With his new monstrous Loup Garou form, Kiril and his werewolf brethren attack the party. Luckily, it takes a little bit of time for his companions to transform, which the party puts to good use. They strike out, taking down Kiril’s allies and trying to bring the monster down for good.
Qwib Qwib summons bears, a unicorn totem, and even her new fairie dragon friend Zendaya. Azalea’s form of summoning is more like a fireball she drops on the werewolves, and scorching rays and magic missiles to snipe them down. Rasper’s good boy Nail comes back, still larger than life and helps take down some more werewolves. And Xylil deals out the hurt with their shadowy spirit guardians.
However, Kiril’s new, more virulent strain of werewolf curse proves strong. Strong enough that he infects Zuleika. Though they beat him in the end, the now rampaging Zuleika presents the group a choice. Do they try and kill their former/reluctant partner, or try to save one of the few allies they still have against Strahd? After a lot of effort, they are able to get her to calm down and revert to her normal form. With some practice, she can eventually learn to use that form.
Their business complete, Zuleika promises to help with the fight with Strahd. With the children saved, guided by Altheon back to Vallaki, the rest of the party depart the cave to catch up.
As they get close however, off in the distance, they smell the ash in the air. It’s so dark, and even at night the cloud cover is so thick, they didn’t notice it right away, but the smell was unmistakable. Something massive was burning.
The Squishies move quickly to the village, and find to their horror that much of it is engulfed in flames. In the distance, people were crying out in pain and fear. They heard the scuffles of someone trying to fight off something much stronger than themselves. And their other allies are somewhere in that chaos.
The area of the pretend circus is where most of the commotion is centered. The buildings, stalls, and tents that were just being finished the day before are in absolute tatters, wood beams knocked over, and much of it ablaze.
The group runs to the town, but in the chaos, they were all separated.
Each of them encountered either one of the Brides of Strahd, or his right hand man, Rahadin. While things seemed bleak, our heroes were able to survive the night, though some thrived more than others, and others suffered in ways unimaginable.
After the vampires left, the party settled in their locations for the night, a long night of pain and much needed sleep.
