Returning to the Vishtani encampment, the party partially split up to rest. The bard and mercenary ate and quickly went to sleep in the encampment. The wizard and the cleric studied the book, to figure out what would need to be done to weaken Strahd’s hold.
The wizard summoned a new familiar to replace the one that melted earlier. She attempted to summon a snake, and ended up with an undead snake. Cause Ravenloft.
Half the party headed back into the town, using disguises to get past the guards, who are still looking for us after that whole coffin maker’s house fire issue.
The cleric made some new friends, and was told about something that needs to be investigated in the west, the Wizard of Wines and his shipments.
The sellsword scouted out the town, determined that the guards have brought in reinforcements.
The party headed west, towards a covered bridge that we’d visited before. Nothing happened as we crossed it. We decided to head west, towards the Tower, the Winery, and the Hill.
They decided to approach the Tower. They passed a woodsman on the way, and then found a wagon near the base of the Tower.
The wagon was boobytrapped, and inside were alchemists fire.
We read a note and decided not to loot the wagon.
Then we opened a door by dancing in front of it.
The wizard sent in the snake. Then the Paladin decided to ride the elevator up the tower.
At this point, it started to get dark, so we went into the tower.
They found a suit of armour in the tower, it turned out to be animated, but we couldn’t find the command word.
Then they noticed it had gotten dark, and the wolves were howling. So we took watch and rested over the night.
In the morning, they took the armour outside, and then proceeded to use identify on it. While they did this, the bard took up a position on the gargoyle, outside the window, securing himself with a piton and rope.
There was a command word to activate the armour, discovered by the wizard.
At which point the bard had the bright idea of telling the armour to “bring me the Sword of the Sun”. The armour rode up to the top of the tower, pulled the sword out of the stone wall, and held it up triumphantly.
At which point the sword melted the armour, and then dropped through the floors, before landing point first in the tower floor.
The bard used his rope to drop to the ground, and pulled the sword to him with mage hand. At which point the island started to collapse.
Vellos climbed onto the wagon, and proceeded to attempt to come up with a variety of command words for the wagon. This failed to actually summon the horses. So he tried famous Vishtani horse names. That didn’t work either. Then he screamed “Damn it, how do you summon these horses.” And that summoned the horses.
At which point we fled from the island, towards the wolves.
The paladin fired an arrow at one of the wolves and killed it outright.
The wizard threw fire at one of the wolves, burning them.
One of the wolves howled, and froze the ice. At which point, wolves moved onto the ice floe.
Then the cleric threw more fire at the wolves, sinking one of them into the ice.
Vellos decided to send his hand forward, handing off the Sword of the Sun to Twin Blade.
Twin Blade slashes out at the wolves, burning them with the sword.
Ianyor’s being pulled from his horse has blocked the bridge. He managed to kick his horse corpse off the bridge, but it’s slowing the rest of the party down.
The wizard manages to take control one of the werewolves, and turns it against it’s fellows.
The hand delivers the Sword of the Sun to the paladin, and it blazes up in his hands.
The wagon continues to push forward, into the group.
The wizard continues to blast away, and in the process creates a cloud of fog around herself by accident.
The priestess fought the werewolf, the bard distracted the him while he fought against the drunk.
Then the bard blasted the fog back with a thunderwave, tossing the party out of his way, as he drove the wagon forward. This also cleared the fog away.
And then we got everyone back onto the wagon, as and rode off the causeway, running down the werewolf.
There are still more wolves in the woods ahead of us, and many of our resources were used up in the escape.