<div style="text-align: center">At the Estate of the Burgomaster​</div><br/>Elrick stood by the heavy set of double doors that led into Ireena's bedchamber and watched as Andrei vanished down the steps into the darkness and gloom of the foyer.  He heard his compatriot gather up a spear from the rack and he found himself taking a half step to join him but dragged his boot back into the room.  Worn fingers tightened around the handle of his rapier as if trying to squeeze the fear and loathing that was so deeply settled in his heart out through his hand.  The winds that had blown across the stone face of the manor were falling away as well.  Even the sound of the wolves diminished.  Where once they could be heard approaching in a gruesome chorus towards the estate, now only lone and distant cries filled the growing silence of the night.  It meant one thing, the wolves were right outside the manor, stalking, looking for a way inside.<br/><br/>The shriek of one of the dire wolves just outside caused even the hardened heart of Elrick to jump and skip a beat.  Andrei it seemed had struck the first blow this night, which was as good omen as any in the senior guards mind.  Still he knew there were far more of those wolves then the pair of them could handle if they should manage to break through any of the barricades.  In the back of his mind Elrick sensed that the Devil was playing with them.  Letting each nightly reoccurrence of this siege sap at their courage, shatter their resolve, and snap their spirit in two.  He had a feeling that if their foe wanted this to be over, it would of been long ago.<br/><br/>He couldn't turn away from the doorway and the shores of darkness that lingered at the bottom of the grand sweeping staircase.  Not that he physically couldn't, he just could not allow the fair lady he was charged to protect see the doubt and hopelessness that was clawing at his heart reflected in his eyes.  The lean muscles of his face tightened as he forced his lungs to swallow a full breath of air and hold it within.  Finally he let the breath flow slowly and gradually out of the thin lips of his mouth before he turned, composed anew towards Ireena.<br/><br/>"Your not selfish, m'lady.  None of this is your doing.  None of it."  The faint marks of the crows feet at the corners of his eyes grew more prominent as he looked upon his charge as she huddled along the wall in the flickering candle light.  "I don't blame you one bit for wanting your loved ones at your side and it saddens me that Ismark chooses to not be here."  His eyes fell to the floor in shame at having stated such.  "But I worry about him.  He hasn't seemed rational of late.  Even before your father left, he seemed to be a distant reflection of himself."  Sternly his boots padded across the room, bringing him to a shuttered window that he gazed out of.  "The darkness of this place has taken your brother I fear, like it has taken so many others."  His fingertips pulled the slats of the wooden shutters open further as he scanned the waves of sparsely moonlit fog that stretched out over the land as far as the eye could see.<br/><br/>Outside the rains had lessened further into a cool mist that fell over the lands and seeped into the endless blanket of fog.  "That is why I choose to be here.  Where light still dares to shine against the darkness.  I would give my last breath, like the others have, to see that it is not snuffed out by the hand of our enemy."  Elrick sneered as he watched the fog covered shapes of the massive wolves patrolling along the walls of the manor.  "Giving up is the easy thing to do."  His eyes pulled away from the window slats as he looked with a sense of determination in his eyes upon Ireena.  "It's also the selfish thing to..."  His words failed to complete the spoken thought as Elrick turned his head to the left and right as the soft dancing light of the candles in the room fizzled and faded to black.<br/><br/>Before the words could leave his lips the stout pair of wooden doors that led away from the regal bed chamber and out onto the catwalk and grand staircase beyond were swung shut by some force beyond comprehension.  The booming sound of the heavy doors closing was followed by a single click of the lock being set that echoed down the stairs and through the rooms that made up the ground floor of the manor.  In the blackness of Ireena's room Elrick turned towards the groaning of the balcony doors as they began to slowly open inward, letting the soft mist of rain and moonlight waft into the fringes of the room.<br/><br/>"Andrei!"  As soon as the distressed scream left his parted lips an abyssal flood of small flying ebony forms that made the natural darkness in the room seem almost light swarmed into the room through the open doors that led out onto the balcony.  They swirled like a vortex throughout the chamber, circling around the room like a blur of black paint being spread and flung wildly about.  "Ireena!  Stay pu.."  It was the last sound to leave Elrick's lips as the sharp sound of bone snapping and a muted gurgled grunt of shock came from where Elrick stood.  His hand relaxed, letting the long silver rapier slip free from his normally reliable grasp to bounce and roll across the floor.<br/><br/>As swiftly as the bats had surged into the room they began to disperse back into the night.  Spiraling out of the open doors as if a drain had been pulled that funneled them back into the misty embrace of the night.  Small wisps of flames hissed back into existence upon the candles settled in sconces about the room, shedding the weaving dance between light and shadow back into motion throughout Ireena's bedroom.  They washed across the shape of Elrick, and though his body was facing hers, his head was fully turned, most disturbingly, away from her.<br/><br/>A shape that seemed made of shadow loomed behind him.  Tall and broad of stature and dressed in the regal attire of royalty.   Despite the lack of any significant breeze to cause such  movement to occur a cloak of midnight black with a bold blood red underside that seemed to stretch and shift in the shadows flowed about him.  Pale and waxy thin fingers with elongated blackened claws were sunk in around the sides of Elrick's head, keeping the dead guards body from falling to the floor in a heap.  Glowing red eyes that belonged to a feral yet handsome angular face hovered above the twisted around head of Elrick and stared upon Ireena where she stood, frozen in place along the wall.<br/><br/>"Oh, my tortured heart, how it bleeds for you, Ireena.  You reflect her beauty, almost perfectly."  With a thump, Elrick's lifeless body collapsed upon the floor at the feet of Strahd Von'Zarovich as his eloquent and rich voice sounded softly over the rising chaos that was erupting outside as the wolves bayed in unison at the moon.  "Come to me, Ireena, I have waited long enough and will wait no more to have you as mine."  His words sounded ancient, filled with an accent of the past that had long since  died from the lands of Barovia.  "There is nothing left to suffer for here and you have nothing to fear from me.  I bring to you the gift of eternal life, ageless beauty awaits."  The sounds of his seductive tongue rang not only in her ears, but in her mind as Strahd glided towards her, fangs baring as the red in his eyes intensified.  "Come to me, Ireena, and be at my side to greet your daughters when they return to my lands."<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center">At the Blood on the Vine Tavern<br/>​</div>Eight doors, numbered one through eight we're aligned across from each other on the second floor of the Vine.  Evens lining one side, and odds along the other from low to high.  As fate would have it room three was situated next to room five where the drunkard Ismark was being settled in for the night by the pair of grim faced gypsies.  They left him there in the room, barely giving Xavier a cold glance over as he tended to his charge before they made their way back downstairs to the silence of the card game.<br/><br/>The beef stew, if one could call it that, had strands of sinewy meat that had to be searched for in the depths of the sliced up potatoes and carrots that crowded the bowl.  The broth itself was rich, warm, and full of garlic, parsley, thyme, and surprisingly well seasoned with salt and pepper.  It was the sort of meal that was perfect for a cold and rainy night as it stuck like glue in the stomach and warmed the chill away from the bones.  The accompanying bread was cold and stale, but the porous loaf soaked up the savory broth like a sponge.  All in all it was good enough to make one forget just how watered down the wine tasted to the tongue.<br/><br/>As the twins spoke upstairs in relative peace and quiet within the confines of their small, dusty, and cramped shared quarters the sound of Ismark groaning from the next room over seeped through the wall.  Incomprehensible mutterings and the occasional slurred curse seemed to make up the vast amount of the mans ramblings.  Soon though even those muted sounds from their neighbor fell away and we're replaced with the snorting buzz saw sound of his snore.<br/><br/>Downstairs the men sat around their table, glancing at their cards, sliding meager amounts of poor mans coins across the table into the pot.  They seemed to pay Bucren and Xavier no mind as they passed the time away without much interest towards anything other then the delicate click of a clock that hung on the wall besides the mirror behind the bar.  That was where Arik returned after serving the two men their stew and bread, and bringing them a bottle of Barovia's finest watery wine and two goblets.  His skeletal thin features focused on a routine that seemed to have no end as he resumed his chore of polishing every wine glass to a perfect shine, even the ones that were already sparkling.<br/><br/>The small antiquated wooden clock ticked onward, it's peaked top covered with a layer of dust and cobwebs that covered most of the taverns dull and sparse décor.  It was Eight fifteen, or so that was the time the slow moving hands on the clock claimed it to be, when the first sounds of danger could be heard from beyond the barred up entryway into the Vine.<br/><br/>It started with a snort along the bottom of the door that turned into a low growl.  The sound of a paw raked across the face of the wooden door causing the gypsies to pause their game as they looked towards the sound.  Pias was closest and the wiry young gypsy shifted quietly out of his chair and took silent steps over towards one of the shuttered windows where he peered between the cracks to gain a view of what was outside.  His face contorted as he turned back to look to his comrades, holding up his hands and extending all of his fingers out wide.  He flashed his fingers a few times to get the unspoken point across for the number ten as he mouthed the word -wolves- slowly a few times.<br/><br/>The threat lingered briefly, just over ten minutes by movement of the clocks long dark metal minute hand as Pias kept a tentative watch from the thin crease between the boards as the wandering pack moved through the square to some other destination.  He let out a deep breath as he sighed and murmured in a faint whisper that wasn't addressed to anyone in particular.  "They went south, haven't seen that large a pack in months."  With a resigned thump of his rear he dropped back into his chair and took a deep swig from his wine, washing the residue away on his sleeve as the game resumed.<br/><br/>Time plodded onward, leaving those gathered in the paranoid taverns walls to wait out the night.  The twins sat in seeming safety upstairs in the flickering candle light of their shared room.  The snoring of the man next door had grown into a chorus for their quiet conversation as nine o clock came and went.  By then the bowls of stew were emptied of their contents, every last morsel swiped up by the edges of the stale loaf of bread that came with the filling meal.  Even from upstairs though the young ladies could hear the commotion echoing up to them that came next to the front door of the Vine.<br/><br/>The panicked rapping of a fist on the front door caused the men at the card table to jolt upright in their chairs.  Shock and trepidation strained across their faces as they stared towards the door while their hands reflexively fell to the handles of their weapons.  "Please, please."  The desperate yet moderated cry of a woman's voice sounded from the other side of the doorway into the Vine.  "Please, let me in."  There was sheer terror in the ladies voice as she pleaded with the door and those beyond it on the other side.  "I have gold.  Please, gods, they're coming."  She sounded on the verge of tears as Pias looked between his companions, bit his bottom lip, and moved to look out one of the various spy holes to the foggy moonlit square and the mysterious lady begging to be let inside.<br/><br/>"Oh, please!  Someone let me in!"<br/><div style="text-align: center">​</div>