Session 14 - Reconnaissance

General Summary

• Richard sees Izek Strazni walk into an alley with three guards
• They're cornering a man who is cowering
• Richard opens the door to the inn and motions for the rest of the party to join him
• We see Izek, his axe is longer than Jonathan and his arm is as broad as a person
• Richard is suggesting that we leave town and not fight him
• The confrontation in the alley is starting to heat up, with the man begging them not to take him
• People walking past are looking, but keep walking
• We don't want to get noticed and tip them off to what happens tomorrow
• The man is now in manacles and is being led away
• Richard tells Jonathan to play along and throws him into the guards, yelling "How could you sleep with my wife!"
• Jonathan is immediately on board
• The throw knocks two of the guards over like bowling pins, they are already bloodied
• Richard and Jonathan starts arguing and telling the guards to take eachother in
• Jonathan: "Excuse me for being... sexy? If this guy can't satisfy his wife, that's his problem!"
• Richard addresses Izek directly, accusing Jonathan of seducing his wife. Izek confirms his identity
• Jonathan follows up with saying he got letter after letter
• Izek picks both of them up and shakes them to be quiet. He threathens them to keep the peace or spend a night in the stockades
• Izek doesn't see any laws being broken and is ready to leave
• Richard drags Jonathan into an alley and the rest of us follows
• He confidently states that this is in fact Izek
• We discuss our plans
• Jonathan explains that to cast Suggestion he has to tell someone to do something really hard
• We don't know if he will realise when the spell ends, he might just continue with the quest we send him on
• Plan B if he succeeds the save is for Damia to Reduce him and put him in a bag and throw that into a well
• Plan C is for Richard to challenge him to a battle of intellect 
• We head to investigate Henrik van der Voort
• 
• The coffin shop is shoddy
• We knock and someone eventually opens the door
• He tells us the shop is closed, but we can talk to Father Lucian 
• He is Henrik, but he is very busy and not able to talk to us, even if Jonathan helps
• Ariah introduces herself and Richard and tells him that we are here on holy business
• He adamantely refuses and closes the shutter on us
• Bystanders notice that Ariah mentions Izek, but not the threath she uses
• Damia casts Detect Magic, she notices several faint auras of magic
• Jonathan casts Charm Person to convince him to let him in, but he succeeds the save
• He then critizices Henryk's workmanship, to no avail
• Henryk is now hammering to drown us out
• Jonathan looks through the shutters and doesn't see Henryk in the front part of the house
• The hammering is coming from the left side of the house
• Richard Commands him to "Invite", but Henrik nails his save
• Damia casts Message and says "Henrik van der Voort where aaaare yooouuuu?"
• She doesn't know his exact position, but casts several Messages to different positions
• He responds "No, no! What do you want?"
• Damia asks where what he has taken is?
• "It's right where you told me to"
• Damia tries to get him to say "my" name
• He just keeps saying sorry, and Damia says she'll be back
• Jonathan brings up that Stella reacted similarly to Damia's messages
• Ariah suggests telling him to take it somewhere else, Jonathan suggests the graveyard
• If that doesn't work, Richard suggests claiming that our gods have given us visions to save him
• Damia creepily tells him that the bones must be buried in the graveyard at midnight
• He will not touch the bones
• She convinces him to let someone else in at midnight to get the bones (He would not invite her in)
• Damia points out that the refusal to invite might indicate Strahd 
• As we're leaving, a guard approaches and tells us that we're expected to visit Vargas at his manor in one hour
• Damia asks a random person for directions. It is a three-story house in the middle of town
• We head to the inn to rest and eat, while we argue about the differences between soup and stew. Danika Martikov gets involved
•  Damia ends up ordering wolf meat instead, specifying that she wants it well done.
• We head over to the manor
• It is a very nice house with a garden
• Ariah sees a flash of pink light from the third floor. None of the others see it
• The guards leads us inside
• Lydia Vallakovich greets us at the door, and apologises for not knowing that there was another noble family in the town
• Her smile is the same false smile that the townspeople use when guards pass by
• She leads us to Vargas
• Along the floor we see drag marks into a room at the end of the hall, but are lead to a room before that
• Vargas is sitting in his office with his two dogs
• We can stay in the VIP places for the festival tomorrow
• The festival is celebrating the sun, including burning beating and throwing of something
• There has to be festivals every week, to keep Strahd away
• Richard tells him his name is (Rich)well
• Jonathan says he is old and hard of hearing and asks for clarification on the festival.
• There is burning of the wickar's sun (a tatch (?) sun), and beating of the wrongdoers
• When asked about the nature of our visit, Richard asks for an official letter to state that we have to be let in to the coffinmaker
• Vargas says he can't help us with that, as the coffinmaker will be very busy to prepare for the festival
• They will need a lot of coffins after the festival
• Richard keeps arguing, but gets asked to relax
• He then bring up that the Blue Water Inn doesn't pay their performers
• "Then they shouldn't perform should they?"
• Rictavio the Bard is going to perform tomorrow
• No one has ever seen his tiger
• Vargas is annoyed that we don't have any actual reasons to meet him
• "If you have any real problems to talk to me..."
• Damia asks where Izek will be, as we have a security concern we need to take up with him. Something was stolen from her and she needs to know where Izek is to talk to him
• Izek will get involved if it "gets hairy", but he will be close to Vargas tomorrow for the festival
• During the day, he might be anywhere in the town. In the evening, he stays at the manor
• We're allowed to "chill" here to the evening, for him to return
• Richard also informs him that we offer our services as adventurers, then throws Jonathan under the buss to list them
• Being happy
• Playing music
• Hardy warriors
• Very cool
• Jonathan is better at making coffins than their coffinmaker
• And his tiger is bigger
• Damia tries to excuse us and get us to leave, but Vargas perks up at Hardy Warriors
• Jonathan tries to backtrack and say that it was a lie
• Vargas wants us to help him figure out what is wrong with people's morale
• Jonathan is willing to let the guards get a break, and we will go on patrol instead
• Vargas wants us to investigate the Wachter family
• He casually says that he has made people disappear before
• He will help us with the coffin maker after we give him proof against Wachter
• "Give me some proof, and I'll let you take down anyone you want"
• Jonathan will find out exactly what is bothering the Wachter family, with Richard following up that we might even come back later in the evening
• Plan: Better that we're the investigators than someone not on our side. Tell him that Lady Wachter is not attending the festivals because she has a sick family member she doesn't want people to know about
• Damia informs Lady Wachter of our plan
• We head to our room to discuss further
• If we give a good reason for Lady Wachter's abcense, he might be less suspicious and make the coup easier to succeed
• Or we might say we didn't find any dirt, but make up for it by taking watch duty with Izek (and then Suggestion'ing him)
• It might be easier if we have a list of small-dirt
• It will look better if we actually ask around
• Jonathan wants to go to a shady gambling bar
• It turns into a therapy session where Jonathan tries to convince Richard that his dad is a bad man
• Richard wipes some tears
• Jonathan creates a deck of cards for Ariah's divination
• Ariah casts Augury and asks if Jonathan going to the bar will be good or bad. It shows both good and bad results
   

Plan

We go to "look for dirt" on Lady Fiona Wachter. Jonathan "investigates" the shady gambling bar. Richard asks around town and shops (maybe buying a shield). Damia and Ariah go to "interrogate" Lady Wachter (discuss the plan with her)
In the evening we will go back to Burgomeister Vargas "The Baron" Vallakovich and tell him some mild dirt and apologize for not getting anything on such short notice. Offer to be guards (with Izek) in the morning to make up for it.
If we get to be guards with Izek, cast Suggestion on him in the morning and tell him to walk to Wizards of Wine to investigate (will take 8 hours for the spell to fade, and then 8 hours to walk back if he starts walking back immedietly).
Get the bones at midnight. Henrik van der Voort will leave the door open for an agent of his mysterious accomplice to come and get the bones. The person going has the benefit of not knowing where the bones are supposed to be.

Report Date

18 Oct 2022