Chapter 1: Into The Mists

Lunora, you get a sense that you might have found all there is to find in terms of weapons, but that there might be something valuable in the hidden room in the library on the second floor.

Skallagrimm recoils in HORROR at the teifling trying to touch him. He leaps across the room and attempts to hide behind the gnome.

"You can't make me!!!!!" screams Skallagrimm from behind the gnome

Skip, the door is unlocked and you hear no noise coming from behind the door. Red velvet drapes cover the windows of the library. An exquisite mahogany desk and a matching high-back chair face the entrance and the fireplace, above which hangs a framed picture of a windmill perched atop a rocky crag. Situated in corners of the room are two overstuffed chairs. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line the south wall. A rolling wooden ladder allows one to more easily reach the high shelves.

Lunora, you feel yourself guided over to the bookcase and focus your attention on a red book with a blank spine. As you pull it, the bookshelf springs open and reveals another, smaller room.

This room also contains bookshelves, although from a quick glance the books appear darker and older. A heavy wooden chest with clawed iron feet stands against the south wall, its lid half-closed. Sticking out of the chest is a skeleton in leather armor. Clutched in the skeleton's hand is a letter with a familiar seal.

Skip, you pry the letter from the skeleton's hand and open it. It reads:

My most pathetic servant,

I am not a messiah sent to you by the Dark Powers of this land. I have not come to lead you on a path to immortality. However many souls you have bled on your hidden altar, however many visitors you have tortured in your dungeon, know that you are not the ones who brought me to this beautiful land. You are but worms writhing in my earth.

You say that you are cursed, your fortunes spent. You abandoned love for madness, took solace in the bosom of another woman, and sired a stillborn son. Cursed by darkness? Of that I have no doubt. Save you from your wretchedness? I think not. I much prefer you as you are.

Your dread lord and master,

Strahd von Zarovich

Skip turns and passes the letter around "Grim, but in’erestin readin’". Turning to look at the skeleton more closely, to see if he can see any embalms or markings on the armour, skip open the lid of the chest fully, and inspects the dead body and interior of the chest "’Ere, is this one o’ yer parents kids? ‘N d’ya know ‘oo this Strahd fella is?"

Skallagrimm can't make himself look.