Guided by the light of the full moon, the Adventurers raced from the Astralwood and entered the Vanishing Grove on Shakti and Snickerdoodle. Throughout the grove, they heard howls and screams close in on them, and the air grew thick with mist. As they lost sight of the sky and their surroundings, Jarmo swung at the encroaching haze using his Crimson Rite, electricity crackling across his maul. Curiously, the mists reacted to this swing, leaving an absence that appeared to be a crest of a raven over a castle.
The fog parted, leading them forward, and Shakti lead the party through mysterious, sickened woods, following an animal trail. As the trail died off, she smelled blood in the air. Though she wanted to avoid the potential danger, Ghalwin went ahead to investigate. He found the body of a malnourished male scout, obviously dead for several days. His body was covered in slashmarks resembling werewolf claws. The man was holding a letter addressed to the outside world, and was clearly trying to escape the mists to deliver it. The letter was penned by the Burgomaster of Barovia, Kolyan Indirovich, claiming that his adopted daughter Ireena Kolyana had been bitten by a vampire. It warned that the creature had control over these lands for hundreds of years and was too powerful to overcome.
Not far from the body, Ghalwin finally found a road cutting through the forest. Though muddy and pocked with pools of water, they followed cart tracks down the road. They passed through the Gates of Barovia, guarded by two massive headless statues, and continued until Shakti heard the sound of shambling feet. Eight loathsome Zombies approached, lead by one in a black executioner's hood; the party gathered close, and their opponent overrun them.
Shakti Wildshaped into a Dire Wolf, somehow fended off four undead at once with beastly savagery, while Ghalwin found resolve within his Holy Symbol. He critically smote the leader with a divine strike as Jarmo was forced to test the limit of his blood hunter abilities. The giantborn invoked Hemocraft to take away a zombies' eyesight while it attacked Ghalwin, and Enhanced his hammer to destroy his foes at the cost of his own blood. In the chaos, a zombie made its way past the group and gored Snickerdoodle, ripping out her throat. As Ghalwin dispatched the last of the enemy, the party realized they had to carry on quickly. They worried that resting in the woods would be dangerous, given what happened to the letter carrier, and left poor Snickerdoodle's body out in the open road.
Ahead, a black carriage approached, it's lamplight cutting through the fog. From the carriage stepped the Count Strahd von Zarovich. His shadow was unnaturally long and imposing, magically pulling to Ghalwin's shadow and decapitating it. Strahd offered both greetings and threats to the party. Shakti found that the vampire tried to magically charm her, but resisted his attempt. Emboldened, she tried to fish for information, speaking disrespectfully to him before inquiring on the decrepit state of his castle. With a single punch, Strahd broke her jaw and downed her, then turned to do the same to her half-brother. Ghalwin begged for mercy as he used a Spell to heal Shakti, but his plea fell on deaf ears as the Count cut his throat open with claw-like nails.
As the only one left in fighting condition and facing certain death, Jarmo asked if he could keep his life in exchange for a trade. His critically-successful question allayed the vampire lord's tempestuous temper, and Strahd listed out what he wanted from Jarmo: to stay away from "Tatyana", to visit Castle Ravenloft, and to taste his blood. Jarmo accepted, and Strahd drained the goliath, apparently not appreciating how "stony" the Doomgolem's blood tasted. He turned back to his carriage as Jarmo and Shakti raced to heal Ghalwin, and left the group with a single message: "Welcome to Barovia."
Battered and beaten, they ambled down the foggy road as rain tormented them for hours. At a point, they were passed by a Humanoid Skeleton on a dark, dead Skeletal Horse. With no acknowledgement, the Skeleton rider trotted past and dropped a black Diary containing no writing. Eventually, they came to pass a town's gate; mists encroached even closer, and the streets seemed soundless and abandoned. They all heard the distant cries of a young boy, and followed the sound to the foot of an abandoned-seeming house.
The children identified themselves as Rose and Thornboldt Durst. Both refused to go back into the home, claiming that their parents and younger brother were trapped inside with a monster in the basement. On their last legs, the party entered the gated portico, which Ghalwin "locked" by sticking a shortsword through the frame. The mists pressed up to them, enveloping Rose and Thorn, and the party attempted to rest at the door of the Death House.