It also had the secondary effect of ending whatever magical effect was keeping the long-dead house in stasis. The walls and flooring began to root and decay before us as we hurried up from the basement. With limited time before the very-real possibility of the townhouse collapsing in on itself, we barely had time to retrieve the bodies of the children and the nursemaid from the upper levels. Performing one of the fastest funeral rites I've accomplished to date, the family's remains were laid out in their respective crypts in the basement, prayers were offered up to the Master of the First Vault that their souls might finally be at peace, and we were finally able to leave the Durst House, tumbling out into the relative safety of the streets of Barovia.
The day began much as any other did. The sun's rays struggled and failed to break through the clouds, heralding a new dawn with a dusky pink barely brighter than starlight of night watch. It's a wonder that everyone in this land does not suffer from disorders of the eye due to the endless gloom. At breakfast, it was stated that the camp's stores of smoked meat were dwindling. Roderick and I volunteered to spend the morning hunting. (I think maybe they genuinely do keep me around because there have been fewer monster attacks since I joined their hunting parties.)
Roderick and I were in the process of cleaning our first deer of the morning when the mists began to consolidate. From within came the most intense sounds of yelling and fighting -- I began to second-guess my innate ability to ward off monster attacks. Instead of some slimy, fanged tentacle-monster emerging from the fog, a pair of humanoid forms staggered out, sniping at one another. Although the dwarf did have a "monster" of his own with him.
Ragnar introduced himself as a druid, having learned the trade from an elderly couple that had taken him in. Being from a rather large metropolis, myself, I attempted to rather subtly ask Roderick what a "druid" was. It was my assumption that "druid" meant "farmer", or something similar. Roderick laughed at me. Apparently, according to my bardic associate, "druids" are magic-users that obtain their abilities from the land, drawing their powers from nature itself rather than from the divine or arcane. In addition, he has a small bird-dog-lizard companion, Finrar, which he refers to as a "velociraptor". They seem to be able to talk to each other, and Finrar seems quite a bit more intelligent than many of the men I've met in Waterdeep.
The woman traveling with him, arguing animatedly the entire way, introduced herself as Yllamire. While the majority of my magic-using friends from Waterdeep were wizards, the academics of arcane spellcasting, I am at least familiar with the concept of sorcerers. Mire told us that before coming to this place, she had previously been an innkeeper, unaware of her magical lineage. An incident with magical manifestation ended with her inn burning down. Mire is a young woman of high spirits, however, and she turned such a tragedy into an opportunity to begin a new life adventuring in order to learn more about her new abilities. In a way, her being brought to this land may be yet another opportunity to explore these abilities. (Ragnar may have a harder time, as little seems to grow and flourish here.)
After outlining the lay of the land to the pair, it was agreed that we would help guide Ragnar and Mire safely to town. The four of us travelled along the Old Svalich Road to Barovia village. The mists thinned and cleared as we entered a part of town I wasn't familiar with, and we found ourselves coming up upon a rundown townhouse surrounded on either side by abandoned homes with boarded over windows. Outside the covered porch, there were two young children. A little boy, not more than seven or eight years of age was crying as he clutched a stuffed bear. His sister stood bravely beside him, trying to calm him, wiping the tears from his cheeks. The young girl introduced herself as Rose, and her brother, Thorn. Rose then asked us to help her as there was a "monster" in the house, trapped in the basement by their parents, whom they cannot find, and their baby brother was all alone up on the third floor.
Inside the Dursts' house, a large family portrait hung above a black, marble fireplace. Gustav and Elisabeth Durst stood behind the two children outside, and Elisabeth held a chubby infant in her arms. At one point in time, the house had clearly been a grand structure that had fallen into disrepair. The mahogany moulding and wood paneling was ornately sculpted with vines, flowers, nymphs, and satyrs, although a subtle design of serpents and skulls was woven throughout. It was a shock to find the bodies of Rose and Thorn, locked inside a children's playroom, their small skeletons wearing the tattered remains of rotting clothing. The ghost of the children's nursemaid stood guard over the apparition of the baby the siblings were worried about. Throughout the house, we found the deed to the house, the deed to a windmill owned by the Durst family, and a letter from Strahd von Zarovich chastising the inhabitants for having brought their misfortunes on themselves.
Ultimately, the four of us ended up in an exceptionally disturbing torture-basement that the Durst family had clearly utilized to kill and eat victims and perform dark rituals. Hopefully they killed, then ate their victims. Regardless, whatever was happening in that torture-basement was sufficiently unspeakable that the undead vampire lord of the land specifically wrote to them to tell them that they were disturbed and beyond redemption. The souls of the long-dead cultists remained trapped in the lower level, the stale air carrying their whispered chants in an endless litany. Through careful inspection, we were able to kill several dangerous creatures lurking in the depths of the house as well as finding the remains of many captives, murdered by the cultists. There was even a life-sized statue of Lord Strahd standing imperiously, his hand atop the head of a fearsome-looking wolf. The man's striking features seemed bizarrely familiar, although I couldn't say exactly why he seemed so familiar...
The undead remains of the Dursts attacked us and were put to their rest. A pair of ghouls haunted the remains of the basement as well, and for whatever reason, for reasons that I cannot image some sort of monstrous worm-like tentacle-monster... THING tried to kill me from the shadows. Who has that in their basement?? Never mind the bones of what were clearly many dead and eatten humans sacrificed in twisted, dark rituals.
The lingering spirits of the other cultists attempted to sway the group to make a sacrifice of blood upon the alter in exchange for our freedom. Fortunately, my travelling companions are good people of stout hearts and moral fortitude. Unfortunately, moral fortitude led the cultists to call upon "Lorghoth the Decayer" to try to kill us. Finrar discovered the shambling mound of mossy horror, the so-called "Lorghoth", lying amongst the refuse just before the plant monster stood and attempted to eviscerate us all. Happily, moral fortitude won out over cannibal murder spirits, if just barely. With the death of Lorghoth, the souls of the dead cultists were freed from their continued torment on this mortal plane.