance and cleaning of the church.
- Paloma and the party talk to Lydia about Victor. She doesn’t think her son was ever engaged to Stella, or at least wasn’t to her knowledge. Stella had been around a few times but Victor never really showed any interest in her. This doesn’t seem to jive with the story Lady Wachter told of her daughter.
- Father Lucian says that for his penance in causing so much chaos, Brume should attempt to restore some order. He sets him the task of putting a burgomaster over Little Barovia, as no one has really stepped up with Ismark and Ireena gone from town and Kolyan Indirovich dead.
- The party visit’s Vasili von Holtz’s house, but he is not home. The maid acts like he is almost never home. There is a small toy dog named Hanz that attacts Paloma’s attention.
- The party, after exploring a bit while talking tot he maid, write a letter in Vasilli’s study and leave it for him, saying they wish to talk to him about the crates they found at Henrik van der Voort’s coffin shop.
- They head towards the Arasek Stockyard to meet with Victor for his lunchtime meeting with Paloma.
- On the way, two ravens are behaving oddly. Paloma uses Speak With Animals and finds out the two birds are squabbling like kids, and don’t realize that the ranger can talk to them until it’s too late after they’ve been “talking” to themselves for a while. They flee in surprise.

- outside of the Wachterhaus, Brume gags and binds Lady Wachter. He also takes her amulet away since he recognized the insignia of The Four Quarters cult on it. After taking off the amulet, she visibly ages and becomes more ugly/frail looking.
- Upstairs, Kheldar notices that the blankets are oddly piled on one side of the bed. After pulling them down, he and Paloma quickly realize they are looking at the corpse of Nikolai Wachter, the several-years dead husband of Lady Wachter. However the corpse is well-maintained and looks freshly dead, with zero signs of decay. His eyes are covered with coins as if in a funeral rite.
- they find a chest on a high shelf in the closet, solid iron and heavy. Kheldar tries to pry it open with a chisel from his smith’s tools but is unable to do so.
- at this point Bogdan and Brume come back upstairs with Lady Wachter and deposit her on the bed, still tied but conscious.
- Searching the room, Brume finds a set of keys hidden on a hook in the fireplace. Tossing it to Kheldar, they open the chest
- they find out the key disabled a poison dart trap that would have went off had the chest been forced open. Inside the chest is a thin lining of lead, and then a neatly stacked pile of human bones; an entire skeleton’s worth.
- Brume places the bones (just the skull?) in his bag with an attempt to use Speak With The Dead later.
- Brume wants to investigate Stella Wachter’s room as they heard her making cat-like sounds before. He finds the door locked and unable to get in, but Bogdan is able to help out and picks the lock open for him.
- Stella is clearly insane. She’s dirty and skinny, thinking she is a cat.
- Brume gets down low and tries to be gentle. He offers some trail tack biscuits and jerky to Stella. She starts to gnaw on the jerky but throws the biscuit aside.
- He tries to study her, and comes to the conclusion that there’s no physical malaise present and it’s instead simply magical. Using his powers to their fullest, he casts Lesser Restoration and manages to cure Stella.
- Stella starts screaming, freaking out due to seeing a strange man in her room and confusion in general. Brume decides he’s out of his wheelhouse and asks Paloma to come speak to Stella, woman-to-woman
- Paloma has to try and explain things to Stella, while artfully dodging answers like “we may have ever-so-slightly and accidentally bound-and-gagged your mom. But we’re her allies. Sorta.”
- Stella doesn’t remember what happened. Her memories seem to stop the day or maybe just hours before her meeting wtih Victor Vallakovich.
- After coming with Paloma into hero mother’s room, the sight of even more strangers (especially Kheldar) and her mom bound and older looking, causes Stella to pass out in shock
- meanwhile, Bogdan, Zack, and Kheldar explore the rest of the house. They unlock the door to the library and see a bunch of hostile cats.
- Kheldar and Zack figure out that one bookshelf is a fake door, and open it. Inside is another chest. Looking around for a key, they see it hanging around the neck of one of the mean cats.
- Bogdan rushes over to shut the door while Kheldar and Zack get kitty-claws to the face for their trouble. Eventually they managed to cut the collar off the cat and get the key.
- Inside they find a bunch of things, listed below in the treasure section.
- Brume leaves the room for a moment to check on the others, leaving Paloma alone with Stella and Lady Wachter.
- while she’s alone, she sees a folded paper float in through the open window. It’s floating while perfectly flat, not flying around in the wind. It turns out to be a simple handwritten note that says “Meet at the stockyards at lunchtime. – V”
- Paloma finally has her hawk stop playing with the dead imp and bags it up to take with as proof of Lady Wacther’s crimes. (This was Paloma?)
- they leave, with Brume carrying Stella and Zack holding the rope tied to Lady Wachter.

- Maybe 100’ from the Wachterhaus they cross a small brook and see a band of zombies shambling around in the dark. The zombies notice the party
- combat ensues. The zombies slash and bite their way through the group, but fall to pieces with a decent hit. Limbs fly. The party looks like it might be overrun until Brume Turns Undead, and that turns (heh heh heh) the tide of the battle in the parties favor. They spend the next several seconds slicing limbs and heads off zombies and pounding them into mush.
- Feeling tired after such a long day, they decide to adventure no more and head towards Saint Andral’s Church.

Questions:

• Does Paloma tell anyone about the note?

Treasure

• silk bag of 180 electrum pieces (1/2 gold each), each coin stamped with Strahd von Zarovich’s visage
• leather bag of 110 gold
• a very nice mahogany wood pipe
• five scrolls. notarized deeds for parcels of land given to the Wachter Family by Strahd nearly four centuries ago
• a supple leather case containing a manuscript by Lady Wachter called “The Devil You Know”, saying that devil-worship can lead to more happiness than the Baron’s festivals
• The Grimoire of the Four Quarters , which turned out to be fake
• a letter from Vasili von Holtz to one Lovina Wachter. The letter thanks Lovina for her “hospitality, loyalty, friendship over the years”. The letter is clearly very old. Looking through the tax records in the other part of the library, it turns out that Lovina was an ancestor of the current Wachters several generations back.

- Rictavio apologies for the way his Sabretooth tiger, Shearah (sheer-rah), went after the party. She was accidentally freed by the Wachter kids, Nikolai and Karl.
- Rictavio calms Shearah down. He admits that she really doesn’t like Vistani. A troupe that lives outside of Vallaki in a camp called Tsernovna had treated the tiger badly, and she associated that mistreatment with the smell and sights of all Vistani.
- Paloma is tired of waiting on the roof with Santa Muerte, and asks if he can do anything to help her.
- Rictavio says yes. He quickly grabs Brume’s hand and places it on the tiger’s head, saying ‘Here hold this’.
- The cleric awkwardly and fearfully pets the tiger a little and it doesn’t seem to mind.
- Rictavio runs back, holding a bottle of liquid. He tosses it up to Paloma and tells her to pour it on her.
- Brume guesses correctly that it’s tiger urine, and helpfully calls out “It’s topical! Don’t drink it”
- Paloma upends in on herself, gagging a touch, and climbs down to join the rest of the party
- They go with Rictavio back near Arasek Stockyard, where his wagon awaits
- The half-elf bard has Brume feed the tiger for him with some raw wolf steaks. The tiger devours them and then starts purring around Brume.
- Paloma wrestles with desires for a big cute fluffy kitty, and not wanting to be eaten. Not wanting to be eaten wins … this time and heads back towards the inn to take a bath.
- After several minutes of conversation, the rest of the party also head towards the Inn, with Rictavio saying he wants to make sure his wagon is secure. He’ll meet them there in a short while
- Lots of villagers are about and scared, having dashed away from the festival and town square earlier. They ask about the tiger. The party becomes more of a hero in their eyes, as they’ve taken care of the evil Baron as well as now “saved them” from a tiger.
- Once back at Blue Water Inn, Urwin Martikov and his wife Danika come up to congratulate the party. He says he’d give them a drink on the house, but after supplying this latest festival his wine stores are extremely low
- Brume asks Urwin how he’d feel about being the new Burgomaster. Confused, the innkeep says he thought Lady Fiona Wachter was taking that over.
- The party explained that she basically decided that herself, but that they never really backed her. They ask – not entirely subtly – if Urwin has ever noticed anything odd about Lady Wacther or odd things around the Wachterhaus.
- Urwin answers that he has heard about some cloaked people coming and going. It’s not odd in and of itself, but that they often wore cloaks even when it wasn’t raining, and always seemed to go there in handfuls at at time
- The party asks about Vasili von Holtz. They had found his name on a delivery receipt; the delivery was for the crates that held the vampire spawn they found in Henrik van der Voort‘s coffin shop.
- Urwin says Vasili is a bit of a shut-in. Or, rather, he’s just not around out-and-about in town often. He’s a minor noble that’s family is much poorer than they used to be and he lives further north of The Wactherhaus.
- About this time, a short, dark complected man walks in. Rather, it’s an elf, and his skin is so dusky as to be a dark purple. He says his name is Rahadin. He hands a letter to Bogdan and tells the party they are invited to his Castle Ravenloft to enjoy dinner with his master. When asked who his master is, he replies “Count Strahd, of course”.
- << my notes are illegible here. My handwriting sucks. I think Brume smarts off? >>
- Rahadin, feeling the party has disrespected Strahd too much already, administers some swift punishment. Most of the party starts feeling pain in their heads, as if the death wails of thousand of people were to originate from within their skulls. Adding to this pain and confusion, Rahadin was a whirlwhind of speed, lashing out time and again with his scimitar. The party got a couple of hits in, but within seconds everyone is downed and unconscious … or dying.
- Paloma, having heard the ruckus, came dashing downstairs only mostly dressed and still wet. Rahadin, with a few smears of the parties blood on him, looks at her to see what her reaction is. Paloma does not attack first, realizing the dusk elf is a deadly foe. Rahadin reaches down, grabs the now bloodstained letter from Bogdan’s body, and hands it to Paloma. He tells her “Please do not test or disrespect my master again. I would need to revisit you, otherwise.”
- Paloma manages to heal Bogdan, and between them they revive Brume, Kheldar, and Zack
- The letter reads:

My friends,

Know that it is I who have brought you to this land, my home, and know that I alone can release you from it. I bid you dine at my castle so that we can meet in civilized surroundings. Your passage here will be a safe one. I await your arrival.

Your host,

Strahd von Zarovich

- The rest of the inn is also hurt. The party help out where they can, bandaging people and bringing some sense of order. A couple of the villages actually died in the onslaught from whatever psychic effect Rahadin was bringing to bear.
- Rictavio arrives and helps as well. He asks what the hell happened, he was only 20 or so minutes behind them!
- Seeing the shape they are in, Rictavio thinks maybe they need help, or at least a way to disapear for a while from the limelight of Vallaki. He says he knows about Ezmerelda d’Avenir, a famous Vistani monster huntress. Paloma reveres Ezmerelda. RIctavio says he’s heard rumors that Ezmerelda is out west, somewhere around Lake Baratok, and would make a great ally (and perhaps know of a good place to hide from Strahd).
- Rictavio also talks about Ireena … but I didn’t write down what about.
- After discussing their options, the party decides to take the chance to go explore the basement of the Wachterhaus again, to see if they can prove (or disprove) Lady Wachter’s knowlege of The Four Quarters cult that was in her basement.
- They sneak around and get to the house just as night fully falls. When they enter the basement, a single skeleton raises from the dirt. Its wearing the same clothes as the cultists were the last time they were here.
- On the beds nearby they find three more corpses that don’t seem to be rotting, also wearing the clothes of the cultists from before. There were four cultists before …
- Bogdan doesn’t want to take chances, and goes around and pokes MORE holes in all of the corpses just to be safe. Staff-sized holes.
- Brume casts a spell to detect evil, and finds out the pentagram is NOT desecrated … but perhaps more interestingly that there is a fiend upstairs.
- They traverse the house with stealth (and a nice stealthy assist from Bogdan’s Pass Without A Trace) and arrive upstairs.
- They check an empty bedroom that appears to be the two sons, pass another door that has the sounds of a cat (sorta), and finally approach Lady Wachter’s room.
- They hear Lady Wacther’s voice inside. She says “Majesto, I do so wish Nikolai were hear with me more than this.”
- They try to pick the lock and fail a few times, alerting whoever is inside.
- Inside, the bed is rumpled with blankets bundled up on it, and behind it is Lady Wachter. She casts spells as the party tried to dodge behind the door.
- Something invisble swarms at Bogdan, and Brume’s senses realize it’s the fiend. He yells in “fiendish” (e.g., Infernal) for the beast to be gone, but it only laughs at him. Whatever it is, it’s tiny and crawls down Bogdan’s shirt, tearing into the monk with poisonous bites or claws or something.
- Lady Wacher is feeling the heat and tries to retreat, but there’s not really anywhere to go with Khedlar dominating her bedroom. She casts Sanctuary and calmly leaves the parties reach, opens the window, and starts climbing downward. The thing on Bogdan reveals itself to be a shapechanging imp, and it flies to be with its Master/Mistress.
- Bogdan jumps out the window, crashing into Lady Wacther, and they both slam on the ground outside. Lady Wacher is dying but Brume managers to heal her so he can question her later.

- Zack tries to saw off Izek’s demonic arm. He can’t saw it, so he starts chopping. Eventually he cuts it off, minus an 18" gouged out section of floor or so. Collateral. Whoops.
- Paloma asks Brume to tend to Victor Vallakovich, since he was knocked unconscious by Zach. Brume asks why she’s worried about him, and Paloma doesn’t really have a good answer. She just thinks Victor could be a good friend.
- Paloma talks to Victor. He asks why she’s in his house. She keeps equivocating, but eventually admits they came to kill Baron Vargas Vallakovich.
- Victor says “Took you long enough!”. She asks if she can escort him outside to safety, and he replies with something like “Don’t you think I’m safe in my own house? And if I’m not, shouldn’t I already know the way out?”
- Eventually he agrees to stay safe, and promptly disappears after casting some spell.
- Brume searches the library. He finds 38 gold in Izek’s pouch, 3 keys in the desk, and grabs a few books from the hundreds, perhaps thousands that are there. One is a book of horrid poetry, written by someone named Vogon. The second is a book that looks like it’s on advanced alchemy, although Brume can’t make much sense of many diagrams, and lots of words are unfamiliar too him. The third is a “religious” book: “Volo’s Guide to the Gods: All Gods Poop, Divinely”
- Exploring the other rooms before the main bedroom, Brume comes across the wedding dress that’s in pristine shape and kept wonderfully clean. He decides it’s part the dress from one of his dreams and takes it.
- Paloma questions his new attire. Brume says her socio-gender constructs aren’t applicable in a time and place such as Barovia, and bitch he looks hot in that wedding dress anyways.
- Okay, maybe that last bullet point didn’t happen. But it totally should have.
- Brume opens the door to the Baron’s room, hoping to not get hit with an axe like last time.
- The Baron’s two large, angry, and territorial looking mastiffs (Solya and Vedma) guard the door while the Baron is behind them, rapier drawn. Baroness Lydia Petrovna is behind the Baron, whimpering in fear. They also see a draw cord on ceiling that presumably leads to attack.
- Brume tries to cast Hold Person on the Baron but it doesn’t succeed.
- One of the dogs gets its teeth into Bogdan and drags him to the ground, growling while its jaw is clamped on the monk’s forearm
- Paloma, thinking only of the pretty puppies (and not the being-chewed-on-monk), casts Speak With Animals and gets the mastiff to agree to loosen his bite on the monk in exchange for some jerky.
- Brume tries to talk the situation down with the Baron, but the Baron is angry and beyond reason. THIS IS HIS TOWN, HIS FAMILY HAS OWNED IT FOR GENERATIONS. HIS SHITS HAVE MORE PEDIGREE THAN YOU UP-JUMPED PISSANT PEASANTS. Etc etc.
- He refuses to surrender. Instead, he commands the other mastiff to sit on Bogdan and put its teeth near the man’s throat. He asks then, near insane with rage, if the party would pay the price of their friend’s life to take him out. Brume tries to reason more, but the noble won’t hear it. He commands the dogs to attack, and they do, nearly killing Bogdan.
- Brume, desperate to save his friend and not really understanding how frail the Baron is behind his braggadocio, unleashes his full power in a devastating Thunderwave, instantly killing one dog and the Baron both. The two corpses slam into the far wall and nearly explode, falling in a shattered lump that’s barely recognizable.
- Bogdan frees himself from the other mastiff and applies “stick to the forehead” in return, knocking the large dog unconcsious
- During this, Brume hears thumbs and growls from the nearby locked closet. One of the keys from the desk opens this closet and behind it is a dragonborn.
- The creature is Kheldar. He was kidnapped by the baron for being a “monster” in town, and savagely beaten and tortured to see if more of his kind were about, and what new kind of monster he was to work for Strahd.
- The party introduces themselves (Paloma is more curious than afraid, despite never having seen a dragonborn before – or even knowing what they were). Kheldar re-arms himself and grabs a cloak from the Baron’s closet to try and hide his head/face.
- Brume takes that Baron’s body (head only?) and has Zack carry Izek’s demon arm and they deliver them outside to the mob.
- Lady Wachter gives a speech about how the Baron’s days are over, and how she plans on making Vallaki better and safer. She has three steps for now: make sure the Baron’s family or possibly allies aren’t going to try and get revenge, rid the empty houses of any vermin and/or zombies hiding in them, and restore the flow of wine from The Wizard of Wines (since wine is the chief source of happiness for most Barovians)
- Brume & Zack go back upstairs
- Paloma wants to keep the unconscious mastiff as a pet. She tries to talk Bogdan into carrying it. The argument does not go in her favor.
- The master bedroom is a mess. The Baroness, Lydia, has passed out from shock. The party carries her to Victor’s room and leave her laying in his bed for now.
- they then go explore the attic, coming back to the door where Bogdan got shocked a lot before
- they search the door but don’t find any clues as to what caused the lightning, so Kheldar opens the door … and gets lit up with lightning for his trouble. He manages to stay on his feat, although his scales smell highly of ozone now.
- Inside, it’s much like Paloma remember seeing. There are 6 undead cats (cat skeletons, really) roaming around that she decides are fluffy and has to capture into a sack, for safekeeping.
- there looks to be a teleportation circle on the floor, the best the party can figure. Kheldar thinks it looks more like a dragon egg.
- they find clothes in a trunk that seem to belong to the butler and a lady’s maid. the clothes are covered in a thick, jelly-like ooze that smells like rotten fruit.
- they leave the attack and take the clothes to the servants in the first floor. Servants agree that they belonged to the butler and lady’s maid, and are freaked out enough to leave in case whatever happened to the two missing people happens to them to.
- they take Lydia to the Saint Andral’s Church so her brother, Father Lucian Petrovich, can attend to her.
- While there, Father Lucian discusses what happened and says Brume should seek penance in the morning during the next sunrise service.
- meanwhile, Paloma took the bag o’ dead cats to an “empty” house. The house turned out to have five swarms of rats in it, that viciously bit the ranger … until she freed the little devil kitties. The rats fled in fear, the cats chased in morbid enjoyment, and the ranger shut the door, making sure to remember which house to come back to later.
- She took the mastiff into the church when she got back.
- <what>
- the party realizes they left Ireena and Ismark with the mob and Lady Wachter. They hope they can meet up with them at the Festival of the Blazing Sun
- Paloma and Bogdan tell the rest of the party what happened in the basement of the Wachterhaus with the cult of The Four Quarters.
- They decide to look into that after the festival or maybe another day, since Ireena and Ismark are alone
- They go to the town square for the festival, rain turns into a full on thunderstorm for a while and then abets just before the festival starts
- At the festival, Lady Wachter leads. She lights a large wicker ball on fire, symbolizing the lights of Vallaki returning the sun to brightness. She several attendees each get a small featureless wicker doll, that they light on fire, and then toss “into the sun”. This is the act of Vallakians burning away the monsters with the light of the day and The Morninglord returning to strength.
- Urwin Martikov, innkeep of the Blue Water Inn, passes out free wine to the villagers in celebration of the Baron’s demise.
- Brume remembers hearing about Bluto the town drunk/fisherman, and seeks him out to talk about Lake Zarovich and the Mad Mage. Bluto thinks the lake is cursed, since he can’t get fish; and with no fish he can’t afford to live and buy wine. He stears clear of the Mad Mage, but he has seen him from a distance.
- Bluto says maybe there’s a monster in the bottom of the lake that needs a sacrifice or something. Brume questions him on it, and he laughs at the joke of a sacrifice, saying he doesn’t know what would break a curse anyways. But then he left weirdly and abruptly.
- After lots of drinks from everyone, depleting a large portion of the town’s wine, screams start happening
- a sabretooth tiger is chasing Nikolai and Karl Wachter through the streets as they flee, and behind the tiger runs Rictavio.
- The tiger gets held back by Brume’s Gust of Wind, but not before it catches the scent of Paloma.
- Rictavio says the tiger won’t hurt anyone if not attacked, and the party avoids it.
- Then Rictavio sees Paloma climbing a nearby building and swears, because the one type of people the tiger does hate is Vistani.
- After many tense moments, Brume’ Gust of Wind and Rictavio managed to calm the tiger down.
- Apparently the Wachter boys had freed it from Rictavio’s wagon accidentally. Rictavio claims he has it because it’s from his circus days. When asked why it hates Vistani, he looked at Paloma like he was nervous or afraid of her reaction, and said it was because another troupe of Vistani had mistreated it when he first arrived.

Treasure:

• 38g in Izek’s pouch
• Wedding Dress. It kinda makes Brume look fat, though.
• VIctor’s spellbook
• book on alchemy
• book of Vogon Poetry
• book entitled “Volo’s Guide to the Gods: All Gods Poop, Divinely”. Totally good for shits ‘n’ giggles.
• Baron’s breastplate

- party rests at Blue Water Inn, split into a couple of rooms
- Brume has another of his dreams. In this one, he finds himself before a pool of turquoise with currents of aqua gently rippling through it. A young man, blonde of hair, falls inside the pool, and at first panics. He calms down and seems to be looking for someone or something. After what seems like a lifetime, his eyes light up, as if he had found what he was looking for. He stretches his arm upwards, reaching out …
- and Brume is being shaken awake, a hand gripped over his mouth. Over him stands Urwin Martikov, the innkeep. Urwin tells Brume he has to wake his friends and to hurry, for a little birdie has told him that Baron Vargas Vallakovich, burgomaster of Vallaki, is sending guards to the Inn to find the party. Urwin is emphatic about not wanting trouble to happen at the Inn or near his family
- Brume does as he’s instructed, and within minutes (before even donning armor) the party is walking away from the Inn in the pre-dawn darkness where it’s starting to rain
- the party stands around for a while, dithering and dickering about where to go or which direction to head. Eventually they decide to head eastward away towards the less populated side of town, thinking about finding an abandoned house and holing up
- they spent long enough arguing, however, that they see torches weaving and bobbing, spitting in the rain, stomping fairly loudly
- the party braces for combat, and it turns out the seven torches are really only five guards. a bit after combat starts, it becomes more apparent why; more guards had snuck around behind them and set up an ambush, moving quietly and with no light while those in the front stomped with torches as a distraction

- guards with bows and spears alike tried to capture the party. Paloma let loose volley after volley as Brume called down the powers of the storm and wreaked havoc with lightning, neither caring about leaving the guards alive at this point. Bogdan Gromov used some Ki to cast darkness while simply knocking those he found unconscious, and Zack made do with his loaned longsword to finishing the demoralizing defeat of the guards.
- Ismark lays into several guards before backing up near an ally to protect Ireena.
- the end result was 7 dead guards, 3 unconscious, and 2 who managed to live and flee. the carnage was spread about the main thoroughfare and several back alleys
- Zack now thinks nets are evil. Evil, evil nets.
- the torches had been dropped near enough to a building that its side had caught on fire. <someone> cast some <wind> that, along with the rain, put it out.
- the party decides they need to be armed to the fullest if the baron is getting this aggressive. They seek out Jenny Greenteeth to hopefully get Zack’s sword and Brume’s driftglobe.
- Jenny does not disappoint, although her gifts each have their own quirk.
- Brume’s driftglobe normally appears as a dirty, shapeless hat. Upon a command word, it changes into a virulent green halo, and from then can be moved around as his wishes. A repeat of the command word and it turns back into the dirty misshapen hat.
- Zack’s sword is moss green in color, and while sheathed looks like it’s shrunk to a dagger. While drawn, it reverts to its size. It’s also very loud, now; it has a definite clank when hitting the ground, and even swooshes when whipped through the air.
- the party heads to Saint Andral’s Church for the morning service, and to see how Lady Fiona Wachter‘s plan works out.
- The party doesn’t really trust Lady Wachter, despite having agreed to her plan on two different occasions now. She brings her sons Nikolai and Karl, as well as the old couple the party placed under her protection, Udo and Willemina.
- Lady Wacther wants to have Udo, Willemina, and Ireena testify against the atrocities the Baron has done to the people of Vallaki. This, combined with the growing distaste of weekly festival and common dread, should be enough to turn them against the Burgomaster.
- Zack starts arguing with Lady Wachter, Brume and Ismark start trying to say Ireena shouldn’t be placed in danger
- Ireena is getting pissed because they are talking as if she wasn’t there and her own master
- eventually, a compromise is reached that leaves most people unhappy but not coming to blows; Ismark will testify on his sister’s behalf without naming her.
- As the sunrise should be happening, the rain turns into a thunderstorm.
- After Father Lucian Petrovich‘s sunrise service on this day for the “Festival of the Blazing Sun” (not to be confused with another shitty stormy day in Vallaki), Lady Wachter addresses the huddled masses in the church. She tells of the Baron’s wickedness, how he prefers fake happiness to real solutions, how he has abused the town
- Udo tells of how he was imprisoned and beaten, with his wife not even sure where he was. How he was only saved by the party, not by anything the Baron has done
- Ismark tells of how his sister was kidnapped by Izek, the Baron’s right-hand man. There was no defense. If the Baron knew, he was complicit; if he didn’t, he was incapably of running his own house, let alone the village.
- The crowd agrees, and soon they start storming out of the house, torches in hand, to march upon the burgomaster’s mansion
- As they approach, there are 8 guards standing in front of the mansion. They were forewarned by those guards who escaped earlier
- The party manages to intimidate the guards, and they stand down since they don’t want to fight their own townsfolk and friends
- Party has mob circle baron’s house, not letting anyone in or out, but otherwise to stay back and be safe. Ismark and Ireena stay with crowd
- Lady Wachter is asked by party to come in with, so the five of them enter
- They find servants downstairs hiding and tell them to stay put
- they go upstairs and search in Victor Vallakovich’s room, finding him hiding in the corner
- Zack checks Izek’s room, kicking the door down. He’s not there.
- Zack (?) knocks Victor out. Paloma feels oddly compelled to make sure Victor is okay
- Brume opens the door to the library, and Izek was waiting for that. He smashes his axe into Brume, dropping the cleric unconscious in a single blow
- The party drags Brume back and heal him
- Izek gets in more mighty swings, knocking Zack unconscious twice in two rounds
- eventually, through the powers of their healing magic and the might of their arms, the party kills Izek

- party starts split
- Bogdan, Paloma, Sophie, Ismark, and Ireena return to Saint Andral’s Church after leaving the cellar of Wachterhaus.
- at the church, Bogdan talked to Father Lucian. Bogdan asked the priest who he thought should succeed Baron Vargas Vallakovich as Burgomaster of Vallaki if the Baron were to be deposed.
- Father Lucian said he could only really think of two choices: Lady Fiona Wachter as the next most powerful noble, or Urwin Martikov as a well-liked and friendly man due to his position as innkeeper of the Blue Water Inn
- Bogdan then asked Lucian about the The Four Quarters. The priest made his fancy holy gestures to ward away evil before telling Bogdan that the cult came to power in the more recent years as people hoped to unlock Devostas’ ability to avoid death as a means of escaping the mists of Barovia.
- Sophie admits to being scared at this point, worried that the demonic voice they heard at the Wachterhaus might actually go after her god. She refuses to leave the church at this point.
- Paloma talks Bogan into returning to the Wachterhaus (by the front door this time) to try and go find the rest of the party. It’s a little early for their meeting but not so much that it’s unreasonable to arrive.
- They arrive and Paloma knocks. The ranger asks the maid that answers the door if she’s seen the rest of the party, and maid replies no. Paloma then asks the maid if they can come back later since they want to find their friends first.
- The maid, visibly annoyed, shuts the door in Paloma’s face as an answer.
- Paloma sends her hawk, Santa Muerte, to circle around in the air hoping to find the rest of the party

MEANWHILE, EARLIER

- Brume and Zack are escorting Udo and Willemina to the Wachterhaus from Saint Andral’s Church. The two adventurers want to keep the older couple safe from the reach of the Baron as they can be witnesses against the Baron’s imprisonment and torture tactics.
- They take the main road instead of side streets, hoping speed will make up for lack of stealth. Between the Inn and the Wachterhaus, however, something weird happens
- Brume and Zack feel a strange tugging sensation, and they’re suddenly whisked towards a wall, but instead of smacking into it they … phased through.
- Inside, Jenny Greenteeth is smiling her winsome smile and welcome the two to her shop in Vallaki. Apparently the old gal gets around.
- a long conversation happens. It bears fruit in a few ways:
- Brume asked her to talk to Tobin Shaw about procuring a Drift Globe, a magic item that can manipulate light. In exchange, he had to stare into her eyes for an unconformable amount of time before she screamed straight at him, deafening him for a long time.
- Zack agreed, by an oath signed in blood, to go to Old Bonegrinder and deal with Jenny’s “cousin”. In exchange, she promised to upgrade Zack’s sword “Buster” for him.
- Jenny explained that she herself was the source of Lady Wacther’s power. It took a while to flower, so to speak. Jenny giggled that she told Lady Wacther that the exchange was five years of life; it wasn’t her fault Lady Wacther thought Jenny mean Lady Wacther’s life. Instead, Jenny took five years of life from Lady’s Wachter’s former husband, Nikolia. (Not to be confused with her son, Nikolai…). The husband died from this exchange.
- Due to some prior agreement she’s made (and wouldn’t reveal), Jenny says they cannot go to the Wactherhaus before dark. Asked what as in it for them, Jenny merely giggled again and said she wouldn’t kill and eat them.
- Jenny told the two adventures to come back to her the next day and she’d have their stuff. Zack would have to leave their sword with her overnight. She then kicked them out.
- Appearing back in the street, Udo and Willemina are confused because Brume and Zack were missing for a few seconds. Playing it off, Zack says something came up and they need to return to the inn

MEANWHILE (AGAIN), back to regular time

- The party regroups at the Blue Water Inn, where Brume and Zack have been drinking a lot.
- Paloma notices a pair of hunters she’s met before: Szoldar Szoldarovich and Yevgeni Krushkin. They’re wolf-hunters who tried their hands at hunting werewolves. They disliked the extra danger, and how much worse werewolf tastes compared to wolf. They did give a few other intriguing bits of news to Paloma, however
- 1) They’ve been noticing some weird flashes of purple light coming from the top of the Burgomaster’s house at night.
- 2) Tsernovna, a Vistani camp southwest of Vallaki, has some “bad apple types” of Vistani there. Those Vistani are upset because they’re running out of wine and because of some other trouble that Szoldar and Yevgeni aren’t aware of.
- 3) They mentioned that Lake Zarovich is more dangerous, with scores of wolves hunting its shores. Still, despite that, the town drunk Bluto Krogarov has been seen trying to fish the lake anyways, even though he’s been warned off.
- 4) The Mad Mage has been seen “fishing” between the shores of Lake Zarovich and Mount Baratok. Of course he was “fishing” by throwing lightning into the lake and frying dozens of fish at once while rambling. The two hunters steer clear of him and believe he’s very dangerous and crazy.
- Meanwhile, Urwin (the innkeeper) has been bringing more wine to the table. He tells Bogdan that he’s starting to run low. He asks if the monk would be willing to go to The Wizard of Wines and see what the problem is. They normally get a shipment every two weeks, and it’s been four since the last one. Urwin says he’ll pay them for the trouble, especially since they’ll have to deal with ‘the old crow’ that runs the place, explaining he’s a recalcitrant old man.
- Vaz Vizorach comes in and wants to join the party for drinks, but thinks its unfair they have such a headstart on them. He goes up and talks to Urwin at the bar for a bit, and comes back with some hideous concoctions in small glasses. The stuff is nauseating but more or less sobers Brume and Zack back up.
- Zack wants to go with party to Wachterhaus. They say no. He then says they owe him a night of drinks. Tries to flirt with Ireena, but gets told off by Ismark’s glares and Paloma being friendly.
- the 8 of them all leave for Wachterhaus
- There, Lady Wachter agrees to hide/protect Udo and Willemina. She’ll present them in morning to people at church during service and rally townsfolk to cause of dethroning the Baron
- Wants Ireena to also talk about what Izek did in capuring her
- other plan is for adventurers to use one of two poisons (contact to knock unconscious, digestable to kill) against Izek or the Baron directly during the Festival of the Burning Sun on the next day
- party is unsure if they’re still honored guests at the festival or not
- they leave the old couple there, and the other 6 go to investigate the purple flashing lights at Burgomaster’s house
- Brume and Zack handle distraction; Brume throws rocks at the house till he breaks a window, and Zack sets a small tree on fire with dried rope and oil. Ismark and Ireena chillax beside them
- Meanwhile, Paloma and Bogdan climb to top of roof and then into attic. they find a room on far side
- door to room has a sign saying “ALL WILL NOT BE WELL”, has light coming from under it
- inside see a dead skeletal cat
- Bogdan opens door, gets zapped by a huge bolt of lightning, falls over
- Paloma sees cat is not dead, but undead. there are more inside
- pentagram on floor, young man sees her and vanishes
- warns them away, saying they have to leave
- Paloma begs to tend to Bogdan first. Young man agrees
- She heals monk and they leave, but not before young man says she should try to meet up with Victor Vallakovich tomorrow during the festival. Paloma feels oddly compelled to follow this advice.
- meet up with party and they go back to inn to rest for the night

- after the guards attacked the party, Brume becomes more worried about the safety of Udo and Willemina.
- So even though Zack Justwelm is with them on their way to the Wachterhaus, Brume sets off after to help protect them.
- Father Lucian isn’t really happy that Paloma killed a guard at Saint Andral’s Church, but grudgingly accepts her rationale for it. He refuses for the guards (living or dead) to be hidden in the church, however, so the party drag the bodies back behind the church and leave them laying in the graveyard
- Ismark has had enough of playing the innocent and letting others dictate his and Ireena‘s safety. He takes some weapons and armor off of the guards and arms himself, with plans to arm Ireena as well.
- when the party ask if he knows how to use a blade, he demonstrates some remarkable competence; he’s more than capable of holding his own.
- Ireena finally comes to, and Father Lucian decides she’s been drugged in some manner. She went from straight knocked out to awake and lucid with far too little transition to be anything like a concussion.
- at this time Paloma and Sophie hear what sounds like pebbles being thrown against the church windows.
- they go outside to investigate. Paloma’s hawk, Santa Muerte is clearly focused on something flying away, and Paloma sees that it’s a small flock of ravens
- the ravens fly away toward the center of town before anyone can make out a better location for them
- there is a group of pebbles tied in a small net, and that is tied to a letter. this is what hit the church window
- letter reads: “Night and Day war amongst themselves within ”/wikis/vallaki" class=“wiki-page-link”> Vallaki. Light appears at the top of the burgomaster’s house at night, and darkness gathers in the day at the basement of the Wachterhaus. But what happens when dark and light are both equally bad?"
- the bottom of the leader has a small stamp on it that looks like this:
- The party, after much debate of what to do, decides to go snoop around the Wachterhaus.
- They avoid main roads, hoping to avoid the notice of any guards that might be looking for them
- taking small alleys and crossing through some wooded and open lands, they arrive to Wachterhaus sight unseen
- Paloma scouts around and sees a door to presumably a cellar on the side of the house. There are some windows nearby. She watches and sees people pass by inside, but none pay attention to outside
- the party approaches the cellar doors together. The blood hawk Santa Muerte stays outside in a tree, but the rest start to proceed inside one-by-one
- a soft dirty floor houses two sets of stairs and four cots, but otherwise the room seems fairly empty. the floor is crossed by obvious footprints going from stair to stair, and oddly enough one set walk straight up to an empty wall
- Paloma crosses the floor with intents on seeing what lies up the second staircase, but eight skeletons claw their way out of the dirt floor and start attacking
- a hunter of undead, Paloma knows that the skeletons don’t have any special resistances against her axes and bows, and starts attacking. the rest of the party rushes in to help
- Bogdan’s attacks are especially powerful against the skeletons, with his bludgeoning blows shattering ribcages and exploding bones around him.
- Ismark, unleashing some pent-up frustration, yells a huge war-cry. (Paloma winces, as they’re now fighting and yelling while literally under the house of Lady Fiona Wachter, whom they’re supposed to meet again in a few hours).
- Ismark starts cleaving through skeletons, dual-wielding a longsword and shortsword and chopping down two at a time
- Ireena tries to run into combat as well but isn’t nearly as effective as her brother
- Half of the skeletons rain arrows down upon the party as the rest close the distance and swing deadly swords.
- the wall to the side, where footprints end on the floor, suddenly spins on a central point and four cultists come dashing out to join in the fray
- Sophie lights up the place with her Flaming Sphere, burning the asses (literally) of a couple of cultists
- The cultists lob arcs of black fire at the party, chased by a smell of brimstone
- Bogdan takes the bulk of the damage and receives a Cure Wounds by Paloma
- The party downs all the skeletons and kills three of the four cultists when the last living one tries to flee
- He invokes a spell that causes Sophie to be frozen in place on the stairs as he dashes past her and out of the cellar. The party tries to give chase but is delayed with Sophie blocking the entrance for a precious few seconds
- as he flees, the last cultist desperately asks “Why did you forsake us of the Four Quarters?!?!”
- Santa Muerte, however, was having none of it. By the time Bogdan got back up the stairs and outside, the hawk was sitting on the dead man’s chest with obvious claw marks around the guy’s face. Bogdan wasn’t sure but he thought he knew what smugness looked like on a hawk now.
- Bogdan chances a quick peak into a window to see how noticed they might be. He hears a servant yelling for Lady Wachter to go to safety and that the servant would check out the commotion in the basement, but Lady Wachter sternly yelled ‘No! Don’t go down there’.
- Bogdan then went back into the cellar
- Paloma and Sophie were inspecting the hidden room. It has a pentagram on the floor
- Sophie tries to burn the pentagram away with her Flaming Sphere
- a deep voice suddenly shouts ‘WHO ARE YOU TO DISRUPT MY SUMMONING?!’ to Sophie, and then Sophie hears something like bat wings flapping around her head
- Sophie, feeling scared and confused, freaks out and backs away
- The party think maybe it’s a bluff and try to destroy more of the pentagram. it becomes clear that it’s black paint on a stone floor
- the voice continues to yell ‘YOU, MOON CLERIC, SHALL SEE YOUR PRECIOUS MOON SHATTERED AND MOTHER NIGHT DESTROYED. KNOW IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT!"
- it then talks to Paloma, saying “VISTANA CHILD, YOU KNOW OF CHOICE. DO YOU CHOOSE LOYALTY AND REWARD OR BETRAYAL AND CURSES?”
- while saying ’loyalty and reward’, a pile of coins shower onto the remnants of the pentagram
- the entire party hears the wings this time and then it’s gone
- Sophie and Bogdan both relate what they know about the ‘Four Quarters’. There was an infamous diabolist named Devostas who had mastered black magics. He was captured, and sentenced to death by being drawn and quartered. Depsite being ripped apart by the horses, he fell magic was so strong he didn’t die. He gained a cult-like following in the years since his refusal to die, although there’s confusion as to what happened with Devostas himself afterward.

Inspiration
- Sophie, for freaking the hell out when the voice started talking about destroying her very religion

Treasure
- 60g (20g that mysteriously appeared at Paloma’s feet, 40g on cultists persons). was this kept by party??

- party heads toward coffin maker’s shop.
- pass town square, kind of a recovery area
- see Clementine’s dead body
- go on to coffin maker’s shop
- Henrik is not there. find bag of money, all with Strahd von Zarovich‘s visage
- found a receipt of 6 large crates by one Vassili von Holtz
- realize they are being spied on by Ernst
- after being caught, tries to spy again. then caught again by Brume
- Ernst tells party to go see Lady Fiona Wacther at the Wactherhaus
- on way to Watcherhaus went back by the dead bodies and saw Henrik’s corpse
- guards said they would have to stake everyone before mass burial
- Lady Fiona Wachter is ambitious. wants to overthrown Baron Vargas Vallakovich
- her daughter Stella is crazy because of black magic. assumes Baron knows black magic or has someone who does because of Izek’s demon arm
- Stella was to be engaged to Victor, Baron’s son, until their magic made her crazy. she now thinks she’s a cat
- Lady Wacther says more about Izek, but my notes made no sense.
- says to take out Izek and she can handle rest. return at nightfall to get a poison Ernst will arrange to have for them to use to take out Izek
- go back to Baron’s house. search for clues for both Ireena as well as missing servants, the Butler Andre and Nyanca the Lady’s Maid
- bathroom, hallways, kitchen areas, etc. not much has interest
- one room looks to be a vanity room, has large mirror and wedding dress in it. both are spotless, obviously cleaned often
- find locked rooms upstairs. one is Izek’s room. he has dozens of Ireena dolls and lots of empty bottles on floor labeled ‘Purple Grapemash’
- behind bottles (tied, gagged, and unconscious) is Ireena
- Zack defaces eeeerthing
- Sophie mends up behind him before giving up
- Another locked room is closet, has beaten and manacled Udo.
- rescue Udo and Ireena both. Brume flies with Ireena back to Saint Andral’s Church, rest of party climbs out window and carries Udo
- Baroness is all lonely, still waiting for adventurers to come downstairs and they never ever will
- go back to church. ask Father Lucian about his sister, the baroness
- he says Baron makes her nervous, to the point that she’s developed a nervous tic of laughter to cope with his ALL WILL BE WELL madness
- Lucian sends Milivoj to fetch Wilemina, the wife of Udo
- Zach sent little boy townsfolk to fetch Lady Wachter. Paloma paid the boy.
- Karl Wachter comes to church, says Lady cannot be summoned.
- Zach takes Udo and Willemina to the Watcherhaus with Carl for safekeeping as they’re a witness against Baron
- guards came to church to summon to Baron. party said no. tried to knock guards unconscious but Paloma killed one.

Inspiration

• TBD

Treasure

• bag of money from Henrik van der Voort, all stamped with the visage of Strahd von Zarovich
  • 30 silver
  • 12 electrum
  • 8 gold

- Brume, Bogdan, and Zack all make their way back towards Saint Andral’s Church, each to their own path
- Brume, exposing his Radiant Soul, flies with his angelic wings carrying the bloodied (and near bloodless) corpse of Tamar. He lands in a small neighboor off the main road, and makes his way from there towards the Blue Water Inn.
- Bogdan flees down the main road, running as fast as only a monk can. He screams warnings about vampires behind him
- Zach leaves the butcher’s shop he found himself in, and hears the carnage of the vampire spawn fighting village townsfolk. He flees in the other direction (bravely advancing in the opposite direction, as it were) by climbing a nearby building, jumping roof to roof, and running through small alleys towards the main road from there
- Brume and Bogdan just happen to meet each other around the Inn. there Brume runs inside, begs the use of a cart and donkey from Urwin Martikov (the innkeeper), and places Tamar’s body in it. The pair run on to the Church
- at the church, Father Lucian Petrovich is attending to two young women. One is conscious but weak, and the other in unconscious
- Weak one is Paloma Sandoval, a Vistana ranger.
- Finally Zach clanks up while Brume uses Healing Word to heal the unconscious lady to consciousness. She is Sophie Byrne.
- The two women were hunting werewolves along the western reaches of the Svalich Woods when they got overwhelmed. Next thing they know they were waking up in Vallaki.
- Father Lucian tells the two that Willemina Rikalova saw who brought them in.
- Brume interupts, telling Father Lucian about the vampires in Henrik van der Voort’s coffin shop and the carnage they’ve wrought, as well as recovery of the Saint Andral’s bones.
- the Father restores the bones and does a small ritual. Zach casts a spell/ability and realizes that the church is now consecrated again
- tamar’s body is wrapped and placed in the back of the church behind the altar for now. Clementine’s body was left with the two guards that fell near her
- Brume starts to ring the bell in the church, hoping it will convince people to see refuge in the church. Yeska asks what he’s doing and Brume puts the boy to work tolling the bell
- Sophie and Paloma ask Willemina about their recovery. Willemina tells that she was near the Sunset Gate when a female Vistana with a wooden leg dropped them off. She ran (well, walked briskly for an old lady) to Father Lucian and told him so he could try to help the two recover.
- Meanwhile, Zach and Brume set back off to gather their people from the Inn and to rescue the prisoners in the stocks
- Stopping at the inn, Zach runs in screaming for his kids to get ready. They soon come down stairs, but none have shoes on. DM laughs because he has kids and kids suck at listening.
- Brume realizes Zach isn’t gonna remember about Ismark. Brume grabs the other man but finds out that Ismark and Ireena got into fight.
- Ismark relays that he wanted to go back to little barovia to see about succession for someone being a burgomaster, but Ireena did not want him to go. She said that Ismark would become a target for the devil Strahd if he goes, because Strahd will be there looking to hold her to her promise. When Ismark asked what promise, she screamed in frustration and ran out; by the time Ismark could follow she was gone.
- Brume and Zach discuss, but realize they won’t have time to search for Ireena at the moment because they have no leads, and she could be anywhere in the town. Instead, Brume taks Ismark and the donkey/cart to head to the stocks, with Zach following as soon as he can.
- As they run towards the town square, there’s an exodus of people fleeing the massacre and/or running towards the safety of the church.
- Brume asks several what they’ve seen, and finds out eventually some guards ran towards the massacre site. While most don’t know, a few finally responded that they saw prisoners in the stock
- Finally, once there, Brume is able to use his sword to pry apart the stocks and free the men, women, and children there. It took several minutes of work to finish, all in all
- the three of them return to the church
- other people are arriving at the church too, and rumors could in with them – there was a large massacre on the east end of town with villagers and guards
- the party and villagers stay in the church for hours, long enough for the party to get a long rest. The villagers mostly head home at night but the party remains till the next morning
- They found out a total of 23 townsfolk, 6 guards, clemetine, and tamar were killed in the attack.
- Brume wants to find Ireena. He asks Ismark, and finds out she normally wears a locket with a small painting of her and their father, Kolyan.
- Brume casts Locate Object and tries to walk the city, divining its location. He’s lead to the Burgomaster’s mansion
- a woman carrying a large bundle of twigs knocks on the door and is let in
- Zach, since he told by Izek Strazni to meet the Baron yesterday morning, knocks on the door
- a maid answers and lets them in. Inside they see lots of twigs, some woven into wicker shapes, scattered on the floor. The maid takes them to a den to wait for the Baron
- the den has a number of comfy couches and chairs and a big stuffed bear head, with teeth as big as a man’s face
- Baron Vargas Vallakovich comes in. He’s wearing a breastplate and rapier, and carries himself with the surety of one who is lord and master of an entire place.
- he has two very large mastiffs with him.
- He asks what the players would like of him. When he finds out they’re missing Ismark, he says no one should be missing, as being missing causes a lack of happiness. And happiness is key, he assures them, with many utterances of ALL WILL BE WELL
- The Baron says he’ll help by spreading the word and using his influence, as well as having guards keep an eye out. He then says he’ll want payment for his help and asks that the party be his guests of honor at the next festival, the Festival of the Burning Sun
- more conversation I can’t remember
- The Baron finally says that the party should wait and meet his wife. She’ll have more contacts and can leverage the womenfolk in the town to help find Ireena.
- Baron leaves, and several minutes pass. Brume is sure the locket is upstairs, but doesn’t have a good way of thinking about how to get there.
- A few minutes pass, and Baroness Lydia Petrovna enters. She’s a frail woman, prone to fits of nervous laughter and flighty responses. She takes the party into a dining room, where Barovian peasants feast upon rich cake. She explains that she feeds them cake in exchange for gossip and because they are building the wicker pieces for the festival.
- She talks about missing servants – a butler and her lady’s maid. Sophie offers to help find the servants.
- Lydia says that’s nice and wants to accept, but she can’t accept without talking to her husband first. If he agrees, she’ll let them look around for clues and help try to find the servants
- meanwhile, she’ll spread word of ireena via the drawing Bogdan did and will have more people looking for her

Rest is muddled in my head. I know the following occured, but not when or the ordering compared to above:

- met Blinsky in Blinksy Toys. He sells creepy, but well-intention toys, for “leetle girls and leetle boys”. He wants everyone to be “hyappy”.
- most of his toys are normal, if odd. however one doll behind the counter looked a lot like Ireena
- when questioned, it turns out Izek had been forcing Blinsky to make them on threat of burning down his shop. He’s hade one a month, and has made 73 dolls that look closer and closer to the right woman, at least according to Izek

Still in the upstairs portion of Henrik van der Voort’s coffinshop, the party exchanges blows with the vampire spawn, unleashing deadly attacks to no avail. Tamar casts Moonbeam before morphing into a Dire Wolf. Bogdan, divinely aided by a Protected from Evil spell from Brume’s magic, smashes the undead with his staff. Zack springs to action, swinging his great sword in heroic arcs, wildly missing. Brume senses the true nature of these “abominations” and manifests his true angelic nature, sprouting wings and a halo. The spawn literally tear into the party, raking their sharpened claws into the heroes’ flesh. They claw, they grab and bite, and try their best to prevent escape. Clementine walks into a maelstrom of violence and bloodshed, unleashing a volley of Scorching Rays upon the undead.

The party, hard-pressed and feeling the pressure, fights back desperately. Tamar’s Moonbeam chars a few of the vampires, igniting their ferocity. Bogdan, despite his magical defenses, is overwhelmed by the vicious monsters and gets knocked unconscious. One of the bloodsuckers dug its claws into Brume and held out, trying to bite him; Brume channels the Morninglord’s divine power and is able to Turn three of the six spawn, making them flee in terror, also while casting Healing Word on Bogdan, reinvigorating the monk so he may return to battle.

Now the fight is looking a little more fair, giving the adventurers a tiny chance to catch their breath. They realize that the vampire spawn have done a great deal of damage within just a few seconds. The party fights back valiantly, spells and thunderous blows balanced against gnashing bites and gruesome claws. Brume has an idea and hopes to open an avenue of escape. The pale cleric cast Thunderwave and shatters a nearby window, cracking the stone wall separating the party from alleyway outside. The cone of thunder also catches two of the spawn in the blast, knocking one prone.

Zack, growing more determined after a despairing number of misses, Smites one of the fiends and deals it a mighty blow, sending it back to hell. Two of the vampire spawn cower from Brume, but the remaining few fight even harder, seemingly determined to prevent any of the living from escaping alive. Tamar seizes an opportunity to break free from her attackers. The giant wolf charges towards the wall, intent on jumping through the window and towards freedom; she manages the jump, but not before smashing through the wall around the window frame. Landing in the alley below with a thud and a snarl, Tamar realizes the window frame is stuck around her neck, as if she was wearing a giant wooden necklace.

The druid, still badly hurt, doesn’t waste time and makes a dash for safety. Zack Smites another vampire, and with the air of an impeccable braggadocio proclaims: “two down, four to go!” One by one the heroes make a dash for freedom, with vampire clawing at their backs

Bogdan’s superior speed sees him sprinting to the end of the alley before everybody else. The monk makes a huge commotion, yelling “VAMPIRES ARE ATTACKING” and “THEY HAVE THE SACRED RELICS”. The noise serves its purpose, drawing the attention of two Vallakian guards.

Tamar is grappled and brought to the ground, reverted to her half-elven form and overpowered by one of the spawn, struggling to avoid becoming a meal in the grasp of the vampire spawn’s bloodlust. Zack, on the opposite end of the alley, had been knocked to the ground by another spawn. Fearing for his life, the paladin channels Lathander’s holy light and drives the undead into a frenzy of claws and teeth. Brume, still in his angelic form, flies from the opening in the upstairs wall to the adjacent rooftop to gain safety. Two of the vampire spawn broke away for unknown reasons, after one shouted at the other in a horrific guttural language no one understood. They ran away from the alley mouth, and within seconds the party lost sight of them.

Tamar and Zack are now both in dire straits, and Brume feels the pressure and is in a tight spot. He has to choose which to save, and the wrong choice could mean death. Unable to save both of his friends, the man-angel let practicality have its head and chose to heal the adventurer closest to him. Flying down to Zack, Brume first retrieves the bones of Saint Andral in their hempen sack, and whispers Healing Word in the paladin’s unconscious ear. Zack frees himself, but Brume’s choice meant that no one was close enough to Tamar.

The druid pays the ultimate price. Drinking one half-elf dry, the deadly vampire spawn turns it’s attention to Clementine, looking for a second meal. Zack, beaten and bruised and nearly out of any means to help himself, heals himself with what little divine energy he has left before he plows through a window in the building across the alley. The abjured vampire, left behind without seeing where the paladin went, swears and spitting by himself at the back, until Brume flies away. The cleric heads to Tamar’s bloodless remains mere seconds too late; he scoops her up and ascends to safety, leaving the abjured spawn free to menace people once more.

Clementine is attacked by the remaining vampire spawn. The two guards try first defend her, and later to pry them off of her, but to no avail. The undead bleed her dry as well, their unquenchable thirst ever driving them forward.

Zack finds himself in a room face-to-face with a Vallakian citizen armed with a cleaver. Realizing the man is a butcher, the paladin throws the man some gold to cover the broken window and manages to push past to safety, yelling about the danger behind him so the butcher isn’t caught unawares as well.

The party is now scattered, and two of them are dead. Will the remaining adventurers make it back safety and regroup? Can they get the holy bones back to Saint Andral’s Church? Only time will tell.

Treasure:

• None

Inspiration:

• For putting his incredible speed to use to warn the townsfolk (and plea for help), Bogdan is inspired
• For putting the lives of his party members above his own, and feeling the cost of choosing which party member to save, Brume is Inspired
• For being tasty, Tamar and Clementine are ded. So ded.