07 - Funeral for a Burgermeister

Alfonse slowly crept around the statue, getting a glimpse of the wolves at the foot of the stairs, next to the ruined door they had just burst through. Taking aim, he let loose with a single shot that felled the closest wolf. One slashed at Lenore and did a little damage. The other two ran up the stairs to get to Simon. One got in a bite, but the other faceplanted into the stairs directly in front of him. Simon brought his morningstar down hard on the wolf's head, exploding it into a shower of viscera. Talin knifed the one that hit Lenore, while Aesigvarr shot some of his blade thingys up the stairs at the last wolf, bringing it down. Everyone quickly boarded up the rest of the windows, reinforcing the perimeter, and then got a decent night's rest (after looting the wolf corpses)
The next morning. Ismark and Ireena led the group, carrying their departed father, to perform the funerary rites. At the top of a small rise stood an old chapel, weather-worn and threadbare, but heavily barred and bolted. The faded suns on the walls, signs of the Morning Lord, were crisscrossed with deep claw marks, and it appeared as though the structure had taken quite a beating. Ismark knocked on the door, and the sound of heavy chains moving across the floor came, muffled, from behind the heavy door. Some negotiations occurred through the slit that appeared in the door, and they were ushered quickly inside.
The local priest was a haggard man, who looked like he needed a good week's sleep. Lenore and Aesigvarr noted the sound of muffled screaming and crying coming from somewhere below the floor, and eventually everyone else heard it as well. The priest explained that his son, Duro, had been part of a group, led by a Wizard in black robes, who tried to storm Castle Ravenloft about a year ago, and end the terrible rule of Strahd. They met a grim fate, and the son is now crazed with hunger but does not die. He asked the group to help the boy recover from the awful curse Strahd had put upon him. Simon and Alfonse mused that the son may be too far gone, and is lost to this world forever, which angered the priest greatly. He ushered everyone immediately outside to the graveyard to perform the rites and bury the Burgomaster. As they were leaving, Alfonse confirmed with Ireena that she had been bitten, twice now, but that it was the third bite that drove one to the madness that Duro was experiencing.
During the burial, a black carriage drove up to the front of the chapel, and two black-cloaked figures emerged. Ismark yelled at the occupant of the carriage that he was not welcome here, and urged Ireena to get inside the church. She did not move, frozen with fear. The occupant of the carriage remarked that he had no quarrel with anyone present, and was there merely to pay his respects to the Burgomaster, whose fate he had no part in. The figures got back in the carriage and left in a hurry, and the group had gotten their first glimpse of Strahd. They decided to leave Barovia immediately, with Ireena, headed for Vallaki, and stopping by the Tser Pool along the way to see if they could find the Vishtani.