We awoke after sleeping in the gypsy camp, to find that Kevin now has breasts and considerably more curves than the night before. Most of the party don’t comment on this. The paladin, goes out of his way to comment, and seems okay with it.

The party backtracks past the gallows, before heading to a bridge that crosses the river that fed the lake that the gypsies had camped near.

We reached a second set of gates. Passing through them, we secured them closed and camped for the night.

During the third watch, when Silion and Vellos were on watch, something brightly lit came out of the woods and attacked them. The zapping attack was loud enough to wake up the rest of the party.

The paladin smote it, which resolved the threat. Untying the gates, we continued west.

We encountered a body that had been savaged by wolves.

We carried on, until we reached a mill on a hill.

Approaching the mill, we were warned off by a raven.

The mill seems fairly fortified.

The mage and the paladin went into the mill, while the fighter tried to find a place to climb up.

They go up the stairs inside the mill, silently. The top floor appears to have witches, who are eating children.

The mage and the merc surprise the witches, while the paladin surprises himself and loses his footing. After that, he gets tossed out the window and crashes into a heap at the base of the windmill.

The mage hit one of the hags with a lightening based spell, which connected them with a chain of energy, but the hag escaped it by turning invisible. The other hag turned into a seagull and flew out the window. Vellos attempted to shoot down the seagull, but missed completely.

The cleric attempted to force the seagull to grovel.

There was combat, eventually one of the hags was killed, and two were driven away.

Twin Blades found a book in the attic, the Tome of Strahd.

Bottles of Youth, Laughter and Mother’s Milk were taken, along with six Dream Pies.

The bucket of Black Ichor in the corner glowed brightest of all, and it appeared to be conjuration. The barrel turns out to be demon ichor.

So we’re going to be burning down the mill.

There are now four altars that we need to visit to reconsecrate as part of a ritual to destroy the Heart of Sorrow, which protects Strahd.

The altars are at  Luna Lake, the Velacian Valley, the Swamps of Iviliss, and the bowels of Mount Gahkis.

Iannyor, Twin Blades, and Vellos are sitting around a camp fire, while Sileon is sitting nearby, manacled. Iannyor is cooking, Vellos is strumming his lute, enjoying the captive audience, while Twin Blades is looking for trouble. 

As the sun goes down, the mist rolls in. The mist is rather creepy, and chilling. 

The strange priestess attempts to bash her head in against the tree, and while Iannoyr wanted to stop her. Vellos felt this was a religious, so told them not to.

In the morning, while Vellos was checking around, he noticed that they’ve gone to a new land. A land that he previously thought was only in legends.

Kevin, the Magnificient asks where we are, and Vellos explains that we’re in Barovia. A land ruled by a dark lord known as Strahd; a legendary vampire.

Kevin attempted to open a magic door to exit, but it didn’t work. This attempt made everything really bright. All the magic glowed.

Iannyor climbed a tree, we only saw mists. Kevin attempted to summon his familiar, but this didn’t work all that well. The familiar burst into flames while attempting to come into existence.

The road that we’re on, is a very nasty road. As soon as we leave the clearing, the mists swallow it up. Maybe the Vishtani will be able to get us back, if we can find them.

Walking down the road for several hours, we eventually found something rather large and stone, with huge rusty iron gates.

The huge iron gates slam shut after we pass through them.

As it gets dark, the strange cleric begins to glow.

Iannyor found a body, and decided to bury it. The rest of the group left him, though Vellos stayed with him. The peasant had been murdered by wolves. Wolves, not werewolves.

Down in the valley, we see a village.

We figure it’ll take us about an hour to get down there.

And we walk towards it, and it’s taking much longer than an hour.

And now we’re fighting Zombies. In grasslands. While the mage is throwing magic fire around. He summons a pair of fireballs which splatter on the zombie.

Vellos takes a shot at the zombie, puts an arrow deep into it.

The zombies rush in and attack.

Twin Blades slashes at one, killing it.

Sileon uses her faith to push the zombies away.

Iannyor takes an arm off a zombie, and then Twin Blades rushes up and slashes that zombie.

Kevin accidentally multiplied himself, then splashed rays into the other zombies.

Vellos stepped into the bushes and thundered into the zombies, tossing one of them through Kevin’s illusion.

Iannyor moved to slash at the other zombie, but the severed arm reached for him first, so he had to take a break to throw it away first.

Then we finished off the zombies, with Twin Blade walking up and slashing at them.

And then Kevin started speaking pink bubbles, his hair fell out, he became covered in grease and then started teleporting around, before finally settling down.

So we took a bit of a rest.

And then we wandered into the village.

Iannyor heard some wailing, so he followed the sound, ripped down the boards over the doors, went upstairs. Kevin and Iannyor talked to an old lady, while Twin Blade tried to climb up the balcony.

Sileon went into the tavern, Vellos stayed outside, looking confused.

The crying woman inside gave them a doll, named Gurtruda, which belonged to her daughter Gertruda, who was named after the doll she had had as a child. Iannyor made an agreement to try to save the child, which is why she gave him the doll. Kevin had plied her with shiny rose to get her trust.

Meanwhile, Sileon in the tavern had made friends with the Vishtani, and secured herself a line of credit. When Vellos walked in, the Vishtani recognized him of being part of the enmeda ( inspired by the edema ruh), another troupe of gypsies.

We are told of Madame Eva, who talks to Travellers, and knows the way out of the land that we’re trapped in.

We’ve also learned that the burgermaster wants us to kill Strahd, because this land is cursed.

As we leave the tavern, the churchyard starts glowing with green light.

So we went to the mansion, and were greeted by a woman in armour, who was carrying a sword.

The party bedded down for the night. The priestess molested the son of the burgermaster.

In the morning, the elf decided to carry the coffin, while the bard used his minor illusion to create a funeral dirge.

The mage wandered off to get a brass brazier, while the rest of us solemnly carried on.

We entered in the chapel, to bury the body.  There was some screaming, followed by some hollering.

We found out that the priest’s son had become a vampire and is locked up in the undercroft. At which point, Iannyor decided to go down to cure him. With steel. In the chest.

The plan of going down into the undercroft to stab the vampire is not a great idea.

Once again Iannyor had his throat bitten. This time, by a vampire. We managed to put it down, eventually.

Vellos stopped at the tavern to get some details, and managed to learn a bit of history, about the burgermaster’s daughter, but nothing overly useful to the campaign.

After that, we headed towards the gypsy camp. We crossed a bridge over the river, and the mists were less oppressive. Our journey was fairly uneventful, at least initially. We managed to reach the crossroads, without incident.

At the crossroads, the gallows haunted Vellos. His face on the hanging body, which hadn’t been there moments before. They were infected by the madness, each suffering a minor curse.

Then to the camp, where they were fed, and given a tale. And then to the fortune teller, to learn of their futures.

 Charlatan – The book – The Past – History, Knowledge of the ancients and an understanding of the enemy.  “I see a only mill on a precipice, the treasure lies within.” –

Druid – The holy symbol – Powerful symbol of good. “A evil tree grows atop a hill of graves where the ancient dead sleep. The ravens can help you find it.” – There are druids in the far west, a place called yesterhill.

The wizard – the weapon – Power and strength, a weapon of vengeance. – “look for a wizard’s tower on a lake, let the wizard’s name and servant guide you to that which you seek.”

The broken one – one who will help you. – ” your greatest ally will be a wizard, his mind is broken, but his spells are strong.” – Black robed mage who rallied the peasants a year ago, and after a titanic battle, he plunged off the walls. His body was never recovered.

The Raven – creature of darkness, the place – “In the castle. Look to the mother’s tomb.” – The Tomb of Ravonia, of Ravenloft. Lord Strahd’s mother.

 And with that, we rested.