We started at the front door of the local lord’s manor. We noted that the exterior was even more damaged by wolf claws than was the church. The lady who answered, directed us around back to talk to the guy. We told him our tale without omission. He didn’t seem too shocked but was concerned that they’d need a new village priest. He invited us into his sitting room. Brian had turned on the point of view feature which made it hard to navigate the map. When there were no seats left, Lord Q ventured into the main hall to find the lady (the guy’s sister) praying at an open coffin. Excusing himself, he rejoined the rest. Turns out that was the local lord, recently died from all the stress of the nightly attacks. And age. So, our guy was actually the new lord although they wanted to bury him first. Zolton said he thought he could help, based on the clerical correspondence book he picked up at the church. The lord asked us to look into the zombie problem. We started debating that when someone showed up, concerned that her father was very sick.
None of us had medicine but we came along. The sister made some rolls but he passed. And transformed into a zombie and attacked. Since it was greatly outnumbered and newly formed, Brian agreed we could vanquish it without rolling initiative. Ambrus noticed that he seemed to have been watering his wine. His daughter thought it was to save the family money. He leaped on this clue and we headed to the well. Even before looking down it, we could tell it had rank odors coming out. The bucket was lit up with a Light cantrip but all we could tell was that there was some sort of chamber down there. Loki volunteered to be lowered down to take a look. It was a 35x35 room with the middle being water. Nothing was seen but when he swung onto the ground, 3 zombies emerged from the dirt and attacked. Loki got hit twice and lost a quarter of his hit points and was then pulled back up. We debated what to do. Some were still down from the vampire battle earlier in the day so maybe it could wait. Kharn cut that short, raged, and jumped down.
So, everyone climbed down as their initiative dictated. There were about 8 of them total as they kept emerging. They did two slam attacks and if both hit, they got a free grapple and a free bite. Their AC was very low but their “to hit” was good and their damage was high. It was Loki’s turn to get racked. He was hit 3 times in a row and dropped with a final crit. Zolton brought him up with a heal long enough to get one attack and then he was knocked out again. Kharn kept getting missed. The rest, somewhere in between. The last issue was that when they went below 0, they got a CON save to keep going. So, it took a bit extra to finish them off. All and all, we got battered but survived. We took a short rest, pulled the bodies out, and burned them. Zolton did a purify water ritual (or 10) and we reported back.
Once again, we were thanked. Loki asked if he could spare a short sword or two. Others made requests and we were able to get some supplies, clothes, trade some weapons, etc. Good thing since all we’ve earned in the town are some books for the Cleric and some coppers from the well. We hung out at the manor and got cleaned up. We stayed for dinner. There was talk about Strahd and the world that mostly flew past the half of us that haven’t read all these books. We agreed to escort the sister to the next town where we hoped to talk to this old wise woman Kharn keeps talking about. Maybe she’ll have answers. Hopefully, we can get a long rest before we go. So next game in two weeks. Still 3rd.
