Arrested by Guards, Bitten by Werewolves

The early morning sleep of the lost travelers was cut short. First Urwin knocked on the door of Barts and Darrens room and asked him to meet someone north of town. Darren set off and was met by a robe clad stranger who offered Darren power to resist the fiends and undead in Barovia. Darren accepted and was put in front of a trial who tested both his combat wits, as well as his ability to harden his heart and deal out justice. In this process the druid named “bob” by the party lost his life. Bob was then buried by Darren.

Meanwhile, at the inn the rest of the party were interrupted in their sleep by Izek Strazni who burst in with most of Vallakis guard force, demanding to find Tatyana After some quick thinking by Cinna supported by the rest of the party, Ireena was temporarily removed from danger. The rest of the party surrendered to the guards, except for Goeff who punched one and ran away.

Cinna, Marillion, Xuza and Bart were taken to the jail where Cinna and Xuza were thrown into one cell and Bart and Marillion (whom the guards had seen casting spells) into the other where they were gagged and blindfolded. On the way to their incarceration, Cinna learned that the Izek was aware of her recent falling out with Strahd. The party had their weapons taken away from them, but unbeknownst to any of the guards, Marillions sword disappeared from their holding.

Having buried Bob, Darren returned from the forrest and was met by a slightly panicked Goeff who informed him of what had happened. Since Darren was still somewhat exhausted and hurt from his nightly ritual, he decided to have breakfast in Blue Water Inn where he learned some more information from Urwin and was able to bandage up the bite wound he had sustained.

After regaining his strength and having breakfast, Darren and Goeff headed out toward the jail. Somewhat surprisingly they were met by Cinna, Marillion, Xuza and Bart who had been let out somewhat surprisingly. After regrouping, the lost travelers were approached by Erns, the spy ofFiona Wachter. Ernst reminded them of offer made by Fiona during the last time they were in town. The recently released members of the lost travelers went to gather their strength to the Inn while Darren and Goeff took up the hunt for Ireena. On the way, the party was met by Milosh, Barts nephew who had been supplying the inn with a barrel of wine and was now on his way to help Bart. He also told Bart about a shipment of fancy glassware that his brother Arthjuhin was in charge of that had been robbed by an imp riding some kind of a demon.

At the Inn, the travelers were again met by Karl and Nikolai who were spending their day like the usually do. Happy to have seen Cinna for the first time in a while the brothers finally confessed the secret of their dad, that he had died and was currently lying in the same bed as their mother was sleeping in. Somewhat disgruntled by these news Cinna, Bart and Marillion decided to place a wicit to the Watcherhaus while Xuza (noticeably exhausted) decided to take up the trail for Irena together withe Darren.

At the watcherhaus Cinna, Marillion and Bart set up an elaborate scheme in which Cinna snuck off from the maid Hilda to look for Nikolai Sr. in order to confirm the intel they had from the Karl and Nikolaj. Meanwhile Bart and Marillion distracted Fiona who repeated her offer; if the lost travelers could deal with Izek Fiona could prbably use the rest of her network to seize control from the Valakoviches. The meeting ended with Cinna confronting Fiona about her husband, after which she asked them to leave.

Meanwhile, Darren, Goeff and Xuza had managed to trail Irena to the church, where they heard from Lucian Petrovich that Irena had indeed been there in the early morning but soon departed. They agreed to leave Goeff in the care of Lucian and Freek and continued to use sophaxis to track Irenas scent. Fairly quickly they realized that Ireena was kept in a heavily guarded bugeonmasters house. At this point they were joined by the rest of the party.

Marillion still seeming a bit upset by how he had been treated earlier started arguing with the guards at the doors, which allowed Cinna to sneak in and indeed find Irena. Irena was kept in Izeks room, together with a bunch of dolls that looked surprisingly much like her. Cinna found a slightly confused Izek who left the room, leaving a shapeshifted Cinna and Ireena alone. Irena seemed to have accepted her faith and asked Cinna to leave, which she did.

Armed with the new information the lost travelers decided to pay the towns toy maker–Blinsky–a visit. There they learned that Izek indeed had commissioned many of those dolls over the years, under the threat of burning down Blinskys shop if the—slightly tragic—toy maker did not comply. After half a day of information gathering the (still somewhat exhausted) lost travellers regrouped in the Blue Water In were they decided that something had to be done about Izek. While Xuza was meditating to get some well earned rest (and dreaming of a shadowy figure opening up chests that they maybe should not) the travelers made up a plan involving tricking Izek to come to Jenys under the guise of the latest of Blinskys dolls being there. While setting up the scheme they also took the opportunity to have Jeny identify some of the items they had come across.

The travelers plan worked and they confronted Izek in the forrest between Vallaki and Jenys. During the encounter, they learned of the somewhat fiendish, amber coloured powers, that Izeks arm granted him. The 3 guards Izek took with him quickly gave up on the fight but stayed to watch what would happen to Izek. One it was clear that Izeks time had come, the guards quickly ran off toward the town, urgently getting in touch with someone.

The travelers regrouped and gathered their breath. They took Izeks skull with them in order to perhaps talk to it at a later time, and sat down at Jenys for a cup of tea. Afterwards they took Sophaxis with them and headed toward town. Getting there they quickly realized that something was off. There were guards posted at the door and initially, the lost travelers were not allowed to enter. After tricking the guards with a major image the travelers entered Vallaki to find it under some form of martial law. The streets were filled with guards tasked with keeping people off of them and the situation seemed tense. Via some stealth the party learned that Fiona Watcher had stayed true to her word and seized control of the town. Luckily (for the party) it also turned out that the only casualties of this coup were the vargas family whose beat corpses could be found in the square.

During the night Cinna decided to take matters into her own hands and help Ireena make her way to Strahd. She did this without the consent of the rest of the party. When parting ways Cinna asked Ireena to tel Strahd of her involvement in Ireenas escape and that she would like to meet and talk to him. After that, the party regrouped at the blue water inn and finally got some sleep.