Cleaning Up for Dinner with Strahd
General Summary
Excerpt from Seir’s Little Black Book (Session 11/8/22): Penned in Seir’s (slightly neater) Hand
We stayed overnight in the Vistani camp. Khaylen took advantage of the time to help clean our clothes up and groom Thoradin’s beard. It appeared that Zin took advantage of the fact that he doesn’t need to sleep to raid the Vistani’s alcohol stores. We decided to go to Strahd’s castle, with Letho hanging back at the entrance and everyone else (even Borokin) going in. Khaylen and I devised a system of messaging each other from the outside of the castle. Khaylen tried to not allow Clovin to come with us, which seemed to upset Vasilka, but we eventually convinced her to let us bring him along. Strahd sent us a carriage, with nine sets of cloaks and gloves. All of us except Letho got in to go to the castle (Letho followed on a phantom steed), which Thoradin remarked looked to be centuries old. The building seemed to be in some state of disrepair. Letho remained on the exterior side of the drawbridge. We headed into the building, and were greeted by Rahadin, who was doing his best to keep the mind-screaming down to a minimum. He said Strahd was busy and told us to get cleaned up and said Strahd would get us new clothes. While we were following him upstairs, Khaylen tried to use some magic to peek through a door, but it was locked. Up on the landing, we found a rug which would make Letho envious, and an obvious wooden trapdoor which we walked past. There was also a portrait of a handsome, well-dressed man with a serene gaze- Strahd? In the lounge, we spotted Esher, as well as a pale woman who avoided eye contact with us, Sasha Illiscova. She seemed quite uncomfortable, and I tried to figure out if she was human and there against her will, though I promised to not speak in the castle so I couldn’t do too much. Esher said that he was hoping to see Letho with us. Borokin said that Letho was feeling ill and was unable to attend. Esher told us that they had a Belvue in the castle, and that he was an excellent chef. Apparently he was sent as a gift by the abbott- apparently he just sends them over occasionally. He also offered to get Clovin a new viol. We all headed to another room to get changed, and while we did Zin started vocally complaining about not being able to take a bath. A rather severe-looking woman (Ludmilla) appeared and harangued Esher about not bathing us. The woman instructed us to strip, and the woman used magic to clean us. Ludmilla seemed a little intrigued by the presence of Vasilka. Esher also brushed Zin’s hair and complimented it heavily. The two seemed to get along quite swimmingly. Esher told us that he used to live outside the valley, and came in- he was from the Sword Coast, in Waterdeep. And he came over quite a long time ago. He seemed to be unhappy with immortality- it seems that he’s not terribly fond of a lot of the company he keeps in Ravenloft. He told us that it’s been a bit over a century since the castle had its last visitors. After that conversation and us getting dressed, Esher took us to the dining hall, where we finally got to meet Lord Strahd. We all sat at a table, where Ludmilla came along with two other women- Valenta and Anastrazia. Outside the walls, Letho found a good dry spot to set up the rug and fall asleep.
Report Date
13 Nov 2022
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