Fucking Dwarves.

We got off the Gypsy's Fury and almost immediately met a fucking dwarf. This is where it began.
 
So we meet this fucking dwarf covered in blood and gore, and he claims he was in Neverwinter just the night before, though he was with his brothers in a cave, woke up, and now he was here. Wherever 'here' was. Barovia, we told him, and he looked at us like -we- were the crazy ones. He didn't seem to be crazier than that, and Oswald confirmed he didn't seem to be undead so we agreed to let him come with us. First mistake. As we followed our instructions, we headed north into the forest so we could make it to the road that led to Barovia. This place is crawling with beasts and all manner of unpleasantness, but we carried on until we came across a small group of wolves. Only 3 of them, but still enough to worry about, given the younger ones with us. I've dealt with wolves before, and I figured I could try and convince them that we weren't a group to be tangled with, and they should just move on uneventfully. Of course, talking with beasts is a very delicate action, so of course the fucking dwarf barbarian we picked up began screaming like a fucking idiot and put all my work to naught as it triggered the wolves to fight. Of course we dispatched them fairly easily, but this was only beginning of the shitty day. A larger wolf the size of a fucking bear showed up, but as we fled (I'm not stupid) it didn't pursue to attack, it instead just seemed to.. watch. Or maybe herd us a direction. I'm not entirely sure.
 
At some point we came across a strange well in the middle of the forest, but we decided not to use it and go past. No signs of civilization, there was no telling what may be in the well or what it could be contaminated by.
 
We eventually made it to the road proper, but now it was pretty late at night. We made camp off the side of the road since it seemed like the beasts were keeping away from it for the most part, so it seemed safest. I took first watch along with Elaine, as we didn't want to get into a situation where the Chandlers were taking watch together. Everything went smoothly for the watch and we went to bed. The next morning shortly after took down camp and continued on towards Barovia, we encountered a wagon of gypsies heading west as well to the city. We traveled with them and asked a few questions, but honestly I was just thankful to have some more company on the roads. The beasts would be wary to try attacking such a larger group. And thankfully they had some room in their wagon, so we got the dwarves a lift as well as the Chandlers off the road. Everything went smoothly until we got to the checkpoint gate. The gypsies got to go on, but the guardsmen needed to make sure we weren't folk up to no good and tasked up with going north into the forest again to find out what happened to 2 other guardsmen that hadn't returned to their posts from an investigation they left on the night prior.
 
So of course we headed back into the forest. About an hour in, we found 2 people hunkered over bodies that matched the descriptions we were given for the missing guardsmen. Found out quickly that these were vampires. Some of my family had dealt with them before, but out around Neverwinter, vampires aren't a problem we Belmont's really ever had a need to deal with before. It was the beasts that was more the threat. Barovia is no Neverwinter. These vampire are quick, they regenerate, and seemed to have a weakness for radiant damage. Of the two we encountered - a male scout and a female warrior - we ended up completely destroying the male, and wounded the female, but with their physical regeneration, probably no more than her pride. She ended up taking a chunk of hair from Ecchi's beard (the new dwarf), and ripped off Elaine's ear, despite my best efforts. Looks like she wanted personal effects, likely to be able to scry. Nothing to do for it now.
 
Upon returning to the checkpoint and returning the bodies of their fellow guardsmen, they gave us some paltry coin and let us go on before freaking out at the news that vampires had killed their men. They threw open the gates and fled. Full-sprint, non-stop, all the way to the town. We had the time, so we made our way to Barovia at our own pace, arriving right around sundown. In search of lodgings for the night, we came across a woman selling pies. THE FUCKING DWARF took one. Should have -known- something was up because IT WAS FREE. But NO. We, of course, found out the next day that the pies were made from CHILDREN, AND THIS FUCKING DWARF. I can't.. I can't even.
 
We made it to the tavern, I don't fucking remember the name. Burgermeister was there. Or his son, specifically, who had just become the new one. The fuck is a Burgermeister anyways? Basically we were told that the lord of this whole area was a Vampire named Strahd. More vampires. Fucking lovely. He needed our help dealing with his sister, and we agreed; not the least of which for the fact that he still paid us up the 4,000 gold that the note we had promised for making the journey out here. He would give us the details tomorrow when we met up at his home. He paid for our lodgings and beer for the night, gave us a map of the area, and I stocked up. The next morning we found a note from Moira. She'd left us early in the morning and basically took all the dwarfs in the area (somehow) on a crusade against this Vampire Strahd, feeling she could do it better than us (I think the letter said she was trying to protect us, really but whatever). My voice of sanity in the rest of the mess was now gone. It'd been some time, but now I went back into my cups. Why not? Still better company than most of this lot. Especially the boy and his fucking spider. A gypsy woman approached us before we left, which immediately gave Elaine a hardon. She was a looker, this one, no doubt, but I was still rather morning the loss of my friend. She knew what we'd encountered just this far in this godsforsaken land, and then went and gathered up a dozen dwarven cripples and left to lead them on a fucking crusade against a powerful Vampire she was woefully underprepared to deal with. She was as good as dead. Fucking dwarves. I accepted this. Of course that didn't stop Elaine from explaining to others that I was merely a drunk and constantly angry, but hey, what the fuck do I know?
 
The shopkeeper had nothing I needed, and directed me instead to the Church, as I was in need of Holy Water and (armed with some new information) stakes. Apparently you can kill a vampire by staking the bitch in its heart. Of course THIS GODDAMN PLACE had its own bout of troubles, with the Priest being fucking crazy and apparently having his son locked up underneath the Church. Oh, and the boy is a fucking vampire. Did I mention that? THAT'S going to be dealt with sooner or later. We ended up not wanting to make a ruckus here until we'd talked to the Burgermeister, as I still needed this old coot to make me some holy water and I didn't want to do anything that might damage his calm, if you get my meaning. So we pressed on for now, and met up with the Burgermeister to find out what was going on with his sister and what all needed to be done. Turns out he wants us to escort his sister across the country (didn't retain WHY, something about attacks, as if they couldn't attack her anywhere), but she refused to go until her father was buried properly. We took the body back to the church and somehow the crazy coot snapped out of his stupor long enough to agree and take the next 2 days preparing a service for the old man. Everything seemed to go well so far, but when I tried to track the local beasts in the area, they had completely fucking surrounded the village. Something BAD is about to happen...