Smile or the Stocks

Without Fiadh, the party takes the road to Vallaki with Ireena. Helliax gives up his maul and Gesch gets a javelin, and the road stays quiet until a father in the mud says his daughter has gone into the trees. Her name is Arabelle, and she is seven years old. Gesch's Clue spell makes the footprints glow pink, and they lead north to a lake with three empty rowboats and one boat that just left.

Cassius finds a lantern far out on the water. They row, and the lake turns into a chase: fog, mud, wolves howling from the shore, bats overhead, and debris to drag out of the way. Ghast rolls a natural 20 on investigation. When the party reaches the shallows, the girl is no longer scared. She turns around and says they were slow, and that something has been following her since the water.

The uncle who hunts wolves did not come for her. A man in a funny hat with a feather offered her a boat ride to safety, and then the lake woke up. Hags rose out of the water and went for the boats, and Ireena dropped her rapier to pull Arabelle out before she sank. Gesch dove for the rapier and came back with it. The party rowed to shore and walked the rest of the way.

At the gate of Vallaki, a smiling man in a grey cloak opened a small door for them. Outside the wall, refugees from Barovia sat in the mud, and the guards wanted two gold for each one of them to come in. Their leader, Elizabetha, said they had left Barovia to die. Ireena told a father that his son was gone, and the refugees went home.

Inside, the town smiles at everyone, because the Baron has ordered it for the Festival of Light. Groza, a dwarf weaponsmith, quietly sold Cassius a battleaxe that she said nobody else would ever want. Ireena got a shield and a short bow, and her rapier came back to her from the shore. Then the party saw a frail old man dragged off a horse by a guard and taken to the questioning. The Baron rode on. Nobody has said what happens next.