A Sword of Light Will Kill Vampires

In the early morning light, the party sets off from Vallaki with the (ambitious) goal of reaching the doors of the Amber Temple the same day. The goal would be achieved by careful resource management by Cinna, using her polymorph spells and her own abilities to provide the group with two eagles to fly on.

After just over half a day of travel, the party (flying on Geoff and Cinna) sees the bridge over Tsolenka pass. When landing on it, they are immediately attacked by a dragon statue guarding the bridge. The statue seems especially interested in preventing Xuza or Marillion from proceeding toward the temple. After a brief fight, the party fends it off. Recognizing the place of his dreams, Marillion heads toward the barracks beside the bridge. He ignores Bart’s warnings about a magical aura around the door and rushes in, followed closely by the rest of the party.

The group quickly realizes that Ludmilla is using the barracks as a laboratory to study the effects of extreme cold on different creatures. On the second floor, Cinna and Darren find a barely alive husk of one such humanoid, Halric, an old acquaintance of Darren. Rushing to his aid, Cinna inadvertently triggers one of Ludmillas’s traps and sets off a fireball in the room. The fireball extinguishes whatever is left of Halriq’s life before Darren is able to ask him any questions.

Meanwhile, Marillion makes his way up to the roof, where he finally finds the sword that has haunted him in his dreams since he set foot in Barovia. The discovery was cut short by Bart realizing that the spell he had felt around the door was an alarm spell, which (correctly) made the party conclude that they would soon have company. The party hurries out and rushes back over the bridge toward the temple.

Running over the bridge, Xuza is stopped by a hold-person spell. Consequently, the party realizes that Volenta Popofsky and some vampire spawns are chasing them. Aggressions quickly follow. During the battle, the party discovers the presence of a spellcaster. Bart’s “see invisibility” spell reveals the newly turned Thiefling vampire Cassia, who seems very interested in rummaging through the party’s bags in search of something. On her second attempt at capturing someone in her hold-person spell and searching their bag, Cassia manages to get a hold of Strahds’ journal from Cinnas bag, after which she quickly exits through the teleportation portal in the barracks (even if Bart did his best to stop her).

The party eventually defeats Volenta, her weird wolf, and the vampire spawn (some met their end, falling 500 feet to the river below the bridge). After the dust settles, Cinna reveals that the battle has taken enough of a toll on her magical abilities to prevent her from reaching the temple the same day. Instead, the party puts distance between themselves and the Tsolenka pass before camping in the mountains. Their night is interrupted by a big goat looking for food. Luckily, Cinna manages to calm it down before it decides that the party will make for a nice dinner.