Standing before the old man that had shifted from the bird into a human, the party stand ready to fight until the old man introduces himself: Davian Markitov. Part of the family that runs the Wizard of Wines vineyard.
Abe asks him why he’s out here and why wine hasn’t been delivered, the old man agreeing that wine needs to be sent out. It is the ‘lifeblood of Barovia’ after all.
But unfortunately, his family had been ran out of their vineyard by druids with the aid of their evil blights. Torbin knowing that Blights are considered to be evil twisted plant creatures is concerned about this. According to Davian, these druids had been trying to mess with their wine supply for a while but their use of Blights had drove the family out of their home and into the woods nearby.
Davian asks the party to help: get the druids to leave the vineyard. He does say something that grabs the parties attention, mentioning that the druids have worked with Baba Lasaga in the past.
Summer asks why he has been following the party as a raven but Davion goes quiet and offers to have the party meet his family. Torbin refuses, walking past Davion to go down to the vineyard and see what’s going on. Walking down the path with Summer following behind, Torbin notices a strange druidic symbol embedded in a tree near the house.
Vanroth and Abe follow further back while Slate and Francesco met Davions family of two kids, a baby and his wife.
While observing Torbin and Summer, Abe notes that the vegetation here doesn’t entirely match with the environment. How do they grow grapes in this setting?
Further ahead, Torbin starts seeing withering vines as he get closer to the house. Behind him, Summer notices movement from between the rows of vines. Small forms begin to shift and move. Small twig like figures start moving at a rapid pace toward Torbin! Summer warns him and the two start running toward the house before Torbin calls out something in Druidic, asking to converse with the druids. All the Twig Blights suddenly stop all at once and part to let a young human through.
The young druid says he’s willing to talk to Torbin, only if his pet left them be. Guessing he meant her, Summer storms back to Vanroth and Abe.
Once alone, the druid introduces himself as Dros. He claims that he worships for the ‘god of the land’, which Torbin finds puzzling. Druids don’t usually worship gods… Or does he mean Strahd?
Torbin asks why they took the vineyard, the druid telling the gnome that it is what his god would want. Torbin suspects that it’s less of actually being Strahds will and more what the druids interoperate as his will.
Dros explains that the Markitovs mock the druids with the magic they use to be able to grow their grapes in this region, like the land had been working for them.
As the two druids walk between the vines, Dros mentions that he wants the ability to shift like the Markitovs can. Another thing Torbin finds odd: aren’t all druids able to shift their form into creatures of the wild?
Dros goes on, talking about how Baba Lasaga would know how to transfer that power to his grove.
As the two reach the road out of the vineyard once more, Dros tells Torbin to leave. If the Gnome sets foot in the vineyard with Davian, he will be treated as invaders. With that warning, Dros vanishes and Torbin heads back toward the party.
Vanroth, Abe and Summer had arrived back with Davian talking to Slate about the vineyards being blessed by three magic items that allow them to grow their vines for wine. He points out that one side of the vineyard seems in far worse shape than the other two. Apparently one of the magic items had been stolen recently, sometime before the Druids drove his family out.
He can only imagine who would take it and for what purpose…
Torbin returns to the party and both groups relay what they learned. Torbin believes that the party should leave the druids alone, seeing as they want to restore the land to it’s original state.
The rest of the party doesn’t feel that way: they think the druids aren’t as good as Torbin makes them out to be. The Druids are up to something and Abe suspects that the Druids are after the magic items the vineyard had. But what would they need that for?
Summer wants to go see what the Druids are up to before they make any further moves, but Torbin refuses to step back into the vineyard.
Where does the rest of the party stand?