That citizens’ meeting was gruelling and quite divisive, which was a sad expectation. No-one really wanted to pay the restitutions demanded by the Zhentarim from Darkhold and give up their new-found freedom and I can’t say as I blame them. The initial payment was over 50,000GP and I’d bet my last copper piece that wouldn’t be the end of it. No, the real division was whether to fight or flee and that debate raged on for hours. In the end the majority of the town of Krezk chose to move on, whilst most others opted to stay and fight. We laid on a morning feast to try and ease the tensions - there’s a chance that these people may never see each other again. It’s certainly a grim time.

And it gets worse. The people that just disappeared?  They never quite existed enough in the first place to return with us. We’ve pieced together that when Barovia got ripped from the Forgotten Realm, souls became kind of stuck there, unable to leave or enter. Only about 400 people were originally taken along for the ride and their souls stayed in a cycle of death and rebirth, but families grew over the generations. The unlucky didn’t get a soul, but just carried on in that cursed place until Barovia was shoved back into the normal world. Whatever they were and whatever they are now, if anything, I just hope their sorrows are over. This leaves families and friends with people just missing from their lives, without the comfort that they’ve ascended to whatever lies ahead for the departed. These wounds will take a long time to heal.

And it gets yet worse! Argynvost had gone to have a nosey at Darkhold but was blasted from the sky by some powerful beam of arcane energy. A single hit damn near killed him but Monty’s quick wits saved the day. I managed to heal the worst of the damage, enough to let Arrie heal on his own, and we chalked it up to bad luck and foolishness. Arrie came up to me a few days later and asked me to have another look at the wound though. I was quite surprised, Dragon vitality is well known, and yet that wound was still there. Worse, older wounds were starting to look inflamed and angry. Everything I tried to heal these wounds was temporary, at best. I was starting to get concerned when Rasda came to me complaining of some nagging aches where he’d taken some pretty hefty damage in his run-ins with Strahd and his goons. Monty and Pravus both had a look but neither could work out what the hell was going on until Monty had a look in the ethereal plane. He was quiet for a moment (wonder of wonders) then reported that there were some strange hooks snared in their bodies, with chains anchoring them to some unknown point. I’m at a loss for how to remove them and they seem to be sapping away my friends’ health. Reader, I am truly concerned.

Pravus and Ellidar have returned with some mixed news. Apparently we’ve been gone far longer than we thought, some of the magical items acquired (ahem) in the course of the party’s adventure are cursed (because of course they are), and both were attacked by Zhentarim. On the plus side, they’re both alive (more than can be said for the Zhemtarim), so there’s that. Gods, that’s a depressing balance.

Oh, I’ve got some new (to me) armour! It belonged to Sergei Von Zarovich who by all accounts was an honourable man, even in death. I’ll do my best to do good with this, even with this mountain of shit that’s been thrown our way.

Well, this has been a barrel of laughs, I’m going to go get stupid-drunk and see if the blacksmith is single. Don’t judge. Hang on, I hear Barbs calling, something about Traben…