Blazing Sun Festival

## Summary

Talice and Warwick begin arguing about the situation at the Wizard's Winery. Edmund explains the situation to the innkeep as Warwick keeps pulling out thorns. Talice remembers that Needle Blights are great sentries but slow.

They talk with the innkeep about needing to find something in Vallaki. They learn about Strahd's true love, Tatyana and how he fell into despair. They also learn about the items needed to kill Strahd, a sword, a stake and sunlight in a bottle.

The innkeeper decides to let them stay for free whenever they're in town and advises them to help townspeople. Before they leave, Sorin Firewing walks in battered and bruised dealing with terrors for the past few days. The innkeeper gives him some soup as he talks about hearing cackling.

Sorin is anxious for some time off so the Innkeeper recommends the festival of the blazing sun that's happening in Vallaki right now. The group heads to the festival leaving Sorin to rest up with Salem. They follow the decorations to an unhappy festival. A guard snickers at the festival's leader, the Burgomaster, and his clumsy attempts and said Burgomaster decides to arrest him and the party.

Talice steps in revealing her noble lineage. The guard leaves with only a fine and the Burgomaster talks about how everyone's afraid of Strahd and how he's throwing these festivals to cheer everyone up. After a comment on how Jade is missing, the party mentions on how it's not nice to force others to feel how you want them to feel. They start making things better by having Talice turn into a dog and promising dogs later. Edmund then plays bagpipes to surprisingly good effect while Krik asks kids to play fetch because he's bored. Edmund suggests Krik and Warwick decides to go first disguised as the Burgomaster. Warwick wins surprisingly and the festival goes well.

The party makes their way to the stockyard to rent the storage shed for two explorer's packs, parts of the priest's pack and bagpipes. Warwick gets a scratch on his chin from an insensitive comment directed at Talice. Talice upgrades her armor to studded leather while Warwick looks to open up the carnival wagon only to trigger a trap and get poked with poison. Edmund and Talice heal him up with some passive aggressive body language.

Warwick tries to go for the trap again and fails when Sorin mentions the definition of insanity. Edmund pulls Warwick by the ear for the last time convincing him to finally stop. They head back to the inn to find the owner of the cart after Warwick gets a glare from Edmund.

They arrive at the inn to find someone new in the tavern matching the shop owner's description. Talice spots a monkey with him and she's overjoyed. The man is a carnival ringmaster and thinks the animals don't think too much. It turns out the monkey is safe and secure with the man who goes by Rictavio. Talice wants his help with the circus in exchange for a favor. Rictavio points them in the direction of the church while Warwick tries to get Rictavio to bring his animals. Unfortunately he has to leave on personal business. Edmund suggests hiring them as bodyguards after the business with the church is concluded. Rictavio is a fan of the idea after looking at the party's diversity.

The group heads for the church with Sorin, Warwick and Edmund not trusting Rictavio. Talice meets Milivoj, a caretaker of the church graveyard. Krik asks for Milivoj to bring the priest to them and after a successful intimidation, Milivoj obliges bringing them to the priestess who's in the middle of a sermon.

After the sermon the priestess talks about St. Andrel, the founder of the church and how his bones were stolen. They keep Strahd at bay and the priestess suspects Milivoj but tells the party not to hurt him much to Krik's dismay. After a failed talk with the boy at the altar, Warwick and Talice join the rest of the group and find Milivoj out back picking weeds. Edmund begins helping to pull out weeds and talks with Milivoj. Talice catches his lie and pulls out that he told Henrik, the coffinmaker, about the bones' location for money to support his family. Krik thinks he's lying so Edmund gives Milivoj a melted ring for any more information. Milivoj mentions that Henrik had been talking to some strange people in black cloaks that Sorin heard about. Krik gets excited that he gets to punch something.

They tell the priestess of the situation and get an insurance policy for the town in case they don't come back. The party hurries to the Coffin Maker's shop but not before Warwick forges a letter of law in exchange for three silver. As they approach Warwick polymorphs into one of the faces from his past as Edmund senses both evil intentions and the undead in the shop. They try the door but the coffin maker says they're closed. Krik spots a back door but nobody listens until Warwick spots the door. Krik tries to get a punch in but misses. They tiptoe inside to find that the back room is filled with hollow coffins. They sneak around but Henrik spots Warwick much to Talice's dismay. The group surround him though and find out the bones are upstairs.

Henrik tells the party that he was approached by someone named Holst who promised him good business. He also mentions the seven vampires upstairs which leaves the party in a predicament. Edmund suggests Warwick transforming into Henrik so Warwick takes Henrik's clothes to help complete the transformation. He sneaks around but he takes too long so the party comes up and goes through the other passage. Thanks to Talice they find a secret compartment in the wardrobe and find a skull and 42 silver pieces.

The party hears a ruckus downstairs to find guards from the festival on the main floor. They're at the coffin maker's shop to arrest Henrik so they use this opportunity to wrestle out any details from Henrik. They find the rest of the bones and head back to the church. The party finds out from Milivoj that the church has been attacked. The group hurry inside with Warwick sneaking through the back. Krik, Sorin and Edmund fight off vampire spawn with Rictavio's help. Talice and Sorin put the holy bones back where they belong with Milivoj's help.

Before Talice can regroup, she has an encounter with Strahd Von Zarovich himself. He says he'll keep an eye on the party before noticing how calm Talice is. He says that she has passed as he vanishes. Talice reveals that she was actually scared but trying to act calm. She tells the group about her encounter. The priestess goes on about Strahd thinking that everything in this land belongs to him.

## Notable Events

* AeonOfDreams and Keyframe could not make it to this session
* GoldenFox arrived late to the stream
* The players can now see places they have been
* The party agrees to help find holy bones that protect the church
* The party finds the bones that have been seperated
* Strahd makes his first appearance to Talice