During what would prove to be a short stay in Vallaki this time, we were able to do some investigating and make contact with some of the interesting people in the town. The biggest piece of information we received was from Danika, who had been investigating in town, and it was that when Strazni and his men took Ireena out the west gate, the guardsmen soon after returned alone. Strazni did not return until much later and had been going out everyday (All day) ever since. This made us think that perhaps he has kidnapped her for his own purposes and she is being held somewhere nearby. We would have to make plans to follow Strazni when next he leaves.
We spoke with the two rugged looking huntsmen, Szoldar Svoldarovich & Yevgeni Krushkin, who were pleased to talk about wolves, the hunting and eating of such, and little else. I bought them an ale and found that they seemed very interested in gnomes and my family history. I could have talked all night, but of course my friends felt our time would be better spent elsewhere. Nice chaps, these men.
We spoke with Rictavio - The Carnival of Wonders Ringmaster. He was the spectacled man who always sat at the bar with his journal in his hands. He was a stranger to these lands much as we were - brought here by the Vistani. Rictavio though, seemed to think that he could leave any time he wanted through his friends the Vistani. He is from a place known as Darkon. His purpose here seems to be to find the strange and curious to put into his travelling show. A most interesting man to be sure.
We were all interested in visiting Blinsky's shop. We got to meet the toy maker himself, Gadof Blinsky. Gadof is a strange sort of pudgy man who wears a bedraggled jesters cap and outfit. His shop is filled with well made, but seriously macabre toys and dolls. "Is no fun, is no Blinsky" is his motto and is tagged to every item in the store. He has a very unique pet, a monkey named Picolo, whom he has recently taken as payment from Rictavio in exchange for a Vistani doll he had made for him.
Gadof, understanding that we were strangers from the outside, suggested that if we ever made it to Castle Ravenloft we should be on the lookout for a unique construct created by his mentor Fritz Von Weerg - his greatest invention, a clockwork man. Gadof would be willing to pay dearly for such an item. He would even trade Picolo for it. He seemed strangely oblivious that what he was in effect asking us to do was to steal from the very castle of the Devil Strahd. Uphir was excited at the prospect of adding Picolo to our jolly troupe.
We found a doll that looked surprisingly like Ireena Kolyana. With a little prompting, Gadof told us that it was commissioned by Izek Strazni. He had commissioned several in the past, each time trying to achieve a closer, more specific resemblance. I am not sure why this thought erupted fully formed in my mind, but the more I think about it, the more I think it is the case. What if Ireena were Strazni's long lost sister? The age seems right; Ireena had been adopted, after all; During the attack where Strazni lost his arm, his sister fled into the Svalich woods - never to be seen again. Why would there be this strange life-like doll? What has Strazni been trying to do by having these dolls made - trying to recapture the vision of his sister?
We ended up purchasing several of his toys including a replacement doll for Myrtle, so that we could get Gertuda's doll back; and I purchased a puppet of Strahd Von Zarovich, The Devil himself. Oh what delightful satire I shall be able to perpetrate with such an item!
We had a couple of more locations to check out as well. We wanted to investigate the window with the purple light in the Baron's mansion. Tetsuo stepped forth once more and melded into the darkness of the night and soon his barely perceived shadow had climbed the wall and was peering into the appropriate window. We used magic messages to communicate with him as he relayed what he saw within.
The small room had mismatched furniture which had been organized into a study of sorts. There was a dusty rug with a pine coffin atop it, and atop the coffin was a strange animated cat skeleton, acting very cat like as it lay upon the coffin lid. There were many more of these undead cats milling around the room, amongst the many books and papers with strange writings and diagrams upon them laying about. Startlingly, there were three children with their backs to Tetsuo staring unmoving into the corner. Before much more investigation could take place, the young man, who had stood next to the Baron on the stage earlier, entered the room and Tetsuo retreated back to the rest of us. Very strange indeed!
Next was the initial scouting of the Wachter Manor, to see if we can locate the strange cat-girl seen previously. Once again, Tetsuo stealthed up the wall of the house and peeked into all of the second story windows. He did not discover very much of interest - Framed portraits and mirrors in a central hallway; two neatly furnished bedrooms; a den or library with bookshelves in it; a strange scratching sound coming from inside that could not be identified; and some rooms that he was not able to investigate as they did not have a window. If we want to learn more about this family we will need to come back later or find out from other means.
Rictavio's wagon, at the stockyards, had previously exhibited strangeness in that it seemed like something large was inside rocking it. We decided we should see exactly what was going on. We approached the stockyards and observed the wagon and this is when we observed the Wachter brothers, Karl and Nicolai, looking at the wagon and talking amongst themselves on the roadway. Nim snuck around to within listening distance and heard them conspiring to come back at midnight to cause some sort of mischief with the wagon. We all felt that we should be there when they did, to stop them from causing some calamity. We went back to the Inn to wait...
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