Session 28 - Hmm Where to start

The party wake up at the blue-water Inn in Vallaki again, they have decided to seek out the Druids and recover the gem for Davian and Urwin, and save the wine for all of Barovia. The meet over breakfast and then head out to spend a night at the wizard of wines before approaching Yester Hill the home of the Druids. During Breakfast a stranger enters the common room at the Blue Water and introduces himself to the party as Denzel a colleague of Van Helsing the vampire hunter. Denzel is a skilled fighter with a flaming scimitar and a vicious hatred for vampires. 

As they head out Mulberry complains about the walking, but they arrive safely at the Wizard of Wines where they are greeted by Davian warmly until he sees the party has acquired a Druid who he eyes off skeptically. Davian is delighted that they are going after the Gem and offers his eldest son Adrian to accompany them.

They spend the night in the stables and then early the next morning head out into the perma-mist down the road to Yester hill. 

The party approach what looks like a huge man mad hill, with 4 tiers, the first containing cairn stones, which Mulberry tells them are the graves of the Berserkers, they spot three guards, and manage to sneak up on them, a battle ensues and the party see Denzel in action for the first time his flaming scimitar slashing away at Bob berserker, Gnarvick backing him up with bubbles of acid in Bobs face, the party take down Bob and focus on Barry Berserker and Ash-Lee the Druid, Gnarvick and Denzel fire arrows from their respective flows which intersect in flight resulting in them both missing. 

Finally after some intense combat they manage to take Ash-Lee down by stabbing her in the face, leaving only Barry who gets infested by Gnarvick with fleas, as he franticly tries to get them off every part of his body, he reaches into an open wound and accidentally tears his own heart out. 

The party search the guards and find that Ash-Lee and Barry Berserker  have matching Lockets with a crude drawing of each other in them.

Snowball impatient and hungry for more carnage (and a chance to fireball the hell out of something) sneaks up the hill where he scopes out the Druid circle. A stone wall surrounds it, and berserker guards stand at both entryways. Inside is a 50ft high effigy of Strahd, and 8 Druids performing some kind of ritual via a song in Druidic. Snowball relays this to the party and they coordinate an attack on the druids starting with a one, two punch of Fireball and Call Lightning which takes all but 2 druids down and leaves the Berserkers. 

The party clean up the mess and one of the Druids Brittney fights back savagely, but sadly she loses. They Search Brittney and find she had a newly signed contract for the Bards college to sing for the masses at festivals. The final Berserker is hit in the knee by Denzel who hopes to lop of his leg followed by a punch in the throat by Baromar, who misses but manages to hit the leg instead hard enough to take it off and the Berserker bleeds out. 

The fierce aggressors take a breath and down the hill they hear a huge explosion, which immediately draws their attention. They see the shattered remains of a large tree and a newly formed Tree blight heading off to the north. Standing by the destroyed tree is a cloaked figure that they recognize as Strahd, who is staring at the mist, following his gaze they see a floating image of a far away land, prosperous and thriving with happy people and animals. Strahd turns to face them and with tears running down his cold pale cheeks, says "Can a man not get a moment of solace" before turning into bats and flying away.

The image in the mist slowly fades away leaving the wall of mist that has blocked their escape since the came to Barovia..