Near the end of this session note, I typed out the letters that we found in order to make it easier to read and search. Several words I just typed what it said but the words didn't make any since. I did the best I could.

This session begins with a battle with a creature that seemed to be comprised of garbage and rotting meat and body parts. Quite gross! Misty launches the first attack. She moves next to the steps next to the creature and strikes it. Her attack was followed by Magic Missiles from Snoggly, and then a Guiding Bolt from Kyana. Next up was Dain who moved in and with advantage, and hit the creature with his battle axe. Rinn leaps from the wall to the water below and moves in for a strike. After his hit, he disengages and moves a safe distance away.

It was then that the creature responded to the attacks by slamming Misty and then pulling her into itself. It moved around Dain but not away from him. It seems it's sight's are set on Kyana. Snoggly sends more missiles it's way. Kyana brings forth fire from a burning hands spell. It strikes it but it seems it is resistant to fire damage as it is very wet. Dain looks for something of Misty, but nothing of her is visible. He channels a divine smite into his next strike and hits him with the axe and with additional radiant damage. Dain then moves to interpose himself between Kyana and the creature. Rinn moves to a place of advantage and attempts to strike the monster but fails.

The creature strikes Dain once with a goodly amount of force but Dain takes the hit and remains standing. Misty fails her second death save. Snoggly pulls forth a page from the spell book we found earlier and casts a Magic Missile from it. Kyana tries another Guiding Bolt but fails to hit the target. Dain attempts to strike it again and manages to infuse the strike with a divine smite again. It was a goodly amount of damage but the creature still stands, defiant and quite terrifying. Rinn attempts to cast Burning Hands and does damage but because of it's wetness, it was not what he had hoped for.

The creature strikes at Dain again, knocking him some distance into the water. He was face down and unconsious. Misty fails her last death save. Snoggly casts Mage Armor in an attempt give himself some protection. Kyana casts Sacred Flame on the monster, and reaches down to Dain and pulls his head out of the water. Dain misses his first death save. Rinn moves in and takes Dain's place interposing himself between Kyana and the monster. He hits the monster but it still stands.

The monster swipes at Rinn but though the damage was great, he manages to remain standing. Snoggly moves in from the side and attempts to strike it with his quarter staff but fails. Kyana pulls her bow out and takes a final shot at him. The arrow disappears into the mass and the creature begins to shake as Misty's body is ejected from the body along with the baby Walter. It then starts falling apart as maggots begin pouring out of it.

Dain succeeds on a death save. The creature dissolves and crumbles. Rinn searches Misty's corps for the elixir that she used to help him earlier. Snoggly attempts to pump Misty's chest, to what end, no one is sure. Kyana moves to assist Snoggly. Dain rolls another death save but I can't hear the results. I think he succeeds. Rinn finds the potion that Misty used before on him. He applies one portion of the potion to Dain and he wakes. Snoggly's attempts at CPR fail.

The chanting in the background keeps droning on, “One must die!”. Dain moves to Misty and attempts to lay on hands. She is healed some but still dead. Rinn attempts to use the last portion of the potion which heals her some more but still doesn't bring her back. Although, in his mind, he hears her berating him for wasting her potion. This cursed place allows for such things. Snoggly attempts the CPR but fails again. Kyana attempts the CPR but fails as well. She prays fervently. Snoggly appears to be struggling with a mental dilemma. Rinn remembers the stuff he got from the chest upstairs and begins pouring through it for anything that might help us.

Snoggly wrestles with his dilemma and it appears he finally succumbed to it. He moves to grab Lancelot and brings him to the pedestal and sacrifices him by bashing it with his staff. Kyana and Dain work to use CPR to bring her back but again fail. Rinn finally finds the two scrolls that he took from the chest in the hidden room upstairs and hands them to Kyana to see if either of those could help. One was a revivify and upon using it Misty snaps awake with a terrible scream. Dain and Kyana subdue her and calm her, letting her know that she is safe once more.

Now that things have calmed down, we noticed the chanting has stopped. Maybe it was because we won or maybe it was because of the sacrifice that Snoggly performed.

We take Walter and Lancelot to Walter's tomb and place them there. We go back upstairs to the main house and see that the house has aged rapidly. It is in danger of collapsing. The group started spreading out again to check a few last things but find that most of the items in the house were also old and rotting.

Misty moved to Snoggly to thank him for the bold move he made in the attempt to save her. The only thing we found in the study was some wine glasses, very old. There was nothing else in the house so we walked out of the front door. Dain and Kyana lifted the gate by hand and everyone moved away from the house.

Haldar heard us and came up to us. He has a stranger with him. He introduces us to Zanfyr. Zanfyr greets us and we him. We ask him how he got here. His story is not unlike ours. He awoke here with no knowledge of where here is nor how he got here.

We took a look at the paperwork that we removed from the house as we heard the house slowly collapse. Deeds, a will, a letter from Strahd von Zarovich, a suicide note from Mr. Durst. A letter from Mrs. Durst about her husbands adulterous affair. The notes are documented below.

Rinn hadn't considered it but afterward, wanders if the nurse was the other half of the adultery. It would explain her being stabbed to death and stuffed in a chest.

Everyone spends time to see what we've collected from the house and distribute items to the appropriate persons. Then we took a short rest. After the short rest, we begin making our way further down the road. The buildings have all collapsed now.

It's dark in the woods and after a couple of miles, we are still in the woods. In talking, we realize that none of us traveled here. We were all somewhere else and woke up here. We've traveled another 4 miles or so and we are still in the woods. Misty starts trying to catch sight of Haldar but can't seem to spot him. Concerned, she quietly calls out for him and he pops out of the woods. She told him she just called out to him to make sure he was okay. He returns to the woods and Rinn tries to maintain a Message spell with Haldar so he can communicate with us should something need to be communicated.

When it starts getting later, Rinn tries to determine if we might be coming close to exiting the woods. The woods does seem to be thinning a little and maybe we are getting close to coming out of this in a couple of miles or so. Haldar agreed that if we were home, he would concur but out here, he is not sure. Meanwhile we decide to continue on to see if we can finally get out of these woods. After another couple of miles, we do see the woods clearing out onto some plains. We picked a place to camp, lighted a camp fire, set up a watch, and spent the night. Misty takes the first watch and Haldar sits some distance away and watches.

There is a low line of constant fog and mist here. The sky is overcast, no stars or moon are showing. To the east, the looming forest we just came through. To the west, is fairly open plain. To the north, it is open plain for about four miles or so and the woods continue on around. To the south, basically gentle hills for about four miles and then it breaks into jagged hills and continues on. Misty listens but doesn't hear anything near by.

When her time ends, she returns to the camp and wakes Rinn and he takes the rest of the watch. While he watches, he notices the distinct lack of the sounds of bugs. He does hear the occasional wolf in the distance and there is a light breeze but nothing else.

Kyana is studying the paperwork that they picked up, looking for clues and information. She became curious about what Snog was drinking and snuck over to sniff what was in the bottle. It was strong. She put it back down and put some more wood on the fire. She continued walking around the fire and checking on everyone. As the morning started breaking, she starts making breakfast. Everyone chips in some items to assist. She pondered what the Tabaxi eats and more about her habits.

They eat a nice meal, wake Snog and let him have his first drink of the day. Misty offers him a yellow potion to help with his hangover issues. He's not interested. We looked around and we can see some more road now. The road is travelled some but not much to note there. The continue on for about eight miles or so and Haldar notices something odd in the grass to our front and right, movement of someone hiding behind a stone. The group stops while Haldar moves forward to see what is there. He sees a female with a bow. He introduces himself suggesting that he means her no harm. She is a little dirty but otherwise looked fine. She lowered her bow and introduced herself, Alexa Pavolitov of Barovia. Haldar tries to get some information about where we are and tells her where we came from. She says, we are seeking a child, Gurtruda, a woman perhaps 18 years old. She asks if we've seen her. She has been missing for about a week. We had not seen her. More people start popping out from behind other stones and trees. As they move down to here we are, we moved up to where Haldar was.

They seemed quite surprised to see Elves. Apparently that is an oddity. When they see Misty, they get very concerned and raise their weapons and question why we are traveling with her. Haldar and Snoggly move to calm their fears and assure them that Misty is not a demon or a danger to them. They calmed down and lowered their weapons. Snoggly did refer to her as a kitty which seemed to perturb the kitty a little bit. Snoggly ask if they've never seen an elf before. They said they've never seen one ever. And they emphasize that they've never seen anything like the Tabaxi either.

The start to question the Tabaxi a little, wondering what she is. They asked about the curse that left her wioth that face and a tail. “It is not a curse!”, she says. They are again surprised that she talks. One of them approaches, with permission of course. He marvels at her face nd she shows him her hands and then displays her claws. He asks Snoggly is Misty is smart and like a real person, he relays that she is very smart.

Alexa speaks up steering the conversation back to the missing girl and again asks if we've seen her. We said we are new to this area and only just arrived. We had just come through a large gate and the past the Durst house. We asked if they were familiar with the Durst house and they said yes, it is a cursed place. Snoggly explained that the Durst house is not longer curse d and that it has fallen in. They laugh and assure us that it will rise again.

When asked where they are from, they tell of Barovia, which is about five miles ahead. They tell us that Barovia lies just below Castle Ravenloft, which he points to. We can barely make it out at this distance. We show tthem their map and they point out where we are and where Barovia is. We are coming up on the river Iberrous. When asked about the castle and if they are nice and have partiers and balls and such. They tell us it is not a nice place and that we should not go there.

We asked who the castle belongs to, they tell us they do speak his name him, “he is the devil!”. Rinn is now a little concerned that maybe we all died and we are in actual hell. When asked if this is hell, they look at each other and finally answer, “Yes!”. Rinn is now concerned that we have died, and that all of these people are dead and in hell with us. Snoggly doesn't seem to think we are dead and suggest we find an inn. They mentikon something about fortunes and Misty ask about having her fortune told, and who might do that, they say, “the Vistani!”. When Misty asks where you can find the Vistani, they tell us that they are a traveling folk with a permanent camp near the Sar Pool, and they point it out on the map. When asked if they are there, they tell us they are generally there.

They point out that our map even shows the gallows. There is a gallows drawn on the map. Snoggly asks about Barovia and if they have a tavern and if it is a full city. Misty asks about being able to buy things and they name the mercantile but I couldn't here his name so I couldn't include it in this report. When asked about the girl and if she is out here, they said, “that's the hope!”. They look back at the castle and say, “I think we know where she is!”. They describe her as a young woman, around 19 years old, naïve to the extreme as she's led a sheltered life.

Her mother tried to raise her, isolated from the world, thinking to protect her. Asking the family name, hoping it's not Durst, they relay that the Dursts died a very long time ago. Gurtruda's family name is Straznia. Gurtruda's mother lives in the village. They tell us to be on the lookout and mentions that there have been other villagers that have gone missing. They look at us sadly and say, “we are sorry you are here!”. If we come accros her and any of the missing people, if we can't find them to tell, find Ismark Kyonovich, son of the Burgomaster in town, and can be trusted.

We proceed on down the road. After another three miles walking, we begin to see rooftops in the distance and then we begin to see the village of Barovia.

That's where we left off, with a map of Barovia.

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Documents found at Durst Manor:

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Jewelry Box Letter

My Dear Mrs. Petrovna,

Your advice on dealing with the unwanted fiend in my home is very good advice indeed. Tonight's ceremony will proceed as planned when the moon is at its highest peak - without, of course, the attendance of Mr. Durst. I must agree with you that, yes, with such an innocent sacrifice our proceedings may have better results. Although, “innocent” is not quite the term I would use.

My Thanks,

Mrs. Elisabeth Durst

Deed to Durst House

Know those present and future that I, Aleksandr Dragomir of Barovia, have sold, enfeoffed, and by this, our present charter, confirmed to Euphemia Durst of Barovia, the residence located on the east side of Wolf's Way, three lotys north of Svalich Road, in the Village of Barovia. To have and to hold the aforesaid residence and all it's appurtenances to the aforesaid Euphemia Durst, her heirs and assigns.

In testimony of which matter, to this our present charter, we have affixed our marks.

Aleksandr Dragomir Euphemia Durst

With these witnesses: Jocaste Geistlinger, Dimitry Milosovici, and Burgomeisterin Arkasha Indrovich.

Date at Church of the Morninglord on the 17th, the Time of Flowers, 389.

Deed to Grain Mill

Know those present and future that I, Hortensia Verzi of Vallaki, have sold, enfeoffed, and by this, our present charter, confirmed to Lucien Durst of Barovia, the grain mill located one and a half miles southwest of the town of Vallaki and such land surrounding that is not held in common. To have and to hold the aforesaid property and all its appurenances to the aforesaid Lucien Durst, his heirs and assigns. In testimony of which matter, to this our present charter we have affixed our marks.

Hortensia Verzi

Lucien Durst of Barovia

With these witnesses: Petru Narzaru, Daniel Arcos, Burgomeister Cosmin Miklos.

Date at Church of Saint Andral on the 17th the Rotting 435.

Strahd Letter found in Durst House

My most pathetic servant,

I am not a messiah sent to you by the Dark Powers of this land. I have not come to lead you on a path to immortality. However many souls you have bled on your hidden altar, however many visitors you have tortured in your dungeon, know that you are not the ones who brought me to this beautiful land. You are but worms writhing in my earth.

You say that you are cursed, your fortunes spent. You abandoned love for madness, took solace in the bosom of another woman, and sired a stillborn son. Cursed by darkness? Of that I have no doubt. Save you from your wretchedness? I think not. I much prefer you as you are.

Your dread lord and master, Strahd von Zarovich

Will of Gustav Durst

6th the Melting 517

Be it known that I, Gustav Durst, do herby bequeath, following the occasion of my death, all of my worldly possessions, including, but not limited to, the residence on Wolf's Way in the Village of Barovia and the family grain mill southeast of Vallaki, to my wife, Elizabeth, or in the case of her death, to my eldest surviving heir.

Gustav Durst