After escaping the Death House, the party hears more sobbing. They investigate the sound. On their journey they notice a couple of building are emanating light but they ignore them at first. They find a house, boarded up. They knock upon the door but no one answers. The party they decides to head to the building that has a sign distinguishing it as a tavern. Inside they find a barkeep, three jovial guys at a table and a lonely depressed looking man, drinking his despair in isolation. The party asks the barkeep a few questions and are met with a drab, hauntingly absent visage of a human. His answers are like stone. Emotionless other than despair and apathy. The barkeep does point the party in the direction of Ismark, the Lesser.
The party decides to engage with Ismark who gladly invites them to sit with him. He orders more wine and then asks the party if they will escort his sister to a different town. He says Vallaki is said to be beyond to grip of Strahd, the devil. The ruler of Barovia has taken interest in his sister and Ismark wants her to be safe. The party agrees and they head to Ismark's mansion.
At the mansion, the party finds the house dilapidated and overgrown with weeds. They find tracks made by large wolves and humanoid foot prints, the walls of the house scorched with black soot. When they knock on the door they hear a frightened female voice. Ismark asks Irevena to open the door. She does and the party finds a body lying in a poorly made wooden coffin in the nearby drawing room, the room rank with decay and rot. The body is of the Burgermaster of Barovia, their father. She talks of how Strahd had visited her, showing fang marks upon her neck. Wolves and Strahd's men then began attacking the mansion, night after night. Two days prior, her father succumbed to the stress and died. It is decided that the body should be buried at the abbey just outside of town.
The party makes their way to the church and hears screaming. As they enter the holy site, they hear the screaming of something from beneath the floor. They also hear someone praying in the main hall. They investigate the main area to find a priest desperately praying for help from his god. The party asks what is in the basement. The holy man, Danovich, says it is his sone. A year ago, a wizard in a black coat had gathered some of the townspeople to march upon Strahd's castle and destroy him. Instead, Danovich's son had returned, changed. He locked his son in the basement and has been trying to save his son's soul ever since. The god of light has forsaken Barovia. The town brought the curse of Strahd upon themselves. The voice from below yells out how hungry it is. The party decides best to not provoke the thing. They instead turn to burying the body they had brought. The carry the corpse to the cemetery and Danovich makes a prayer asking the gods to protect the mayor's soul into the afterlife.
The party returns to the mansion, gathers a few items and heads out of town on the road to Vallaki. They come to a crossroads with gallows on one corner and a sign on the other pointing out directions. When they head toward Vallaki, the party notices there is now a body hanging from the gallows. Upon inspection it is the dead body of Irevena. The Irevena with the party screams and shrinks away in horror. Bjorn goes to let down the body and it evaporates as if a cloud dispersed by wind.
The party continues on and finds another massive gateway similar to the one when they first entered the domain of Strahd. The take camp next to the wall to have one side defended. They take watches and all is uneventful until the last watch with Gilley on duty. She sees a figure come out of the mist and slowly looms toward her. She alerts her allies and they begin chopping at the dead lumbering thing. An arm comes off, then another, then a leg and then it stops moving. The DM dismayed that it did not get a chance to make an impact on the setting.
Eventually morning comes and they reach Vallaki soon after passing a waterfall. They make their way to the Blue Water Inn and book some rooms. They head to the drinking room only to find a cranky woman and her two kids cleaning up the room. They ask for whiskey and ale but wine is the only selection on the menu. They find wolf steak is also available and how two hunters have successfully brought back the flanks of the dire beasts. They are told wolves and bats are the servants of Strahd and that ravens are their protectors. The old woman then says maybe more people will be in later in the day and to come back later.
The party strolls through town, past a depressed house than sighs with sadness. The come to a toy makers shop and decide to go in. Poor Blinsky is there to greet them. He recites a greeting that sounds rehearsed ad nauseam. Then he offers the party a selection of his best toys. Gilley decides that she would like small dummy of Strahd. Blinky has his pet monkey retrieve other toys. Bjorn takes a tiny dwarven warhammer set into back of a baby's skull. Vannan reluctantly purchases a stuffed animal of a dead wolf pup, tongue hanging out, missing tufts of hair and its guts splayed out underneath its belly. They learn of a traveler who helps Blinksy, a henchman of Vallaki's burgermaster who threatens Blinsky and also has him make dolls. He has hired Blinsky to make a doll that matches Irevena.
They leave the toy house, suddenly realizing they should not have separated themselves from the siblings. They make their way to the burgermaster's mansion and meet with Ivanovich. He says he saw the siblings and suggested they look for a dwelling on the far west side of Vallaki. He says that the wall around Vallaki protects the citizens from Strahd as doing hope. "All is well" he drones over and over. He tells the party that a festival will take place in three days. He also asks the party to take his son out into the real world. This teenager refuses to leave the house and the mayor thinks the party could teach him a few lessons. He pays them with a bag of gold and wishes them the best... and to return his son alive or pay the consequences. Though he does show a sign of relief seeing his son leaving the mansion.
Up next... Here comes the Grim.
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