Session Nine

***The sky overhead is thick with clouds, blocking out the sun, though there is more than enough light to see. What you see is is this: a village, every building old and damaged. A human woman who introduced herself as Ireena the burgomaster, watching you all with a sympathetic expression and dark circles under her eyes. Two women, down the path to the south, one visibly much older than the other even at a distance. And even further, a castle looms over the village from atop a massive column of rock. As you look up and up at the castle, you see a trio of birds flying westward, away from the castle. In the distance, you hear a roll of thunder, and a cold breeze sweeps through the streets of Barovia.***

## The Party

* Alyssandra, the Human Paladin/Warlock.
* Dakira, the Dragonborn Bard.
* Kalil, the Half-Elf Sea Sorcerer.
* Mirarook, the Half-Orc Monk.
* Tansy, the Tiefling Light Cleric.

## Beyond Death House

The party accepted Ireena's help, and she suggested that if they were already going to the Church of the Morninglord, they might make a stop by her home first, explaining that her father had died recently and needed to be buried as well. Agreeing, and not wishing to make two trips, the party told Ireena to lead the way.

Before they could get far, however, a commotion down the street drew their attention.

### Disturbance

Farther down the street, the oldest of the two women had grabbed at the younger one, and was holding tightly despite her efforts to get away. Ireena hurried over to the two women with Dakira close behind, and the older one released her hold as she saw them approaching, returning to her wheelbarrow. When Ireena asked what was going on, the older woman grinned and said she was just trying to help her get back home. The other woman, who was apparently named Mary, said nothing and merely shied away while staring at the ground.

   Eventually the old woman left, despite suspicions, claiming she had little ones waiting for her, and soon she and her basket and bag filled wheelbarrow were out of sight. At Alyssandra's prompting, Ireena explained that the old woman was an occasional visitor to all the settlements in Barovia, according to the what she knew from her father and the other burgomasters. Meanwhile, Mary stopped sobbing long enough to focus on Dakira and Alyssandra, asking if they had seen a little girl, and the party noticed a small doll in her hands. Ireena gently told Mary that the party members were "newcomers" and probably hadn't seen anyone yet, which Alyssandra and Dakira confirmed, and Ireena asked the others if it wouldn't be too much trouble to drop Mary at home before moving on to the burgomaster's manor, assuring them it was on the way.

The party agreed, following Ireena down the gravel roads as she escorted the still-crying Mary to her home, passing a number of other homes that had been boarded up or shuttered tightly and a large building with signs announcing it as "Bildrath’s Mercantile" before arriving at a two-story house with boarded up windows, though the front door was wide open. Ireena promised to send Parriwimple to check on her before Mary hurried into her home, not bothering to close the door behind her, and before long the party heard her begin to hear her weeping again, the sound flooding the otherwise silent streets.

Dakira asked Ireena if the girl Mary had mentioned was her daughter, and Ireena lowered her voice to explain that Mary had always been a strange person but hadn't been like this before Gertruda, her daughter, had ran away. That itself was obviously terrible enough especially, she explained, with how the village had been under more danger than usual, but Mary had also taken to wandering the village and areas beyond it, weeping loudly. When asked why the girl might have run, or if she'd left any sign where she'd gone, Ireena could only guess that perhaps Gertruda had simply wished to leave, as Mary normally kept her locked up inside the house. When asked when she ran away, Ireena hesitantly admitted that it had been hard to keep track of the days recently, but that it was perhaps a week ago.

The party was varying levels of sympathetic, and Dakira brought up that Ireena had mentioned more than a few times how the village had been more dangerous lately, and asked what was going on. Ireena began to do her best to explain, cutting herself off a few times as she began to lose her temper, but managed to say that there had been attacks on the village, that Lord Strahd had an interest in something, and that the attacks seem to have stopped in these last few days after her father died but that no one in the village would help them with the body or taking it to for a burial in spite of "everything our father did for them" before needing to stop and calm herself. She promised the party she would explain, but that it was not a conversation to be had on the streets, and the party accepted this, asking her to lead on.

### Disrepair

The party followed her down to the end of the road, where they found themselves in front of a mansion that had not just clearly seen its better days but had likely forgotten them by now. The thick bars of the iron fence that surrounded it had seemingly all been bent or dented, and the gate hung open, one half missing entirely while the other half swung freely at the slightest breeze, clanging and squeaking as it did. The yard was being overtaken by weeds and mud, and in that mud the party could clearly see footprints - humanoid and animal - all headed in the direction of the house, and the yard closest to the house was especially trampled. The house itself bore countless claw marks and deep gouges, some much lower to the ground than others, and large black scorch marks stained the walls. There was not even a shard of glass left in the windows, and the shutters had been ripped away entirely, and the planks of wood set over the windows were all visibly chipped and cracked.

Ireena announced that they were here and took hold of the swinging gate, holding it open for the party before striding up to the door, while the party stood back, looking up at the house.

As they did, Kalil began to stir, and spoke up, commenting that the mansion looked terrible.

Alyssandra immediately dropped him to the ground and swung her scythe free to threaten him, as he had been dead, and they all knew it. Beside her, Dakira also drew her weapon and, startled, demanded answers. Kalil merely told them to get the fuck away from him, which they did not. Alyssandra announced, with some confusion, that he did not show any signs of being undead, but had obviously been dead until just now. Kalil conjured a flock of illusionary crows and threw them at Alyssandra, who merely glowered at him and pressed her scythe closer, ignoring his threat that the next ones would "leave a mark" to once more demand an explanation. Kalil only said that he got better, and that it was the only answer he had for them.

Ireena, who had returned to the group after hearing the commotion, uncorked a flask of holy water and splashed Kalil with it, expressing her own suspicions and confusions about Kalil's new status, but as nothing happened and Alyssandra could not detect anything, all of them stood down, letting Kalil stand up. Dakira asked what Ireena splashed him with, and Ireena explained that it was some of the holy water the priest had given them as "the best help he could offer." Dakira didn't fully understand, but repeated Ireena's earlier comment that this was probably not something to discuss out on the streets, and after glaring at Kalil for another moment Ireena agreed and went back to the door.

After knocking, a slot in the door slid aside, revealing a pair of dark eyes that eyed them warily and a young man's voice cautiously asked if it was safe to open the door. Ireena glanced over her shoulder at Kalil before saying yes, telling the man - her brother, Ismark - to open the door. He looked over the party once more before stepping away, and the sound of many things being moved and unhitched came from the other side of the door before it swung open just enough to allow people inside.

### Disambiguation

The mansion's interior was not much better than the exterior. Furniture had been dismantled and scrapped, obviously the source of the wood covering the windows, or wedged up against various doors and stairways, and more lay broken and shattered in piles here and there, likely previous failures. As the party stepped inside, Ismark immediately set to re-locking the door and pushing furniture back into place as a barricade. Holy symbols had been both painted onto and carved into nearly every available surface, including much of the furniture used in these barriers. On the floor of a room nearby, the party could see a human man that was clearly older than both Ireena and Ismark laying inside a coffin, and the wilting flowers on all sides of him did very little to disguise the scent of death. A small handful of weapons were visible, such as a pair of swords near the door, and a crossbow propped up against the coffin in the other room.

Ireena settled into a chair, one of the few visible pieces of furniture that had not been cannibalized, and slumped forward in it, elbows resting on her knees as she buried her face in her hands for a moment before she slowly dragged them down her face. Finishing with the door, Ismark watched her with concern. Dakira waited before asking Ireena for information about what was going on, especially anything she could potentially explain about what had happened to Kalil, and Ireena agreed that she should, as she was the burgomaster, and pushed herself up into a more proper posture, folding her hands in her lap and staring blankly ahead as she tried to hide her obvious exhaustion.

In a flat, formal tone that she only occasionally slipped from, she began to explain that she didn't know what had happened to Kalil, though she had heard of other outsiders who were brought back from death or the brink of death, but had never seen it herself, and most of the stories she had heard of talked about the Abbey in Krezk. She hesitated for a second before giving the second bit of news, explaining that as burgomaster it is her responsibility to tell them that they are trapped here now, as only the Vistani are able to move into and out of the mists surrounding the land of Barovia whenever they please, and everyone who attempts to venture into the mists otherwise is always either turned around and exits the way they came, or die inside the mists.Alyssandra asked who the Vistani were, and if they were the strange tieflings she and some of the others had encountered. Ireena nodded, saying that others had called them "tieflings" before. She said that she had "heard Vallakovich once mention they serve Strahd himself" but that she wasn't sure how true that was.

   Ireena looked over at her brother before saying there was one final thing to discuss, and her formal demeanor dropped entirely as she said simply that she and Ismark needed their help. Kalil asked what they needed help with, and Ismark motioned to the coffin in the other room, saying they needed help with their father, but Ireena added that she needed help with Ismark as well. The siblings briefly had a small argument about how Ismark didn't want to leave his sister alone and especially not alone with a dead body, while Ireena snapped that the village doesn't even have guards and that she wants to get him away from the castle at the very least.

The argument had the tone of one that had been had more than once before, but was cut short when Dakira mentioned the story she remembered the Vistani telling before she had arrived, something about a wizard and a vampire. Ireena said that the story was a true one, and that a wizard had come through Barovia "acting as though he had all the power and brains you could ever need," managed to gather two dozen people from the various settlements to storm the castle with him, and they were all soundly defeated, with the priest's son being the only one who ever returned, but he didn't return unchanged. Her tone made it very clear what exact she thought of this wizard and his plan.

Kalil asked why Ismark was in danger, and Ireena returned to the matter at hand. She shook her head, frustration obvious, and explained that she couldn't be sure of the specifics, but that Lord Strahd himself had taken a particular interest in her brother. He had been sending bats, wolves, undead, and that even he himself had been inside their home. As she broke off to reign in her temper, Ismark's expression went blank as he reached a hand up to his neck, but shook himself when Ireena announced to the party that she wanted to move Ismark as far from the castle as she could, preferably to the Abbey of Saint Markovia in Krezk. Ismark protested that he couldn't just leave their father like this, and that he didn't wish to leave her either. Ireena ignored him this time.

Alyssandra informed Ireena that if what she said was true, then this Lord Strahd needed to be destroyed immediately. Ireena told her flatly that she wouldn't be the first to have tried, and that the midnight march was proof enough of that. Upon being asked what the midnight march was, Ireena and Ismark told the party that every night at midnight, glowing figures would appear to rise from the local graveyard and begin to march up to Castle Ravenloft, where they would then climb the towers and throw themselves down from the tops of the towers. Ireena added that according to the notes her father had left behind, many of these figures matched the descriptions of outsiders who had died in Barovia.

Alyssandra simply said that none of those had been servitors of the Raven Queen.

## Things Gained

* One (1) Kalil
* Information
* Many, many new concerns

## Developments

The party has encountered "Mad" Mary and a strange very old woman with a wheelbarrow.

The party learned from Ireena that Mary's daughter, Gertruda, ran away.

Kalil rose again, and does not give off any signs of being undead.

The party has gained entry into the burgomaster's mansion.

The party has met Ireena and Ismark, and learned their story.

The party has been asked to help provide Ismark and Ireena's father a proper burial.

The party has been asked to help move Ismark to somewhere hopefully safer to get away from Lord Strahd.

The party knows about the midnight march.