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The festival: two tyrants asking us to attest, a third way, a riot, the Baron dead by our priest's hand and Lady Wachter dead by the crowd's, and the devil himself dropping in to see what we'd done with his town. Then an empty attic, a man in chains, and a door in the Reformation Center with two elves behind it. David was away; the table ran Fëanor from the riot on, and ran him to deadly effect.

The square

The rain came down on a thousand faces, all waiting for one of us to speak. The Baron wanted us to attest that Lady Wachter is in league with the devil. Lady Wachter wanted us to attest that the Baron's son broke her daughter. The crowd could go the Baron's way, hers, ours, or towards burning it all down. Ireena, Lucian, Izek and Milivoj were in the crowd. The Baron's son wasn't, and neither was Stella, festival or no festival.

• Lily went first, dragged into the spotlight, and was painfully sincere: "All of you are good people, and it's important to do the right thing." It didn't move anyone.
• Drew spoke to the crowd and then to the Wachter sons: you saw the basement, you saw your father lying in that bed, and we have a letter from the devil himself addressed to your mother. A natural 20. "It's true. Mama, Mama, she has done things it seems. She has kept Papa's dead body in her bedroom for years. It's true. It's true." They stepped away from her. That saved their lives later.
• Sirius opened his wings: "There is only one true lord of this city that will protect you all, that has protected you for eons, and that is the Lord of the Morning, Lathander. His agents are here to assist however we can."
• Osric brought Father Lucian forward: "The Baron has spoken and said that all is well, but all is not well." Lucian: "I, in my place as priest of the Morning Lord, father of the church that you all attend, I attest that, yes, there were vampires in Vallaki not but yesterday."
• The Baron pulled the letter out of his coat, the rain blurring the ink: "Proof, my people. The devil names Lady Wachter as Vallaki's next Burgomistress. Look at his seal. Look at her name." (We gave it to him. He gets to use it.)
• Lady Wachter held up a bloody bandage: "Ask whose linen they bleed into. Ask whose door was open last night. Then ask where he was." It didn't land.
• The Baron called Lucian's testimony sedition and called for the guards. We appealed to Izek: you know what you saw in that church. Sirius, with a natural 20: "You are better than this, Izek." Izek: "Guards, hold still. This doesn't seem right." And to him, in front of everyone: "Your memory has been tampered with, friend, as has mine."
• Someone at the edge of the crowd cried that the guards had stabbed someone. One of us saw Ernst slipping a bloody dagger into his boot.
• Lily vaulted over the crowd's heads onto the stage, adorably. Drew told Izek and the crowd how the vampires burned and died: people in masks don't combust.
• Sirius floated up to the platform and cast Zone of Truth. The Baron failed. Izek resisted. The Baroness didn't even try; she doesn't really have a will of her own.
• Osric asked the Baron why his son was absent from a mandatory festival. He couldn't finish the sentence. He also, truthfully, believes he is perfect.
• The Baroness sang a Vallakian hymn at the top of her voice, staring into the crowd. Sirius joined in, wings out, and the crowd clapped along.
• A voice from the crowd: "They broke into our house. They robbed a hospital." It was Ernst.
• Someone threw a stone at the Baron. Sirius put his shield in the way.
• Lily questioned the Baron under the spell. Does the letter mention you or your position? "Yes, of course it does." Read it to us. "No." Does the devil want you to stay burgomaster? "What the devil wants matters not. The devil is the devil." What does it say? "Words from the devil. It should not be read out loud."

We had the square. We talked it over and agreed: Ireena should lead. She's of the right family, and this is the safest place for her. Sirius declined the job himself: "You can make me an angel or a god or uniquely infallible, but I do like wine. I'm not sure that I am cut out for leadership." Osric: "Some of these people are not gonna go down quietly, so I'll back you up." Drew readied Clover. Lily put a little illusory sun in the sky over Sirius's head.

Sirius's speech:

"Citizens of Vallaki, you have been not well served by your leadership. The Lady Wachter sought to depose the Baron for her own reasons, some of them very reasonable. The Reformation Center here is a travesty. It takes your friends, it takes those around you, and leaves them coming out different… None of those before you truly wish to serve you. I suggest that you agree with me, Izek… that we shall instil a new leader, someone of the people, someone that cares for the people. Father, will you step up with me?"

Lucian, a little nervously: "She seems a good soul at heart. We might need to make sure that things are established a bit more before, but she has my support." Ireena looked like a deer in the headlights, and didn't say no.

Then one of us shouted it: "All is not well in Vallaki!"

The Baron: "How dare you? This is my town." Lady Wachter: "How dare you? This is mine by rights." And the crowd turned on both of them.

The riot

• Izek reached up with his great arm and caught Sirius by the foot, ten feet in the air, and held him. His axe glanced off Sirius's shield.
• The raven on Lady Wachter's shoulder became an imp, bigger and more muscular than an imp has any right to be, and flew at us. Clancy kicked it on the way past: radiant hooves. (Clancy's first fight, and his first devil. He's been in this world for about twelve minutes.)
• Lady Wachter drew a rapier from her skirts and backed against a house. Ernst vanished into the crowd.
• The Baron, on his own stage: "I am the rightful lord of Vallaki." "Izek, kill him."
• Fëanor walked round the imp and loosed a lance of silver down a line through the imp, Izek and the Baron, and only them. The imp and the Baron went down. Vargas Vallakovich died on his own stage. The DM: "You have shot a lance of silver through the burgomaster of this town, and he is dead." He had just ordered Sirius killed. The Baroness stood smiling into the distance, spattered with blood.
• A guard, loyal to the position ("My lord!"), swung at Lily; she twisted out of most of it. Another cut at Sirius while Izek held him. Lily, standing next to a dead burgomaster, wouldn't hurt the guards: "My heart is not in it."
• The mob reached Lady Wachter, clubbed her with timber and bore her to the ground.
• Sirius, still held by the foot, reached down and hugged Izek: "Izek, I have seen inside you a burning passion to save this town. We can do this together with Ireena and this group. You know in your heart of hearts that Vargas has been manipulating you." And: "I'm not here to fight you, my friend. We both want the same thing. Call this off and we will work it through together. You have my word." Izek: "Some things don't make sense. Some things… flow together."
• Clover shot the imp, and Drew's acid missed. Osric cut the imp down with four strokes and his surge. From under the crowd's feet, Lady Wachter cried: "Oh, my compact." Osric: "I'm coming, Sirius."
• The crowd saw Sirius hugging Izek and held back from both of them.
• Izek: "Hold." "I don't know what to do. I have always had instruction. The son by rights should be in charge, but that feels wrong."
• Lady Wachter: "I surrender." The Baroness began to wave.
• Fëanor urged the crowd on: get her, she's in league with the devil. Lily, who was busy with Sirius and far away, said she hoped Lady Wachter would be able to address the situation appropriately.
• The crowd trampled Lady Wachter to death. We did not stop them.
• Izek let Sirius go.

Afterwards the sons were at the edge of the crowd, crestfallen. If they hadn't turned on her in public, they'd have gone under too. Ernst was nowhere to be seen. Sirius, to Izek: "My friend and I are considering how we best serve this town. Are we not, Izek?" "I don't know what to do." "I'm sure we will between us." Drew asked Sirius to tell everyone to go home. He'd barely started when someone screamed and pointed up.

The devil in the square

A cloud of bats, darker than the rain. In the middle of it, something glowing red: a horse, on fire, flying. It landed in the square, and Strahd looked around. Almost the whole crowd went glassy. So did Ireena.

• "Greetings, my friends. I see you've made a right mess of one of my favourite towns. Today you may speak freely. I'm having to make sure the rabble stays calm."
• "You have reinstated those damn bones." It's all been a lovely soap opera to him. "My usual methods of viewing have been curtailed since you've reinstated them, so I've had to come here and see for myself. And what a fine mess you've made… But I'm not going to take a victory from you. I see my good old baron there with his brains blown out on the stage."
• We said we hadn't meant this. "Oh, come now. Embrace it."
• "It was a lovely den of misery they had going here. But it had stayed its course. It was getting boring, shall we say. And you may have heard how I hate boring."
• "Whilst I am the land and the land is me, I am insufferably immortal. Nothing can harm me, and that gets dull after a while." (Those are his claims. Sirius asked if he was okay and needed someone to talk to.)
• "You're doing way better than the last lot. They were an embarrassment. Had to have them put down, you see." (Roger was in the crowd. Strahd has already forgotten him. Roger has not forgotten Strahd.)
• What did we mean to do about this mess? We meant to put Ireena in charge. "Ah, Ireena, my love." Sirius moved between them. "I have always given Ireena her space… I can no longer watch over you as I have been doing, with the darn bones emanating out their horrible radiance."
• "I do not like to force things. I have tried such things before, and they did not work particularly well. So I know she will come around eventually to my charms."
• Ireena as burgomistress? "I suppose that is not too untenable. She is of the right stock rather than this cattle that surrounds us."
• Sirius called him Baron, then Earl, then Marquis, then "Land". "Count Strahd von Zarovich at your service." "Count and earl are the same rank. Do not presume to tell me how to be." "Who cares what happens out in those barbarous lands out of the Mists? Barovia is the one true civilisation." Sirius offered to take him to a really excellent ball in Waterdeep or Neverwinter. "Oh, I throw the most excellent balls."
• "Do not let my genial current mood confuse you. Your words are but the wind… Whilst those darn bones are an annoyance, they do not stop me. They might stop my agents… but should I see fit, I may enter."
• "You have a promising start. I have been enjoying watching you. But you are not yet ready to be invited into my fold. One day you may be worthy, and I shall be watching that with pleasure."
• "But first, a drink." He took a townsman and drank him dry, and dropped him. "Ah, that was lovely." Lily threw a knife at him and missed. Sirius tried to ward the man; it did nothing. The man was willing, bound to it.
• "You have spirit. I do not begrudge you this. It is fun… Don't stay too long in Vallaki. Like I said, I can't watch you whilst you're here anymore. So get out there and be interesting. Do not be boring."

And he was gone. The crowd woke. Sirius: "The Morning Lord will provide. Come to service tomorrow at the Church of the Morning Lord. But go home now to your loved ones." They went.

What was left

• One of us went to gather up what was left of Lady Wachter so she wouldn't be left in the mud.
• The sons: "There was some weird stuff, but did she have to die?" We reminded them how many died because of her yesterday. They want wine, and the inn's running dry. We promised them: once the Reformation Center is shut, we go to the winery. "What's gonna happen to Stella? What's gonna happen to our sister?" Ireena is her friend, and we'll look after her.
• Izek: "I serve the Office of the Burgomaster." Would he serve a burgomistress? The office. On the Center: he'll have his guards seal it, but "I'm not sure the twins will take that kindly. I'm not sure I want to send my guards against the twins." We'll all go together.
• On Victor: "Things, now that you are talking, things don't make sense. Every time I go up there, things seem to change around." Sirius: "I had that experience as well."
• The Baroness, Lydia, went with Lucian to the church. Lucian has heard of an abbey near Krezk with someone of great priestly might who can heal bodies and minds.

The mansion

The ground floor was empty. On the first floor hung the great map again, the same as the one at Wachterhaus with the colours inverted. Could we take it? Ireena: "Guards, on my authority, unhang this map." It's with us now.

Victor's attic. Izek knew he'd be up there. At the top of the stairs: "I do not remember ever walking these stairs." Sirius didn't remember them either. How does Izek feel about someone being in his mind? "I do not like this." A door marked "Do not enter", kicked in. Nobody inside. On the floor, an arcane circle. Fëanor read it: a teleportation circle, single use, untraceable, damaged, still gently warm from being used. It won't work again. Victor is gone.

His book told us what he did. He was betrothed to Stella and found her annoying. One day he accidentally wiped her memory with a spell, was horrified, and then saw there were no consequences. So he kept experimenting on her mind, wiping it again and again, round and round, until she broke. That is how he learned to be a good mind mage. The rest of the attic is junk and the testing equipment of someone honing that craft. "I am going to destroy this little man." "I take back everything I said, Sirius."

On the twins, Izek told us more:

• They're elves, "elves proper", not dark elves. Barovia isn't a diverse place, but a few wander in. Most wanderers end up trying to be heroic. "These two offered their services to the Baron when he was starting up his jolly ways."
• That was about thirty years ago, he thinks, very early in the Baron's reign, soon after the old Baron died in very mysterious circumstances.
• They change minds with magic. They have a small cadre of guards who have spent time in their company, "who I would now suspect might not be entirely their own selves." They keep to the Center, and they're a hard nut to crack. They're not super powerful, as far as he knows.
• The Center usually holds a couple of dozen prisoners.
• "I have not really been much in there personally. I try and avoid the place."
• He doesn't think they ever come to the festivals. Nobody ever thought to ask.
• He'll follow whatever the burgomistress says.

Udo. Behind a door on the middle floor where somebody kept yelling, a man was manacled to the wall. "I got picked out from the usual Reformation intake for special attention. The Burgomaster has anger issues." We freed him. Sirius suggested church every day or two and some hymns. "Oh, I shall, sir. Udo Lukovich is my name. Thank you." And off he went.

The Baron's office holds books for the sake of books. He wasn't a papers person. There's silverware, which is Ireena's now; we didn't take it.

Ireena's first order: "Please dismantle the Reformation Center as much as you can. I do not want it to be going on. As burgomistress, I suppose I need to get inducted." She'll think hard about how the town is to be run without sliding into anarchy. We suggested advisers: Izek ("I am at your command"), Lucian, even the Wachter sons ("They are idiots, but they might…"). Sirius, a hand on her shoulder: "We would not have suggested you had you not been ready for this." She thinks it's creepy that Strahd has been watching her all this time, and she's glad the bones stop him now. We suggested she write to her dad. "My brother. Dad, dad is dead." She'll write to Ismark, and we'll get it to him somehow. ("I literally have wings made of raven feathers behind me," said Sirius. "If we cannot do it, who can?") They prayed together.

The Reformation Center

Clover had worn out; it's been longer than an hour. Izek came with us and brought no extra guards; he left them with Ireena. Clancy came too, and fits through the doors.

• The front doors weren't even latched. Inside is a courtroom: pews, a fence you can hop between the public and the court, and a throne at the far end, flanked by two guards.
• Izek: "Guards, stand down." "I don't recognise you. Who are you? You must be bad." They didn't look quite in their right minds.
• "Try not to kill my guards if at all possible."
• Fëanor put them to sleep. They fought it, then went under. Lily tied them with her rope, and when they struggled the knots only tightened. They're alive, bound in the courtroom.
• On the way in, Clancy had laid his healing touch on Sirius. (Sirius took seventeen in the square, and Clancy gave him fifteen back.)
• Behind the door to the right of the throne is a corridor with three doors. We reminded ourselves there are innocent people in here.
• The office: a large desk and an oversized chair, shelves of logbooks, and a cot "haphazardly elongated with a crate pushed at the foot to accommodate someone of unusual height". Is this your bed, Izek? "I have no memory of being here." The logbooks hold decades of intake records ("aversion therapy tried, successful"). The Baroness's name isn't in the one we checked. In the desk: a pouch of 23 gold and 16 copper, and a potion of healing, which we took. Drew spent a spell slot and Clover was back, on her shoulder.
• Lily scurried to the next door and listened.

The twins' room. We opened the door on two elves sitting in armchairs, chatting: a brother and a sister, hard to tell apart. Ilimir and Ivalice.

"Hello. I weren't expecting visitors today." By order of the burgomistress, you must cease all activities. "Burgomistress? Has there been an update we haven't been told about?" Sirius: We are here to help you, and provide you with the good word of the Morning Lord. "That's not gonna work for us. We work for the Burgomaster. Who enables us to ply our trade." He's dead. It got a bit messy. He ordered us to die, so we defended ourselves. "That sounds like a coup." "You talk to the devil." Sirius: I think he just needs a good ball. What do you think? "I think he's evil. He is a monster." (We agreed. They think we have his blessing. We don't.) What the hell do you think you're doing to people? "We're making them think right. Cleaning their heads." Well, stop that. "You have no authority here. We are doing what is best for Vallaki. We are making sure they think right." "All we have is your word for it… We know how to make sure people say whatever we want them to say." One of us gave them about twelve seconds to reconsider, or come and hear it from the new burgomistress herself. "This is going to be annoying to clean up."

No surprise on either side. They're hostile. Roll initiative.

Where we stand

• In the doorway of the twins' room inside the Reformation Center, on the evening of the festival. Ilimir and Ivalice are in their armchairs and have refused Ireena's order. Initiative will be rolled fresh.
• With us: Izek (a lance of silver took some of him too), Clancy, and Clover on Drew's shoulder. Behind us, two guards sleeping or awake but tied in the courtroom.
• Nobody has rested since last night. Spent: Sirius's wings, Zone of Truth and his warding spell; Fëanor's silver lance, and his sleep spell may still be holding; Osric's surge; Drew's free Clover and a slot to remake it; Lily's rope, and a knife somewhere in the square. Sirius is two short of where he started the day.
• The Baron is dead, by our priest's hand. Lady Wachter is dead, by the crowd's, and we let it happen. Ireena is acting burgomistress, not yet inducted, with Izek's guards. Victor is gone. Ernst is gone. Lydia is at the church. Udo is free. Henrik is somewhere in these cells.
• The letter was in the Baron's hand when he died. None of us picked it up.
• The great map is ours. So is a potion of healing from the office desk.
• Next session: Thursday 1 October.

Questions on our minds

• What do the twins do to people? What does "cleaning their heads" involve?
• How many of the guards are theirs?
• What was done to Izek? Who took the attic stairs out of his head, and the office?
• Where did Victor go? Barovia doesn't let people out.
• Where is Ernst, and what will he do now he has nobody left to serve and every reason to hate us?
• What was Lady Wachter's compact?
• What happens to Lord Wachter's body now?
• Who has the letter?
• Can the abbey near Krezk heal Stella, and Lydia?
• "Don't stay too long in Vallaki." And then what?