Dolls That Look Like Her

The Baron's horse carried the old man away, and the party let it go. But Helliax saw something the others missed: Izek couldn't take his eyes off Ireena. It wasn't how a man looks at a pretty girl. It was how you look at someone you know and can't place. Ireena stepped behind Helliax to hide from it.

Arabelle wanted a doll, from the best dollmaker in Barovia. A woman with a basket of dolls spat on the ground when she saw the girl's Vistani eyes, so the party threw a robe over Arabelle and followed the directions to Blinsky's Toys. Arabelle said her great-grandmother, Madam Eva, had promised her a doll from here.

Old Gadof Blinsky was busy gluing, so he called for his daughter, Jordana. Arabelle pointed at the top shelf: three or four dolls with Ireena's face. They were already sold. A man comes for them every week, Blinsky said, and punishes him if they aren't ready. Arabelle chose the scariest doll in the shop instead. Cassius's Detect Evil showed that its hair and its carved eye came from something undead. Blinsky had bought the hair from the coffin maker. "If it's no fun, it's no Blinsky."

Then the back door swung open on its own, and Ash Notley, three feet of living wooden toy, hopped onto the counter and spun his pistol. "Don't worry. I am a professional." Blinsky called Gesch a tiny dragonborn and asked who he belonged to, and Jordana gave Gesch a puppet of his own, Lord Ambercrest. Jordana told the party that Strahd took her mother, and asked to travel with them. Then Blinsky noticed the real Ireena across the room. He dropped a fourth Ireena doll, its head shattered, and he begged her to leave before "he" showed up.

At the Blue Water Inn, Karl Wachter told Jordana his little sister Stella has gone catatonic. An old woman sold Helliax rumors for coins: the hags are at the windmill, all silver in Vallaki must be melted into weapons, and Izek has spent ten years looking for one woman. The party took one room, and Ghast and Helliax built a fort out of two Tiny Huts.

At three in the morning, Izek knocked. He said he'd sneaked away from his father, the Baron, and that Ireena had stepped out of his dreams. Gesch tackled him. Jordana opened the door disguised as Ireena. Ash shot him twice. Izek burned through both legendary resistances, said "All I wanted to do was talk to you," and leapt out the window shouting Ireena's name. Gesch dove after him, and Cassius followed.