Author: The Tech

With the party tying up the Druid they jumped, the crows outside the building are seen flying back towards the edge of the vineyard. Checking from the sliding door, Abe can see that the Blights are still moving around the area. They seem a little more aimless than before.
Behind the ranger, Torbin inspects the staff the party suspected controls the Blights. The wood itself feels wrong in his hands, as if the wood is cursed. Or the tree it’s from was cursed when it was stripped to make this staff? Whatever it is, it feels evil. He tosses it to the floor in disgust, declaring to the party that it needs to be destroyed!
Without a moments hesitation, Summer leaps into the air, landing on it with all her might and snapping the twisted staff in two! The staff explodes with black smoke billowing out and cloaking the party as the evil unleashed attempts to enter their minds, but it doesn’t seem to take hold despite Slates headache. Torbin, being more attuned to nature, hears a deafening wailing scream as the staff disintegrates in Summers hands, the pain causing him to collapse and hold his ears as he’s deafened from the cry. 

Checking outside the door again, Vanros sees that the Blights had all become motionless on the ground. Seems like the staff being broken has broken them as well?
Wanting to get a better view of the downed Blights, Summer started up the stairs to look out the windows.

But she catches a glimpse of a figure trying to hide upstairs, she reaches the top of the stairs and prepares to call out the hiding individual when the figure jumps out and casts Thunderwave on her, sending the Kobold back along the walkway!
As the party below, besides the deaf Druid, all turn to see what the cause of the noise was and see Summer fending off another Druid holding a staff! Grabbing the end of the mans staff, Summer jabs it into the mans face with enough force to make him bleed. Seeing the running blood, her eyes widen and her fangs sharpen. She’s so goddamn hungry! She lunges at the Druid, her fangs missing him by inches as he beats her back to the floor, knocking her out!
Before the party can even start climbing up the stairs, vines shoot out of the ground and start to envelop the party in an attempt to stop them reaching their fallen comrade! 

While Slate gets stuck in the vines, Abe managed to avoid them and Vanros ripped himself free, the two racing up the stairs to the upper level. Slate manages to break free behind them, following them all up the stairs as well while Torbin is still too out of it after the staffs scream to notice what’s going on.
As the trio almost reach the top of the stairs, the druid on top of Summer casts Thunderwave on them, sending Slate and Abe into a half-full vat of grapes before fleeing as Vanros reached the upper landing and moved his way to Summer. 

The Kobold Monk immediately got to her feet and bolted in the other direction, where she had seen the first druid in an attempt to get back at them! As she rounds the crates they were hiding behind, she catches sight of a door ahead swinging shut. Charging up to the door, she kicks it forcefully off it’s hinges in time to see the Druid climbing down the loading ramp and out of sight. 

Back inside, Slate boosts Abe out of the vat so the Ranger can join Vanros in shooting at the other druid fleeing in the other direction.
Abe calls out to Vanros to follow Summer while he tracks down the druid that Thunderwave’d them. Slate struggled to get free of the vat, Vanros stopping above him to lend a hand before giving chase after Abe instead of Summer. Slate went downstairs, knowing the door Summer kicked down led to the loading docks and tried to catch the druid from the other side! Finally seeing the party scrambling, Torbin gives chase after Slate! 

The two get out to the docking area in time to see Summer rounding a corner and sliding a door open open with a thundering slam, followed by the sounds of startled whining. 

Summer sees the druid she was chasing attempting to get on a horse, but her entrance to the space seems to have startled the beast of burden and kicked him off! Lying on the ground, the druid starts to sit up when Summer leaps over the horse and lands on his chest with a devastating kick to the ribs. Enough force to make him cough blood, making the pale Kobolds eyes dilate… her sharpened claws raked across his throat and chest, leaving large gashes before sinking her fangs into the exposed meat.

Feeling the taste of meat on her tongue, this is the best she’s felt in days! The most alive she’s felt since the fight in the Coffin makers! The druid screams in agony as the kobold tears him apart, but a panicked horse hoof silences him with a stomp to the head as the horse bolts for the open door.
After letting the horse flee out the door, Slate and Torbin are stunned at the sight of Summer ripping chunks of meat out of the druid and scarfing them down like a starved animal. Well… looks like she’s got this covered… Should probably go check on Abe and Slate, right? 

Abe chased the second druid downstairs and outside, but loses track of him once he gets outdoors. He sees Slate and Torbin running over to him when he hears Vanros call out from around the corner. The Cleric found the druid trying to sneak out of the outhouse and managed to slay them, approaching the other three with the head of his quarry. 

The party regroups inside the building, Summer arriving caked in blood with the mangled head of the other druid. Torbin is shocked she managed to get around the Snare trap he had set outside the door to catch her, but she’s here now… 

The group discuss what the next step was: they haven’t properly explored the top floor, or the cellar. Slate decides to take Summer upstairs with him, wanting to keep an eye on her as they explore. Abe and Vanros start looking for a way into the cellar: Vanros finding a staircase through the kitchen while Abe found a room behind the building that had a flight of stairs leading down. The two arrive and find each other in the chilly cellar, the floor covered in dead Blights. Oh, and a druid. Except he’s on the floor, his body cold to the touch but barely breathing. Vanros is suspicious of a vent in the partition wall between two rooms, but isn’t willing to touch it.
As Abe ties up the guy, he suddenly wakes and begins speaking in a language they can’t understand. Is that Druidic?
Vanros heads back up to the main floor, asking Torbin, who was watching the unconscious druid they knocked out earlier, to come see what the guy downstairs is saying. Seeing the mans gagged expression, Torbin can immediately tell that they’re terrified. Not of the party, but something else seems to put more fear in the man than anything Torbin has ever seen…
Abe and Vanros start to carry the man upstairs, but notice that his body is getting even colder the further they go up. The gag in his mouth freezes and begins to suffocate the man, Torbin urging the two to take him back to the cellar. Removing the thawed gag, Torbin sees a brown mold crawling across the gag towards his hand. Throwing it to the tied up druid, Torbin knows what’s happened to him: The brown mold is in the walls of the cellar, being used to remove heat from the space and keep the wine cold and age longer. Seems that the druid managed to get some in his system and now it’s stealing his body heat. If this stuff manages to get into a warmer environment, it could get out of control!
Snapping his fingers, Torbin casts Mould Earth and buries the druid alive. The guy was going to end up dead either way, this just means the party can’t catch this mold. 

Upstairs, Slate finds a manifest of all the shipments the vineyard had made in the last decade. Most of the abbreviations make sense to him: BV for Blood on the Vine in Barovia, BW for the Blue Water Inn in Valaki, V for Vistani… S is what Slate thinks means Strahd and K could mean Kresk? 

Summer follows Slate into a bedroom, having raided the kids room for some new clothes. Her old gi was covered in blood and gore, it wasn’t going to clean out well and she doesn’t have any other clothes of her own to wear. 

 While checking out the parents room, Slate notices slits in the wall that can be pushed to reveal a hidden room with a chest of coins. He takes half of its contents and heads out to see Summer checking drawers. The Rogue notices that a drawer Summer had opened has a false bottom and pops it open, finding a golden locket and some gem stones. Popping open the locket, Slate sees an image of a woman. She looks kinda like the woman from the Blue Water Inn?
They decide to give the locket back to the family, but make it look like one of the Druids found it. Giving it to Summer, she rubs it against her bloodied gi to make it look it was ripped off a body. 

Heading back down to the main room, the other three come in from below as the remaining druid they had tied up comes to. Seeing those who had jumped him standing before him, he curses at them for attacking their home. Torbin feigns ignorance, stating that the Druids had attacked the party first and that they had fought back in defense.

 Pulling his teammates aside from Davian and his family, Slate gives his thoughts on the situation. The magic items that have been taken from the Vineyard seem extremely powerful, there must be a reason for the Druids to want them.

Turning back to Davian, Abe asks for more information about the items. Like what they look like, so the party know what to look for. Davian doesn’t want to give too much away, but when Summer draws his attention to her milky white eyes, he suddenly feels at ease in her presence and begins to talk once he’s under the kobolds charm.

The items were blessed by a wanderer centuries ago, before even Strahds reign, There were three pinecones blessed by the Morninglord that were planted in the soil of the valley, allowing the grape vines to grow. He wasn’t around when the pinecones were gifted to his family, but he knows where they are. 

Summer asks about why Davian and his family can turn into ravens, the old man being most willing to answer her questions: his family are known as the Clan of the Feather, a family of Wereravens that oppose Strahds rule. He admits that his family have been keeping an eye on the party since they entered Barovia, curious to see if they can help stop Strahd. At this point, he is uncertain…

Vanros asks about the druids, does Davian know where their grove is. Apparently there are a few small groves used by the druids in the area, but the main one is on Yester Hill to the north of the vineyard. He also mentions that one of the Druids that attacked the vineyard wielded a staff that seemed to command the Blights that Torbin and Summer had seen earlier. Maybe taking the staff away from him would make things alot easier to deal with.

The druid grove usually has 6 or so druids staying at it at a time, but Davian recalls there being at least 4 druids that attacked. Including the one wielding the staff!

Torbin finally relents to Abe and Summer talking about going after the druids while Slate and Vanros get the layout of the vineyard from Davian.

 – The main floor of the building houses where the wine production takes place, alongside their kitchen.

–  The basement is the cellar.

– Top floor is the families living quarters.

With some coaxing from Summer, Davian convinces his family to help the party by providing a distraction so they can get close to the building.

With a flock of ravens heading over the house, the party make a run for the house. They can see the blights ahead of them moving to the far side of the house, following the ravens.

Torbin and Summer see Dros, the druid that spoke with Torbin, run out of the building after the blights. Looks like the plan is working!

Running onto the balcony, the party sneak up to the sliding doors and quietly slip inside.

Looking around the vat room, they can hear someone walking on the walkway above them. Abe and Vanros sneak to the kitchen and start locking doors, hopefully to force the druids to walk all away around the house to get inside. Abe hears a noise coming from the cellar door, someone must be down there…

Summer slips under the stairs leading to the walkway and sees a woman in druidic robe pouring a liquid from a drinking horn into one of the vats.
As Summer starts to move, a small blight runs past her under a vat.

Thinking there isn’t much time left before they’re caught, Summer vaults up the stairs and kicks the druid over the railing. The druid cracks her head on the edge of the vat before falling in. If the head injury didn’t kill her, drowning in the wine probably will. With her quick reflexes, Summer managed to catch the drinking horn before it got lost in the drink too!

Coming out of the kitchen, Vanros spots the small blight making its way for the door. His longsword split the twig in two, killing it with ease.

While all this was going on, Slate and Torbin had snuck down to the far end of the production room to check for unlocked doors and windows. Torbin manages to duck his head out of sight as he sees a Druid walking past the window. And he was carrying a staff. 

Is that the guy controlling the blights?! The blights following him seem to be a good indicator.

From their space in the office, Slate and Torbin think he’s heading around to the main sliding doors the party entered through.

Slipping back out to the others, Slate warns them just in time as the door rattles. The druid found the door locked and is trying to call for someone to let him in!

With good timing, Torbin opens the door as the druid attempts to pull on the door, making the man fall into the room. The party immediately swarm him: Summer attempting to hit him but tripping over the staff and rolling outside while Slate and Abe drive their blades into the mans back to hold him down so Vanros can snatch away the staff and knock out the druid with it!

While Torbin examines the staff and Slate and Abe tie up the druid, Summer stands in the doorway with a blank expression as she watches the blood pool in the druids mouth. It looks good…

Vanros grabs Summer and pulls her inside, snapping her out of her state as the door slides shut behind her.

Looks like they have someone to interrogate!

 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?

With Torbin and Vanroth busy with their Vistani training, Slate leaves the encampment to see the Dusk Elves living at the base of the hill. Approaching one of the Dusk Elves, the two bow to each other as they recognize each others heritage. Slate introduces himself as Theren Galanodel, his true name, and asks if he can speak with the leader of the Dusk Elves here. The elf directs Slate toward the home closest to the trail leading up the hill to the Vistani encampment, where Kasimir Velikov resides.

Heading toward the house, Slate sees Summer coming down the hill toward him. She saw him talking to the Elf and wanted to see what’s going on. Telling Summer that he was going to visit their leader, Slate tells Summer she can tag along as long as she doesn’t do anything to upset Kasimir.

She only promises to try.

Probably the closest Slates going to get…

The two head toward the house, only to be intercepted by two guards at the door. Slate asks to speak to Kasimir, a voice within the house calls out to the guard called Blackwing to allow Slate through. He is a hero after all.

A far older Dusk Elf greets Slate and Summer warmly, introducing himself as Kasimir Velikov. The Elf looks extremely rough: his face scarred and part of his body is covered in burns. One of his hands is mangled beyond the twos belief…

The next turn they find heads south with a large stone statue that shows a depiction of a large dragon. This must be the path to Argynvostholt…

Finding themselves at a fork in the road with a sign pointing north to Krezk and south to the Wizard of the Wine vineyard, the party start down the south path until they come across another split in the road. One path has a broken wooden sign that Abe can make out the words ‘Wizard _____ Wines’ on it. There appear to be a lot of wheel tracks down that path, that must be the way!

 The party arrives in the Vistani settlement where Arrabelle is from, the sounds of people in the woods behind them calling the young girls name. Walking into the camps clearing with the party, Arabelle runs ahead, calling out for her father. Somewhere between the camp wagons around the large tent atop the hill, a voice calls back and a man runs out to Arabelle. Hugging the young girl, the man looks at the strange group approaching them. Introducing himself as Arrigal, Arabelles uncle, he asks how the party came across his niece.

Slate explains the events that happened at Lake Zarovich and how Vanroth and Torbin had managed to rescue her. Summer mutters that she helped too, but Arrigal had already started leading the group up the hill toward the wagons where they can hear the sounds of a cracking whip. Getting closer, Arrigal calls out to Luvash to stop, his daughter is back!

The whipping stops and a large man steps into view from between the wagons with a whip in hand. Seeing Arabelle, Luvash rushes to her and picks her up in a big hug. Vanroth asks what the whip was for, Luvash was using it to whip the man that was supposed to be keeping an eye on Arabelle when she went missing.

Luvash leads the group between the wagons toward a campfire. Torbin sees Summer stop and turn toward a shirtless man leaning against a wagon with large lashes across his back, still bleeding. Seeing the kobold lick her lips, Torbin elbows her to snap Summer out of her stupor while Vanroth approached the man, offering him healing. The young man declines the Clerics offer, believing he deserved what he had received.

Luvash tells the man that he can go, ordering him and Arrigal to let the others to stop the search for Arabelle. With the two Vistani leaving, Luvash invites the party to his families tent. Entering inside, he comments about how odd it is to see a Kobold in Barovia. Summer comments bluntly that she’s here to pay off her debt to the Stoker family, pointing to the tired Abe. The man raises an eyebrow, curious as to why a Stoker is in Barovia. Abe is surprised that someone in Barovia is aware of his family.

Turning to Torbin and Vanroth, Luvash tells them that he will discuss their rewards for his daughters saviors with the rest of his clan has returned to the camp.

Torbin comments on the red sash tied to Luvashs arm, saying he recalls the Vistani that had led them toward Barovia originally wore something similar in blue. Luvash confirms that that group works for Strahd,

As does his.

Seeing the party tense up, Luvash explains that they aren’t against Strahd, but are willing to do things for him if asked. He does admit that they have lured adventurers from outside Barovia in before, just like how the party was led. He does state that for the group having helped his daughter, he would not tell Strahd anything about the party. He cannot guarantee that the others in his camp wouldn’t say, but he says that at least himself, Arrigal and Arabelle won’t say anything.

Arrigal arrives in the tent to tell the group that the clan has gathered near the camp. Exiting the tent with Luvash and Arabelle, the party find themselves swamped by the Vistani all eager to see Arabellles saviors. Luvash asks who of the Vistani has alcohol, one bringing forth two bottles of wine from Baldurs Gate, stating that the Blue Water Inn in Valliki had no wine left to sell. As if someone was supposed to get some for the Inn…

Hearing the Vistani mention being in Valliki, Abe recalls that Vistani were not allowed to go into Valliki. How did they get past the guards?

Standing on a table to talk over the crowd, Luvash asks his fellow Vistani if he can offer the Blood Rite to Torbin and Vanroth. The group seems to agree that he can and Luvash explains the Blood Rite to them.

The Blood Rite is a ceremony held at night where Luvash and the two saviors will cut their palms and let their blood mingle. Those who complete the Rite are then considered ‘Glogoto’, friend or ally of the Vistani. In another sense, they are honorary Vistani. As a Glogoto, they can potentially leave Barovia if they are accompanied by a Vistani of the clan they completed the Rite with.

Torbin and Vanroth both agree to take part of the Rite.

The crowd applauds and disperses, Luvash telling the group to follow him to a wagon. He wasn’t going to let the party leave with just cut hands, he offers them several small chests sitting in pigeon holes for the party to choose between. Torbin chooses number 3, a long box that holds a large amount of copper coins and an ornate long sword. Abe and Slate examine the long sword, Slate curiously fiddling with the gem logded inside the swords hilt. Popping the gem out, he realizes that the gem has some sort of magical property to it. Seeing Abe struggling to wield the sword and not wanting to give Summer another weapon, Francesco and Torbin suggest that Vanroth uses the sword instead.

While scooping out the coins, Summer finds two healing potions that Abe and Slate both take one each.

With everything sorted out before midnight, Abe asked to use one of the wagons to sleep. Being led to a wagon and having the door closed behind him, the rest of the party joining in the festivities, Abe could finally rest in peace…

Abe dreams of a grand ball room, a familiar gathering he would attend with his father on occasion as celebrated guests. Walking around the large hall, he starts to notice that the musics tune is a little off beat. The fancy dress and coats looking more old and tattered as he pays more attention to them. Then it’s the faces of his family, their details are slightly off putting and almost disturbing in a way he cannot describe. This dream was becoming a nightmare.

Turning to leave, Abe bumps into a large mirror that wasn’t there before. He can see himself, but with a large top hat on his head. Reaching above his head, he cannot feel it. His fingers grasp at the air over his head, lowering further until he scratches into his head, yanking out a chunk of his scalp. Looking at the clump in his hand he stumbles forward and falls into the mirror, falling through where he expected the mirror to be and barely catching himself on the frame of the mirror. Hearing a crackling laughter, he pulls himself up to see a somewhat familiar face grinning down at him as she picks up the chunk of scalp.

Cackling down at him is Morgathra, the pie lady the party met in the town of Barovia. Or as he gathered after the visit to the durst windmill, a hag like her daughters. Her laugh grows louder to the point Abe suddenly bolts upright on the floor of the wagon, his head bloody and shattered mirror shards on the ground around him.

Stumbling out of the wagon, Abe sees Slate and Vanroth both sitting near the wagon with their magic items. The Cleric and Rogue at startled by Abes sudden appearance and… appearance.

He doesn’t look like he’s gotten any sleep, he looks far worse than before. And a chunk of his scalp is missing, held in the young rangers hand… Torbin notices Abe as well, keeing Summer busy with Francesco as he goes over to see what’s happening. Abe tells them about his dream and seeing Morgathra, not understanding what any of it means. Once Slate explains to Vanroth about the hag Morgathra and her daughters, Vanroth proposes an explanation to Abes state:

This appears to be a form of revenge, Abe having been the one to strike the killing blow on one of her coven daughters. She’s attempting wear down Abe with exhaustion before attempting to kill him when he least expects it. Though Vanroth suspects that this will take time before Abe is completely worn out, he suspects that if Morgathra is able to recomplete her coven, she could chip Abes energy down even faster. But how does she recomplete her coven? She’d need to use a girl as a sacrifice to bring her daughter back to the realm of the living…

Abe can’t do anything with this information right now, he just needs sleep before he can worry about anything else! Torbin offers Abe some aid to get some sleep, grabbing Francesco for some magical assistance to help Abe get some more peaceful rest. Abe falls back to sleep in the wagon once more, Francesco keeping an eye on him while Torbin goes to perform the rite with Vanroth and Luvash.

Standing in a circle of Vistani, Torbin and Vanroth stand with Luvash. The Vistani leader holds a large ritual dagger toward the moon above, chanting as he slashes open his palm. Turning the blade to Torbin and Vanroth, he cuts their palms as well in the same manner. Putting the dagger away, Luvash produces a cloth that he uses to bind three hands together with his own hand squeezing down on the hands of the outsiders. Torbin grits his teeth as Vanroth barely manages to keep himself from trying to pull his hand free. After a few minutes of agonizing pain, Luvash cuts the cloth toi reveal the bloody hands. Torbin and Vanroths cut wound seems to have transformed into crest, similar to that of the Vistani around them.

Luvash steps back, telling the two that their initiation has begun and will be followed up on in the morning. The Vistani celebrate a little while longer before turning in for the night…

The next morning, while a better looking Abe had breakfast with the party and the Vistani, Torbin and Vanroth are taken aside to be taught by one of the Vistani elders. The old woman taught the two the ability to Detect Curses. The two take a little while to work it out, but they both seem to get it when the two of them find themselves looking at Summer.

Seeing their progression speed, the old Vistani starts to teach them each a curse. Torbin excelled at being able to cast the Stifling Curse while Vanroth learned to cast the Fumbling Curse.

Happy with their progress, the elder leads the two into her tent to show them a Vistani secret. Showing them two potion bottles, the two are asked to smell them. Torbin notices a familiar scent of a poison in one bottle, while the other appears to just be water with some coloring in it.

The secret: the Vistani claim to have a potion that allow people to walk through the fog out of Barovia. The people who buy this ‘potion’ would either walk into the fog and die within it from the poison or find themselves walking back into Barovia. If they didn’t die, they usually assume that they did something wrong and will come back to buy another potion to try again in desperation. Eventually, they will drink the poison before they walk into the fog… To anyone who sees someone walk into the fog and not return, it looks like they escaped Barovia. Hence the word of mouth spreads around once more. A nice side hustle, isn’t it?

While waiting for Torbin and Vanroth to finish their Vistani lessons, Slate finds himself looking toward the houses at the base of the hill. Those folks walking around down there aren’t Vistani, they’re Dusk Elves…

Short rewind to the morning the party planned to leave Vallaki:

Waking up in the morning, the party began to pack their things to hit the road straight away. Tariel still isn’t looking very well and she says as much to the group. In her current state after having fought for her life against the vampire spawn and almost breaching deaths door, she feels that she mid be a hinderance to the parties travelling. She asks to remain behind, to fulfill her promise to Father Lucian and help bury the Saints Bones. The party agrees, but Ireena asks for the young boy, Alan, to stay with Tariel while she stays with the party.

Standing outside the Blue Water Inn, Tariel and Alan bid the party farewell as they head toward the North Exit of town while she and Alan head toward the church. With a heavy heart the Paladin splits the party, but Tariel believes it is for the best until she can fully recover… 

The party, now consisting of Torbin, Abe (who still hasn’t managed to have a full nights rest and looks completely disheveled), Slate, Francesco and the pale Summer, all arrive at the gate leaving Barovia. Summer takes a bit more convincing than usual to pretend to be a dog so they can pass through the gates, but she relents and the group find themselves outside of Vallaki. 

Recalling that the Carnival Owner Rictavio had told Torbin to meet him at Lake Zarovich to the north of Vallaki, Torbin gives the group their heading. With Abe still not feeling well and not wanting to take the lead, Summer wanders ahead of the group as they followed a foot-worn trail that Slate suggests is from fisherman going from town to the lake.

Far away from the fog cloaked region of Barovia, man sits on his knees as he prays before an altar of the Morninglord. With his eyes closed, he doesn’t notice the world around him turn black until he opens his eyes. In the darkness around him, the Cleric can barely make out a figure ahead of him beckoning for him to come closer. As the man steps closer, he finds himself walking through a thick fog that that fades away to reveal that he is standing on a forest path cloaked in a lingering fog. Looking toward the sky above for guidance, the Cleric can feel something is wrong. The usual warmth he feels from the sun and the Morninglords presence feels dulled, almost non-existent…  Then there is the strange small Kobold that rounded the corner, its presence feels… wrong? He begins to mutter a prayer, but the warm embrace he usually receives is not there…

Continue reading “18/07/2025 – ‘Lightbringers or Liabilities?’”

 Torbin finally arrives at the coffinmakers home, finding the door wide open and the sounds of yelling from inside. Rushing inside, the Gnome is almost bowled over by Abe who races for the door, yelling for Torbin to run! What did he miss?

Slate runs down the stairs, yelling that Summer is dead and that they need to go. What did he miss?!

Fran is next to run past Torbin, now towering over the Druid more than usual with an unconscious Tariel in his arms. Then Torbin sees two of the monsters following the Enlarged Bard. 

With his quick thinking, Torbin used his magic to Mold the Earth and block the passage between him and the undead creatures clawing toward him. Hearing them snarl and claw at the dirt wall between them, he quickly gave chase to the rest of the party.

Out in the street, Frans Enlargement begins to fail, causing him to shrink back down to normal sized. He barely manages to avoid getting stuck under the heavily armoured Paladin and with Torbins help, the two manage to carry her toward the Inn. Though, it seems that someone had seen this…

Arriving at the Inn, the two find Slate picking the Inns lock and getting them inside. With the door re-locked, Abe helped Francesco carry Tariel to their room. Ireena is in shock at the state of Tariel, helping Torbin stabelise the weakened Paladin. Despite their efforts, Tariel doesn’t rouse. She’s alive, but she’s too worn out…

Outside their room, the party hear the shouts of guards calling that a monster had been sighted within the walls of Vallaki. They call for everyone to lock their doors and for any able bodies to join the guards militia in the city square find the monster. The Tavernkeep, Urwin, knocks on the door to the room to let the group know to lock their windows. He was planning to go to the Square and suggests that the party should to.

Slate, Torbin and Fran step out and join Urwin, Abe being too badly weakened by the Necrosis to be of much help in a fight. Urwin tells the trio that a guard had told him that a ‘giant’ was sighted in the city, heading toward the town square. Frans eyes dart around for a moment as the others step outside and head toward the Square. He quickly casts Disguise Self to make himself look similar to Slate before catching up. Slate looks annoyed at Fran, but they have something more important to deal with right now.

Summer sits upright in her own blood. Looking around the room, she sees the bloody remains of Henrick feet away from her. She remembers the creatures attacking her and then blacking out… There’s nobody else here, what happened?

Heading downstairs toward the entrance, she stumbles across a weird wall of dirt. That wasn’t here earlier, right? Hearing a bang behind her, she turns to find a door at the back of the shop swinging back and forth. There was a back door, huh?

Stepping outside, Summer can’t see her companions. Maybe they were doing something with those things that she was fighting? Either way, safest place to run into the gang would be the Inn, right? So that’s her first stop! Heading along the main road toward the town square, Summer sees a ball of fire being shot into the air and a loud commanding voice calling over a crowd of people. Seeing the figure of Izak, the town guard standing before soldiers and armed civilians, Summer decides that it might not be a good idea to go walking through the square… side streets it is!

Among the crowd, Slate, Torbin and Francesco listen to Izak explain the situation to the people before him: a giant figure was sighted lumbering the street, coming from the industrial district. Whatever it was, it had already killed people in their homes. A woman had also just been discovered with her throat torn out!

Lady Wachter calls out in return, calling Izak and the Barons work of protecting the city a joke. In her eyes, they have failed the city! Izak blasts more fire into the air as people begin to murmur. This was not the time to debate his work! A monster is loose in the city and they must slay it before it kills more civilians!

Torbin raises his hand and calls out, suggesting that the attack doesn’t sound like the work of a giant. His query is drowned out by Izak rallying the people to get into groups to find the monster.

Slate steps down the road toward the Inn until he is in range to cast Message and inform Abe of the situation. And that the trio were going to head to the coffin makers, see if they can retrieve Summers body before it’s discovered that the group had something to do with the creatures being loose in the city.

Casting Minor Illusion, Fran creates the sound of a woman screaming from further down the road into the industrial district. The entire crowd turns toward the sound, Izak ordering everyone to head that way! The massive search party barrels down into the district, a guard noticing the door to the Coffin Makers place being open and reporting it to Izak. Izak, flanked by two men, enter the building. Torbin recognizes the two men: bounty hunters that the party met at the Blue Water Inn!

Slate suggests finding another way inside, seeing a guard walk around the back to report that the back door is open. How did the party miss that door?

Fran casts Invisibility on Slate, the Rogue climbing up the side of the house to peer in a window. It’s too dirty to see in, but he overhears Izak talking with the hunters:

They can tell that a fight took place in the room, the hunters immediately putting together that this was the work of a vampire. Izak snaps at them, telling them not to tell anyone that it was a vampire. ‘Henrik died in an accident with his tools’.

One of the hunters tells Izak that he found some tracks that don’t look human. Bloody foot prints that look… lizard like?

Slate is stunned by this: how could Summer have survived… that?!

Izak orders one of the hunters to follow the tracks, to kill what they find!

Scaling down the building, Slate finds Torbin and Fran to tell them what he overheard. Summer is alive! But she’s left tracks and the hunters are after her! Behind Slate, fire shatters a window on the top floor of the house. Peering through the back door of the Coffin Makers house, Slate sees Izak using his demonic arms power to set the house ablaze. Is he destroying the house and its evidence? Slate didn’t see Henriks body being carried out, did he torch the house without recovering the body?

In the Inn, Abe had finally managed to doze off as Ireena tends to Tariel. He really needs his rest after that fight. It wasn’t really a fight, more like a bloody beatdown… As he finally feels sleep taking hold, a noise catches his attention. The sound of the door opening. He groans as he sits up, what n-

‘Oh, hey Abe. Where is everybody?’

Torbin follows after one of the hunters, seeing that he’s struggling to follow Summers tracks as the crowd had trampled over it all made it hard to pick up her trail it seemed. Just to be safe, Torbin used his Wild Shape to create some false tracks for the hunter to follow. Even then, the Hunter still seems lost…

Following Torbin, Slate and Fran find Lady Wachter talking with some of the townsfolk. Seems like she’s rallying more people against Izak and Vargas. Seeing an opportunity for favor, Torbin tells Lady Wachter what was discovered in the Coffin Makers. Even that the culprit is a vampire. This information makes Wachter more elated, finally some real damning proof she can use against Vargas! She hurries away, telling Torbin that she needs to contact some others in the city right away.

Seeing Wachter leaving in a hurry, Fran, still disguised as Slate, approaches Izak as the Hunter reports back that he lost the tracks he was sent to follow in the chaos. The disguised Bard tells Izak of Wachters attempt to cause an insurrection. Izak turns to the Hunters and orders them to find and arrest Lady Wachter before she escalates things even further tonight. Fran offers to go with the Hunters, Izak telling them to take him with them.

Walking past Torbin, Fran suggests meeting at Blinskys. They might need to leave town soon, so Slate better pick up his brazier from the toymaker before they go.

Seeing Summer in the doorway, Ireena screams at the sight of a dead-looking kobold. Abe gets up with a sword in hand. Something is definitely off with Summer: her scales are a pale pink and her eyes seem foggy. Like she’s dead. But her demeanor and lack of lunging at his throat seems to tell him that she isn’t dead… Maybe cursed?

At that moment, Slates voice enters Abes head.

‘Abe, Summers alive! She’s somewhere in the city! We need to find her before the mob does!’

‘Yeah, I know. She’s here.’

Slate and Torbin race back to the Inn to find Summer sitting on the bed across the room from the sleeping Tariel. The two look at Summer with hands on their weapons, ready for her to make a move. Abe tells them what he’s worked out so far, but Slate asks Summer how she is alive. They saw her die!

Summer seems confused by that. She’s not dead, she’s right here! She woke up in the house and she came looking for the gang. And she found them. Her eyes keep darting toward Tariel and her face scrunches up a little as she asks if they can hear a weird sound coming from Tariels bed. 

They can’t hear anything…

Back in the streets, Fran follows behind the Hunters as they get close to the Wachter residence. Seeing that nobody else is around, Fran waves his hands and casts Sleep on the two Hunters. The two seasoned killers suddenly collapse to the ground in a sound sleep. Tying the two up, Fran positions them in the alley before slitting their throats. Making a mess with the second Hunters neck, Fran attempts to make it look like a vampire attack. Quickly untying his ropes, Fran steps from the alley and starts toward Blinskys. 

To anyone watching, they would have seen Slate step out of an alley where two bodies will be discovered later…

Seeing that they should prepare to leave town at first light, Slate and Torbin start to head out of the Inn to Blinskys. Summer follows them, but Torbin tells her she needs shoes to cover her footprints. Rushing back upstairs, she steals the shoes from Alan, the young boy from the Windmill. Joining the trio outside Blinskys, Fran drops his disguise. He tells them that the Wachters and the Vallakovich will soon be at war and that they should be out of town before either party work out that it was all the parties fault.

Agreeing, Slate bangs on the stores door until a tired Blinsky opens it. Slate demands that he requires his brazier to aid in the towns search for the monster. Blinsky protests, saying that he hasn’t finished decorating it. Slate doesn’t care, he wants it now. Blinsky gives in, handing Slate over the brazier with some semi-completed stencil work is visible on it. Looks like it would have been a nice piece.

Fran steps up to Blinsky, putting a bloody hand on the shopkeeps shoulder as he praises the man. But at the sight of the blood, the poor man faints. Piccolo, the monkey the party saw with Blinsky last time they were here, hurries over to check on his companion.

Summer eyes the monkey, looking to Slate to ask him something. Abe had inquired about buying the monkey last time they were here, right? Reckon he’d like it if Summer brought him the monkey? Slate seems puzzled by Summer asking him this. Is she planning to kidnap the monkey? This doesn’t seem right…

Seeing Summer move forward toward Piccolo, Slate yanks her back. Torbin asks if Piccolo will come with them, suggesting that they need his help. Piccolo is hesitant to leave Blinsky: his master had asked him to keep Blinsky company. The poor man was so lonely and depressed without a companion… Torbin tells Piccolo that what they were doing would help Blinsky. Summer suggests taking Blinsky too, grabbing the unconscious man by the leg, ready to drag him to the Inn. Slate stops her, what is with Summer?

Putting a collar on Piccolo, Torbin hands Summer the lead but Piccolo immediately resists. He seems terrified of Summer! Snatching the lead from Summer, Torbin takes Piccolo back to the Inn with the party. Showing Piccolo to Abe, the tired Ranger seems worried about why they have the monkey. Summer says it was her idea to get the monkey for him! Abe looks puzzled at this: Summer wouldn’t usually do something like this, not with a living creature anyways…

Torbin takes Piccolo out of the room to go to the kitchen. With the Tavernkeep out with the town looking for monsters, they should be able to get some bananas for Piccolo quite easily. Summer wants to go along, she wants something to eat too and she’s really hungry.

‘Hey Summer?’

‘Yeah?’

Fran casts Sleep on Summer, the pale Kobold falling face first to the floor as she passes out. Huh, usually undead stuff can’t fall asleep… Guess she’s not undead then!

Downstairs in the kitchen, Torbin hears a voice calling out for Piccolo. It’s not Blinskys voice, and Piccolo seems excited. Casting his Speak with Animals, Torbin hears Piccolo exclaim that his master is here.

Stepping into the room, a tall man introduces himself as Rictavio. Torbin remembers that name, Blinsky told them that Piccolo was from this man. The old man heard Piccolos voice and came to investigate. Why wasn’t he with Blinsky? Torbin explains that Blinsky was on the floor of his toyshop, covered in blood. The half-truth seems to sadden the man, admitting that he was going to visit his friend in the morning before he left town with his circus.

Circus, you say?

Apparently Rictavio was looking for some new talent in Vallaki for his circus. But with tonights events in town, it might be safe to leave in the morning. Torbin offers himself, and his party members, as potential candidates for the circus. But only on the condition of leaving town as soon as possible.

Rictavio agrees, but they will have to wait till morning to retrieve his cart. He has special cargo on board, he cannot abandon his tiger. Torbin agrees to this and heads off, leaving Piccolo with Rictavio.

‘Guess what guys, we’re joining a circus!’

At first light, the party hurry with Rictavio to his wagon and head out the northern gates of Vallaki.

 Tariel, still worn out and tired from the encounter with the Vampire Spawns, dozes off in the cart while unaware of the nights events and barely aware of the parties heading.

A man sits in a prison cell of the Reformation Centre. The Holy Warrior promised his release, for the revolution he will start in the name of the Morning Lord!

Viktor throws a table aside in the study, where had his spell book gone?!

A young woman purrs and stretches on her ragged bed, blissfully unaware of the world outsides troubles.

A tattered poster outside the Blue Water Inn offers drinks to those who attend the upcoming festival. Though the barrels of ale and wine are almost empty…

Blinsky sits up from the floor of his store. He calls for his monkey friend, but there is no response…

The Priest stands on the steps of his church, praying to the Morning Lord that the young Paladin and her companions find the bones soon and bring them back.

In the streets, Izak marches from building to building. Where had these blasted Vampires gone?!

In an alley a few blocks away from the Wachters home, two bodies of the towns prized bounty hunters lay torn and bloody.

Wachter and her sons talk with another gentleman, maybe it is time that Vargas stepped down as Baron. Or be forced down?

Summer dozes at the other end of the wagon from Tariel, her dead-looking form hidden under blankets beside the tiger cage as the wagon and the party exits the city limits…

 Shortly after Tariel, Slate and Summer had entered Henriks the Coffinmakers house, Abe and Fran finally arrive outside. Torbin had stayed behind at the Inn with Ireena to keep an eye on things there while the rest of the party chased up these bones.

Entering the building, the Bard and Ranger heard a scream from upstairs and rushed up to find the trio who left earlier standing over the carpenter who now has a mangled foot.

Slate quickly got the two up to speed as Tariels Divine Sense told her something in the house with evil presence. A strong evil.

Francesco asked Henrik what else he was keeping for Von Holt, the old man explaining that the nobleman had men deliver boxes to him a few weeks ago, putting them in his spare room for storage.

Slate and Abe shove the injured old man into the spare room and demand he opens the crates.

With some help from Summer, Henrik manages to pry open the first box. Pushing away the woodshavings used as packing, Slate and Francesco pull out a candelabra set that lights up when held in their hands.

Seeing that the old coffinmaker qas being useful now, Francesco uses his healing magic to mend Henriks leg.

Then Summer and Henrik open the second box to find… soil? 

Francesco orders Henrik to check in the soil, but Summer is impatient and tosses the box over onto its side.

Falling out within the soil, a pale body tumbles out amongst the dirt. Quickly sitting up, the Vampire Spawn snarls and jumps on Henrik. The old coffin makers throat is ripped open, his fallen face looking back toward the rest of the party as his eyes go dim.

Summer and Abe immediately jump into action: Summer blasting a barrage of radiant energy bolts while Abe slashes at the Spawn.

Francesco and Slate move forward to help until they notice the other crates in the room are shaking and screeching, a pale hand bursting out from the side of one crate. All these other crates have Vampire Spawns as well!

Grabbing a candelabra, Slate prods one coming out of a box but only seems to annoy it more than anything.

The Spawn on top of Henrik leaps onto a wall, slamming Summer into the wall as one of the other Spawns pinned her to it before sinking its fangs into her neck.

Tariel starts to move in to help, but the Paladin finds one of the Spawns had crawled along the ceiling above her toward the door out of the room. Trying to keep it away, she fuels her Halberd with divine energy and swings at the Spawn above.

Abe, Slate and Fran are quickly on the backfoot as Spawns attack them as well, barely able to hold off their attackers as they see Summer struggling to fight off the two Vampire Spawns on top of her.

Before she goes limp and the Spawns feed…

Abe attempts to kill one of the Spawns on top of Summer, but quickly finds himself overrun. Fran manages to evade his Spawn attacker and cast a healing spell on the downed Ranger, then Enlarge him so he can free himself and get away.

Tariel and Slate are barely keeping their Spawns off, but when the Spawns that killed Summer lunge onto the Paladin and tear into her, Slate and Abe run for the door.

Seeing his living companions making their escape and himself being accosted by the Spawns, Francesco Enlarged himself and grabbed Tariels body as he rushed out of the building.

Getting outside the Coffinmakers home, Slate, Abe and Fran seeing the Spawns fleeing the building too. Out into Vallaki.

Carrying Tariel back toward the Inn, Francesco notices that she is still breathing. Barely, but still alive. He was sure she was dead, how is this possible?

Slate suggests that it might be because Tariel was carrying the Saints bones on her person that had helped her ward off death. Too bad it couldn’t do the same for Summer…

A voice within a void speaks to a Kobold, offering the opportunity to walk with her companions once more….

Sitting upright in her own blood, Summer looks around her to find the room empty of life. She remembers being torn to shreds as she fought to stay alive. She remembers feeling terror, but now? Everything after her heart stopped beating was just a blank, now she’s here and in this quiet room and she hears nothing. Not even her own heartbeat…

Welp, time to find the others!

 After their successful dinner with the Vallakovich, the party return to their rooms for the night. Torbin and Fran stay up to examine the book Summer stole from Viktor, going to bed late only to be woken up over and over by Abe. The young Rangers nightmares seem to be getting worse, waking up in the middle of the night in a loud start.

Slate, getting tired of Abes interruptions, finally gives up and heads out of the tavern as soon as the door is unbarred to check on Blinsky’s progress with his sconce. But he arrives far too early for the shop to even be open. Heading back to the Inn, Slate finds Tariel, Ireena and Summer are outside. Tariel reminds him that she promised to attend the morning service at Saint Andrals Church.

The four arrive outside the church, finding a lone robe figure standing outside facing the direction of the sunrise. Seeing that the man was a priest, Tariel introduces herself to him. The priest, Father Lucian, is extremely appreciative that Tariel, a Paladin of the Morninglord, could come to his church for a sunrise service. He explains to her that he stands on the churches steps each morning, awaiting to bask in the suns rays as it rises. While the sun do rise, its rays of light fail to pierce the fog that surrounds Barovia…

The two watch the sun rise together while Slate and Summer head inside with Ireena to see who’s present for the service. Not many appear to come to the service, though the loud prayers from Lydia seemed to get Summer and Ireenas attention.

When the doors to the church opened to reveal Father Lucian and Tariel, the churches congregation watched them head to the front of the building. Slate remained near the door of the Church while Ireena sat near the front, Summer sitting with her while Tariel stood with the Priest on the stage.

The Father begins the service, thanking everyone for coming before introducing Tariel to the stage as ‘the Savior’ and letting her lead the sermon.

Tariel tells the church of the fogless lands that reside outside of Barovia, where the sunlight beams down on all in a warm embrace, and that one day that light shall reach even here. With the crowd in awe, Tariel leads everyone in the Morninglords prayer. Beside her, the Father weeps happily before closing the service.

During the service however, Slate noticed a tall teenager near him at the back of the church that scoffs at Tariels devotion and passes Slate to exit the church.

With service over, many of those who came wanted to thank Tariel before leaving. It seemed that she had lightened up their spirit. Even Lydia came up and kissed Tariels hands before leaving.

With the congregation now gone, Lucian approaches Tariel and thanks her for the service once more. 

Before asking for a favor, leading to Slate rolling his eyes as Tariel accepts:

Lucian tells the party about the Churchs founder, St Andral, who was a man blessed by the Morninglord, like the Father believes Tariel is. But just over a week ago, the bones of St Andral that were under the Church were stolen! And without those bones, the churches protection from evil is weakening by the day. Soon the church may no longer be a safe haven for those that need it…

Lucian shows the trio where the bones were kept, in a small crypt under a trapdoor hidden under a pew. The only person he’s told about this location is the Alter Boy who they met during the service. Was he really the culprit?

Hard to think, considering that the culprit had dug a hole into the crypt rather than taking the trapdoor. There was no way the kid could have dug the hole, let alone rip up the floorboards to get at the earth beneath it!

Slate examines the crypt and finds a shredded piece of cloth. A sack, maybe?

No able to find more information here, the trio meet with Ireena in the main hall of the Church where Petrovich offers them breakfast in his home behind the church.

Exiting the church and heading around the side of it, a man runs up and grabs Slates arm, demanding to know who Slate is and what he was doing at the Reformation Center! Tariel remembers what Balmore had said in the Center: he had met a man who had escaped the Center and was hiding out at the Church. Is this the man?

He immediately confirms that, waving his hands around to get them to quiet down. Summer, pretending to be a dog still, notices that the man is missing fingers on one hand. Why would he chew his fingers down like that?

Tariel asks if the man saw anything strange happening in the Church, the strange man tell him that he saw the Churches gravedigger was digging a hole in the Church one night. Came out of the hole with a sack in hand.

Summer asks the man where the gravedigger took the bones: the man doesn’t know exactly, just that he took them away from the Church. Summer then asked him if he was worried that he might be crazy, he is talking to a ‘dog’ afterall. The old man laughed to himself as he walked off, leaving the party to shrug and move into the Priests home, where the Alter boy was eating breakfast with Lucian.

Slate and Tariel join the two at the table while Summer happily scarfed her oatmeal from a bowl on the floor. Lucian talks about how the boy, Yeska, and his older brother, Milo, were both boys from the Orphanage in town. Milo had grown old enough to leave, so he took his brother with him and the two were both working for the Church to make some money: Yeska as Lucians assistant and Milo as the Gravedigger. Slate asks if the Milo was tall, curious if he was the boy he saw leave during the Morninglords service. Petrovich confirms it as Yeska prepares to head out. He asks Lucian if Milo had any work for today, Lucian saying there is a grave that needs to be dug sometime today.

As Yeska headed for the door, Slate and Tariel ask if they can come with him. They had some questions for his brother. He agrees to take them, but before leaving, Tariel gives Lucian a gold coin as thanks for his hospitality.

Gathering Summer from under the table, the trio headed out with Yeska toward the edge of town where Milo and Yeska resided. Being led into a run down house with a half dozen children running around inside, the party meet the young man Milo. He scoffs at Tariel, thinking little of her and her faith. Slate however sat down with the teenager and began to have a heart to heart with the youth.

Building a bond with Milo, Slate manages to convince him to tell them about what he did with the bones. He needed the money to help look after all the kids he managed to get out of the orphanage, so when the Coffin Maker, Henrik van der Root, offered him a half dozen copper pieces to collect the bones for him, Milo jumped at the chance. So a week ago, the night before the last festival, Milo dug a hole into the crypt and stole the bones.

With Slate giving him a gold coin to help with the children, Milo gave the party the address of Henriks shop. Tariel and Slate bid farewell, leaving with Summer. Seeing that they were heading past the Inn, they stopped in to let the barely awake trio in their rooms know where they were headed next and that they should meet them when they can.

The trio head out, seeing the shops beginning to open for the day. The coffin makers shop didn’t appear to be open though… Slate knocked on the door and after a few attempts, a man sheepishly opened the door. With the man introducing himself as Henrik, Slate jokes about wanting a kitchen layout which catches the old man off guard.

He seems confused that someone would want him to make such a thing, but it is a change from making coffins… He invites Slate and Tariel inside, but is a little concerned about Summer coming inside and ruining the place. Tariel assures him that their ‘dog’ will behave, though Summer had already wandered off into the workshop attached to the mans living space.

Henrik offers his guests drinks, but is immediately put on edge by Slates line of questioning when bones are brought up. He starts to edge toward a door at the end of the room, but Tariel convinces him to sit and chat. Having seen the man move for the door behind his seat at the table, Summer slinked behind his chair to be between him and the door.

Tariel asks about the bones and what he wanted them for. After trying to change the topic, Henrik gave in and told them he was getting them for someone else. He was a middle man who was going to be paid handsomely by a nobleman called ‘von Holtz’. A name the party trio remembered. They met him by the river when that old farmer drowned himself, right? That guy wanted the bones?

Henrik tries to make a run for the door again, but Summer sticks out her staff and trips him to the floor. She quickly pulls his legs behind his neck while Tariel asks him more questions. Henrik tells them that the bones are upstairs, in his bedroom.

Slate heads through the door Henrik was running toward and finds a staircase. Following the carpenters instructions, the Rogue finds himself in the mans room but cannot find the bones. Getting annoyed, Slate returns to the group downstairs and lifts the old man to his feet. He was going up with Slate to give him the bones.

Pushing the Henrik up the stairs, Slate, Tariel and Summer stay close behind him. Reaching the landing on the next floor, Henrik tries to make a run for a door but finds Tariels thrown Halberd blocking his way. Slate grabs him again, tying the mans hands behind his back. Only to be spat in the face.

Summer, finally getting sick of the old mans behavior, slams her staff into his foot and shatters the bones within. With the old man in pain and seeing that the dog has even had it with his antics, he hobbles into his bedroom and points out where the bones are being kept. Under a floorboard, Summer pulls out a sack of bones and a coin pouch with various coins. Tossing the coin pouch back in, Summer opens the bag to reveal the bones to Slate and Tariel.

Tariel casts her Detect Good and Evil to see if the bones gave off any sort of energy. She could feel the good energy radiating from the bones, making her confirm the bones are the ones their after.

But there is also something else. Something evil in the house with them…

Tariel asks Henrik if anyone else is here.

‘von Holt asked me to look after some other things in my spare room…’

 With their new prisoner in Abes tow, the party find themselves in the streets of Valiki once more with their next destination chosen: The Reformation Center.

Abe tries to talk to his bagged prisoner, but only seems to be getting a muffled response. Guessing that the prisoner is gagged inside the head bag, Slate casts Message on the man to whisper something into his head. Slate gives a small chuckle as the response from the man gives the impression that he has mistaken the spell being cast as divine guidance from the Morninglord! He tells Tariel what the man said to him with a grin, the Paladin not looking too pleased as Slate casts Message on the man again to tell him that the group walking him to the Reformation Center are people he can trust. 

Arriving at the prison-like gate of the Reformation Center, the party are halted by two guards that ask what they are doing with a bound man. Abe explains that the party had been deputized by Baron Vargas and were here to interrogate a prisoner. Being asked for paperwork, Abe produces the letter to the guard who reads that what ‘Acting Captain Abe Stoker’ has explained is correct. 

With the guards stood aside, the party passed under the archway engraved with the motto ‘Reformation and Judgement’ and enter the imposing building.

Inside what appeared to be a worn-down lobby, the party find themselves being spoken to by another guard who introduces himself as Andre and demands to see the papers Abe had. Abe hands him the papers and as the guard reads, a shrill scream echoes through the hall from somewhere beyond the room. Abe and Summer, who is still acting like a dog at Abes feet, both shudder as they notice there is laughter in the scream…

The scream is suddenly cut short, Slate turning to the guard to ask what would be happening here to make someone scream like that. Andre snaps at Slate, telling him that ‘the help’ should not speak while their captain is conducting business. Abe snaps at Andre, telling him to respond to his colleagues inquiry. Andre just shrugs, having no clue nor does he care.

Andre mentions as he reads the papers that his partner with him had once been a ‘visitor’ of the Center, which has made him a ‘proper citizen’ of Valiki.

Turning to Abe, Andre tells him to remove the prisoners clothing. As is procedure to avoid ‘contamination’ with other prisoners. Slate asks if the man would be okay to enter if his clothes are clean.

Andre agrees with Slate, but immediately begins to freak out as Slate begins casting Prestidigitation on the mans clothing. Alarmed at the sight of magic, Andre points at Slate and calls him a witch loud enough for an alarm to go off somewhere in the building and the sounds of loud footsteps from upstairs. The silent guard levels his crossbow at Slate, Tariel stepping between them and stating that what happened was a blessing from the Morninglord. Andre spits at Tariels feet, calling the notion of the Morninglord a children’s story. 

As Torbin, Tariel and Fran prepare their weapons for combat and Summer prepares to charge a guard, Abe snaps the entire rooms attention to himself as he pulls rank on Andre and demands that everyone calms down and lower their weapons.

*And now, the PG version of the DMs reaction to his dice roll*

After a moment of silence, Andre rolls his eyes as the guards from upstairs burst into the room with weapons drawn. Andre turns to the guards and tells them that it was a false alarm. Andre approaches them and as they talk, Abe and Slate find the guards eyes staring daggers at them before they head back upstairs.

Andre returns to the party, explaining that only Abe would be allowed to bring weapons further into the building, as he is the ‘Acting Captain’ here. Tariel joins Abe, dumping her weapons onto Slate while Summer, stilled armed to the teeth, manages to be overlooked as she is the weird looking dog following Abe.

Leaving Slate with Torbin and Fran in the lobby, Abe, Tariel and Summer follow Andre with their prisoner to a small room barely large enough for two people to stand let alone hold an interrogation. After Abe demands a larger room, Andre reluctantly leads the group past cells of prisoners with disfigured or missing body parts before showing them into a larger room with a set of bars on the far wall. Andre mentions that the room they’re in is the Reformation Chamber.

 Abe instructs Andre to collect two chairs: one comfy and one un-comfy. For interrogation, of course.

Once the chairs are brought in, Abe asks for Andre to leave. With the door locked behind Andre, Abe gets the prisoner comfortable while Summer stretches her legs and begins looking at the bars at the far end of the room. Beyond the bars, she can only see darkness that makes her more confused considering she can usually see in the dark…

Tariel removes the prisoners bag and gag, the poor man spitting out some teeth as he finally sees his ‘saviors’. Using her divine magic, Tariel manages to put the mans teeth back in. The man begins praising her profusely until Abe asks him about a rebellion. The man, introducing himself as Belmore, states that he knows nothing about a rebellion against Vargas but is willing to join or even start one if the Morninglords chosen ask him to. Abe brings up that the man is in prison to which Belmore states that this is where he wants to be to find his wife.

After the death of their daughter, Belmores wife had apparently gone mad and began raving that the Morninglord had forsaken them as she tried to free people in the Town Square Stocks. From there, she was dragged to the reformation house and hasn’t been seen since.

Tariel tells Belmore that they will try to find his wife while they are here, wanting to help bring them together once more.

Abe approaches the locked door as Tariel and Summer quickly re-gag and bag Belmore, asking the guard outside the door to have Slate escorted to the room. The silent guard nods and leaves, passing Andre and a well dressed man approaching the room. The well-dressed man asks for Abe to join him in the hall for a moment, introducing himself as Victor Vallakovich, the son of Baron Vargas Vallakovich. Summer tries to slip out after Abe but when the Ranger gently nudges her back into the room with Tariel, she notices magic sigils weaved into the inside layer of Victors robes. With the door closed behind him, Abe asks what Victor was doing in the Reformation Center. Victor is here to speak with the Centers ‘Reformers’, but had stepped away when he heard that some new people had entered the Center at his fathers request. Victor asks Abe to inform him if Abe discovers any sources of magic within Valaki, or anything magic related for that matter. Abe agrees and Victor bids him farewell, leaving as Andre and the mute guard return with Slate behind them. Sending the two men back into the room with their prisoner, the door is locked behind him. 

Quickly getting Slate up to speed on the situation, Slate watches Summer peering into the blackness across the room from them. Seeing her raise a finger and let loose a small blast of light, Slate notices that the blackness warps like a curtain. Because it is one. Just a large black curtain on the other side of the bars…

Slate takes out his lockpick and attempts to pick the lock, nicking something in the latch and finding a small poison dart shooting into his neck! Tariel uses her Lay on Hands to heal the Rogue of his affliction while Abe tries his hand with the lockpick, also getting it jammed. While Abe leaves the pick in to ask for lock picking advice from Slate, Summer took out her staff and smacked the pick. The hammer and nail tactic seemed to work as the lock popped loose and the door swung open.

The four step past the curtain to see a room with a chair sitting in the center of the room withan  unconscious naked woman facing a large grotesque portrait of Strahd making him look like a truely demonic entity. Along one wall, Slate looks over the various tools of torture lining a row on the shelf below vials of liquid with things submerged within.

Abe flips through a journal set on a table beside some severed horns and tails. He guesses these parts were used as some form of costume, but he sees some of the details of the torture procedure. Seeing a note about the painting being left as the only thing illuminated in the room for the prisoner to focus on during ‘procedures’. He reads some points aloud, Slate seeing vials of what he thinks is blood when Abe mentions ‘drops in the eyes and mouth’. Seeing that one of the vials is nearly empty, he assumes these are the drops that were mentioned.

Tariel sees the woman and notices a marking on the womans neck similar to something Belmore had mentioned earlier. This is his wife!

Summoning Andre to the room, Abe gave custody of Balmore to the guard before leading the party outside of the Center.

Finally outside again, the party decide that they should regroup with Ireena and get her up to speed. They do need to prepare for a dinner with the Baron after all!

 With the man chained upstairs before Summer and Torbin, the two look at each other then close the door after promising to come back for the man. Getting on all fours again, Summer walks ahead of Torbin toward the stairs as the maid comes into view to retrieve Baron Vargas. The three all stop at the sight of the other, Torbin attempting to pretend to be taking his ‘dog’ back downstairs. As Summer steps closer to the maid, she screams and Summer bolts for the stairs.

The door to the Barons study opens, Vargas looking unpleased with the weird dog thing still being nearby. With a single word, he commands his dog to get Summer. With the mastiffs bounding after her, Summer races down the stairs with the dogs barely keeping pace with her!

Downstairs in the lounge, Abe and Slate examine the space they find themselves waiting in when Francesco arrives. He’d seen them walking past the tavern toward the Barons and followed after them once he let Ireena know what he was doing. Tariel remains seated, just tired of walking around the town all day and decides to get Francesco up to speed on what they learned from the Wacthers household.

Abe notices a large Heavy Crossbow inside a cabinet with bolts caked in dried blood, A note is tied to one bolt reading ‘with this bolt, I killed Dolt’.

Fiddling with the lock on the desks drawers, Slate pops one open and finds an unopened letter addressed to Vasili Von Holts. The man they found fishing by the river the day the party helped the farmer drown himself? Cracking the wax seal of a windmill, Slate opens the letter and sees a familiar name at the bottom.

Seeing that he cannot repair the wax seal, Slate decides to burn the envelope and slipping the note into his pocket as Abe pokes his head out the door of the room when he hears voices outside. Seeing Lady Vargas in the hall, he asks if she had seen a child with a strange dog with him. They were supposed to stay nearby. The Lady says she hasn’t and she would ask the other girls, opening the door to the room she was in earlier.

Slate reads another note: one that looks like a receipt for the services of one Zolder Gaia Valkavich, the hunter Slate recalled meeting at the tavern. Looks like Baron Vargas paid them 10 gold for something.

Abe overhears the girls mentioning effigies before he is distracted by the sounds of barking from upstairs. Summer skids into the hallway and sees Abe with the door open, slipping between the young Rangers legs and hiding under a sofa in the room when the Mastiffs reach the bottom of the stairs and race out the open front door in search of their prey.

Torbin is escorted down the stairs by Baron Varas, being scolded by the massive man for Torbin letting his weird dog loose like he did. He guides Torbin to the door to watch the mastiffs looking for Summer before turning to his lounge where the rest of the party await his arrival.

Entering the room, he demands to know why the party is here. He didn’t have any appointments for this time! Slate explains that the group are the ones that entered the city the night before.

Varovich recalls the news that a member of Barovias Burgomasters family had entered the city with a group of adventurers that night. He agrees to talk with them briefly as he had other matters to attend to in his upstairs study.

Slate asks about the rules the Baron had in place, Vargas states that they are the only things keeping the Devil out of Valiki. Only happiness can keep them safe.

Abe changes the topic to the Wacther family, asking about the incident between his son Victor and Stella Wacther. Vargas laughs and tells the party that the Wacthers are all old money, the only thing keeping them somewhat relevant in his town. As for Stella, she came to his home and became a raving idiot overnight. He shakes his head, stating that ‘if’ the girl could be cured, he’d be happy to have Victor and Stella wed and bring both families together.

Fran brings up if it would be worth wedding Victor with the Barovian Burgomasters sister, not mentioning Ireena by name. Abe shoots Fran a dirty glare as Vargas thinks it would be interesting but he still believes Stella would be the best available option .

Fran suggests letting Tariel hold the ceremony, she is a Paladin of the Morninglord after all! That intrigues Vargas, stating that his wife is a devotee to the Morninglord and that the two should meet.

Standing once more, Vargas asks that the one from Barovia that helped the party into the city should come join him for dinner tonight. But right now, he has to return to passing judgement on a blacksmith that dared to break his rules.

Fran asks if the party could help, as they happen to have a renowned interrogator with them: Abe!
Vargas doesn’t seem opposed, declaring the deputies while they operate within the walls of his city.

He beckons for Abe to follow him, exiting the room and giving a sharp whistle. His two mastiffs join his side and follow their master up the stairs with Abe in tow.

Seeing Abe with Vargas, Torbin starts to follow until he sees Slate and Fran exit the room as well, turning to join them. Tariel helps Summer out from under the sofa before joining the party in the hall.

The Lady of the House, Sybil Vargas, sees Tariels crest and begins to fawn over the Paladin, the rest of the girls swarming around her and leading her into the room they were making preparations for the upcoming festival. Realizing that the girls weren’t interested in them, Slate and Fran grab Torbin and Summer so they can head upstairs and look around while Abe is…

Abe is led into the upstairs study, standing before a battered man chained to a chair in the center. Abe asks about the crime. Apparently he called Vargas and his rules ‘stupid’. The balls on this man! Vargas kicks the bound man. Abe beats the man a little before turning to Vargas and asking him if they could speak privately. Vargas gestures to the hallway.

As the two men step into the hall, a door further down the hall closes as Slate, Fran, Summer and Torbin begin rummaging through a bedroom. Seeing some of the books on the shelf, Slate gathers that the room belongs to a kid. Fran confirms this, finding a journal in the bedside drawer with the name ‘Victor’ scribbled across it.

Out in the hall, Abe asks Vargas for more information regarding his captor. Vargas suspects that the blacksmith tied up in the study could be part of some revolution in the town. Abe ponders for a moment before asking if he and his party could potentially pretend to start a revolution to weed out those who could try to oppose Vargas. Thinking that this could work, Vargas agrees.

Abe suggests letting him and his party take the man to the ‘reformation house’ so they can begin this plan, Vargas agreeing and suggesting they get the paperwork in order.

With Vargas and Abe entering back into the office, the party exits Victors room and Slate picks the lock on the door to the next room. The walls of the room have dolls lined on the shelves, the party recognizing the dolls resemblance to Ireena.

Is this Izaks room?! The Captain of the Guards room?

Slate opens an ajar chest at the end of the bed, finding some ragged clothes and battered shortsword. Leaving the room and locking the door behind them, the party quickly head back downstairs to the foyer before Abe and Vargas exit the office with the prisoner bound up behind the young Ranger.

Meeting with the rest of the party downstairs, Vargas gives them directions to the reformation house and sends them on their way.

With the prisoner in tow, the party exit the Barons manor…

Following Ernst through the city streets of Vallaki, the party find themselves in the run down northern end of the city. The only thing worse than every other poorly maintained structure is a large manor in somehow a more worse state than what surrounds it.

As the party draws closer, Abe shudders as he feels hate and distain coming from the house. It’s not focused on them but… itself? The vibes remind Summer and Torbin of the Durst house, but for different reasons they can’t put their fingers on.

Arriving at the front door of stained glass caked in dust and grime, Ernst opens the door and tells the party to wait as he prepares to announce them to Lady Wachter. As they wait outside, Slate tries to peer through the windows but finds the grime covering them is far too thick to see through. But rubbing some of the grime from the front window, he notices a somewhat familiar view: the mountain that Castle Ravenloft now resides, before Strahds Castle was built there. Wiping away some more of the dust, Slate comments that the house would look incredible if anyone bothered to clean it.

The Rogue jumps back as Ernst opens the door again, revealing the main hall is in a similar state of uncleanliness. As Torbin enters with Summer on a leash, still pretending she is his pet, Ernst stops him and asks that he leaves his dog outside. When Torbin refuses, the butler insists further until Abe threatens to leave the house and bid the Wachters farewell. Not wanting such a hasty end before the discussions can even take place, Ernst rushes off to speak to the Lady of the house.

Turning to Torbin, Summer grumbles that she’ll pee on the floor before she gets sent to wait outside.

Ernst returns before Torbin can respond, stating that Lady Wachter has allowed Summer to stay by the gnomes side.

With each member of the party entering the lounge of the Wachters, Ernst gives them each a glowing introduction to the Lady. Except for Summer, they’re a pet.

As Ernst leaves the room, Lady Wachter approaches Abe and greets him. She is aware of his family name, but unfamiliar with his or his fathers names and accomplishments.

Turning to Summer and Torbin, she asks why the gnome why he keeps the ‘evil’ Kobold on a leash. Seeing that the ruse wasn’t needed here, Summer stood back up happily.

After formerly welcoming the party to Barovia, Lady Wachter gets wound up by Slate asking about Vallikis Baron which casuses Wachter to talk about how she dislikes Baron Valakovich and his stupid festivals. When she attempted to bring the two family houses together by the union of her daughter, Stella, and Valakovichs son, Victor, but her daughter was returned in a mad state.

She wants Valakovich to be removed from his position as Baron so she can become the Baroness and allow for Strahd to walk these streets once more.

Before the party can raise any questions, Lady Wachter asks them to join her in the dining room for lunch. Once everyone is seated, the party is offered the choice of tea or wine to drink as plates of sandwiches are laid out before them.

Raising her glass, Wachter toasts to Strahd and his beloved Barvoia.

…

The rest of the party remain silent but still clink glasses and mugs. While Summer and Torbin stuffed their faces with food, Wachter talks about Strahd and the time she went to Ravenloft. How she admired the Baron…

Seeing the topic was going nowhere, she asks the party how long they were planning to stay in Valliki and if the girl that helped them get into the city really was the former Barovia Burgomasters daughter.

Abe clumsily attempts to cover that it is Ireena, but Wachter saw through the lie and ponders why Strahd has so much interest in the party.

Slate asks her to get to the point of why the group is here with her right now.

Setting her glass down, she explains that she wants the party to gather some information about Valakovich for her:

– There are lights on in his attic of all hours of the day, why?

– Why does he have Izak, the City Guard Captain, remain so close to him?

– What happened to the people who have entered the Barons manor without ever exiting?

– What did Valakovich do to her daughter?

Torbin looks up from his meal, asking if the partys reward for this job could be their free passage out of Barovia. Wachter laughs with a ‘don’t we all?’.

Swallowing her sandwich, Summer asks about Izak and his weird arm. Wachter believes that the arm is something demonic that grants him the ability to throw balls of fire from it.

Slate asks if the party can meet Wachters daughter in an attempt to see what may have happened to her. The Lady agrees and calls upon her sons, Karl and Nikolai, to collect the key to their sisters room.

While the sons are away, Torbin asks about the vast wine collection that the Wachters have. He offers to complete the work she asked of them if she is willing to send some of her wine to the Blue Water Inn for the upcoming festival. Lady Wachter laughs and declines.

Abe asks about the Durst family, curious what happened to them. Once upon a time, the Durst family were a famed farming family in Barovia. Until they fell into the company of demon worshipers, around the time that ‘the Darkness’ come.

Slate asked if ‘the Darkness’ could have been Strahd, but Lady Wachter doesn’t know.

Karl returns to the room and offers to escort the party to his sisters room.

Unlocking the door to the room, Karl allows Slate and Torbin to enter. A young woman crawls on all fours to the bed and climbs onto it, hissing at the new people in her room. She speaks to the two, but she referrers to herself as ‘Kitty’ instead of Stella.

After some questioning, the party learn that ‘Kitty’ had just ‘started’ one day. She remembers Victor being puzzled by her, but he wanted to read a large book rather than play with her. So she left and was caught by the two brothers.

But she refused to give anymore information after Slate used his magic to create a small rubber ball for her to play with.

Leaving the room to join the others, Torbin notices that Stellas mannerisms and speech pattern reminded him of talking to cats…

With nothing else to ask or discuss, the party decide to take their leave. Bidding their farewells to the Wachters, Ernst is sent with them to escort them back to the Inn.

On the walk back to the Inn, Ernst asks that the party keep the condition of Stella Wachter to themselves as it isn’t public information. Slate stops Ernst and asks him what his deal is. Ernst explains that he is an intelligence gatherer, for the right price.

As a free piece of information, Ernst explains that souls of those who die in Barovia are trapped and are unable to pass on. And that souls are also unable to be created, leading to some people being born without souls.

Seeing as they’re alone in the foyer, Slate begins searching rooms. He finds a feminine parlor with a tea set. In the next room further down, Slate can hear women talking about festival decorations. Another door leads to a storage room filled with vegetables. Nothing outright sinister, but the house still feels off. 

As Slate and Abe begin checking a room beyond the staircase, Summer takes off up the stairs with Torbin giving chase. Reaching the next landing, Summer can hear a male voice is yelling from down the hall. Summer, curious, runs toward the noise and scratches at a door. From inside, a loud gruff dog barks back. A moment later, the door swings open, revealing a man in armor and two large mastiffs. He orders them to sit, and behind him. Summer spot what looks like a library or study, along with a man bound to a chair in the room with two guards standing behind the man.

Torbin quickly covers for Summer, claiming that his ‘dog’ ran off. The armored man, not interested in conversation, tells the weird child to keep his freakish looking mutt in check before he slams the door shut in the short duos face. Hearing the one of the mastiffs on the other side of the door, Torbin casts Speak with Animals, learning that the mastiff is disappointed that their master wouldn’t let them ‘play’ with Summer.

Downstairs, Abe and Slate are met by a women exiting the room Slate heard the voices coming from earlier. Seeing the two men in the hall, she calls back into the room she was in and a maid comes out to greet the duo. She guides them into the one room they hadn’t check in the foyer, leading them into a lounge of sorts that smells strongly of tobacco and alcohol. Slate is startled when he turns and sees a taxidermized bear in the room. Giggling at Slates surprise, the maid tells him that the bear is a gift to the Baron but he likes to claim that he slayed the bear himself. The Ranger and Rogue wait patiently for something to happen.

Upstrairs, Summer and Torbin find a solid, barred door at the far end of the hall. It looks different from the others. Stronger. Meant to keep someone inside. Summer, without hesitation or listening to Torbin telling her to leave it, uses her staff to unbar it. The door opens to show the tiny duo a small, dimly lit room. With a man is chained to the wall.

 With the party settling into their rooms for their first night in Villaki, Ireena and her new ward Alan share a room with Tariel. Ireena expresses her concern for revealing her identity so soon upon arriving in Valliki, she feels it was a mistake. Tariel brings up that if Ireena hadn’t done so that the group would be outside these walls to fend for themselves over night.

Blue Water Inn

In the next room over, Slate steps over Summer sleeping on the floor to slip out the door. Passing the girls room, he slips a small chalkboard under their door with the letters ‘BRB’ written on it. Going downstairs to the tavern, the Elf sees a flock of ravens sitting on the beams above before he slips off the bar on the door and exits the tavern. Down on the streets of Vallaki, Slate attempts to slink in the shadows but finds it difficult with the exceptional amount of torches and light illuminating most corners of the side streets.

Back in the boys room, Abe tosses and turns in his sheets as he relives the death of Alans sister. He recalls the sound of her skull cracking under his swords hilt and the scene resets, this time with him skewering her skull with the blade end. Then resets with him slamming her head into a post until she stops crying. Then himself biting her face off.

With the crashing sound of a bell, Abe sits up in a cold sweat and feels something wet in mouth. Touching his lips, he finds blood running down his chin…

Agreeing with Ireena, Tariel leaves to join the other downstairs to discuss it with the party with Allan tagging along for breakfast.

While the party, except for Summer who’s eating under the table, discusses their next step, Allan joins the barkeeps children in their games. As they run around, Slate notices something drop from the ceiling. A bat toy that startles Allan for a moment. The other kids talk about taking Allan to see Blinskys toyshop. Summer peeks out from under the table having heard that name before.

As the kids run out the door, Torbin and Summer both notice a man who was about to enter the tavern turn and step out of sight. Summer suspects that the man might have been observing the party. Heading outside to find the man, the party find nearly the whole street stops and turns to face the adventurers. Seeing the kids running ahead, Summer pulls on the lead Torbin put on her and starts dragging the gnome after them. Abe and Slate follow behind Tariel, still talking about Abes dreams when the Ranger notices behind them that the man they saw before is behind them and tailing the party. Telling Slate, the Elf slips out of sight and follows behind the man.

Ernest is confused by Summer, asking Torbin what they are. Torbin says a dog, but Summer makes a donkey noise instead.

Ernest offers to meet the party at the tavern later if they choose to attend the lunch, bowing to the party before leaving. As Slate rejoins the party, Summer points out someone turning the closed sign to open on the toystore. 

Passing under the placards showing the slogan ‘Is No Fun, Is No Blinksy’, the party find themselves surrounded by all sorts of wood carved figurines and contraptions.

Tariel was extremely impressed, picking up and examining a bunch of little figurines as a man in a ragged jester attire approaches the newcomers.

With an exaggerated ‘Wyelcome’, Blinksy introduces himself to the party.

Seeing something moving around on the toy shelves, Slate reached for his knife before he saw the monkey in a tutu land on Blinksys shoulder. The ‘Wizard of Tiny Wonders’ introduces his furry companion as Piccolo. He tells the party that Piccolo was the pet of a friend of his called Rictavo, but the party don’t seem to know the name.

Abe asks Blinsky if he is willing to sell Piccolo to him, but the Toymaker looks offended and asks if Abe would sell a friend. Behind him, Slate and Torbin look at Summer…

Seeing that Abes purchase wasn’t going anywhere, Slate asks if Blinsky is able to make a brass sconce. Blinsky tells him that he doesn’t have enough brass to make what Slate requires.

Tariel picks up a comically accurate looking puppet of Strahd, then notices the mechanism at the back to make it act as a ventriloquist dummy. Sitting it back down, the paladin notices a doll that looks almost exactly like Ireena. Torbin noticed Tariels find and inquires about it.

Blinsky tells them that it is a special order for the Captain of the Guard, Izek.

Apparently he has had dreams of a woman of this likeness and had been forcing Blinsky to create dolls of her for him. But it always seems that Blinsky is off each time, Izek giving him a beating each failure.

Blinsky attempts to draw the parties attention away from the Ireena Doll using a series of dolls that can be squeezed from behind to make their head pop off on a drawstring to pull it back into place.

Torbin kept eyeing the monkey Piccolo, casting Speak with Animals so he can communicate with the little monkey. 

Torbin asked Piccolo why he is with Blinsky, he said he wanted to make Blinsky happy because Blinsky seemed sad. Hearing about the Captain of the Guard, Torbin asked about that was well. Piccolo said that Izak has a really strange left arm, not human.

While Torbin was talking to Piccolo and Tariel was buying a series of toys, Summer had snuck past the group and slipped the Ireena Doll into her pack. She wasn’t a complete monster, leaving 5 gold coins behind in its place.

With Tariels purchases complete, Abe asks Blinsky if he has a toy that could cheer up a boy that recently lost their sister. Blinsky shows the ranger a small toy coffin, which winds up and pops open with a small vampire on a spring popping out, like a jack-in-the-box!

Abe politely declines when Torbin plays a merry-go-round music box, the horses replaced with carved vicious wolves chasing small children and the music gets slightly distorted and depressing…

Slate looks at another music box and notices that the mechanics inside are made of brass.

SOLD

Torbin then dumps all the music boxes on the floor and breaks some, asking Blinsky to remove all the brass components and smelt them down to make the sconce Slate asked for.

A distraught Blinsky nods, asking for 2 gold for this kind of work. Slate leaned close to the upset toymaker and tells him that he will tell Izak that he is slacking on making the doll he wanted.

‘1 Gold Piece it is then! Please leave…’

Leaving the store, the party start to explore the town and find themselves in the town square. Seeing the dying plant life in the area, Torbin cast a small spell that revived all the plant life around him as he walked.

Hearing some jeering, Tariel and Slate took notice of a set of stocks with people loaded inside them. One man walks past the stocked people and throws a rotten vegetable at one person, turning around to see a glaring Slate inches from his face. The man put his head down and walked away.

Abe and Summer noticed that the posters are being ripped down by a group of guards, one person in particular catching their attention. Standing with his back to them in a wolfskin pelt, Izak the Guard Captain ordered his men to tear down the old posters and put the new ones up. The left arm is out of view, but the two can tell that it is irregularly large for a human.

With some bystanders noticing the newcomers eyeing the Captain, the square seemed to clear a little for the party to see Ernest approaching with what appeared to be a menu for the lunch they were invited to.

Hell with it, we didn’t eat much for breakfast!

 Swiftly arriving at the gates of Vallaki, the partys Expeditious Retreat finally wears off leaving them winded and tired. Having arrived at the gate a little ahead of the party, Summer is found banging on the steel gate into the city.

While Francesco loops the collar around Summers neck, Torbin notes the lack of vegetation within almost 100 feet of the city walls. Hearing the party outside the gates, a voice calls out asking for identification. Slate steps up to the gate to talk, telling the guard that the party are after a reprieve from the wilderness.

The guard apologizes, but he is under orders to not open the gates for entry until sunlight the next morning. Knowing full well of the dangers of the night in Barovias wilderness, Tariel attempted to convince the guards to let them in as she is on a mission of the Morning Lord. Except she was still quite tired from the battle with the fiend and the marathon to Vallaki, so it didn’t exactly come out as intended…

Getting irate at the situation, Ireena steps forward and identifies herself as the daughter of Barovias late Burgomaster and sister of the current Burgomaster, and she demands to be let in. The voice goes quiet before the loud sound of chains and locks being removed from within. Quickly ushering in, the party finds themselves surrounded by armed guards. 

Except for Summer, who they refuse to let in. Torbin, feigning a limp, explains that the small red thing is his donkey. His ride. Climbing atop of Summer, Torbin rides her inside while the guards watch the beardless gnome ride the very strange looking donkey inside. Tying Summer to a post, Torbin joins the rest of the party in time to overhear the conversation with the guards. 

The guard captain stationed at the gate, Illora, explains the rules of Vallaki to the party:

– Don’t mention the Lords name, only address him as ‘the Devil’.

– Vallaki holds a festival each week to keep morale high in the city. Attendance is mandatory for everyone, including visitors. The upcoming Festival is the ‘Festival of the Blazing Sun’ starts in three days time.

– You are allowed to bare arms within the city, but they must be registered before you are allowed in the city.

– If you are happy, your joy will drive away evil. BE HAPPY. ‘All will be well’

Illora stresses on the last rule: ‘You can’t just be happy, you NEED to be happy.’

Ireena, Tariel and Francesco have their weapons check and registered, giving their full names to the guars before waiting for the others. Ireena states that the young boy from the windmill, Alan, was her attendant.

Torbin grabs the grumbling Summers collar and limps over to the table, presenting his weapons to the guards. He hobbles over to the others as Abe goes next.

Abe gives his name, expecting some response of surprise or awe of his lineage.

Watching the guards as Slade picks up his belongings, Torbin ponders if this whole city is a police state…

Illora approaches the party and welcomes them once more to Vallaki, asking Ireena if she wished to meet with the Burgomaster but Ireena declines, just wanting to go to bed. Illora understands, giving the party directions to the Blue Water Inn. Before she can take her leave, Slate approaches her and asks about the Ravens he’s been seeing in Barovia. Illora explains that Ravens are considered good luck in Barovia. ‘It is bad luck to kill a raven’.

Finally heading into town further, Torbin notices that Summer is struggling to keep him on their back. He climbs off the fuming Kobold so they can recover a little. 

The party discuss whether or not Summer should be allowed to stand up while they’re here, as a ‘pet’. Summer reminds Torbin that if they don’t get respect, they WILL act up and HE will be the one taking the blame for it.  

Reaching the tavern with the assistance of some guards, the party head inside.

Relived to finally stand, Summer get on two feet….

And they immediately get back on all fours.

Meeting with the barkeep, Irwin, the party begin to settle in. Ireena books her room, taking Alan with her while the rest of the party talk with their new friend.

Torbin pays for the rooms and Irwin gives them their first drinks free. and a bowl of milk for their ‘dog’.

The party ask Irwin some questions about the ‘happy rule’, but he seems to have trouble keeping a straight face when he says ‘All will be well’.

Irwin ushers the party into the kitchen to talk, saying that their are some eyes everywhere that could tell guards about people who show signs of unhappiness. Apparently, the joy of happiness wards off evil. This has been the practice for as long as Irwin can remember. It’s considered a serious crime to lower peoples spirits in Vallaki.

While Summer steals a steak from the counter behind Irwin, Slate asks if the barkeep knows anything about the Wizard that ‘the Devil’ had faced. He had seen part of the battle in the sky, much like the rest of the city, but there wasn’t much to glean from that.

Abe asks if the town has a library they can go check out to learn more about the town, but apparently the only records in the town are kept in the Burgomasters home.

Seeing they couldn’t learn anything else from Irwin, the party decide to call it a night. But before they can leave the kitchen, Irwin asks a favor of them. With the festival taking place in three days and his wine stock running low, Irwin is worried he will run out before the festival if a delivery doesn’t arrive in time. Can the party venture out of Vallaki once more and retrieve the wine he needs?

The party agrees to leave the next morning for this on the condition that their rooms are paid for while they’re in Vallaki. Irwin agrees and the party head to their room to get some well deserved rest… 
Except for Slate…

With one hag dead before the party and one fled, the party decide to explore the windmill further without any hinderance.

Tariel heads upstairs quickly, finding the young boy Slate spotted earlier locked inside a chest that looked to have been modified into a small cage. Helping the boy out of the chest, Tariel uses her healing magic to patch some of the boys wounds. Thankful for her help, the boy praises Tariel as the Morninglord themself. 

The boy, named Alan, asks Tariel if his sister is okay. The Paladin asks what her name was. “Myrtle”.

He also says that there were two other girls downstairs with the old ladies, but he didn’t know their names. Tariel finds some clothes that fit the boy lying on the floor and helps him dress, telling him to wait there while she goes to get his sister.

Coming back down a flight, Tariel finds Summer and Slate rummaging through some of the hags belongings. Slate finds a chest and opens it, a spell is triggered as he opens it: he feels drowsy for a moment, but his elven fortitude shakes it off as he finds a small jewelry box, a curious purple cloth with golden trim and a brass key with a ruby inlay in the hilt.

Tariel asks the two if they’ve seen Myrtle, the girl that was with the hags outside when the fighting started. Summer says that Abe knocked her out while the Monk was scrapping the pigs outside, so she should be taking a nap outside.

Tariel hurried downstairs and outside to find Torbin and Fransesco standing over the limp girls body. Torbin looks to Tariel and tells her the girl was dead.

Abe is sitting on a stump with Ireena, the woman trying to console the young Stoker as he tries to come to terms that he accidentally killed a child…

While Tariel, Torbin and Fransesco discuss what to do with the body, Summer and Slate had moved with investigation up to the next floor and met Alan. The young boy takes a liking to the Rogue but seems scared of the Kobold that starts rummaging through a chest full of children’s clothes. Slate notices that there are a lot of children’s clothes…

Summer finds the ladder leading up to the top floor of the windmill and climbs up to look, immediately gagging from the small of bird excrement and bodies forcing her to go back down to Slate. Slate takes a look, pulling a small velvet pouch out from under a collapsed bird nest. As he opens the bag, the sounds of crows cawing through the gaps in the roofing startle him for a moment. Climbing back down to Summer and Alan, he shows the bag contained 3 sizable diamonds and a copper piece.

Meanwhile, outside the windmill, Torbin casts Mould Earth to bury the young girl. Tariel demands he brings her back as she wants to give Alan a chance to say goodbye to his sister. Once the girl reemerges from the dirt, Fran picks up the girl and attempts to sit her up in a chair, which falls over and tips the girls body into a bush. Fishing Myrtles body out of the bush, Tariel suggests taking her inside so they can lay her on a table and try to make her look more presentable.

Re-entering the kitchen with Mytles body, Fran and Torbin sweep the middle table clean for Tariel to lay the body. Fran then points out there was a lot of something that he pushed off the table. Bones. Human bones. Small human bones. LOTS of small human bones. Picked clean of flesh… Torbin sniffs the air, noticing the distinct smell of cooking pastries. While Fran also smells something foul from the barrel he’s standing by. As something dawns on the three, they quickly carry the body outside again.

While Torbin re-buries Myrtle with Mould Earth, Tariel and Fran stand at the door of the windmill playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide who checks the oven and who checks the barrel. Tariel throws out Scissors, Fran throws out Rock.

Grumbling, Tariel heads inside to the barrel while Fran opens the ovens. Peering inside, Fran finds some slightly overcooked pastries that he Mage Hands out of the oven.

Tariel opens the barrel and looks inside at the rotting and discarded remains of what appear to be frogs. Gagging Tariel hears a voice echo in her mind asking for ‘the Mistress’ bidding’. A puzzled Tariel asks for the name of whom she’s speaking to, only to scream as a large hand reaches out of the barrel towards her. As Tariel backs away from the barrel, a towering creature clambers out of the barrel and begins speaking in a tongue that neither her or Fransesco could understand. Fran tries speaking in Infernal to the creature, which only seems to anger it as it opens its mouth and roars. Torbin having heard Tariels scream gets to the door of the windmill to see the creature he recognized: a Fiend

A cloud of green gas pours from the Fiends mouth, filling the makeshift-kitchen as Tariel uses her magic ring to project her voice. Tariel yells loudly that there’s a monster in the kitchen and to keep Alan safe as she raises her Holy Symbol, her Turn the Unholy power making the Fiend screech and cower away from her.

Upstairs, Summer and Slate race down to the floor above the kitchen. Seeing the gas, Slate heads back up to Alan and suggests that the three of them should climb out the window that Summer broke so they can avoid facing the monster. Summer jumps out to the plank of wood she climbed in with, the board being weakened after Abe used it to climb inside also and breaks under her feet! She manages to stick the landing and move aside for Slate and Alan to land beside her.

In the kitchen, Tariel and Fran scramble to try and escape the room. But Fransesco inhales too much gas and cant move, leaving Tariel to try and drag him out with one hand while using the other to keep the Fiend at bay. Summer joins Torbin at the door to the windmill, the two unable to see what is going on. Summer attempts to go in but the Gnome Druid stops her, telling her that the gas can paralyze the body if inhaled too much.

Tariel struggles to hold the Fiend back and drag the frozen Fran, almost loosing her hold on the demonic creatures repellant. Until Summer throws a rope that lassos around the Paladins neck and yanks, making Tariel lose her hold momentarily but manages to gain it back. Tying a rope around Fran just in time, Tariel is yanked out of the building by Summer and Torbin, the two pint sized saviours pulling Fran out in time too! With Fran regaining control, the party meet up with Abe, Ireena, Slate and Alan. Torbin casts a spell that makes the whole windmill shake and clatter apart in places. But the building remains strong. And the Fiend is looking through the smoke at the party.

Running out of ideas, Tariel takes out a Scroll of Expeditious Retreat and yells for everyone to run for it! Racing away from the windmill and the Fiend, the party race along the road toward Valiki. Seeing that Summer was so much faster than the party, she scouts ahead to help avoid running into trouble ahead. The tiny red blur races ahead of the party, directing the group off the track any time she thinks there’s trouble ahead. After almost an hour of running, the party find themselves approaching the gates of their next major city: Valiki! 

 On the side of the road near the swinging noose crossroad, Abe, Francesco and Ireena shake their four dozing companions. Theses bastards slept all the way through the night!

Fran slaps Torbin in an attempt to wake him up, the small gnomes beard suddenly bursting into flames from the impact! With a shocked cry from the bard, the four sleeping party members suddenly wake up. Ireena berates those waking up, Abe trying to back her up until Tariel started to explain what had happened. Summer and Slate lazily got themselves up and going, setting up breakfast while the group caught up on the nights events and Francesco patches up the wounds that Torbin and Slate managed to get from their sleep adventure. Nothing could save the little druids beard though…

With their equipment together, the party debate on which path to take on either side of the swinging gallows, deciding that the best path to take was to head toward the Tser Pools and not the path leading up toward Ravenloft. Tariel starts leading the party into a thick brush forcing the party into a single file order, Slate at the rear of the party feels a cold sensation wash over him. Looking behind at the gallows, he sees a figure dangling from the once-empty noose: his own face turning a pale blue grinning back at him. Shaken, the Rouge drew an arrow and shot at the rope holding the body. The rope snaps and he watches his deceased body suddenly sink into the ground as if there was none, but he did hear something hit the wood of the gallows stage…
As he starts back to investigate, Summer calls out to him and draws his attention back to the party.

The forest seems to get denser as the party push through, the fog rolling around them getting thicker as they go. The eerie silence after what Slates vision has him on edge… Then the sudden sound of voices ahead has the party frozen. What could be ahead? Slate calls on his undead companion Skowl to scout ahead. Using his familiars eyes, Slate spots a camp further ahead beyond the clearing. Looking at the camp, he notices some familiar tents. The Vistani!

Hearing Slate identify the group, Tariel forces her way through the thicket until the group comes into the clearing. The Vistani are all at the ready, shocking the group with a welcome song and dance!
Were they expecting the groups arrival?

Seeing the fun and lively welcome, Tariel and Summer join in on the celebration as Slate and Torbin take a break while staying weary of the travelling caravan. Abe offers his hand to Ireena to dance together, the girl never having felt so positive in her life agrees and they join Summer and Tariel in the festivities. Francesco sits back with his music notebook out, joting down the tune the Vistani plays.

While out dancing around the fire, Tariel is handed a wine sack. With the entire camp cheering her on, Tariel knocks it back and downs the entire sack! Excited to get in on the fun, Summer takes a wine sack and immediately starts coughing when she tries the drink.

Once the party quiets down somewhat, the party joins the Vistani in a hearty meal of stew and bread unlike anything Ireena has ever experienced. The sentiment is felt by the rest of the party, feeling the happiest they’ve felt since passing through the mist into Barovia.

One of the older Vistani interrupts the groups meal to inform them that Madame Eva is waiting to see them once dinner is over. The party ask some questions to the Vistani willing to talk to them and glean some interesting details:

The Vistani had helped a prince they found on deaths door in Barovia, who one day gave the Vistani passage in and out of Barovia as his sign of thanks. Fran pushes further, asking if this person was Strahd. But the answer given didn’t confirm or deny what he guessed.

The Vistani were in Barovias borders when the Wizard the party heard about in Barovia had stormed Ravenloft with a group of young men of the city beneath the Castles perch. The Vistani witnessed the Wizard and Strahds climactic battle over the region. The Wizard held his ground far more than anyone had seen against Strahd, but he eventually was defeated and dropped from the sky by the Baron of Barovia. The Vistani went to find the Wizards body, but were unable to find it. Did he survive the fall?

Summer learned that her voucher she go from the Vistanis circus was no longer valid…

As the rest of the camp began packing up for the night, the group was called to Madame Evas tent. Arriving at the fortunetellers abode, the party find the old woman sitting at a large table shuffling a deck of ominously black cards. 

Slate drew the Philraphrapist.

Torbin drew the Enchanter.

Holding a second deck of cards, Madame Eva had Slate and Abe draw a card each. Tariel asked why she couldn’t draw a card too, Eva telling her it was because she had already had her fate chosen by another deck.

Abe drew the Broken One.

And Slate drew the Executioner.

With the cards drawn and placed before the party, Madame Eva cryptically explains what each card represents:

With the party no given some form of direction for their journey onward, the group set up their sleep sacks near the sputtering fire…

 Having traveled for most of the day, the party decided to make camp just off the road. After a small meal of rations, Abe and Francesco took the first watch as the rest of the party slept…

Tariel stirred awake from the voice of a young girl calling from the distance. Sitting up and looking about, the Paladin notices that Abe and Fran seem to not have noticed the loud voice. Standing up, Tariel sees a familiar face that surprises her: Rose, the girl from the Death House that she and the party had helped put to rest was standing before her.

Confused, Tariel asked what was happening. Rose explains that Thorn, her younger brother was refusing to rest and making it impossible for them to pass on. As the two talk, Tariel notices that the fog surrounding the camp is thicker than usual and the two keeping watch haven’t noticed her or Rose.

Looking below her, Tariel finds herself standing over her own body. She was still asleep, but consciously outside of her own body!

 
She moves over to Slate and wakes him up, seeing his spirit rise out of his body like her own. Before explaining what was going on, Slate and Tariel wake Torbin and Summer for the same thing to happen to them. Slate is also confused to see a familiar dog sleeping with Tobin. Isn’t that the dog that died in the Death House?

With Summer and Torbin now ‘awake’ as well, Rose explains that someone called ‘Mother Night’ had requested them to help Rose and Thorn. Summer mistaking Thorn for Walter is eager to beat up a child until Slate corrects her: Walter, the baby the party faced in the dungeon under the house, did move on and it was the middle brother keeping Rose tied to the house. As the party begin to follow Rose into the mist, they hear a sharp voice call out to them, ‘DON’T CROSS THE THREAD’.

Standing before the house once more, Torbin notices a strange glowing thread coming off of Tariels back that leads into the fog they exited through. Before he can bring up any queries, Tariel had cast her Divine Sense toward the house and was overwhelmed by the evil aura emanating from it. Enough for her to pass out! Slate wakes the paladin, being startled by the whites of Tariels eyes having turned black. Meanwhile, Summer started moving toward the house only to be blocked by a shadowy figure that manifests in front of the kobold.

The feminine figure introduces herself as Mother Night, the goddess of the night and the dead. She asks the four adventurers for their aid in helping Rose, as her powers are severely limited within the lands of Barovia and cannot lift the curse upon the house to set Rose free from the Death Houses walls. With Rose heading into the house, Mother Night tells the party that even freeing Rose from the house will not be enough as those who die within the boarders of Barovia are unable to pass on. Or pass in, as those born into Barovia are either born without a soul or are born with the soul of someone who had died here.

Torbin asks if Mother Night knows what prevents her powers, but she seems unwilling to say…

She tells them though that an artifact within the House needs to be destroyed to destroy the barrier preventing Rose and Thorn from leaving the house. ‘Destroy the items that want to destroy you’.

Torbin asks about the strange threads behind each member of the party, Mother Night explains that it is the tether between their soul and bodies, if they happen to get severed or tangled something bad will happen…

With that warning, the party enter the Death House once more.

The house seems almost exactly how it was when they arrived last time: no death traps. Yet.

Slate examines the main hall, noticing a longsword mounted on the wall. Seeing the Windmill emblem on the hilt, he picks it up and follows the group into the fathers study. While Summer and Slate check the cabinets like they did last time, Torbin notices a gap behind one cabinet. With Tariel heaving it forward, the party find a ladder leading down. into the basement?

The party argue over who should climb down first, Torbin being voted to take the lead. Once all four reach the bottom, they recognize the room they find themselves next to: the room where Abe was attacked by shadows that Summer and Tariel had to drag him from to escape the strange entities. Along with that sinister orb in the clutches of the pale wooden figure at the far end of the room. Poking their heads into the room, the four see five cloaks laying on the floor.

Cautious of the cloaks, Slate casts his Mage Hand to carry a candle over to one of the cloaks. The purple cloak bursts into flame, the chair near it starts to smoke as the wood begins to slowly burn. Seeing their chance to try and destroy the orb, Torbin casts Mage Hand too. The two Mage Hands begin carting all sorts of wooden objects across the room to the statue, forming a small bonfire around it with the cloaks draped over it to help spread the flames.

With a small Flame Orb formed in his hands, Torbin bowls it across the room into the pyre of tables and chair, the fire bursting to life and engulfing the statue in seconds! Torbin cheers with glee.

Then the orb cracks and explodes, throwing Torbin out of the room.

With the rest of the party able to get out of the way in time, Tariel is able to scramble over to the now baby-faced Torbin (his beard having burnt up in the explosion) and heal him just enough to get him back on his feet while the corridor started to fill with smoke. Summer and Slate start navigating the corridor, finding themselves in the dining hall where the party faced the  Grick. While Summer checks the next hallway, Slate notices that parts of the Gricks decaying body had been surgically removed… What’s been down here after the party left? Once Tariel and Torbin catches up, Summer calls out to them to tell them she found the kids crypts. And Thorns was wide open.

Looking inside, the group finds Thorns remains. Along with Grick parts. and Rat parts.

Something had stitched them onto the boys remains!
Tariel yanks off one of the Grick limbs with a sickening crunch followed by a loud shriek as Thorns ghost flies into the room, scolding Tariel for pulling apart his new body.

Confused, Tariel asks what he meant but the ghost boy vanishes as Roses ghost comes into the room.

Torbin tells Rose that he saw Thorn hiding in the study, the ghost girl heading off to find her brother.

Thorn reappears, telling them he’d been reading a book in his fathers room that could help bring him back to life if he had a new body.

The party asks if he can show them the book, which he agrees. Leading the party up the stairs to the attic, Thorn starts heading down the stairs to his parents bedroom.

Reaching the landing of the third floor, the party are relieved to find the place isn’t filled with saw blades again.

That is until the suit of armor near the stairs punches Tariel in the face, starting a brawl leading to Torbin and Slate falling halfway down the stairs with the armor as they tackle it off the paladin!

As the armor grabs onto Torbin, Summer races down the stairs to lay into the armor with a flurry of kicks and punches, leaving it open for Slate and Tariel to fire arrows into the suit until it collapses. 

While Tariel and Slate gather the armor into their packs, Summer and Torbin follow Thorn into the bedroom where they see a strange book open on the desk. As they get closer, they can hear whispering coming from the book as Thorn gets between them, telling them that the book doesn’t want them anywhere near it. As Tariel and Slate arrive, Torbin promises Thorn that everything will be okay if the young boy leaves the room with him to check on their dog.

With the books whispering growing more manic, Tariel and Summer begin barraging the book with all the radiant energy they can muster. Summer hurls radiant balls of energy into the book, making the cover and pages begin to burn as Tariel charged up her Divine Smite and split the book in two!

The books remains explode in a sudden burst of darkness and light, the house imploding around the party before they all suddenly snap awake back in their packs on the side of the road!

Seeing the rest of the party get up, Abe, Francesco and Ireena look annoyed having been up all night since they couldn’t wake the other four.

While the three complain, the other four are left wondering if their strange side-journey helped Thorn and Roses spirits or damned them further in these cursed lands…

 While Summer was conversing with Father Donavan in the Church of the Morninglord, the three boys she left behind in the store discuss their deal to sell Summer, under the guise that she is a baby dragon, to the shopkeeps Uncle in Valaki.

Bildrath, the shopkeep, hands a letter to Slate that needs to be hand delivered to his Uncle, Rathlon Cantemir. And as assurance that the party follow through on their end of the deal of delivering their ‘dragon’ to Rathlon, Bildrath instructs that his nephew with be joining their group.

Perriwimple, the nephew, lumbers out from the back room at the mention of his name, the large brutish teen stands over the party as his Uncle gives him his directives: keep an eye on the investment until it’s delivered to his father. 

Abe and Tariel find themselves walking around the town in search of the four they left to gather supplies for their trip. Abe was getting too flustered being left alone in the same house as Ireena, so Tariel had dragged him out to help find the others. They shouldn’t have taken so long to gather some basic supplies, right?

Walking along the main road, they find Summer hiding behind some barrels across from the general store. What is she doing out here on her own? Where are the others?

While Slate and Torbin discussed with Bildrath about needing rations, Francesco is near the front of the store when he spots Abe and Tariel looking at the barrels across the road. When Tariel spots him through the window and begins to approach, Fran uses his message spell to tell her shortly ‘we’re selling Summer, don’t panic’.

Now even more confused by the message, Tariel starts toward the store more quickly as the trio inside exit it with Parriwimple in tow with a large spear in hand. Torbin introduces Perriwimple to Tariel, who tries to make herself look bigger in front of the hulking human. As this sizing up is happening, Abe, Fran and Slate observe the Pie Lady being handed a child by a mother for a pie.

Being bewildered by this odd exchange of goods, Fran asks Perriwimple what the deal is with the Pie Lady. The large lad shrugs, telling them that his Uncle won’t let him have pie from her because it would make him fat. Slate holds out a copper piece to Perriwimple, telling him he’s allowed to buy a pie. 

As the towering teen moving down the road toward the Pie Lady, Summer pokes her head out from behind the barrels to ask if the coast is clear only to find herself staring at the abs of Parriwimple. Lifting the Kobold off the ground, Parriwimple repeats his instructions giving by his Uncle: keep an eye on the investment. Trying to stop Summer from being crushed by the big boys grip, Torbin fashions a rope into a collar for Summer to wear and Parriwimple to hold onto.

Content with the leash, Parriwimple drags Summer toward the Pie Lady. He shows Summer to the Lady, hanging Summer by the neck as he exclaims he’s taking the ‘dragon’ to his Uncle back home. The old woman asks how much for the dragon just as the rest of the party, minus Slate, arrives to help Summer from being choked out. As they talk with the old woman, she introduces herself as Morgratha.

Slate had split away from the rest of the group to loop around the buildings to sneak up on the opposite side of the pie cart to where the party are talking to Morgratha and picks the lock on the side cabinet of the cart so he can free the kid that was given to the woman. Helping the little boy out, the rouge and the boy sneak away as Summer buys the three remaining Dream Pies from Morgrathas cart to give to Perriwimple.

Abe, sick of the small talk, points at the old woman and accuses her of kidnapping. Morgratha brushes off the notion, explaining that people are willing to give up their possessions for her Dream Pies as they make anyone who eats them feel as happy as they had ever been in their life. Considering the state of the town, she could make quite a profit if there was any actual money in the town.

Fran then jumps in, querying if the child will be baked into a pie, again shrugged off by Morgratha who offers to show the group the bakery she and her sister operate outside of town. Tariel, Fran and Abe want to check this place out, asking for directions. According to Morgratha, the bakery is inside a windmill a few hours out of town that once belonged to the Durst family. Summer and Torbin both recall seeing the icon of a windmill on the sigil that Abe knocked over in the haunted death house.

With Perriwimple sitting on the ground leaning against a wall as he devours the Dream Pies with Summer stuck in a vice-like hug as he eats and Morgratha out of product after handing her last two pies to Tariel and Francesco out of good will, the old woman says her farewells to the party and starts out of town. She passes the alley where Slate and the young boy are hiding, not noticing them as she leaves. Seeing the Pie Lady leaving, Slate talks to the young boy. He wants to go home, but Slate tells him that his parents will just sell him to the Pie woman again. Instead, Slate hands the boy some gold pieces and tells him to make his own choices while he can. As the boy leaves his sight, Slate returns to the group to find Parriwimple asleep on the ground with a crushed Summer in his massive arms.

After freeing the Kobold from the big boy, the party discuss what they should do with him. Tariel and Torbin suggest faking Summers death, taking Summers prized stuffed dragon plushie and cramming the extra pies they got inside the stuffed toy before slipping it between Parriwimple arms once more.

To make sure she doesn’t get caught up the parties plan, Summer is sent to the Burgormasters house to collect Ireena and meet the rest of the party outside of town.

Woken by a loud noise with Frans guitar, Parriwimple flinches awake and crushes the pies inside the ‘Summer’ plushie. Abe and Slate start feigning horror as they exclaim that Perriwinkle had just killed Summer! The large lad looks at the mangled plushie leaking meat onto him and begins to cry, upset that he had failed the simple task his uncle had left him in charge of. As he gets up to go tell his Uncle what he’s done, Tariel offers to take ‘Summer’ so they can have the dragon buried. The sobbing Parriwimple agrees, handing the plushie to the Paladin before sulking his way back to his Uncles store.

Seeing the huge teen entering the store again, the party of con-artists book it out of town to meet with Ireena and Summer so they can get out of sight as quickly as they can.

Feeling a little guilty that they just traumatized the poor Parriwimple, Tariel asks Torbin if what they did was right. The gnome druid wholeheartedly agrees that the Uncle deserves to be conned, considering the absurd price gouging Bildrath was doing. 

With the sounds of a punished Perriwimple echoing in their wake, the party finally hit the trail on their escort mission to Valaki…

 As the early morning rolls along, Summer quietly awakens Torbin from Donavichs room to fill him in on what happened to Doru, the boy the party slew. Torbin joins the rest of the party in the main cathedral of the Chruch to see Francesco over the boys body as he tries to use his disguise kit to make the slightly mangled face of Doru look more presentable.

The party makes sure everyone is up to speed before allowing Tariel to get Donavich up before dawn arises. The Father gets up and asks the Paladin what had become of his son during the night. With a heavy heart, Tariel breaks the news that, after the conversation the party had with Doru, his son had died peacefully. A lie the old man needed to hear to accept his sons true death…

Coming out to the cathedral, Donavich sees his sons body beside the casket of the Burgomaster and asks for his son to be placed in a casket. As Summer and Slate move the casket beside the body, Donavich exclaims that in some way his son died a hero trying to bring good to this land. The comment brings a barely stifled chuckle to the Rogue and Monk, recalling how the former Vampire Spawn fell on Tariels halberd when he tried to sneak attack the group.

Abe and Tariel begin to lift Dorus body into the casket, the decapitated head starting to roll out when Francesco took notice and shreded his guitar loudly enough to draw Donavichs attention to him while Slate pushed the head in place to make it look like he was trying to lay the head in a comfortable position before Donavich could see what the party had done to his boy.

Happy with how his son is presented, the Father dresses in his ceremonial garb and performing the Dawn Ceremony to a group of outsiders and the children of the late-Burgomaster.

 With the suns light flooding the churches remaining glass windows, Donavichs words move the party and the Indrirovich siblings with his blessed words.

Donavich gives Ismark the floor to say a few words, the son of the Burgomaster vows to uphold the same principles his father had taught him and help the town as best he can.

Ireena steps forward as well, tapping her step-fathers blade that she wields on the casket and vows to use his weapon to slay Strahd.

Donavich praises the siblings, stating that their father would be proud of them both. He then turns to the party and asks for them to help carry the caskets out to the grave behind the church for the burial. Seeing as Dorus body was so malnourished and light, Summer and Torbin were able to carry it out as Abe and Ismark carried the Burgomaster out.

Entering the grave, the group discover six freshly dug graves, each with small wooden posts bearing the party members names. Abe smashes his to pieces before Donavich suggests using his ‘grave’ for Doru while Tariel helps Ismark place the Burgomaster into Tariels ‘grave’. Gathering the wooden posts, the party use those to start burn Dorus body.

As Ismark dug his spade into the dirt to bury his father, the morning suddenly feels colder when the hooded figure of Strahd enters the graveyard. The Vampire Lord approaches the grave of the Burgomaster to pay his respects to the man, throwing a handful of soil onto the coffin before turning to Ismark and declaring him the new Burgomaster. He looks to Ireena and expresses his desire for her to come to him. He calls her ‘Tatyana’ instead of Ireena before he leaves as suddenly as he arrived.

With the sudden chill of fear having left the graveyard, the party help Donavich, Ismark and Ireena bury their loved ones. As the sun fully rises into the sky, the cold mist of Barovia washes over them once more and their ominous graves. Torbin being sickened by the sight of the graves uses his magic to Mold Earth to fill the holes.

With the burials filled, Donavich bids the party adieu as he wishes to mourn the loss of his son in peace. The party returns to Ismarks home so everyone could rest. Torbin decides to cook a warm meal for everyone while Slate begins snooping around the house and Tariel and Abe begin setting up the rooms for the party to stay in. Ismark and Ireena excuse themselves as they needed to chat in private, but Summer was too curious to see what they were not wanting the party to know. Seeing Summers eagerness to spy on the siblings, Fracesco casts an Invisibility spell on the Kobold as she follows the two to a study.

Ireena is furious that Ismark did nothing to stop Strahd at the burial, but she knows he couldn’t have stopped him even if he tried. The two discuss the fact that Strahd called Ireena by a different name but are both unsure why. Ismark reveals to Ireena that their father had left a note, instructing him to show Ireena something he wrote in his journal:

Kolyan, the late-Burgomaster, found Ireena walking onto a road one day when she was about 4 or 5. She didn’t seem to understand what he was saying to her, but he took her home when he couldn’t find anyone around. She seemingly appeared out of thin air just off the path. He adopted her as one of his own, calling her Ireena. Over the next few days, she began to talk to him and Ismark. She however had no recollection of who she is or where she came from before crossing his path…

After reading the passages, the two took a moment to grief before Ismark tells Ireena that she is still a sister to him and he wants her to go somewhere safe with the adventurers (one of which spying on them while another is rummaging through their deceased fathers bedroom as they talk)/ To Summers shock, Ismark says that the party has a dragon with them!
The two talk a while longer, discussing things they need to do in preparations for Ireenas departure and what Ismark will need to do as the newly appointed Burgomaster. After a half hour of discussion, the two leave the room and the invisible Kobold slips into the room to begin looking for the journal. After fighting with a stubborn drawer, Summer finds the bloodied journal and flicks through it to the last entries.

Strahd came to Kolyan one night almost two weeks earlier, telling the then-Burgomaster that he wishes to wed ‘Tatyana’. Kolyan was confused by the statement as he knew nobody by that name… Yet he found bite marks on Ireenas neck the next morning, his staff fleeing the home before it was being attacked by monsters for days after. He feared that Strahd was after Ireena and he had no idea how to stop him…

Flicking back to the entry Ireena read, Summer also finds out that Kolyan was going to see the leader of the Vistani, Madame Eva, on the day he found Ireena. He never saw her as he had taken Ireena home instead of continuing his trek…

Slate searched Kolyans room, finding a map of Barovia hidden under the seat of a chair at his small desk in the bedroom. He hides when he hears Ireena and Ismark coming to the same floor to go their rooms and retire for the day.

The rest of the party relaxes for a while, Summer reading through the journal with Tariel to see what else can be gleaned from the Kolyan and his families last few years together while Abe tries to assist Torbin in the kitchen with the cooking to impress Ireena before Torbin kicked him out of the kitchen. Slate and Francesco drank wine in the lounge as Summer caught them up to speed on her findings in the book.

Hearing Ismark returning to the group, Summer hid the journal before the new Burgomaster arrived. Now that it was morning proper, he wanted to get things ready for the party to take Ireena to Vilaki.

Torbin asks about a map on how to get there but Ismark tells him that Strahd had banned the creation of map for Barovia and had them all destroyed, it’s a death sentence or worse to be found with one, Slate pushing the map he found deeper into his bag…

Ismark warns the party to avoid any paths that turn them north as the road more than likely leads to Castle Ravenloft.

As he continues to give instructions for the road, there’s a knock at the door that Ismark excuses himself for.

A lady cries to Ismark that her daughter is missing, yet Ismarks response to this surprises the party as he says he will stop by her place a little later today to chat before ushering her away.

Seeing the parties confusion, Ismark explains that the lady’s name is Mary and that her daughter has been missing for a while now. Apparently Mary had kept her daughter locked up in her home in fear of her daughter being stolen. Hard to know what has actually happened…

Abe and Tariel stayed at the house to help prepare for the journey while the rest of the group went shopping.

Finding the general store the group heads inside to look around. Torbin asks to purchase some armor, the shopkeep leading the Gnome to the childrens section.

Scoffing at the giant price mark up, Torbin is ready to leave the store…

Until Francesco asks the shopkeep if he would like to purchase a baby dragon. Then looks at Summer.

Seeing this as light hearted humor, Summer decides to play along. When the store owner asks to see the ‘dragon’ breath fire, Torbin sneakily makes Summer cough smoke!

The man somehow believes the Kobold that walked into his store is a dragon!

He tells Fran and Slate that his uncle in Vilaki would be able to purchase their pet for 2000 gold and is willing to put down 200 golds worth of his wares as the 10% deposit.

He then asks his hulking assistant to grab the brand to mark Summer as their property, the Kobold dashes out the door and crashes into a pie cart being driven by an old woman!

As the boys sorted out their ‘payment’ from the shopkeep, Summee used her freedom to go to the Church of the MorningLord and check up on Donavich. 

Arriving at the church, Summer finds the distraught Father on his bed drinking his troubles away. He talks about how he doesn’t have anything left with his son gone and his god supposedly abandoned him and this land…

The little Monk sits with him and tries to comfort him with the collapsable skeleton toy she got from the Vistani circus. Donavich is surprised to see Summer is in possession of a Blinsky toy if she hasnt been to Valaki. Summer takes away Donavicha wine and tries to encourage him that things could improve for him, but accidentally reveals that Doru had been sent by Strahd to torment him. Aaaand Doru is depressed again, falling into a drunken slumber with Summers toy in her arms.

Feeling guilty that she can’t help him, Summer leaves the Chruch and bumps into the Pie Lady again. The old lady offers Summer a Dream Pie, a pie that can make someone feel happy regardless of how low they feel.

Torbin, Francesco and Slate exit the general store with their cut of selling Summer only to see her buying a pie from the lady before running toward the Church. But as they wonder what their new selling point is doing, they watch a mother and her daughter talking to the pie lady. The pie lady passes the mother a pie before grabbing the daughter by the scruff of the neck and forcing her under the cart.

Wait, what?

 Finishing her prayers to the MorningLord, Tariel arrives downstairs in the tavern to find her companions no longer in the building.
Heading out into the street, she notices the group walking through the street toward the base of the mountain with the castle that overlooks the town of Barovia.

How come she didn’t notice the castle when they arrived? Questions for later as she gives chase before turning back to the tavern to pick up her halberd THEN giving chase to the party!

As the rest of the party prepare to leave the Church of the MorningLord to retrieve Tariel, she arrives at the door to their surprise!

Father Donavich is excited to meet another worshipper and is too eager for Tariels aid, almost opening the door to the basement until Slate stops him so he can explain the situation to the Half-Elf.

Francesco casts Zone of Truth to make sure Donavich doesn’t lie, but the Father notices the spell and doesn’t seem to be affected by it. Tobin however has to drag Summer away from the zone as she starts talking about punching Doru.
As he recounts the events to the party, he brings up that Doru had said he escaped Strahds dungeon when he first arrived back home.

Hearing Donavich’s plight, Tariel is willing to assist him on the condition that he knows that there is a chance they may end up killing his son if things get out of hand.

Tariel wants to see Doru first hand, Fracesco agreeing to cast a Sleep spell on Doru if he tries to do anything. Donavich opens the door a crack for Tariel to peer inside. seeing the boy hunched in the far corner of the room, Tariel uses her Detect Good and Evil ability to glean that Doru is indeed undead. Hearing Tariels voice, Doru stands up and scrambles for the door! Francesco casts his Sleep spell but it didn’t work! Donavich and Slate slam the door shut before Doru could reach Tariel, leaving the boy to cry and wail in hunger behind it.

Tariel informs Donavich of the fate of Doru: his son is an undead being. As Donavich starts to come to terms with this news, Francesco notices the fathers wounds on his arms had opened again and uses his magic to heal them as best he can.

Donavich is surprised by this, claiming that Fran must be a cleric despite the Elven Bards denial. Donavich agrees to do the ceremony for the Burgomaster as long as the party agrees to try and help contain Doru while they’re here. Agreeing to this, at the partys request, Donavich goes to take some rest.

After casting Sleep to help Donavich fall asleep, he begins using candle wax from one of the candelabras in the church to try to block the noise of Dorus screams for Donavich. Tariel has to remind him to put the candles out first… Torbin decides to stay behind and keep an eye on things while the party gathered the Burgomasters body and his children.

Arriving at the Burgomasters home, the party realized none of them remembered the knock… Summer just bangs on the door, the door swinging open for the Kobold to have an arrow pointed at her face by Ismark! Seeing the party had returned, he invites them inside. After Tariel introduces herself to the siblings, the party explain the situation and the plan to take their fathers body to the church straight away. As much as they don’t like the idea, the siblings agree and get ready for the march across the town: Ireena dressing in armor for the precession as she wishes to take the lead.

Opening the door to the house with Slate, Francesco, Abe and Ismark carrying the coffin, Ireena declares to the empty streets that she won’t fear what comes ahead before she starts leading the precession down into the streets with Summer shadowing the brave girl. Tariel follows at the back of the group as night falls quickly around them as the begin their path through the desolate city streets.

Arriving on the main street of Barovia, a figure stands alone in the street cloaked before them. Ismark comments in terror that the Devil himself stands before them as a wave a fear and terror washes over the party. Strahd declares that he is only here to pay respects to the deceased before looking to the bewildered Ireena and stating they will be together again then he vanishes into the night.

Feeling the aura of dread wash away from them, Ireena berates the party for not attempting to attack Strahd. After Summer points out that Ireena didn’t do anything either, the precession continues through the streets. Ominous candlelights come to life as they walk down the streets, very few citizens exit their homes to bow in respect of the fallen man who once looked after their town. 

Arriving at the Church of the MorningLord once more, the party enter and set the coffin down in front of the alter before barricading the building. Ireena and Ismark bring up that it’s odd that no monsters had attacked the group on their way to the church but suspect because that is what Strahd wishes. For tonight at least…

Seeing as Donavich was still out like a light with Torbin locked in the room with him, the party dicuss what they should do with Doru. Francesco decides to fill a bowl with his own blood to try and negotiate with Doru into giving information. Fran accidentaly cuts into an artery in his arm, Tariel jumping in to quickly to heal the wound before Fran bleeds out too much.

With the scent of fresh blood in the air, Doru begins going berserk below! Tariel negotiates with Doru with the blood, offering half of the bowl for some information. Opening the door for a moment, Tariel lets Doru feed on the blood like a hungry animal.

With the door open, Fran casts his Zone of Truth on Doru. The undead boy is far too focused on the blood to notice the spell. Tariel pulls the bowl out of Dorus grasp and slams the door shut, leading immediately to Doru banging on the door again!

Tariel reminds him of the deal and begins asking the boy questions.

Doru tells the party about how he found his cell unlocked and he fled Castle Ravenloft. He regrets attacking his father when he arrived home, but he blames his hunger for blood and flesh.

He tries to tell the party something else, but some force stops him from speaking it… He begins talking to himself in a way that sounds like he was talking to a voice in his head. He begins yammering about how his only objective is to cause his father grief before falling into complete insanity behind the door.

Believing that there’s nothing they can do to save Doru, the party agree that it was time to kill the boy before they have the ceremony.

Tariel coats her halberd in Frans blood before Summer opens the door to the basement. Doru, who had hidden above the door, falls down to try and attack Tariel, who had used some of Francescos blood as warpaint, but falls straight onto her Halberd as he misses his swipe at her face.

Summer, standing under the impaled Doru, jumps out from underneath Tariels weapon and starts suddenly unleashing bolt of radiant light that catches her by surprises too as she only strikes Doru once with these three random energy blasts!

Seeing Doru is still stuck on the halberd, Slate and Abe strike with their weapons as well to try and down him! Doru pulls himself off the halberd, his wounds visibly trying to close themselves but the radiant energy from Summers attack seems to be making difficult!
He climbs along the walls and escapes into the main hall of the Church with the party giving chase, Abe and Slate striking as a pair on the fleeing boy!

As Ismark and Ireena turn to see Doru charging at them, the undead boy is brought to a sudden halt as Tariel drives her halberd brimming with divine smiting energy through the boys back!

Abe calls out that they need to decapitate the head to stop the undead from reviving, Ireena being far too eager to end one of Strahds minions accidently gets her sword stuck in Doros neck. Abe helps her remove her sword before hacking off the head like a real monster hunter would.

Wrapping up Dorus body, the party help lay it on the floor beside the Burgomasters coffin in preparation for a double funeral.

All that remains now is to wait for sunrise…

Tariel joins the party in the attic of the house while Slate heads downstairs to ask the children about the locked door in the attic.

Searching through the ring of keys Francesco found, Tariel manages to open the large locked door to find a children’s bedroom. In the center of the room lay two small bodies curled against each other in embrace, the remains of the two Durst children they met outside.

While Tariel begins to pray over the children’s remains, Summer starts rummaging through an old toy chest while Torbin and Francesco examined a dollhouse.

Summer is spooked by the ghost of the little boy as he tries to snatch the toys Summer found away from her, but his hands keep passing through them.

Summer starts putting the toys back, but not without teasing the child.

Francesco and Torbin are intercepted by the ghost of the young girl, Rose, as she’s worried they’d wreck her dollhouse.

After Francesco convinces her that to show her the dollhouse, she tells him that it’s a replica of the house they find themselves inside.

As Abe joins Torbin and Francesco at the dollhouse to look at it more closely, Rose tells them about how her Mother had locked them in their room the night they were going to deal with the monster. Apparently there were other visitors coming to the house that night to help, but Rose and her Brother were left in their room where they starved to death…

Rose asks the party to take her and her brothers remains to the burial grounds of the family.

Tariel uses her Divine Sense to see what she can pick up in the house, only to be blinded by the evil around her: the entire house.

As she comes to that realization, the party feels a shift in the house followed by a cry from downstairs.

Abe and Tariel gather the remains of the children while the rest of the party raced downstairs to find the windows and doors leading outside the house were barred shut with Slate unconcious on the floor of the main hall.

Francesco helps Slate up when Abe and Tariel catch up.

As the party discuss their next step, they notice a strange door had opened to reveal a staircase that seems to run all the from the top floor to below the main floor.

With Abe leading the way, the party climb the stairs down into a stone corridor. The place looks ancient with winding tunnels leading in different directions. Abe leads the party down one passage, but Summer pokes her head into a side passage to spot two Crypts that had been left ajar.

Torbin and Summer slip inside the crypts to find that one belongs to Walter, the baby the party came into the manor to find, and the other was left unnamed…

Abe and Tariel enter a room that appears to have been a makeshift sleeping area.

While investigating a bed, Abe is attacked by a swarm of bugs that bite into his flesh as he flails around and falls over.

As Abe cries out, Tariel attempts to ward off the bugs with her flaming torch.

Hearing the cries from Abe, Summer bolts into the room and starts kicking Abe in an attempt to kill the bugs. Francesco, Torbin and Slate follow in, helping debug Abe before they continue onwards.

Torbin leads the party into a chamber with a well in the center with several bedrooms detached from the area.

After breaking into some of the chests of the rooms, the party find some old articles of clothing, coins in a pouch fashioned out of human skin, a hairbrush with silver brush hairs, an elixir of healing and 3 argot stones.

Seeing Abe’s strange bite marks he received from the bugs, Tariel heals the wound and removed the negative effects it was having on the ranger.

While the party was exploring the bedrooms further, Summer wandered off into a new passage and fell into a spike pit-trap, barely calling out to the party before she fell in and began bleeding out.

With the combined efforts of the party, the manage to pull their Kobold… companion(? pet?) out of the pit and heal her up.

While patching up their mini-monk, the party hear chanting coming from the passage Summer found.

Deciding to investigate, Fran, Summer and Torbin jump over the spikes before helping Tariel and Abe from falling into the trap with some rope planning.

Following the chanting, Francesco believes they’re saying ‘He is the ancient, he is the land’ over and over as the group arrives at a barred gate showing a shallow pool of water surrounding some strange altar in the center.

Unable to see how to open the gate, the party try another passage that leads to some kind of prison overlooking the pool room.

After Fran jumps down into the water, the chanting suddenly stops.

While Fran and Summer fail to try to open the gate now that they’re on the other side, Tariels Divine Sense reveals that the altar in the center is radiating with evil energy…

The whole party gets involved in opening the gate, eventually getting it open for Torbin and Summer to get through while the others crawl under.

Seeing as the water is too deep for her, Summer climbs onto Abe’s shoulders to explore the rest of the room.

Torbin, with Lancelot the dog in tow, climbs onto the altar while the rest of the party is spread out over the room.

Suddenly figures appeared in the viewing areas above, chanting ‘One must die’ over and over.

The party began discussing using Lancelot as the sacrifice, Torbin began dragging the dog away in an attempt to keep him from harm.

The voices of the figures change as they call forth a demon to slaughter the party.

In the tunnel Abe and Summer stand next to, a large fleshy form begins to emerge and enter the chamber…