Session 2

Village of Barovia - click to enlarge

The Heroes go back to the catacombs, where they find the crypts of the Durst family. They lay the bones of Rose and Thorn (the spirits they met outside of the house) to rest, thus freeing them from the curse that made them ghosts. As they proceed in their exploration they reach a room similar to a temple, containing the statues of a gaunt man holding a crystal orb. In the distance, they can hear a droning chant. 

When they remove the orb from the statue, angry undead shadows coalesce from the darkness, and attack them. Outmatched, the Heroes try to escape. But when they're back in the house, they are assaulted by magical traps, as the malevolent will of the house itself tries to murder them.

Only Anomander manages to get out, jumping out of a window, and falling unconscious in the streets. When he awakes, his companions are nowhere to be seen. He decides to enter a nearby inn to find some rest. In the inn, he meets two more travellers (a human paladin and a dwarf barbarian) from distant lands, captured by the mists and stranded in Barovia just like him. They form an alliance of sort.

Ireena

In the inn, they meet Ismark, son of the former burgomaster. He elaborates on the current state of Barovia, terrorised by the "devil" Strahd, a vampire of great power. The Heroes offer to help, and go with Ismark to his ancestral home. There they meet his sister Ireena, one of the most recent victims of Strahd. She has been bitten by the vampire, but not yet turned into an undead. Ismark asks the Heroes to take her away from Barovia, to the village of Vallaki, where he hopes she will be safe from Strahd.

Planning to depart the day after, the Heroes visit a local peddler, and the church of the Morning Lord. But in the church they find only desperation and more terror, as the son of the local priest himself has been turned into a vampire by Strahd, and now wanders the crypts of the church, trapped in agony as his father ponders his faith. The Heroes, realising they cannot face a vampire and hope to win, leave the priest to his troubles, and return home.

There, they find a letter addressed to them: it is an invitation from Strahd himself,  claiming he summoned them to Barovia through the mists, and inviting them to dinner at his castle. As a cold chill runs through their spines, the Heroes ponder the meaning of all this.