/cos/raw/05.html

• On Seir's watch, Ireena gets up and walks to the edge of the river. Fog curls in and it starts violently raining. A figure is in the distance, on the other side of the fog. It beckons to Ireena and Seir. Ireena walks forward, onto the water. Seir grabs hold of her. Ireena fights. The fog twists into shapes, forming wolf-like shapes around the figure. Lightning flashes and the figure vanishes, and Ireena snaps out of her trance.
• Seir comes back with Ireena and tells Belial about what happened.
• The gang notices Ireena is oddly pale. Belial notices two puncture marks on her neck. He remembers that just being bitten doesn't make you a vampire, though.
• We wake up and get direction to Krezk.
• We head off. After we cross the bridge, we come across two odd-looking Vistani. Arkan has 0 trust after the werewolves and goes straight to intimidation when they won't leave the group alone. It worked.
• We start to head off. They use Vicious Mockery on Arkan but he passes his save. Lilly is shocked someone else knows the power of murdering through insulting.
• We come to a set of gates with two headless guard statues. The heads are at the bottom. Arkan touches one and nothing happens. Lilly hopes they have a good day.
• Seir tries to push open the door and fails. Belial gets two 0s for his Strength roll and it was funny. Arkan walks up and shows off by fuckin shoving the gates open with a 16.
• We come to a small valley and see a torn apart windmill in the middle of it. It reminds us of the one in the death house. Arkan hears singing so he walks up to it. A raven is outside and it squawks at us, seeming to encourage us to flee. Lilly shares this with the group, but Arkan does not care.
• Ground floor is a filthy, abandoned kitchen. Bones are under our feet. We smell something gross from a barrel and see green-black sludge. Inside the oven, Lilly sees the pies from Barovia.
• Arkan puts a stick in the sludge and it gets sucked inside.
• Three bottles: Gold syrup "Youth", Red thin liquid "Laughter", Greenish-milky liquid "Mother's Milk"
• Old woman comes down the stairs. It's the pie lady. Arkan taps her barrel and agitates her. She yells, "Daughters, we have unwelcome visitors." She taps on the barrel herself.
  • The daughters come downstairs.
  • Arkan uses Mage Armor on himself.
  • River asks to buy a pie to make peace, to which Pie Lady says he'll need to buy more than one. He Tolls the Dead on daughter 1.
  • Seir does nothing.
  • Lilly inspires Arkan.
  • Pie Lady-- ok fucking christ her name is Morgana and I'm using that --uses a spell on River. He makes the save but takes a bit of damage.
  • A creature comes out of the barrel. It's covered in sludge. It's a demon of some kind, Arkan deduces.
  • Belial uses Ego Whip on it and does good damage, and makes it only able to Dodge, Disengage, or Hide.
  • The daughters say, "Mother, your visitors are very rude." D1 uses a spell on River, who, despite having disadvantage because Niall wordlessly went AFK, saved. D2 also casts a (different) spell, to which River crit fails. He gets paralysed.
  • Arkan stabs it with a Shadow Blade and it goes down. He stares at Morgana like "Wrow"
  • River fails whatever save he's gotta do.
  • Seir sighs and goes in. He attempts to rapier stab and fails.
  • Lilly inspires Arkan again and gives him the deed to the windmill.
  • Morgana uses Vicious Mockery on Seir, saying, "You call that a deer?" Seir saves, and replies, "Fuck you!"
  • Belial tries something cool and fails.
  • Arkan is turned into a pig. The other paralyses Seir. They both run.
  • River shakes off paralysis.
  • Lilly goes after the Polymorpher and uses Dissonant Whispers. It fails that, but passes the concentration save.
  • Morgana goes, "I'll get you kids, and your pig, too!" She fades out of visibility. Belial recognises it as her going to the etheral plane.
  • Belial uses Ego Whip on one of 'em. It doesn't do much.
  • The two run. Lilly stabs one.
  • Pig!Arkan goes outside. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's a pig.
  • River uses Lesser Restoration on Seir.
  • Seir comes out and picks up Arkan and calls him friend. Arkan oinks in response.
  • Lilly moves forward and uses her crossbow on one of 'em. She misses.
• Lilly goes back in to ransack.
• Ireena gets mad we attacked Morgana and cooes over Pig!Arkan, unknowing that it's Arkan.
• Lilly pulls the pies out of the oven. Arkan wanders over and tries to eat one since his intelligence is a solid 2 now. Lilly stops him and he makes a cute face. Lilly looks pleading to the party.
• River purifies a pie and gives it to Arkan. It paralyses him and makes him high as shit. Lilly gets distressed she gave a pig weed. She takes him upstairs.
• Second floor: 8ft high chamber. Some part of the windmill mechanism in there. Grinding shaft or something? Whatever was being grinded was definitely not flour. Belial and Lilly think it's bone, but are not sure.
• Third floor: Bedroom of the sorts. In the middle where the windmill shaft is, there's an odd mechanism. Grinding mill is turned by hand. Wooden trap door. Lots of clothes. Some crates. Whining comes from them. Inside is a small boy. In the next one is a small girl who's even younger.
• Ireena knows them. They're children of Barovia. She thinks they were kidnapped as payment for people who have no money to pay debt but are addicted to the pies.
• Lilly goes through the trap door. Small and boring room.
• They leave and see Vallaki in the distance. Ireena suggests they cut through the forest if they want to reach Vallaki before nightfall.
• Arkan turns normal. Seir straight up drops Arkan. Lilly fails to catch him. Belial dives under and catches him. Power of gay. Arkan gropes Belial's face as they walk, thinking it's butterflies.
• They go through the forest and go to Vallaki off in the distance.
• Two guards refuse to let them in because it's too close to dark. Belial tries to charm them and fails. They're very concerned by Arkan's high ass state.
• Seir: "Please-let-us-in." Nat 20.
• Old man hobbles out and tells the guards to let us in. We are. River swears he recognises the captain/old man...
• We enter! It looks like they recently had some sort of festival.
• They go to an inn with a waterfall on its sign.