Session 23 - Camping in the graveyard

The party decide to head to the graveyard at the crossroads, and set off early in the morning for a planned night in Vallaki, along the way they encounter a revenant, a undead creature who is looking to resolve the wrong doing that cause his death, the party attack and take him down, moving on they arrive at the blue water inn in Vallaki, where they are greeted very coldly by Urwin.

"So when you helped my brother out, I did not expect you to steal his possessions in the process"

The party are taken aback and Baromar tries to talk him down unsuccessfully, by blaming the rouge who happens to not be present. Urwin explains they took a gold locket with some pictures in it and until its returned they are not welcome to spend the night in his inn. 

The party realize the locket was in the possession of Grimdur and return it. "Fine you can stay he says but you pay for everything and Im watching you" he calls to his boys to keep an eye on the party and put away the more valuable eating utensils. 

The party endure a night at the inn under a constant watchful eye of Urwin and head out to the graveyard early the next morning. They make it there after deciding to avoid the shortcut through the Vistani camp and take the slightly longer road at around dusk. 

The graveyard consists of 11 graves and an old gallows. As the party start to look around a swarm of twig blights attack them, resulting in Pallas fireballing them and a significant amount of the surrounding foliage, and Snowball casting tidal wave to put the fire out. once they are safe Pallas casts detect magic and one of the grave lights up. 

They decide to dig there and uncover the sunsword, which is a hilt that can magically summon a blade and as Grimdur holds it he senses emotions of hatred and a want to kill with a mild tugging towards castle Ravenloft. 

The party setup camp for the night inside a Leomunds tiny hut cast by snowball, and Grimdur takes the first watch, a heavier mist than normal sweeps in and out of the mist steps Strahd, 

"I see you have been touched by the wolf, I assume you are enjoying the benefits this brings with it" Strahd says smiling like a used cart salesman

"Yup" Grimdur grunts. 

"you know I am the land, I have control over the creatures, you will become my servant in time child" Strahd says. 

With this Strahd snaps his fingers and Grimdur is forced to change into wolf form, he hears the howl of the other wolves and runs off into the forest. The rest of the party watch as Strahd smiles at them and takes the form of a bat, flying off into the night. 

Grimdur returns the next morning with little memory of the nights hunting and feeding, other than some fur between his teeth, and unnatural itch across his hairier regions and dried blood on his hands and face. Pallas approaches him and removes the Curse of Lycanthropy then proceeds to cast Prestidigitation to clean any fleas off his hand. 

As the party clear up their camp and turn to leave, they hear a creaking sound like a rope under tension from the gallows, they turn to face a featureless corpse swinging in the wind, it turns to face them with lifeless black eyes and remains still. Baromar sees himself as the corpse while the rest of the party see details emerge in the form of a Barovian commoner. 

Baromar approaches to try and cut down his body and as he touches it the corpse falls to ashes and the light breeze sweeps them away proving even touching yourself in Barovia is Dangerous. 

The crew visibly shaken head back to the blue water inn where they book their usual rooms and have another discussion with Urwin about if they should take down Fiona or not. On questioning Urwin about this he shows them how careful they need to be by pointing out when her sons walk in the door. 

Baromar approaches Nikolai and Karl and informs them of a hidden treasure that he would pay them to seek out, he offers them 50Gp to head to the Village of Barovia and seek out an artifact named the map of hidden illumination, Nikolai and Karl ask what the map is too and Baromar says incredibly valuable treasure hidden around Barovia, the boys say they will think about it and leave, returning shortly after with Ernst, Fionas most trusted advisor. 

Ernst asks Baromar of the map and informs him how poor a decision it is to keep valuable treasure from Lord Strahd, who has a history of punishing Burgomasters who have done this in the past by flaying them then beheading them.