Dinner Pt 2

I write this journal during the late hours of night and into the early light of day, watching the sun rise with Marushka by my side as we drive Ezmerelda's wagon towards our destination of Argynvostholt. I will now recount the events of the past day.
 
Kasimir, disguised as Rahadin, began leading Bryndon and I around the lower levels of Castle Ravenloft, giving us the opportunity to explore and memorize the layout. Of course I notated as much as I could, in my notebook, as we explored. I guess the boy assumed he'd just remember it, or not bother at all and leave it to me. Whatever. I had a good idea of what I was expecting due to my conversations with Rudolf earlier in Vallaki. The stories could hardly compare to the real thing. With some exploration, I found that the castle could change itself, a self-defense mechanism, almost as if it were alive. Through trial and error I discovered that the castle seems to rotate on a four-floor rotation. Duly noted. Should we find ourselves needing to progress through the castle without the safety of our host in the future, as I'm sure we shall, we'll at least have that knowledge to aid us.
 
As we returned to our room, we came across a section of hallway not far from our room. While we could see nor detect anything unusual, the hairs standing on the back of my neck told me otherwise. We drew our weapons to prepare for some sort of assault, invisible assailants perhaps? Turns out to have been Ezmerelda, coming to spy on us at Rudolf's suggestion once he had found out that we accepted Strahd's invitation to dinner, and brought Ireena with us. I know not what information Ezmerelda may have gleamed from her time in hiding, but I do know that invisibility spells don't last indefinitely. We told her we would be leaving at "dawn" (I say that, knowing that the sun is always shrouded in this land.), and it would be in her best interests to make her way outside to the courtyard where the Black Coach would be waiting to take us to our next destination, and to hide out there until we meet up with her in the morning. I would have.. offered to share my room, but she seems to dislike me for some reason. Not so much as for anything I may have done, I feel, but perhaps for some other innocuous reason. Along with the fact that I was sharing the room with Bryndon, of all my companions, it seemed an unwise choice. She agreed with the decision, and made her way out of the castle (as far as we could tell), and the two of us finally retired to our room for the night.
 
We awoke hours later, quite refreshed I must admit. Truly, it was actually the best sleep I've gotten since I've arrived here. Part of me feels guilty for that. Elaine not being here still haunts me to a degree, as I'm sure it will for some time to come. We all made our way to the Black Coach to proceed onwards to the Wizard of Wines, finding Ezmerelda curled up on a seat within. Erkki began speaking of dreams and shirtless vampires licking his heart or something of the sort. I immediately dismissed him as ramblings of a bad hangover. He and Oswald seemed to drink quite a lot at dinner the night before. We began piling inside when we heard a noise outside the carriage - prompting me to throw my cloak over Ezmerelda and Marushka to cover her with her dress. I like how on the same wavelength we seem to be about such things. It was then that Erkki's Lestat appeared to us all and began.. taunting? Errki himself, who seemed greatly disturbed by the creature's arrival. I banged on the wall of the coach and yelled for whatever phantom driver to take us away, and thankfully it did.
 
Once we'd left the creature in our wake, Bryndon and Erkki began discussing our plans but Marushka (rightly) interjected that Strahd's private coach was probably not the best place to be discussing such matters if we were wanting privacy. We all soon stopped and made ourselves comfortable in the coach, letting the rest of the trip go by in relative silence. Leaving in the early morning, we arrived at the crossroads near the Wizard of Wines in late afternoon. The speed this flying coach can achieve is amazing, if nothing else. Once we disembarked, we began to discuss our plans in full. Bryndon reiterated his desire to go to the Amber Temple once again, Erkki stated his desire to go nowhere near the place, and Oswald actually stepped in to give his 2 copper on the subject. (For the record, I had no intentions of going to the Wizard of Wines right away; while I respect Strahd and his power, I don't trust him. If he's so powerful, he could take care of this situation himself, not send us in his place. He's playing us, I'm sure of it.)
 
To be honest, I wanted to take some time and just.. stop feeling so rushed. Ever since we arrived at Vallaki we've been constantly on the move. I feel like there was so much more we could have accomplished there before everything went to hell. Oswald made some good points about the coin given to his some time ago, and (I believe) Marushka brought up the tarrokka reading Madam Eva gave us some time ago. Ezmerelda agreed, and if that was the conclusion the only two natives here came to, that was good enough for me. Finding this book should provide ample answers to our questions, and even shed some light on what caused all this. Perhaps, we may even discover a means to end this nightmare once and for all. Thankfully, the road to Argynvostholt was not too terribly far, and we could reach it by heading back East. We all agreed once Oswald managed to make some sense with Bryndon, and headed off that way.
 
It was a few hours later when we were nearly ran over by a wagon on the way, being driven by Rudolf Van Richten himself. We regrouped, got in the wagon, and continued on our way to Argynvostholt. Rudolf gave us shit for taking Ireena to Strahd's dinner, of course, without any better options to suggest we had done. After explaining to the others what I gleamed about Castle Ravenloft, Rudolf confirmed what I discovered. He even elaborated on there being a great source of magic somewhere in the castle, acting as a 'heart' and protecting it from intruders. It made me wonder then if the castle was changing because the 3 of us were "somewhere we shouldn't be" or if it was because it knew Ezmerelda was sneaking about and she was not invited by Strahd. I kept my thoughts about it to myself. The pair of them seemed especially prickly this evening, with Ezmerelda's temperament returning once she'd been reunited with her mentor.
 
The wasn't all too much to say regarding the rest of the evening. I believe Rudolf ran over a corpse on the road as he drove, and we were stopped at one point to battle off a small pack of Alpha Werewolves. I don't mean to make light of the battle itself, but we all seemed to handle it fairly well. The carriage Rudolf drove, owned by Ezmerelda we learned, was well fortified for attack and even came equipped with multiple mounted crossbows, all of which included silver-tipped ammunition. If ever there is a silver shortage in Barovia, this man is why. Bryndon was downed again, surprising no one, but was rescued by Rudolf. Didn't know the old man had healing magic, but I supposed for as long as he's been at this, one would need to. We found the armored tiger Rudolf owned to be named "Blinsky" after the man himself, and extremely well trained in combat, coming to Erkki's aid and nearly single-handedly decapitated a werewolf.
 
This, of course, all happened on Ezmerelda and Van Richten's watch so once the battle was over, they switched out with Marushka and I who had volunteered for the second watch. The rest of them slept as peacefully as one can in a moving carriage, and I think even Marushka was dosing off on me up in the driver's seat. I said nothing, of course. Let her sleep. Let them all sleep. Hopefully their dreams are of something better than this nightmare. I finish this entry at the end of my watch, having just switched again with our two guests who were quite keen on taking the reins back from us, despite the undisturbed sleep that they got from our watch, as if we would somehow bring them bad luck. Marushka and I retired back in to the carriage, set to eke out just a few more hours sleep before we arrive in Argynvostholt.
 
Hopefully we can get through this without losing someone else in this godforsaken place...