The party took a beat to get over the trauma of beating the crap out of Shakti and Lance, then continued along the winding mountain road. On their way, Shakti found a trinket in the muddy path, a maroon spyglass that always showed the world suffering a terrible storm. The forest was slightly sparser as they moved upward, and they decided to camp further in the woods to ensure they could not be spotted from the road. During the first shift, Jarmo apologized to Shakti, and the two acknowledged the gap in their relationship. On the second shift Ireena and Ghalwin reconciled over a stolen flask of the Vistani's wine, as the former admitted she felt safer with the party than anywhere else. Ghalwin also found out that four gold rings had been stolen from him at the Vistani encampment.
Their bonding was cut short, however, when Ghalwin sensed movement in the woods; he heard the snarl of a Werewolf. Two figures unknowingly approached, referring to each other as brother and sister, and he saw that both had been clearly wounded by silvered weapons. Ghalwin snuck up on the pair undetected and attempted to reason with them, but the starved lycanthropes attacked with feral speed! As the sister's jaws closed around Ghalwin's neck, however, he felt a whisper in his mind, as if through Telepathy. A voice of an otherworldly being asked if he would pray to her; staring down possible death and certain Lycanthropy, the paladin accepted.
A familiar blast of cold air rocked the werewolf, causing the attack to miss. Shakti came to his aid with the first casting of her moonbeam spell, reducing the brother into dust and forced the sister back into her humanoid form. Jarmo summarily struck the she-wolf with a crimson-rite infused maul swing so hard that her head popped off. Now safe and able to take a breath, Ireena and Jarmo scavenged two silvered arrowheads in the ashes of the brother wolf. Shakti needed a minute to reflect on the fact that she had killed her first-ever person, and Ghalwin walked away to contemplate his second encounter with the otherwordly.
He looked at a paper drawn in his bag of holding, wondering if the being communicated via written message, and again heard her in his mind. He asked her name, and she replied: Yrrga, the Eye of Shadows. He responded by taking a new title, "Ghalwin of the Grove", and Yrrga seemed to recognize the paladin's changed disposition. She informed him that she could be reached through his dreams, and her presence disappeared, granting him a split-second of powerful darkvision.
The next afternoon, after a half-day's journey, the party arrived at the Black Carriage Crossroads. The sign indicated that they had traveled 130 miles from the village of Barovia and had 130 more miles until they reached Vallaki; they were also 40 miles from Castle Ravenloft and 40 miles from Durst Windmill. At the fork leading to the castle, Strahd's black horses and carriage lay waiting, and the door swung open. Ghalwin looked into the carriage and found holes clearly intended to release a gas or magic. Spooked, he retreated, and the party went in the direction of the Durst Windmill.
2 hours from the crossroads, they walked through the imposing western Gates of Barovia and began to descend back into the valley. That evening, they camped in the woods, and the mists grew dense and thick around them. Shakti and Jarmo heard howls slowly coalescing towards the group, and a snarling wolf the size of a grizzly bear stepped out of the fog.