There’s a charging noise coming from upstairs. I’m not sure exactly what it is. All I do know is that I’m crammed in this basement with Radha and Victor’s intern. It’s way too cramped in this hole! Old takeout and Ireena dolls are scattered all over the place. Creepy!! And as for Ireena, she’s not herself, though she did take note of the intern and was all “who the fuck is this?!” (So maybe she is herself? Just paler? I don’t know.)
Izek, Blinksey, and Endrid are upstairs. And despite our cramped quarters, we are ready for action. Radha, still in her Izek disguise, shuffles over to Ireena, giving the intern and I a bit more space to breathe. After convincing Ireena that she was not replaced, and that this intern is no threat to her, she votes to get out of here. Radha consults with me, and I suggest we wait to see what’s happening upstairs before we try to make our escape. Radha climbs the steps and eavesdrops through the floorboard on what’s happening on the other side of it. Suddenly, the trap door swings open, and Izek grabs Radha by the scarf, lifts her out of the basement, and while holding her with that same arm, a fireball glowing crimson-rust in Izek’s monstrous other hand-claw!
Endrid tries to reason with Izek, but the brute quickly becomes enraged by her presence and turns to face Endrid. In the next instant, I see Izek still holding firm onto Radha and Endrid grasping Victor in some strange Barovian standoff of sorts. So I fit an arrow into my shortbow, draw back as much as I can, aim the tip right at Izek’s butt, and let it fly. It hits, and now, Izek’s attention has turned from Radha to Endrid to me. Shit!
Out the corner of my eye, I see Blinksey rush away from the escalating scene. Radha attempts to strike Izek with an Eldritch blast, but she is unable to land a hex on the brute. These Eldritch blasts make a mess of Blinksey’s toy shop. Radha then bites at the arm holding her, but it does nothing.
Izek slams Radha down, and just when I think he’s gonna attack me, he rushes toward Endrid and swings his battleaxe at her! Swing and a miss, but upon a second swing, the axe makes contact with Endrid, slashing her armor, though she is somehow still able to hold on to Victor. “We’ll let you take Victor,” she shouts, “if you let us have Ireena.” No response from Izek causes Endrid to enter a rage and swing her greataxe at the towering fiend. Izek takes some serious slashing and is forced back by the blow. “What is your deal?!” Endrid yells as she swings her greataxe once more (with one hand mind you––she’s still holding tight to Victor, who looks like a zombie! Fascinating fortitude!)
Behind me, I learn from a conversation between Ireena and the intern that Izek thinks she’s his sister. What?! The scene above me is growing more intense by the second, so I instruct the intern and Ireena to make a run for it once I get out of the basement, that I’ll cover them. I yell to Radha to “keep the ladies protected!” Then, I climb out of the basement and ready my hands for a shocking grasp if anyone comes close––anyone being Izek, of course. Meanwhile, Radha fires a powerful pair of Eldritch blasts at Izek. He turns as Radha rushes to the front door of this toy shop straight out of the Nine Hells and hurls the fireball at her, which hits hard. Then, he rushes toward the door just as the intern is leading Ireena out of the basement, so they don’t get as far as I’d have liked them to get.
Endrid waves Victor’s flaccid body in the air and calls out to Izek in a mockingly playful, luring manner. “Oh Izek––check this out!” She traipsies up the stairs with the burgomaster. This certainly arrests Izek’s attention, which was exactly the distraction I needed, along with my nonpareil stealth skills, in order to make my way with the intern and Ireena past the big brute and to the front door of the sohp. We make it, and we’re now outside. It’s nighttime in Vallaki now (but it seems like it's always nighttime in Vallaki––I absolutely loathe this detestable, damned city!)
Radha fires another pair of Eldritch blasts toward Izek to help give us a little more space between him and us. One blast knocks him against the wall while the other slams him hard into the wall, shattering toys and the glass windows of Blinksey’s shop. Then, Izek peels himself off of the wall and shattered window and dashes over to the stairs where Endrid had disappeared to, battleaxe at the ready. The sounds of battle ensue, just out of our purview.
“How’s everyone doing?” I ask, then inquire about the intern’s name, which is Tanya. Everyone says they’re okay, but I realize we’re not all present. I blurt out “why can’t we all stay together?!” mostly to myself, but I think Radha gets where I’m coming from. I decide to go back in and check on Endrid, and when I do, she is engaged in a harsh axe-battle with Izek. I fire a shot at Izek’s ankle, and while I can’t tell if it actually hit his ankle, it did hit him, hard enough that he lost his grip and tumbled down the steps with a loud CRASH! and a pained expression on his face. “Endrid, let’s get the hells out of here!” I call out, then hurry back to join Radha, who’s gazing out into the city streets trying to find a safe pathway out of Vallaki.
“Are we really following her?” Tanya asks, to which I respond, somewhat defensive, “she’s never really led us into much danger before, so…” (Though I’m not convinced I really believed that.)
Endrid eventually rejoins us, still carrying Victor as if he were one of Blinksey’s Ireena dolls. “Do we still need this guy?” she asks, waving the Burgomaster around. We take a vote. “All in favor,” Tanya says, “for leaving Victor here, raise your hand.” The majority rule, and Endrid tosses Victor’s body onto the toy shop floor. Then we all begin journeying toward the North Gate.
We plod on, passing the Blue Water Inn and Lady Wachter’s house, eaten by vines and death. Were quickly nearing the North Gate, and from our distance we can see clearly that it is still wide open. As we continue, we put the intern through a bit of a rigorous interview. Radha thinks for a moment that she could be the wizard we’ve been searching for. Endrid thinks not. But either way, she seems intent on joining us on this madcap quest to destroy Strahd, so I ask her how it is she will defend herself in the event we meet, as Endrid calls them, some “unseemly characters.” She spews out an answer that evades the question entirely, talking about strategy and the like.
While we’re in a brief huddle to decide the fate of Tanya the intern following that empty answer to our question of survival, Ireena pokes her head in. “What are we all thinking?” she asks. “We planning on how to get rid of this b–––p?” She then suggests Radha open up a hole in the ground to swallow her up into, to which Radha then quickly questions whether this is the real Ireena. Endrid exits the huddle, asks the intern what, if anything, she knows about a wizard.
“Is that what you’re trying to do with this spellbook?” she asks us in return.
“Do you know anything about the wizard?” Endrid continues.
“I only know that age-old Barovian tale of the wizard who came here and led an army against Strahd, and Strahd knocked the wizard into a waterfall, and he was never heard from again.”
“Do you know where this waterfall is?” Endrid asks. Tanya takes our map, draws a circle around where the waterfall is. Radha questions if she knows of Mount Baratok. “I don’t really know of many stories of anyone who’s explored there,” is her reply. It appears that the wizard fell at a spot called Tser Falls, a few days' hike from Vallaki, and also close (but not too close) to that dreaded Castle Ravenloft.
Once again, we group up in a huddle to vote on whether or not to keep the intern with us. Ireena is outvoted, but pushes hard on ditching her, seeing Tanya as too opportunistic. We all have our reservations, particularly Endrid, but she says she’ll keep an eye on her. And it’s decided, with Ireena taking satisfaction in the fact that she may be saying “I told you so.” (If she doesn’t die because of this decision of ours.)
At this point, we’re about forty feet or so from the North Gate, and we pass on through, hoping to find a safe spot to take a long rest, mainly for Ireena’s sake so she can rest up and heal. Though she’s a barbarian, she’s been through quite a lot. We stroll on out of the North Gate and head further north to Lake Zarovich to take our rest. We set up our tents by the water’s edge. Radha pulls out the spellbook and pages through it. Watching her flip through the pages, patches of green cloudlike animations seem to illustrate something that is beyond us all. Whether Radha can comprehend it, I’m not sure, but she seems as clueless to the green wisps as I am. Tanya the intern scrunches up beside Radha, looking over her shoulder at the gaseous contents of the book.
After a few moments of blindly paging through this large spellbook, Radha closes it and hands it off to Endrid for safekeeping. Radha volunteers to take the first watch, and I agree to do the second as I page through The Tome of Strahd. Endrid, who usually bows out of watches, raises her hand for the third watch, mainly so she can keep an eye on the intern. Of that I am certain.
And so, we rest…
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