Episode 4 · Session IV
Mist Walkers
A gate with Osric's sigil on it, a pie that's far too good, a village in mourning, and something hungry under the church.
Out of the woods at last, we find a gate carved with the words the crown jewel in the Strahd empire, and above them a sigil Osric has been carrying his whole life. Below a castle all spikes and shadow lies a village that bolts its doors at the sight of us, and an old woman whose pies are the best thing we have ever eaten.
A burgomaster one day into the job tells us what the mists are, and what the devil wanted from his family. We promise him a funeral and an escort. Then the village priest asks us to help his son, and very particularly not to kill him.
The recap
Session 4 in about 2 minutes. The full record is in the field notes.
We woke hungry on an old slate road that brought us to a crumbling gate between two high rocks: "Welcome to Barovia, the crown jewel in the Strahd empire." Above the words was the sigil from the letter. Osric unrolled his uncle's banner. It was the same sigil.
Below a vast, spiky castle on a pillar of rock lay a village where people hurried indoors at the sight of us. Only an old woman with a cart would talk to us. She called us "mist walkers", sold us pies at a gold piece each, and warned that when mist walkers come, the devil takes more of an interest. She lived in a mill outside the village with her sisters. The pies were better than anything we'd eaten at home.
In the silent Blood on the Vine a man waved us over: "Lancelot is Mary's dog. He's not been seen for weeks." He was Ismark, burgomaster since his father died the day before. The devil drinks the villagers' blood, he said, and he meant it literally. "The mists are the bars of our cell, and our jailer is Strahd." His father had died because the devil wanted Ismark's sister and the old man refused. He asked us to help bury his father, and to take his sister Ireena west to Vallaki, where there is a church the devil is said not to tread in. We agreed. Ireena asked us what the sun looks like, and made us truly dreadful tea. "He is coming for me. We must live with what we can do."
At Bildrath's shop Sirius talked the prices for outsiders down to a quarter. The coins we were paid carried a gaunt profile we knew: the pale man from the statue.
That night Mary came to the door, begging us to find her daughter Gertruda. We gave her back her dog and would promise only our best. She left anyway: "You've promised now. I've heard you promise." Ismark thought Gertruda was almost certainly dead, or at the castle, or with the witches in the ruins of Berez. In the morning Lily woke already eating her pie, and she, Drew and Fëanor all remembered bright, vivid dreams and nothing more.
Ismark would not let Ireena come to the funeral, and at last told us why: "There is something at the church." We carried the coffin out, buried the old burgomaster with Father Donavich, and then Donavich asked us to help his son, Doru. "By help him, you do not mean kill him. I will not hear any talk of that."
In the crypt a young man clung to the ceiling, and Fëanor's magic said undead. "I'm sorry, I'm so hungry." Nobody wanted this fight. Osric shoved him down and begged him to stop. Drew would not strike him, and pleaded with him. Sirius hit him with forty-seven points of holy fire, and he was still standing. Lily ran up the wall and pinned him at the top of the stairs. Drew held the hatch shut and told everyone to get out, until Donavich wrenched it open from above. "You promised."
Osric lowered his sword and asked Doru what he needed. "Blood. I need your blood. Anyone's blood." Osric turned to the priest. "I'm sorry, but he's a vampire, too." "He's my son."
We stopped there, with Doru in Lily's grip and his father standing in the open hatch.