Session 008 - Lady Wachter's Wish: Part II

Ava Reigh reenters Burgomaster’s Mansion and finds Ireena Kolyana locked in Izek's room. She frees her and they escape from the burning building. As the heroes prepare to transport the bodies of their friends Hephastus Heavyhide and Aurora Silverleaf, Victor Vallakovich exits the house and uses magic to put the fire out stopping his home from burning.   The group prepares to leave the mansion when two figures walk out of the night mist Mara Özkan and Hemlock Heavyhide. Mara explains that she is a member of The Coven of Mother Night and had been sent to find an artifact. Hemlock Heavyhide explained that he was looking for his brother Hephastus Heavyhide who had gone missing five years ago, and is devastated to learn that he had died. Both Mara Özkan and Hemlock Heavyhide join the group.   The heroes transport the bodies of their friends to the St. Andral's Church and they recruit Father Lucian Petrovich to help undertake holy rites. With their friends laid at rest, the heroes continue onto Wachterhaus where they inform Fiona Wachter of their success. Fiona Wachter thanks them and assures them that she and her associates will "take it from here". She invites the heroes to join her in the town square in the morning. The heroes then return to Blue Water Inn to rest for the night. During the night Selkis Netah and Magnus Frostbane hide under a magical barrier that allows them to communicate secretly and blocks Selkis' mind from influence by Savnok, the Inscrutable and Nefarion, Prince of Shadows (the symbiote within her).   In the morning, as the heroes are getting ready to meet Fiona Wachter they talk to Arabelle and Dr. Rudolph van Richten who explain that Arabelle will be returning to the Vistani Camp. Goodbyes are given, and then the heroes continue onto the Town Square where they see Victor Vallakovich abdicate his title to Fiona Wachter and Fiona promises a better era. Before she leaves, Fiona Wachter informs the heroes that they can enter the old armory and take any supplies needed which the heroes do.   After a quick trip of shopping, the heroes return to Wachterhaus to ask her more about a card that was part of Foretelling: For the Heroes which describes an ancient foe of an old and noble house. Fiona Wachter explains that her ancestor Lady Lovina Wachter nee Dilisnya, came to Barovia shortly after Strahd von Zarovich settled it. For her loyalty, she received deeds to land and estates, as well as a Barovian title with Strahd as her liege-lord. Lovina, an amateur historian, wrote The Noble House of Wachter to document her new family's history, which allegedly dated back to the days of Old Zarovia, long before Barovia was founded. As Fiona Wachter leafs through Lovina'a book she finds a specific passage titled 'The Wedding' and provides it to the heroes to read:    

The wedding of Prince Sergei von Zarovich and Tatyana Federovna began with good cheer, but ended in madness and blood. Prince Sergei was found dead in his chambers, his bride-to-be rumored to have cast herself from the overlook in despair.
  Though no suspect was confirmed, Hahr Reigh—my own kin—led a treacherous uprising against Lord von Zarovich, abetted by a score of castle guards. When I sought to mediate, they turned upon us, slaughtering Vladislav and his mother and confining us within the confines of the kitchens.
  It was only by some miracle that Lord von Zarovich emerged unscathed from their assault. Now possessed with an unearthly power, he smote the traitors and drove Leo himself from the castle.
  In his escape, I saw Hahr's face contort with hatred and disgust. "Blood-traitor, I name you, Lovina," he swore, "for your allegiance to the beast who abandoned Reinhold to his fate." He renounced our bond, proclaimed I was no longer of House Dilisnya, and vowed that he would one day expunge the Wachter blight from the valley—once and forevermore.
  I know not what has become of him. He is gone from the Pillarstone now, and though more of the treacherous guards return in caskets to the castle each day, his face is not among them.
But each night I hear his voice in my nightmares, I know he yet lives—and dread the occasion of his return.
Ava Reigh realises that this is about her father Hahr Reigh that she attempting to track down to kill.

    Obtaining the information they needed, the heroes leave Fiona Wachter and opt to start Quest: Investigate Stella Wachter's Illness. Their leads take them to Victor Vallakovich at the Burgomaster’s Mansion. When they tell Victor what their goal is, he introduces Stella Wachter to them through a spirit mirror and then tells them that three months ago, Victor and his friend, Stella Wachter, heard that the Devil Strahd had returned to the land and agreed that escape was imperative. Using knowledge that Victor had gleaned from an old spellbook, they began construction of a teleportation circle that would allow them to free themselves from the valley. Ten weeks ago, they’d finally finished a prototype circle. After two experiments involving undead rabbits that Victor animated using bones purchased from Szoldar and Yevgeni, Stella insisted on volunteering as a live, human trial. However, the test went horribly wrong—the circle failed to teleport Stella’s body anywhere, and the backlash exposed her soul to the Ethereal Plane.During the brief moments that her spirit was within the Ethereal Plane, Stella was attacked by a dark shadow, whose claws severed her soul from her body. She would have died had Erasmus not spirited her away to safety.     After two weeks of worrying that he had accidentally somehow destroyed his friend’s mind, Victor learned that one of his parents’ servants had seen the ghost of a young woman reflected in a mirror in his mother’s parlor. Victor learned that the mirror was a spirit mirror that reflected both the Material and Ethereal Planes. Using it, he was able to see and communicate with Stella’s wandering spirit—first through gestures and crude lip-reading, and eventually through handsigns learned from a book in his father’s library. Since then, Victor and Stella have been working hard to restore her soul to her body, but nothing has worked. In the meantime, Stella has had to conceal herself from the many wandering spirits that roam the Border Ethereal, many of which would harm her if they could.Stella feels like she’s slowly losing memories of her life, even as her form in the Ethereal Plane is slowly growing more insubstantial. Sometimes, she can’t tell whether she’s herself or someone else; when that happens, she feels as though a part of her is curled up in a warm and wet place, with a comforting heartbeat echoing through the darkness. To make matters worse, the tether between Stella’s shoulder blades that once connected her soul to her body is slowly growing shorter, leaving Victor fearing that she has little more than a week left before she disappears forever.   Neither Victor, Stella, nor Erasmus know the identity of the spirit that severed Stella’s soul from her body.     When the heroes indicate that they are open to helping Victor and Stella, Victor informs to guide Stella’s soul back into her body, he needs to find a way to enter the Ethereal Plane in his own, mortal body and perform an altered version of the teleportation ritual from the other side of the veil. There is a spell—etherealness—that would allow him to enter the Ethereal Plane using his own power, but despite his best efforts, he has been unable to master it thus far, and is unlikely to be able to cast it before Stella’s soul disappears into the Deep Ethereal. In the book Ethereal Entities: Denizens of the Unseen Realm, written by the archmage Mordenkainen, Victor learned of a ritual that can replicate the effects of the etherealness spell for up to nine creatures. The ritual must be performed on the night of the full moon, and requires the heartstone of a night hag as a material component.   Victor then informs them that Stella Wachter while exploring the Ethereal Plane has regularly seen a a gaunt, female figure with sallow, gray-blue skin, deep-set eyes, matted hair, small ram's horns, and a wide mouth of sharp, yellowed teeth haunting the area of the Border Ethereal that overlaps with the Barovian refugee camp.   With that information, the group then travel to the refugee camp outside the walls of Vallaki and learn from a refugee that he sold his two children to a creature that matched the description of the creature seen by Stella Wachter. When the refugee mentions that this creature sells pastries to the refugees the heroes realise that he is talking about Morgantha. This information is provided to both Fiona Wachter and Victor Vallakovich via a sending spell and both of them promise to meet the heroes at the Old Bonegrinder to fight the hag.   The heroes along with Henrik van der Voort travel by cart to Old Bonegrinder meeting a druid of Yester Hill on the way. When they reach Old Bonegrinder they enter the windmill and talk with Morgantha. Magnus Frostbane is kicked out of the windmill by Ava Reigh which causes him to climb up the windmill to look in the window. The session ends with Morgantha calling out to her two daughters, Offalia and Bella that they have visitors.