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We began the Curse of Strahd on October 24th. We started in a simple camp of circled wagons of vendors traveling from one town to another. More than twenty people were a part of this traveling group. There were mercenaries among the group, there to protect the vendors from bandits in the area. There were musicians playing loud music around the fire and people seemed to be enjoying themselves though most were tired and ready for rest. Finally, the music died down and the people began turning in. As the fire dimmed and bedrolls filled, the quiet overtook most and they slept.
Three of the group awoke to find themselves near a road on a fog covered ground without the wagons they fell asleep under. None of the others were around to be found. There was a wall and a road that travelled through it to the east. The road is being blocked by a large rusty gate. To the west is fog, deeper and thicker than the what was around them. To the south and north, low lying fog with some trees and brush spreading away from the road. The three that remained were Snoggley McGuff, Dain Fireforge, and the Cleric. She approached the plants near her and it seemed as though the plants were reaching out to her.
Back to the wall, there were two large statues flanking the gate of human warriors. The group decided to follow the road through the wall and as they approached the gates, they opened for them. They passed through the wall and continued down the road. They came upon an area smelling of death. With only a little investigation, they turned up a body. It appeared that the demise of the individual was the result of an animal attack, possible one or more wolves. The only thing of any real interest was a note.
The note read:
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Hail thee of might and valor:
I, the Burgomaster or Burovia, send you honor — with despair. My adopted daughter, the fair Ireena Kolyana, has been, these past nights, bitten by a vampyr. For over four hundred years, this creature has drained the life blood of my people. Now, my dear Ireena languishes and dies from and unholy wound caused by this vile beast. He has become too powerful to conquer. So I say to you, give us up for dead and encircle this land with the symbols of good. Let the holy men call upon their power that the devil may be contained within the walls of weeping Barovia. Leave our sorrows to our graves, and save the world from this evil fate of ours.
There is much wealth entrapped in this community. Return for your reward after we are all departed for a better life.
Kolyan Indirovich Burgomaster
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They continued down the road. At one point, they heard voices from ahead of them. The voices sounded like that of a young lady and a small boy. The body seemed to be crying and the young lady sounded as though she was comforting him.
It was about this time that three other people entered the picture. From behind came a Tabaxi, she seemed polite, not threatening. From ahead the voices continued and the group, now four strong, moved forward. An Elf, also just arriving in this strange world, wakes up near a road further east of the main group and having no idea the others exist. Still disoriented, he also hears the voices and is actually very close to those speaking. He hears a young girl attempting to soothe a young boy appearing distort. He announced himself in a low voice so as to not scare the children and moved forward. The children didn’t immediately flee and as he began to talk to them to find out what was going on, he heard the others approaching.
He turned his attention and his senses to determining who or what was approaching. He saw the four on the road but also noticed a fifth person lurking in the woods. He asked all to identify themselves and they did. Now the four have become six.
The children were very upset as their parents and the younger brother we’re in a house just down the road, and something was in the house, scary. The boy fled the house and the girl chased after him to to soothe and protect him. The six decided that they must investigate the house. The paladin did sense the presence of undead, all around but definitely further down the road toward the house and stables. It was decided that one of the adults must stay behind to protect the children. Haldar volunteered to watch them and the other five moved forward.
The approached the house and found it dark and run down looking. When the Elf moved to look into a window, it was fogged over from the inside. There was no way to look into the house before you entered it so he returned to the others and moved to the door. They moved into the house and scoped out the main floor finding it to be clean and in good condition. The Elf lit oil lamps along the way and gave a quick look into each room. There was a dining room and a kitchen with a well stocked pantry. There was also a sitting room with chairs in front of a fire place, two cabinets, and some stuffed animals, wolves and such.
The group moved to the second floor where they found a servants quarters and more rooms but still no people. They did hear music from a room and after opening the door, the music stopped. There were instruments , but no one to play them. The music stopped when they opened the door.
On the third floor, they found a suit of armor in the entryway off the stairs. It was an empty suit that suddenly sprang to life and attacked. The group worked together to put it down. Again, the paladin attempted to sense the presence of undead, fey, or fiend, and found they were in the midst of it. The elf messaged Haldar to see how he and the children were doing. He assured him that they were fine. Rinn passed on information about what they had run into up to this point.
Where the first and second floors were mostly clean and in decent shape, the third one was dusty and less kept. After defeating the armor, Misty heard voices from the room to the left of the steps. Misty seemed a little irritated about Rinn’s use of a mage hand spell to open doors. As if to show him up, she opened the door and bragged about using her real hand to do it. In the room revealed, was a bed and two more doors off of it. In one room, you could hear a woman singing. Upon opening the door, they found a woman rocking in a chair with her hand in a crib, singing as if to soothe a baby to sleep. Upon further investigation, the baby was nothing more than a clump of cloth and the woman vanished. They backed out of that room and checked the next door to find a balcony. They made their way back out to the hallway and moved down to the next set of doors.