The Boy Under the Church Floor

The mists finally let go and drop the party at the gates of Barovia, a village under siege. Zombies come every night at sunset. Half the town has fled. The rest are held together by Ismark, a young man doing his sick father's job, and a strange new ally: Cassius, an ex-soldier paladin who wandered into Barovia and just started helping.

Inside the Blood of the Vine tavern, the name Strahd von Zarovich is spoken for the first time, and a hooded wine merchant named Sorvia who defends her "lord and master" turns out to have a face nearly identical to Fiadh's. Then Arik the barkeep coughs blood, and two puncture wounds on his neck change the whole night: a vampire has been feeding inside the walls.

The trail leads to a wrecked church and a sobbing priest who lies about where his holy symbol went. Gesch, brand new to his paladin gifts, feels something undead under the floorboards. The truth is Father Donavich's son Doru, who went up to the castle to kill the devil in his sleep and came back half-turned.

The episode ends in the cellar dark: Helliax cuts himself to test the boy's hunger, blood in the air, fangs bared, and a father shouting a blessing down through the floor. One boy's soul, balanced on a knife's edge.