Once again I found a spam comment on my blog. Once again, if you have a good or service to sell, my comment section is not your free billboard. But legitimate advertisers, I keep a pen knife handy next to my keyboard for pricking my finger and signing in blood contracts to write for money.
Once again, only Joseph and Kyla showed up. However, I was still confident in their ability to deal plenty of damage quickly, so I didn't pull any punches.
Travelling back to the Ivlis River Crossroads to find their sword, they found themselves attacked by a pack of ten normal wolves. Impressionable readers take note: real wolves DO NOT behave this way. wolves only act like this in horror stories and video games.
So lightning bolt, spirit guardians, thunderwave and the Heart of the Storm class feature did their job as I expected they would: and in about 12 seconds (remember, in D&D a combat round is 6 seconds), there were 10 dead Barovian wolves.
Rather than stop at the crossroads and start digging right away, (they had been walking about 8 hours at that point) they pushed on to the nearby village of Barovia. There they rested in the Burgomaster's old house and visited the shop to buy a shovel at a ridiculous mark-up. They returned to the Ivlis River Crossroads and started digging.
It was probably good that they rested. They had to dig up seven graves before finding the sword. Like the graveyard heart piece in Ocarina of Time, it appears randomly. Before they took it, however, Tathora cast speak with dead on the corpse holding it. Trying to do my best imitation of the animated corpse from Hellboy, I had the corpse tell Tathora to take the sword and use it against Strahd. Sunblade in hand, they returned to the Village of Barovia. That weapon will be a good upgrade for Sarra when she returns. Their journey wasn't without incident; the found a wolf-eaten corpse in the road. They did provide it a proper burial before heading back to town.
After spending another night in the Burgomaster's manor, they went around town. They'd actually met most of the important NPCs. I had skipped over an event that would have provided an adventure hook for the Old Bonegrinder, and I decided to skip it again. But I decided to have another encounter they hadn't had yet: Mad Mary.
This reclusive shut-in is found weeping in a boarded up town house. She's weeping because her teenage daughter, Gertruda, disappeared. Rather than break into the house, Ap and Tathora climbed the house and peered in through a boarded up window. They got a description of the girl: young and skinny with blue eyes and brown hair, from the grieving mother. The two already suspect that Gertruda may have fallen victim to Strahd. Since I know they'll eventually find her, I'm grinning evilly on the inside. Not so much because of how awful what they'll find is, but because of how well it will reflect a theme that the authors of Curse of Strahd feel has been lost in modern vampire fiction. (Looking at you, Twilight!)
Hopefully Will, Alec, and the kids will be returning for the next session.
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