People leveled up to 9th as they trickled in so it was a slow start. We questioned the rescued kid. Evidently, he and 7 others of varying ages were being kept in cages in the next room. They were being forced to fight one another to determine which was strong enough to withstand the “gift” of the werewolf curse. As we learned later, they are from various parts of the land which will make returning them much harder. I.e. some were from Valaki, some were from the orphanage that has since burned down, some from Barovia, and some had been sold to Granny Momo, etc. The surviving werewolf was also questioned and she seemed reasonably cooperative. The vampire huntress NPC in particular was eager to off her. Lady Patrina attempted to do a Remove Curse on the two that had been bitten and not saved. I think we thought it was Baron Q and Karn or the NPC. Regardless, it didn’t work. The evil magic in this land is too strong. A couple of rolls revealed that it probably needed to be done on holy ground. The closest was back to Krusk. It seemed like we had until the next full moon which was about a week. Once the werewolf heard that we might be able to cure her, she was on board.
We uncaged the kids and gave each a Good Berry to boost their strength for the journey back to the tower to get our wagon. We took a short rest. A bunch of searching found nothing of interest or value except a pile of treasure around an altar of the Druid Huntress god. The one we just rescued. Our captive said they avoided it so we decided to do so as well. This place has convinced us not to trust a “big pile of treasure”. We searched the bodies and burned them. We made it back to the tower and did a bit more searching. Nothing was found except a trap we avoided and that suit of armor. Kharn managed to carry it outside where it was detected as magic. Lady P Identified it as Animated Armor but did not get the command word. Eventually, Brian gave us INT rolls to remember the word on the door we messed with 3 months ago. Kazan? It seems to be a slightly more useful Unseen Servant but it’ll take some time to mess with.
We took a long rest and headed back on the road in the morning. The kids were in Kharn’s wagon and Esmeralda brought hers as well. We encountered a huge mist creature on the road. The fight started but in round two, the NPC put it into a Force Cage and we simply went around. After the fact, Brian admitted that that shouldn’t have worked. I doubt we’ll go back. So, we’re heading back to Krusk with a load of more problems for Irena. (Dan: This felt pretty pointless. I wasn't sure if we wouldn't have simply gone around it if we could have. Brian made a joke if we wanted to redo the encounter and naturally no one did. You could say all random encounters are pointless but this one felt more so.)
