Within the gates guard tower between the mountain and the woods, the party prepares for the night with Summer offering to take first watch. Climbing onto the view port of the tower, Summer sits and watches a storm roll in while the rest of the party takes their rest.
Hearing the howl of wolves from the forest, Summer leans out of the tower to take a look. Only to almost be struck by lightning! The strike landing near her knocks her on her back with her ears ringing. The booming thunder managed to wake both Slate and Tariel, the two hearing Summer yelling loudly from the top of the tower. Seeing Slate return to his meditation, Tariel goes up to see what's going on with Summer.
The kobold is yelling alot, seems like they were temporarily deafened by the lightning. Seeing the Summer is calming down again, Tariel returns to the group to continue sleeping and leaving Monk to their watch.
As another strike of lightning lights up the tower, Summer suddenly sees a familiar silhouette appear before her. Strahd!
As Summer screams, the figure vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Leaving Summer terrified as she races back down to the group and leaps into the swaddle with Torbin.
With a roll of his eyes, Slate gets up to take over Summers watch. Sitting with the group, the Rogue hears something moving around in the watchtower where Summer was posted before.
Not wanting to climb up, he calls out Skowl to send them outside to check.
Opening the door a crack, Slate finds himself almost face-to-face with a wolf. In a flash, the Elf manages to send out his bone bird and slam the door shut just as the wolf pounces at the door!
Using the eyes of Skowl, Slate counts 6 wolves lurking around the outside of the tower. Feeling lucky that he closed the door in time, he directed Skowl toward the top of the watchtower. The moment Skowl faces up, the last thing Slate sees if a hoard of bats enveloping his vision before losing his connection to his non-feathered friend.
Welp...
Finishing his shift, Slate wakes up Fran who remains silent all night due to... well, nothing happening.
The next morning, Slate informs the party of the events that occurred during the night. While Slate checks the door again, Abe checks the trapdoor leading to the top of the tower. Abe calls down that it looks like something was trying to claw at the lock during the night while Slate listens at the door for the wolves. Hearing nothing, he goes to push the doors open only to find something is pressed against it. With Tariel and Summers help, the three push the door open to find that a mans body was perched against the door with his throat slit.
Stepping over the body, the party gets outside to see if they recognize the person. Then Torbin closes the door to the tower...
And everyone looks at Francesco.
While Tariel scolds Fran, the party starts moving toward the windmill. Once the party is in view of the windmill, Slate spots a young girl feeding two pigs in a pen beside the old looking structure. Using his Message spell, he tries to ensure the girl that she is safe. But instead she pauses in place before screaming and running inside the windmill.
An older woman exits the windmill as the party approaches, demanding to know their business here. Torbin explains that they were invited by Morgathra, the old pie lady they met in Barovia, to come see where they make the pies.
The woman, Ophelia, tells them that Morgathra is visiting Valiki and won't be back for a few hours. With Tariels insistance, Ophelia relents and tells the party to wait outside while she and the girl, Myrtle, tidy up before letting them inside.
The door closes in Tariels face, the paladin knocking on the door while Abe and Slate start casing out the structure.
With Tariel and Torbin asking questions, Ophelia demands that they put their 'dog' on a leash. And Summer is leashed while Abe helps Slate onto the second floors window. Abe can barely see Myrtle boiling a kettle through the grimy windows while Slate on the windowsill of the next floor above can see an apron caked in flour and... is that blood? He can make out what sounds like giggling coming from the floor above too.
The Rogue messages Abe his findings before scaling up to the next floor, where he can see a bed in front of the window and a woman in tattered clothes with her back to the window fiddling with something.
Myrtle climbs the stairs to the floor with the new woman, telling her to come down and greet the guests.
The woman, 'Auntie Bella', grumbles that she'll be down shortly, after she's had her fun. Myrtle asks to have a try at what Bella is toying with. Slate watches as the older woman hands the young girl a knitting needle, which she jabs toward Bella and a small whimpering cries out...
As Myrtle nervously chuckles, she hands back the needle and heads back down stairs as Ophelia slams the door shut on Tariel. As Slate attempts to get a better look at what Bella is playing with, he accidentally makes a plank creak which causes the old woman to turn a little to try and find the source of the noise.
With Bella turning, Slate finally sees what she is playing with: a young boy, his cheeks and mouth covered in puncture holes. He watches in disgust as the woman forces the needle through the boys cheek while she holds his mouth shut, only allowing a pain whimper to escape the boys lips...
Quickly scaling back down to the group, Slate tells the party of his findings on the third floor.
Shocked by his discovery, the party decide to try and lure the women outside to attempt to work out what's going on here.
Torbin brings up that they need a distraction as the door opens, Myrtle and Ophelia exiting the building with trays of tea and pastries. And Summer yanks on her collar, dragging Torbin for a moment as she sprints into the pig pen and kicks one of the pigs!
Myrtle drops the tea and tries to stop Summer, only for her to be caught up in Abes arms as he takes her hostage!
Seeing Tariel drawing her halberd, Ophelia raises a hand and shoots a barrage of small Magic Missiles into the Paladin!
As she retreats into the house, Tariel and Slate give chase into the kitchen while attempting to hit the old lady but she manages to dodge the two of them. How can she move like that?!
Torbin chases after his allies, leaving Summer with the pigs so he can heal up Tariel.
Ophelia tries casting a spell on the trio inside her kitchen, the three all feeling drowsy for a moment before fighting off the spell and advancing!
Abe struggles to keep Myrtle in his grip, the young and terrified girl begins flailing and crying. Then Abe tries hitting the universal mute button: the head.
Caving the girls skull in with the hilt of his sword, Abe feels the girl go limp in his arms... Uh, oh...
Summer knocks out both the pigs with her nimble blows before heading toward the windmill, the trio inside following Ophelia to the second floor with their skirmish. Ophelia cries out to someone upstairs, Slate guesses it's the woman he saw before. The Rogue tries to cast sleep on Ophelia, but the old woman seems to resist it with a sinister glow from her eyes.
Following Ophelia across the room, Tariel rams her halberd through the woman while she tries to find something on a shelf under the stairs leading to the next floor! Tariel notices that the skin around the wound she made looks off..
Meanwhile, after dropping the slaughtered child, Abe attempts to scale the outside of the windmill like Slate did.
It's not working out for the poor guy, he looks so silly in front of Ireena...
Back inside the structure, Torbin can hear heavy footsteps coming from upstairs. He casts a spell at the top of the stairs, a snare for whoever is coming.
An ugly looking woman-like creature makes her way down the stairs, the Night-Hag coming into view of the party. Tariel and Torbin both recognize the trouble they're in...
Then Bella immediately gets caught in Torbins snare and be flipped upside down in the air.
Cursing in anger, 'Bella' attempts to hit Torbin with a green beam that misses wildly!
Tariel and Slate both begin fighting Ophelia, the hag in disguise taking the two on while blasting Tariel with more Magic Missles in response to the Divine Smite thrusted into her by the Paladin!
Outside, Abe attempts to climb the outside of the windmill...
...Nope...
Then something scampers up his back. Summer climbs up Abe and jumps through the window to the second floor, kicking Ophelia in the shin!
Torbin manages to heal Tariel just in time to see Summer get backhanded out of existence by the 'woman'. Wonder where she got banished to...
Bella finally manages to free herself from Torbins snare, only to roll down the stairs and land on her face in front of the Gnome Druid. She snarls and swipes at the little man, but he manages to jump back in time!
Tariel steps between Torbin and Bella, driving her Halberd into the fallen Hag and smiting her with Divine magic!
Torbin starts racing down the next flight of steps, setting up another snare that Bella tramples over with Tariel following behind her.
Abe finally manages to climb onto the first floor! Hooray! ...Where'd Summer go?
Slate swings away at Ophelia, giving Abe the opportunity to drive his swords into the back of the Hag and slice her in two!
With Ophelias disguise fading away, the disgusting woman falls to the floor and Summer comes tumbling out of the Hags pocket, the mini-Kobold suddenly becoming her normal size as she's spat out of the 'Pocket Dimension'.
Seeing her sister fall, Bella swings at Tariel once more before declaring that she and her other sister will have revenge. Then, vanishes.
With Summer vomiting on the floor from whatever she found in Ophelias pocket, the party starts to assess the damages and try to find the child that Slate saw upstairs.
Hopefully, they're still alive. The party needs to at least save one kid, right Abe?
