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Session 39 – 2021-10-16

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Session Summary

We were standing in a room with a desk and a matt for sleeping and some drawings of Krezk and the Abby on the wall with a family superimposed over it. Rinn thought the figure they had chased back this way, being able to cast spells, might very well have gone invisible. The fact that Haldar couldn’t catch him was what gave him this idea. He scooped up some dirt and once everyone left the room, he spun around quickly slinging the dirt all around the room, looking for anything that blocked the dirt that wasn’t visible to us. He found nothing.

We made our way back out of the room to the hallway that broke off to our left and continued our search. Again, Rinn scooped up dirt and slung it in front of us, Misty did the same thing behind us to see if we had past the individual. Nothing out of the ordinary was revealed. Rinn continued to the next intersection which sprouted a tunnel to the south. We went to the end of that tunnel and found a couple of beds and a little gold. From there we continued down the main hallway to the next split and followed it north to another split, each path leading to more beds with fleas and a little gold.

We backed out of that section to the main hallway again and headed south. Rinn threw dirt again, seeking out the hidden, but nothing was revealed. He continued down a small flight of stairs and as he reached the bottom, noticed a well-lit area further down the hallway. Within, he could see a fire pit and at least a couple of wolves. He messaged Snoggly and the Kyanna about the room and asked if they would like to make the introductions. Snoggly stepped forward and from back here, threw a fireball into the room. The bright light and great burst of flames delivered the message of our intent to the awaiting pack.

Kyanna moved forward first and picked an area to stand and cast Spirit Guardians. From this, what should have spawned many tiny angels, instead spawned a great many demonic looking entities. This, Kyanna can only surmise, is a result of being in this dark and evil land, his land. The creatures still acted as they should, and attacked any enemy creatures that entered into its sphere of influence. Then came the whole pack it appeared. Within moments, Kyanna was surrounded by 5 of them. Each took damage just getting to her. Rinn moved up and hit one, Haldar fired on them, Snoggly through magic missles at them, Dain moved up and used his crossbow against them, Misty moved up and attacked them straight up. Zanfyr also moved into range and attacked. After a few moments, we cleared out all of them.

After searching the room, we found a little gold and a bunch of torn clothes. We also found one set of nice clothes. We determined that there was some magic associated with them but didn’t take the time to identify them here. We continued down the next hallway, carefully checking for traps along the way. We didn’t find traps but did spot a person in a cage at a ‘T’ intersection that we were approaching. Rinn snuck up to the corner and looked both directions. To their right, the hallway continued down a shallow flight of stairs and around a turn. To the left, there were two passages. One continued a straight and the other curved north.

Rinn snuck around the corner where he found himself, face-to-face with White Claw. His first instinct was to call out, “Found him!”, which he did. They both took shots at each other. White Claw got the better of Rinn here and he scored a couple of hits, but Rinn used his uncanny skills at dodging incoming attacks, to lessen the blow of the greater of these hits. He withdrew from the initial battle, around the corner from where he came, hoping that White Claw would chase him. He was attempting to lead him into a trap but White Claw didn’t bite, no pun intended. Instead, he stood his ground.

Misty shadow stepped to an area within view of him and waited as well. He didn’t appear to see her. Another large werewolf came out of the tunnel that continued to the east. He also didn’t appear to noticed Misty. Snoggly cast Magic Weapon on Haldar’s bow and Web on the stairs coming up from the West. The man in the cage stood up, trying to figure out what was going on. Rinn moved back down to very near Misty but didn’t give away her position. He’d hoped that they would attack him and then get a nice surprise when the Tabaxi Monk sprung into action. Still, White Claw didn’t move forward but decided to wait on his prey to come to him.

Dain rounded the corner first and came face to face with the beast. White Claw scored two hits on Dain and Dain scored one massive hit on the White Claw. With that, the Tabaxi came out of her hiding place and moved behind White Claw, attacking him. The other werewolf moved to attack Misty. Haldar finished off White Claw and Kyanna the large werewolf. When the two werewolves returned to their human form, the large werewolf was a man that we couldn’t identify but White Claw was an old woman.

The man in the cage was young, about 19 years old, not clean shaven and kind of dirty. He didn't appear to be injured. When asked his name, he told us it was Victor. He asked who we were. We told him that we were here to clean up the wolf or dog problem they’ve been having around this area. Rinn checked to see if the cage was locked. It was! He proceeded to try to pick the lock. The first attempt was unsuccessful. Misty wanted to use her claws to try and pick it but Rinn, unhappy with his first attempt, and refusing to fail, tried again, and this time he was successful. Through the lock picking debacle, Snoggly was questioning Victor on how he got here. It turns out that White Claw was the one that captured him. Dain stopped him as he exited the cage and asked for his hand, to test to see if he had been turned yet. He passed the test.

Snoggly continued the questioning with the standard who, what, where, when, and why questions. Victor told us that he is from Vallaki. He was actually fleeing the city as there had been a coup. The Vallakovich family had been executed. When asked who perpetrated the coup, he said Fiona Wachter and her minions. She arranged for Vampires to attack the city and once that happened, she used this distraction to stage a revolt with her minions leading the way. They hung the Burgomaster and his family in the town square before an angry mob. Snoggly asked when it happened, we determined that it was after we left and the family that was killed was that of Vargas Vallakovich, the “All will be well!” leader. Apparently, all was not well!

Dain restated what he understood from Victor’s story. There was a coup, seemingly led by Lady Wachter, who used vampires to execute the plan. This must mean that she is in league with Strahd. Victor agreed. We told him that the next best place to shelter during this storm of evil is probably Krezk. Snoggly asked Victor if he knew the identity of the woman, that was White Claw. He moved over and looked at her and said he didn’t recognize her. He said he had thought that White Claw would turn out to be Vistani, but this was clearly no Vistani.

While the questioning continued, we moved to search the bodies. We didn’t find anything on her but determined that her lair was behind us. We also searched the other werewolf and found nothing. Victor told us that werewolf was named, Kreskin, and that he lived down the path he had come from. We remembered how he was the mind reader we had run into before. We moved up to search White Claw’s lair. Her area was well appointed with a bed, desk, and a cabinet. We found about 200gps and a box full of chocolate candy bars. We also found a little stone, tied onto a rope, hanging in the cabinet. We also found two potions, both yellow. Snoggly suggested it was wee-wee. We search for hidden compartments and found nothing. We moved to Krezkin’s area and searched it as well. We found about 20gps. We search for hidden compartments as well and found nothing. We asked Victor if he new what was down the steps beyond the spider web that we threw over the top of the stairs. He told us that he has not seen much more of this place as he’s been in his cage most of the time since arriving here. “But!”, he told us, “there is a sort of ceremonial chamber where they worship their werewolf god!”. He also told us that there was a rival pack leader here as well.

He told us that White Claw is the original pack leader but from the conversations he overheard, he gathered there was a rival faction in the chamber that has only recently come to be here. They have some sort of agreement, a sort of non-aggression pact that nether side seems to honor. We asked him if the name of the new pack leader was Kiril or Emil. He couldn’t be sure which, but he thinks that one of those names belongs to him. He asked us how we were familiar with those names, and we told him that we learned of them when we cleared out another den. He asked if we were werewolf hunters. Dain said, that we have been doing a lot of that since we got to this region of Barovia. He told Victor that we did find a few that seemed reasonable and appeared to not be evil and that we didn’t kill them.

Kyanna casts Detect Magic one everything we’ve collected. The stone glows, the two bottles of wee-wee glow, and the clothes glow. Kyanna attempts to identify the two bottles of wee-wee via a taste test. One is wee-wee of Clairvoyance and the other is wee-wee of Force Resistance. Snoggly and Rinn both identify the stone and the clothes. The clothes are clothes of mending. When damaged, they mend. Perfect attire for someone like a werewolf who would be very hard on clothes. The stone is a sending stone. It’s a two-way communication device. We don’t know who is on the other end of that. Rinn suggested that the other end may be with the person that is assisting White Claw in Krezk. Someone there had blasted the teleportation circle after White Claw fled. That person had to have stayed behind.

We discussed moving down the stairs next, but time ran out on us and now we must wait on someone to flip the hourglass so that we may continue the story. The party looks forward, into the mists of tomorrow!