A DnD Tale: Curse of Strahd - Dinner with a Vampire

Welcome to my Dinner!

The story continues where we ended, on the way to castle Ravenloft for dinner with the count. Arriving in the carriage to the courtyard they where sent in to the dining room by Rahadin, the elf being the second in command pretty much of the castle. It isn't dinner time, but they meet the count, Strahd IX, for some brunch and an invitation for the dinner at 18:00. They eat and are brought up to the guest room where they meet Escher, a dandy. While in the room they find a hidden escape route in the closet. They send Cygnus to the study in order to look if he can find any books that will help them, Katrina gets to sleep since she need the fireball spells and the other climbs the trap door and finds some witches that block their path, and then a room with cats that tell them to go back,

So they decide to go out the front door with Escher away showing Cygnus the study. They climb the tower and goes to the other tower and finds a crystal heart pulsating, forcing them to crawl to avoid getting knocked down. They go to the top and down to the lower areas and find the study... with Cygnus and Escher as well as the count going through the different books, talking about the counts family all the way back from the King and Queen of Barovia and down to the current count. So basically I lured them into thinking that the count is actually the ninth count Strahd. They begin suspecting the accountant since he is the only one that seems to like having control of the treasures in the castle. But it begins to be time for dinner so they head back to the guest room where their clothes have been cleaned and they are taken down to the dinner hall again.

During the dinner they ask why they are here and the count divulges that he have had a burglary and someone have stolen some artefacts from him. And apparently they came from the mayors house through a portal. Oops! And then they begin talking about Gertruda, the girl they have been looking for from the start. And who would know, the girl is here and brought into the dinner room by Rahadin. Apparently she ran away from her mother and Strahd invited her in. And then he casually Strahd mentions that he actually never invited Imeral or Hope to Barovia since someone stole the letter for the intended person. And here the mask falls and his eyes turn red and his teeth sharpens and he began stroking Gertruda's hair as he explains that he intends to turn her into a vampire at midnight during the full moon. As Cygnus tries to take Gertruda away from Strahd both disappear in smoke. Panicked they decide they have to destroy the heart since it must be something evil. They rush up the stair... or crawl to the top and begins attack the heart. As they do it ten flying halberds emerges from the walls and begins attacking them. Godfrey, the revenant has a bit of problem since he with the first attack with his sword usually does decent damage, and then I rolled a 1 and he drops his sword... twice in a row. One halberd also gets a 1 and splinters itself against the heart as it misses its intended target. So in three rounds they pretty much cleaned up the halberds and destroyed the heart, but not until Cygnus rolls a 1 on the Dex saving throw and rolls down the stairs.

So, right when they think they won 4 vampire spawns appear from the roof, which they destroy rather fast. Two is burnt by fire and one is destroyed with the sun sword Hope have been carrying. One rolled a 1 and fell down the stairs as well, so that one they where able to gang up on. And that was the end of that season. By forcing a time limit for a vampire transformation I actually have been able to make them act instead of wait and see. Shall be interesting to see where I place the actual ritual. Rather fun to trick them with the whole "is the count really that Strahd?" and they really doubted it. But next session, when ever that is will probably be the last since fights usually goes off rather fast. So then we can finally end this 4 year long campaign and maybe start another one.