Post by gavmeister on Oct 4, 2017 16:17:39 GMT
After tying up Lady Wachter and slinging her over Pankas’ back, the adventures make their way back upstairs. They meet Theo sneaking through the unlocked back door.
They check out the library upstairs. Most of the valuable books appear to have been sold off. Pankas is slashed by one of Lady Wachter’s cats but he manages to slip a small key from around its neck. Giselle uses the key to open a treasure chest in the back room. They find a load of coins and five title deeds to parcels of land transferred by Strahd to the Wachter family centuries ago. The chest contains Lady Wachter’s treatise “The Devil We Know” which argues that devil worship leads to happiness, freedom, success, wealth and longevity. Bran burns the heretical text along with a copy of “The Grimoire of the Four Quarters”, despite Theo identifying it as a poor forgery. There is also a thank you letter from ‘Lord Vasili von Holtz’ (Strahd, again?) to Lady Lavinia Wachter, an ancestor of Lady Fiona.
On the way out they meet Karl and Nikolai who are stunned to discover that their mother has been keeping their father’s corpse in the bedroom. They agree, perhaps a little too readily, that Ismark should take Stella to the Church of St Andral for her protection, and for their mother to be handed over to the Baron.
The adventurers return to the Blue Water Inn. Lady Wachter is stowed in the loft overnight for safe keeping. In the morning she is brought down covered in black feathers.
Theo dreams that Sasha Ivliskova is perched smiling on the edge of his bed, whilst a raven taps at the window. He checks his dream journal in the morning but there is no new entry.
After a lie-in they hand Lady Wachter over to the grateful Baron. There appears to be little love lost between the two families.
“All is not well!”
They decide to investigate the Baron’s mansion that night in search of clues to the disappearance of the two servants. At last a piece of luck - the Baron and Baroness have gone out to dinner at the Lakeside Tavern, with Izek Strazni in attendance in case of an outbreak of malicious unhappiness amongst the other diners. Giselle breaks in via a rear window and searches the first floor. Avoiding a room where she hears light snoring, she finds a barely used bedroom which seems to belong to Victor, the Baron’s son. She lets down a rope via the window and the rest of the party join her. In Strazni’s room they find the collection of Ireena Kolyana dolls made for the Baron’s enforcer by Blinsky.
The library is packed with books, many of them former possessions of the Wachters. A desk holds tax records for the district going back to the time of the Baron’s great grandfather. In a store room they find the Baroness’ wedding dress - Theo remembers it clearly from his strange dream. There is also an antique mirror which Theo senses is more than it seems.
In the master bedroom they find the trapdoor leading up to the attic. They climb up into a small store room, and then go through to a much larger store room covered in dust. Footprints lead to a door at the far end with a sign reading ‘ALL IS NOT WELL!’ They hear muttering on the other side of the door, which is protected by a skull image concealing a Glyph of Warding. Theo sets off the lightning trap with his skeletal Mage Hand and then opens the door.
Pankas looks inside the room. Six skeletal cats wander round aimlessly. Three children stand in the corner of the room! Wait, no, they are dressed tailor’s dummies. Ricken is suspicious and casts Faerie Fire, revealing the Baron’s son, Victor, lurking in the corner of the room. Victor, a sullen young man with a premature grey streak, is annoyed at being disturbed. Bran bullies him into revealing the fate of the missing servants. Viktor had Suggested that they help him with his research into a Teleportation Circle but had accidentally tore them apart. Theo reviews Victor’s draft spell and notices several catastrophic defects. Pulling away a circular rug they uncover Viktor’s teleportation circle; further serious defects are noticed. The chances of using the circle to safely access any of its intended destinations seems remote. The adventurer’s get a promise from Victor to hold off from any further experiments for now. Realising that Victor is a powerful spell-caster, and hardly an ally of his father, they decide to leave things there for now.
The Festival of the Blazing Sun
It’s Festival day at last. The adventurers troop over to the town square accompanied by Ismark, Ireena and von Richten. Sad children dressed in flowers stumble into the town square. A wicker ball covered in oil is hoist up on a wooden platform. Lady Wachter stands on the gallows adjacent, with a rope around her neck. Ernst Larnak is in the crowd and doesn’t appear unduly concerned. There is no sign of Karl or Nikolai.
“All will be well!” The Baron steps up to light the wicker ball, but a sharp downpour of rain puts out his torch. Lars Kjurl, one of the guards, can’t help laughing at the Baron’s humiliation. Vallakovich orders Izek Strazni to seize the traitor for ‘spite’. Lars is tied to the back of the Baron’s horse with the clear intention of being dragged around ‘for the people’s amusement’. Bran and Ricken are outraged and step forward to disrupt proceedings.
Just then a wave of panic runs through the crowd from the south east corner of the square. The Wachter boys run past screaming about a tiger escaped from the Arasek stockyard and how it wasn’t their fault. Strazni takes six guards to investigate, with weapons drawn. Von Richten is anxious about his “harmless” sabre-toothed tiger; the adventurers promise to intercept Strazni to avert a tragedy.
Ricken hangs back a little, taking advantage of the confusion to make a bee-line for his arch-enemy, Lady Wachter. He casually kicks away her supports, aiming to finish her off. But her imp companion, Majesto, materialises and starts chewing the gallows rope to save his mistress. Ricken hasn’t got time to deal with this now and hurries after the rest of the party.
With Pankas and Bran in the lead, the rest of the party confront Strazni while von Richten and Ismark divert the tiger. Strazni has been looking forward to this. He lets out a terrifying roar and his diabolic arm burns with hellfire. The adventurers step back aghast. Strazni charges in and beats on Pankas’ shield with his greataxe. The guards are less enthusiastic, more so after Theo disintegrates two of them with Shatter.
Ricken turns up at last and Calms Emotions to restore the team’s mojo. Bran frightens off the remaining guards and Theo successfully casts Hold Person on Strazni. The adventurers fight back. Strazni recovers quickly and deals a vicious double blow against Pankas, staggering the monster-hunter. Giselle’s next arrow hits the mark however, and it isn’t long before the brute falls.
Von Richten has recovered the tiger and is on his way back to the carnival wagon. He tells them that things in Vallaki have got too hot to handle so he intends to escape to his tower by the shore of Lake Baratok to the west. He tells them to put their trust in the Martikovs in his absence.
A crowd of townsfolk gather round Ismark, emboldened by the death of Izek Strazni. They begin to march on the burgomaster’s mansion. There is no sign of Lady Wachter.
They check out the library upstairs. Most of the valuable books appear to have been sold off. Pankas is slashed by one of Lady Wachter’s cats but he manages to slip a small key from around its neck. Giselle uses the key to open a treasure chest in the back room. They find a load of coins and five title deeds to parcels of land transferred by Strahd to the Wachter family centuries ago. The chest contains Lady Wachter’s treatise “The Devil We Know” which argues that devil worship leads to happiness, freedom, success, wealth and longevity. Bran burns the heretical text along with a copy of “The Grimoire of the Four Quarters”, despite Theo identifying it as a poor forgery. There is also a thank you letter from ‘Lord Vasili von Holtz’ (Strahd, again?) to Lady Lavinia Wachter, an ancestor of Lady Fiona.
On the way out they meet Karl and Nikolai who are stunned to discover that their mother has been keeping their father’s corpse in the bedroom. They agree, perhaps a little too readily, that Ismark should take Stella to the Church of St Andral for her protection, and for their mother to be handed over to the Baron.
The adventurers return to the Blue Water Inn. Lady Wachter is stowed in the loft overnight for safe keeping. In the morning she is brought down covered in black feathers.
Theo dreams that Sasha Ivliskova is perched smiling on the edge of his bed, whilst a raven taps at the window. He checks his dream journal in the morning but there is no new entry.
After a lie-in they hand Lady Wachter over to the grateful Baron. There appears to be little love lost between the two families.
“All is not well!”
They decide to investigate the Baron’s mansion that night in search of clues to the disappearance of the two servants. At last a piece of luck - the Baron and Baroness have gone out to dinner at the Lakeside Tavern, with Izek Strazni in attendance in case of an outbreak of malicious unhappiness amongst the other diners. Giselle breaks in via a rear window and searches the first floor. Avoiding a room where she hears light snoring, she finds a barely used bedroom which seems to belong to Victor, the Baron’s son. She lets down a rope via the window and the rest of the party join her. In Strazni’s room they find the collection of Ireena Kolyana dolls made for the Baron’s enforcer by Blinsky.
The library is packed with books, many of them former possessions of the Wachters. A desk holds tax records for the district going back to the time of the Baron’s great grandfather. In a store room they find the Baroness’ wedding dress - Theo remembers it clearly from his strange dream. There is also an antique mirror which Theo senses is more than it seems.
In the master bedroom they find the trapdoor leading up to the attic. They climb up into a small store room, and then go through to a much larger store room covered in dust. Footprints lead to a door at the far end with a sign reading ‘ALL IS NOT WELL!’ They hear muttering on the other side of the door, which is protected by a skull image concealing a Glyph of Warding. Theo sets off the lightning trap with his skeletal Mage Hand and then opens the door.
Pankas looks inside the room. Six skeletal cats wander round aimlessly. Three children stand in the corner of the room! Wait, no, they are dressed tailor’s dummies. Ricken is suspicious and casts Faerie Fire, revealing the Baron’s son, Victor, lurking in the corner of the room. Victor, a sullen young man with a premature grey streak, is annoyed at being disturbed. Bran bullies him into revealing the fate of the missing servants. Viktor had Suggested that they help him with his research into a Teleportation Circle but had accidentally tore them apart. Theo reviews Victor’s draft spell and notices several catastrophic defects. Pulling away a circular rug they uncover Viktor’s teleportation circle; further serious defects are noticed. The chances of using the circle to safely access any of its intended destinations seems remote. The adventurer’s get a promise from Victor to hold off from any further experiments for now. Realising that Victor is a powerful spell-caster, and hardly an ally of his father, they decide to leave things there for now.
The Festival of the Blazing Sun
It’s Festival day at last. The adventurers troop over to the town square accompanied by Ismark, Ireena and von Richten. Sad children dressed in flowers stumble into the town square. A wicker ball covered in oil is hoist up on a wooden platform. Lady Wachter stands on the gallows adjacent, with a rope around her neck. Ernst Larnak is in the crowd and doesn’t appear unduly concerned. There is no sign of Karl or Nikolai.
“All will be well!” The Baron steps up to light the wicker ball, but a sharp downpour of rain puts out his torch. Lars Kjurl, one of the guards, can’t help laughing at the Baron’s humiliation. Vallakovich orders Izek Strazni to seize the traitor for ‘spite’. Lars is tied to the back of the Baron’s horse with the clear intention of being dragged around ‘for the people’s amusement’. Bran and Ricken are outraged and step forward to disrupt proceedings.
Just then a wave of panic runs through the crowd from the south east corner of the square. The Wachter boys run past screaming about a tiger escaped from the Arasek stockyard and how it wasn’t their fault. Strazni takes six guards to investigate, with weapons drawn. Von Richten is anxious about his “harmless” sabre-toothed tiger; the adventurers promise to intercept Strazni to avert a tragedy.
Ricken hangs back a little, taking advantage of the confusion to make a bee-line for his arch-enemy, Lady Wachter. He casually kicks away her supports, aiming to finish her off. But her imp companion, Majesto, materialises and starts chewing the gallows rope to save his mistress. Ricken hasn’t got time to deal with this now and hurries after the rest of the party.
With Pankas and Bran in the lead, the rest of the party confront Strazni while von Richten and Ismark divert the tiger. Strazni has been looking forward to this. He lets out a terrifying roar and his diabolic arm burns with hellfire. The adventurers step back aghast. Strazni charges in and beats on Pankas’ shield with his greataxe. The guards are less enthusiastic, more so after Theo disintegrates two of them with Shatter.
Ricken turns up at last and Calms Emotions to restore the team’s mojo. Bran frightens off the remaining guards and Theo successfully casts Hold Person on Strazni. The adventurers fight back. Strazni recovers quickly and deals a vicious double blow against Pankas, staggering the monster-hunter. Giselle’s next arrow hits the mark however, and it isn’t long before the brute falls.
Von Richten has recovered the tiger and is on his way back to the carnival wagon. He tells them that things in Vallaki have got too hot to handle so he intends to escape to his tower by the shore of Lake Baratok to the west. He tells them to put their trust in the Martikovs in his absence.
A crowd of townsfolk gather round Ismark, emboldened by the death of Izek Strazni. They begin to march on the burgomaster’s mansion. There is no sign of Lady Wachter.