We started by returning to the inn after dropping Milivoj off at the orphanage. We sat down and Danika approached asking what we might want to eat. We ordered and she moved off to take care of our order. The crowd began to pick up and while we were eating, Rictavio arrived with a great bit of flare. The two hunters, Suldar and Vegney, left and as they did so, Suldar stopped to ask how Milivoj was doing, we told him that he was back at the orphanage resting. They moved on. Brom and Bray were moving around in here, playing. Danika, while delivering refills on the wine mentioned that they were running low. She mentioned that they hope they’ll receive a shipment soon or they may run out. Rinn asked, “Where do your shipments come from?”, to which she replied, “The Wizard of Wines, Winery, of course!”. He asked where they are and she said, about a day’s West travel from here. We looked it up on the map to see where it was. Snoggly asked why they hadn’t received it yet. She didn’t know why but thought Urwin might be willing to pay a little for someone to check it out.

The next festival is still a couple of days away. Snoggly suggested that he didn’t care for the festival but Rinn reminded him that Vargas was planning on showing us off as the group that brought the daughter of the Burgomaster of the Viliage of Barovia here to keep her safe. It would certainly lend more credence to the idea they the people of this town are safe. Snoggly ask that Danika have Urwin come out to see about checking on the wine. He welcomes us and introduces himself. He mentions the fact that the wine if indeed late and that it is important to the region as it is what everyone drinks around here. The Wizard of Wines Winery is pretty exceptional. Snoggly asks if it’s made by a Wizard. He said yes, a Wizard opened the winery ands crafted gem stones in order to make the wine taste exceptionally good. The gems even help with the growing of the grapes, even in this part of the world. All of that was some 400 years ago, that the winery was established. Snoggly asked who was running it now. Urwin says that Davian is who is running it now.

He says that if we are headed that way and might be interest in taking on the task of checking on it. He says he doesn’t have money to pay us but could work out from free rooms and food for a time. Rinn suggested that the Burgomaster might be willing o pay to make sure they have plenty of wine for the festival coming up. Urwin agreed that they would want a lot of wine here for that day but would rather not have to explain to Vargas that we are in short supply at the moment. Snoggly said he would agree to look into it for him. Rictavio shows up at the table at about this time, and welcomes all of us only to be quizzed by Snoggly about the wagon locked up at the bottom of the hill.

Snoggly suggests that maybe Rictavio hadn’t paid his taxes or bills or something like that so the wagon was impounded. Rictavio responds that he locked it up down there, himself. He rented some space from the Arasek Stockyards to store it. It’s locked up to protect the Carnival of Wonders. Rinn asked when he was going to open the Carnival of Wonders. He said he is between acts at the moment and is looking for some new talent. He asked if any of us had any sort of talent of special quality that might be interested in joining him, to which Snoggly replied, I can think of one here who might be interesting to a carnival.

Rinn said he probably had seen a bearded lady before but what about a whiskered and tailed lady. Rictavio starts paying more attention to the rest of the group as he says, he’s never heard of a whiskered and tailed lady. Misty’s hood was up but he still noticed something about her and then was visibly shocked to see her. He realized she’s not only whiskered and tailed, but she is downright feline. There was a discussion about her and then he says that yes, she needs to be in his carnival. We finally convince him that we are a veritable group of oddities with a Tabaxi, Dwarf, Elves, and drunks. He began to tell us to be low keyed and play along with what’s going on around here. That is the best advice he can give us.

In his defense, the town has been safe for more than 100 years which may mean there is something to this “All will be well” thing. He again welcomes us here and offers his service if we should need it. He is specially interested in Misty. Snoggly asks when he is planning on putting on another show. He replies that it’s would still be a few months before he might be ready to go again. Snoggly asks where he is from originally. He said he came from Amn. In Amn, he met up with a group of travelers. They were the kind of travelers he would recommend that people stay away from. The Vistani.

He said they say that the Vistani can travel through the mists. We asked if they’ve ever taken anyone back through the mists. He says he’s heard that can but he’s never heard of them actually doing it. As far as he can tell, he is stuck here like everyone else. He said they came here through the mists and that their ability to return is at the will of the Bastard on the Hill. He is not sure that is true. The story goes that before, when Strahd was injured on the battlefield, it was the Vistani that saved him. He feels a sort of indebtedness toward them and with that a sort of gentlemen’s agreement that if they don’t cross him, he won’t cross them. He asked where we were from, to which Rinn told him Waterdeep. He seemed to know about it and where it was. He asked how long we have been in Barovia, to which we answered, about a week and a half or so. He tells them that he is generally around here in the evenings should we have questions or need anything. Tells us that Urwin and Danika are good people we can trust. He bids us farewell as he moves off to another table.

Snoggly suggest that we take on the quest to check on the winery as the bones are a deadend. Rinn suggests that the bones are not a dead end. The person travelled south from where he picked up the bones, and could have left from any o the gates that way, and that the town guard at those gates may be able to tell us of this person went through one of them. Danika, having arrived with more refills asked if we were looking for someone, to which Rinn replies with a description of the person and the cart he was pulling about three days ago, where he was seen, and what direction he was going. Around the Wachter house. She said might be Bluto who lives across the street from the Wachter house, she says that oddly, she hasn’t seen him in a few days. She believes Bluto would have a cart like that. Ernst would have access to a cart like that. He is a kind of assistant for Lady Wachter. He runs errands and serves as a handy man, he’s sort of her right hand. Henrik the coffin maker would also have a cart like that. The she proceeded to tell us that Bluto’s wife, Venessa, had been sock for a while and passed away about a week or two ago. She had been ill for a while. Henrik’s place is near the stockyard.

Rinn, holds back as the others turn in. He watches for anyone that might be using thieves cant, and even does some basic signaling to indicate he is here. Now one seems to be recognize this so he moves back outside and walks aro9und a couple of blocks in the area looking for people and goings n that might indicate a thief or thieves guild in the area. What he does see is a good amount of raven’s perched around the inn. One of them flies down and lands on a fence post about 50 yards away and as Rinn walks by, he tips his hat to the bird and says “Good day!”. The bird cocks it’s head a little as it looks at him. I again, use the thieves cant to indicate what I am to the bird and there is no indication of recognition from the bird. After going around the area, you don’t see any indication that there is any one here to communicate with. Maybe they’ve managed to run the thieves off in this town or maybe they are so underground, that they would be difficult to find. I continue on my way back to the inn. From behind the inn I can see it’s a fairly substantial building about three stories high, much bigger than we have seen so far from inside. As Rinn gets closer, he sees the ravens again, lots of ravens. When he gets back to the door he heads in and heads upstairs to his room to sleep. He sets up a couple of simple alarms at the windows and doors, involving string and something that would make noise if moved, like a piton falling over.

We all complete an evenings rest and meet up in the morning for breakfast. We decided to head to the winery so we went to the West Gate. The big guard that Dain had seen the night before was at the gate. They asked us if we would be returning. We told them yes. The big guard steps up and asks if we are the champions that delivered Ireena Kolyana. He welcomes us on Vallaki and Rinn begins quizzing him about the person with the two wheeled cart, horse drawn, with a hooded driver. They answer that there are many houses outside of the town with people with carts. He said it would be very strange for someone to go out of them at night though. He asked if they wouldn’t mind checking with the other gates to see if they had someone fitting that description leaving through those gates. The big guard says he would check on it for us. As he moves away, Rinn notices through the opening in his cloak, a large and elongated gauntleted arm and is attached to the large but mostly normal human being. His other arm looks personally normal. Rinn asks his name and he says it’s Izek, he is the Captain of the Guard. We thank him for his help and move on.

We make our way West and come to a bridge and that crosses the river Luna, maybe a couple of hundred feet across. We cross that bridge and continue on to a four way intersection. It branches to the NW, NE, SW, and SE. The sine post is broken with the top half of the post lying in the weeds nearby. The map indicates that we should be heading to the SW. Krezk and Toslenka Pass to the SW, Lake Baratok to the NW, Vallaki and Castle Revenloft to the NE, and Barez to the SE. We head SW towards Krezk. We reach a deep wood area and started paying attention to the fact that there are some ravens around. They don’t necessarily seem to be following us but there are creepy just the same. Rinn asks if it is possible that Zanfyr or even Haldar could communicate with the ravens. Haldar’s answer is, I don’t talk to ravens, I shoot them.

We continue on, about five miles, through the woods, when we come to another signpost indicating that Vallaki and Castle Ravenloft are behind us and Krezk and now the Wizard of Wines Winery. We continue on that way and come to another split where the south indicates that you can go to the Winery while the north road goes to Kresk. We head to the south. As we continue one, we come across a figure that bounds toward use, gaunt and dressed in a tattered gown and stitched animal skins. It stops, sniffs the air, and laughs like a lunatic. As it lopes toward us, the grass, twigs, and things in the area start to come alive and move to attack. And so, the battle begins. Haldar takes a couple of shots at the loping creature and drops that it easily. It takes a bit of time but we slowly defeat the living grass, twigs and other things that came alive. They aren't hard to defeat but their are many of them and the give Zanfyr a rough time.

We follow the road to the south towards the winery. We travel for a short time and the road becomes more of a muddy trail meandering through the woods descending slightly before the trees part a mist shrouded dark woods. The trail splits with on route going west into the valley and the other going south into the deep dark woods. A wooden sign post points West and with the word Vineyard on it. We continue West. A light rain begins to fall as we pass unpainted fences spreading north into the Vineyard before bending south towards a stately building. The fog takes on a ghostly form as it weaves between the rows of grape vines. Here and there you see rope handled half barrels used for hauling grapes. North of the trail is a large stand of trees.

A man wearing a dark cloak and cowl stands at the edge of the trees beckoning us. There are more, wearing dark raincoats and they are cowled. We move towards them, five of them. When we approached, we are greeted with “There is great danger at the vineyard!”. Haldar asks what is going on. He says, it has been overrun by the wild men and blight creatures. Those are what we ran into a short while back. He invites us to follow them through the woods. When asked how many have taken over, they say hundreds. As we move through the woods we see ravens again. They are all around us. Rinn asks the people we are following about the ravens, they say the ravens are a part of the land. They are a good omen. We continue to follow them through the woods to an encampment where their families are. They are refugees from the Winery.