Barovia does not kill you all at once.
It lets the mountain do the arguing.

Sessions Twenty Four and Twenty Five began with the kind of fragile optimism that only survives when everyone is too tired to argue with it. We had stew at the Wizards of Wine. We had candles. We had a plan. Urihorn had no shadow, having traded it for a mist-token in one of Barovia’s quiet, transactional horrors. Nobody liked that, but nobody said no. That is how corruption enters a party. It doesn’t knock. It waits for exhaustion.

Urihorn returned from the woods riding a mountain lion. Not summoned. Bonded. As if nature itself had decided he was still worth something. We left the winery and headed for Mount Ghakis, following a Tarokka prophecy that had been gnawing at us for weeks. The Amber Temple waited above the clouds. So did whatever it takes from you.

At Tsolenka Pass, we found green fire burning in a gatehouse, an unnatural barrier that incinerated anything that touched it. Beyond it stood a lonely tower and a narrow bridge swallowed by fog. It looked like a checkpoint designed by something that hates hope.

Two vrocks descended from the sky. Vulture demons with wings like funeral banners. Their screams stole our breath. Their spores stole our bodies. The fight was brutal and fast and unfair.

Traxidor, our cleric, fell.

No speech. No miracle. Just a body on cold stone while the wind kept moving.

We cremated him in the green flame because there was nowhere else to put the dead on a mountain that eats people.

We turned back.

On the road to Barovia Village, we tried to save a young woman being taken to Castle Ravenloft. We attacked the guards. We cut her loose. And then the cart ran downhill. Too fast. Too heavy. It went off the road and took her with it. Good intentions do not stop physics in Barovia.

In the village, we found water instead of wine and a new companion, Perlan Goodshadow, a monk with sense enough to listen when the world tells you it is dangerous. We lied to Ismark about his sister Ireena because telling him the truth would have killed him faster than Strahd ever could.

He insisted we return to Vallaki.

The guards wouldn’t let us in, so we climbed the walls like criminals, because that is what heroes become here. We slipped into Lady Wachter’s estate through the basement and were met by rising skeletons. We destroyed them quickly. Not because we were strong. Because we were changed.

Behind a rotating wall, we found a hidden chamber. Five chairs. A pentagram. A room waiting for a meeting we were not meant to attend.

Barovia keeps receipts.
And we are starting to owe it things.

That is where these sessions ended. Not with victory. With a door opening into something patient and hungry.

And the worst part is that none of us is surprised anymore.