Backlit by misty, moody darkness, the Pack went to the Wachterhaus, where they were greeted by surprised spy Ernst Larnak. Lady Fiona invited them in, and she immediately felt a kinship with Atlas. He let on that that he intended to right a fundamental imbalance in the valley, and she agreed with his mission completely. However, she took some swaying from Shakti and Ghalwin, but both managed to deceive her that they did not fundamentally blame Strahd for Barovia's current state. The cunning noblewoman finally felt comfortable to let slip secrets that she had been carrying her entire life.
Fiona had met Strahd when she convinced her parents to visit the Village of Barovia; she detoured to visit Castle Ravenloft, desperate to learn the truth about the "devil" who's name allowed the Vallakovich to rule with impunity. She was surprised to find Strahd a gentleman, who offered her a position as a consort but did not force her; when she declined, he provided her support for her position in Vallaki. At some point, he sent her tomes with magical secrets as well as a bound creature from the Lower Realms, an Imp named Majesto.
Though Fiona did not keep contact with Strahd, this encounter left an impression on her, and she did not believe him to be the singular cause of strife in Barovia as her peers did. Instead, she began to believe that Barovia was cursed with imbalance because Mother Night had left the land to rot. She experienced dreams and visions of Vallaki being covered in sunlight not seen since the valley came under the dominion of Strahd; the visions grew as her powers did. She believed that for her visions to come true, the Vallakovich family needed to be ousted from power. Ghalwin was inquisitive about the nature of her visions and reached out again to Yyrga, who informed him that many other "dark powers" lay dormant in Barovia, encased in amber.
The Pack bid adieu to Lady Wachter and headed for a final night at the Blue Water Inn, where Ghalwin had a romantic goodbye with Karl and Shakti unromantically waved away poor Nikolai II. The Inn was packed full of people looking to drown their sorrows after the horrible, no good-day; Ghalwin helped at the bar while Shakti took over the kitchen, and Atlas corralled patrons with stories of his God. The Martikovs were grateful, and let them stay for free that evening.
However, not all slept well: wanting to better understand Mother Night, Shakti offered prayers to the moon goddess as Ylyana often did. Shakti woke up with tangled briars extending from her stomach, out through her mouth and nose and into her room. Trapped, she painfully tugged out the briars as they scratched her esophagus, and found that the base of their root was in the shape of a crescent moon. Her room was covered in the mutated dark plants, with filtered moonlight coming from her window; as Shakti pushed past the brambles, she saw that they had flooded the entire town. Impaled on the briars like sharpened stakes were dozens of Vallaki's townsfolk, including every member of her party.
She woke up terrified, confiding this nightmarish vision to her recently-sexed-up brother. The Pack hurriedly left town on their new horses Bagel and Lox, though they dared not attempt to name their sabertooth; when Shakti spoke to her in beast-speech, the tiger mostly just seemed obsessed with killing and hunting. Ghalwin did manage to at least "train" her a little by throwing down his Strahd puppet along with some raw meat, and Shakti made a strong enough impression that the beast became a little less beastly. In a hidden compartment on the wagon's seat, they found myriad items that van Richten brought with him from Commona for monster-slaying, including money, spell scrolls, and a silvered shortsword for Lancelot.
They passed over the stone bridge across the Luna River on through the Luna River Crossroads, stopping to repair signposts that displayed directions, and continued on the Old Svalich Road. Though the draft horses pulling their wagons were not much faster than walking, it enabled them to travel longer throughout the day, and they covered nearly forty miles in the day. An hour before darkness was supposed to fall, however, the sky went black; an aura of screaming annihilation took hold as they were approached by a Bodak, an undead creature created by the purest evil.
Atlas was quick to spot the creature and launched guided bolts of radiance into the creature, but even casting eyes at it meant potentially having one's soul ripped from them. It glided forth while enervating Atlas simply by look, and it managed to dodge Ghalwin's spectral vines and Shakti's moonbeam as it advanced. The mere presence of the bodak caused the decay of all life around it, and it was advancing on the party's animals. Desperate, a blindfolded Ghalwin again invoked the Eye of Shadows, who granted the paladin temporary truesight. As a dire wolf, Shakti tossed Atlas to safety and Ghalwin healed him; with the last of his strength, the cleric raised his holy symbol and successfully turned the bodak, causing it to flee down the road in the direction of Vallaki.
As dusk approached, the Pack set up camp with their wagons stationed in a "V" formation, just off the main road. They took watches in shifts, and Atlas noticed Vistani bandits heading eastward; though they clearly noticed the party, Atlas remained stoic and intimidating, and the Vistani gave everyone no trouble. Finally out of Vallaki, the party had time to reflect on their experiences and tribulations. They noticed that they felt a little more capable than before, and continued westward under the cover of Barovia's bleak dawn.