The woman turns at the sound of Zefla's voice.  Her eyes widen and she reaches out frantically, like a drowning woman grasping for a lifeline, stepping out toward her in the street.  "Oh, child, sweet child!  Do you know my Gertruda?  Have you seen her?  She's been taken from me!"  She grabs your forearms so hard it hurts; there is desperation in her face.  "No one wants to help me look... no one will help at all.  Not the neighbors, not the Burgomaster."  She falls to her knees in the muddy street in front of you, still clutching your arms.  She sobs, so hard her whole body shakes.  "Oh!  I tried to protect her from this wasted world!  I knew the devil would come for her!   Such a sweet, beautiful child, of course evil would come for her!  I couldn't save her!  I co-hou-hou-hou-dn't save her!"  She looks at you, almost at eye level though she is kneeling in the mud.  "Please... please help me find my daughter!?"

As Burr, Soren and Giles are escorted out of the late Burgomaster's mansion, they see Zefla halfway down the street.  She seems to be talking to a crying beggar.

Burr moved up to support Zefla in case the beggar woman was more than she appeared...

Giles mind is racing, they seemed to have walked into something much larger than he wanted to contend with.  How do we get back there…. from here.  What is wrong with this place?  he thinks to himself.  He sees the brutally murdered old man, steps outside with the promise of more information, then he spies Zefla.  “What is this crone up to…” he thinks, then steps forward to give her backup, keeping a sharp eye out for a return of the mob, turning and looking at each possible approach.

Zefla stays put, listening to the desperate woman, wanting to try and break free, but doesn't.  "I'm sorry, I do not know your Gertrude.  You say she was taken from you?  Do you know by whom?  Please, will you please let go of my arm?  I am listening to you."

She looks to Burr and Giles, glad to see that they have come out of the manor and have joined her.

Exiting the manor, Soren wishes he had asked what the blond swordsman with the dead father had meant about "your kind" attracting unwanted attention.  Clearly, the round old woman with the pushcart had shunned them like a bear shuns a skunk.  And most of the other townsfolk seemed the same.

But why?  And what was "your kind"?  Strahd's letter had said Raquon of Greyhawk had entered Barovia through the mists as Soren and his companions unwittingly had too.  Yet clearly if Raquon could have left back through the mists, he surely would have rather than die... so was he stuck?  Are we stuck?

Soren rejoins Zefla, Burr and Giles, lost in thought.

Absent-mindedly he lets Zefla know what he, Burr and Giles already heard.  "The blond swordsman whose father (the 'Burgomaster'?) was killed has something to tell us.  He seemed to... know something about... 'our kind' as he put it.  He asked us to wait at the tavern for him and keep a low profile."

The woman looks down at her hands when Zefla asks to be released, seemingly surprised to see how hard she was clutching her.  She lets go - but almost immediately grabs her arms again, though without the death-grip of before.  "It was the Devil Strahd, I just know it.  Him or his minions.  Everyone knows that pretty ones disappear in Barovia.  I did my best to hide her away from evil... but when I awoke in the morning, she was gone!  She was a good girl... She IS a good girl.  Please, you have to help me find her!"

She starts to sob again.  "No one will help... cowards all.  Too concerned with their own fears to help a neighbor...".

Relieved to not be in a death grip any longer, though still somehow attached to the woman, Zefla responds, "So she disappeared this morning?  Any sign of struggle or just vanished?  Please, calm down, we will do what we can..." as she says this she hopes her new friends will help out.

She hears Soren tell her about the meeting and she nods to him, but looks back to the woman, waiting for her answer.

Burr made eye-contact with Zefla, nodding grimly.

" Sorry, Ma'am.  Your daughter?  Did she have any friends you didn't approve of?  I know from my own youth that they are often the best place to start to uncover more information."

"This morning... no.  Not this morning.  It's been... a couple of days."  She seems legitimately confused on this point, but looking at the dark circles under her eyes, you suspect she hasn't been getting much, if any sleep.  "I spoke to the Burgomaster... yesterday, I think?  So two... maybe three days. Oh!  My poor girl."

"Friends?" she asks, looking up at Burr suddenly as though he just appeared out of nowhere.  "Friends... no.  My Gertruda stayed in the house.  This place is so dangerous.  And there are so few children."  She looks up and down the now empty street.  "She preferred to stay inside where it was safe.  And to read."

She looks up as if remembering something.  "She did tell me she read her stories through the window to the boy next door, Bildrath's boy."  She points to adjacent shop building with the hanging sign, Bildrath’s Mercantile.  "But Bildrath won't let me speak to him.  That old man's heart is hard and cold as cobblestone...".

Burr gritted his teeth, after three days.....there was not a lot of hope getting a lost person back alive....and that was back home.  Here? Three hours might be closer...

" Bildraths Mercentile.  We'll check it out, no stone unturned.", he turned to look at Soren with a sad head shake.

Soren urges caution, sensing the malaise and hostility gripping the pack that makes up the town of Barovia like a disease.

"We should help this woman if we can, but if her daughter is days gone and this Bildrath has a 'heart as hard and cold as cobblestone', we should heed the suggestion of the Burgomaster's blond sword-bearing son and first wait at the tavern to speak with him.  We don't want the mob turning on us."

Zefla slowly removes herself from the woman's grasp.  "We'll see what we can find out, ok?  Please, try to get some sleep."

She turns away from the woman and asks Soren, "Did the Burgomaster say when he was going to meet us?  But sure, if you want to head there first, we can.  And at some point we'll head to the mercantile.  I wonder if any of this will lead us home..."  She says this last part wistfully, a bit to herself, but looks around trying to see where the tavern might be.

Perception  15

Giles has his hand on his chin, considering the words of the woman.  Calm and calculated, he says “Your daughter, Gertruda.  Can you describe her to us?  How will we recognize her?  Do you have any drawing or image of hers, anything that will help us to know her, if we come upon her?”  Then switching to his Father Giles voice he says “There there, tut tut my dear, I will ask my Lady Tymora for guidance to find her.  Do you know of my Lady Tymora? ….” he says in his most consoling voice.  

Burr grudgingly agreed about the tavern....though part of him wouldn't mind knocking some sense into a few of the mob.

Quote from kqstark >>

Zefla slowly removes herself from the woman's grasp.  "We'll see what we can find out, ok?  Please, try to get some sleep."

She turns away from the woman and asks Soren, "Did the Burgomaster say when he was going to meet us?  But sure, if you want to head there first, we can.  And at some point we'll head to the mercantile.  I wonder if any of this will lead us home..."  She says this last part wistfully, a bit to herself, but looks around trying to see where the tavern might be.

Perception  11

Soren looks pained.  "No, this Burgomaster, the old man who was perhaps the leader here, is dead, killed in anger by his own pack.  It was his blond swordsman of a son that asked us to wait at the tavern.  He did not say for how long, but he was the first person in this land that has looked on us with sympathy.  He said he knew something of our plight.  He did not shun us but urged us to keep a low profile since 'our kind' attracts unwanted attention."

The druid is clearly skittish of causing a disturbance in what he considers utterly strange territory without knowing how things stand.  Though he does nod when Giles sensibly asks the sobbing woman how the party might recognize her daughter Gertruda later.

It doesn't take much looking around before you spot your next destination.  Briefly, a single shaft of light thrusts illumination into the main square, its brightness looking like a solid pillar in the lingering fog.  Above the gaping doorway, a sign hangs precariously askew, proclaiming this to be the Blood on the Vine tavern.  As quickly as you take notice, the pillar of light fades and is gone.

[Updated Map of the Village of Barovia with points of interest.]

"Recognize her?  Of course!" the woman almost shouts, in an I can't believe I didn't think of that tone.  "You will need to know her when you find her, so you can bring her home.  Let me see.  She is sixteen, but small for her age, of height and of frame.  Such a small girl.... She has dark hair, like her father, and big hazel eyes."  She continues to describe the girl, down to minute detail, her favorite clothes, books and songs, though she is soon speaking only to herself as she stumbles back into the open door of her home.

As the woman starts babbling her way back inside, Zefla lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.  Seeing the tavern, she starts heading that way.  "Well, at least he wants to meet in a tavern, I'm thirsty anyways."

She looks back over her shoulder at the others, "You fellas coming?  You can buy me a beer." and she smiles at that as she continues on.

Soren involuntarily touches his hand to his temple and shudders slightly at the mention of the word "beer," recalling his customary headache whenever he inevitably takes more than a sip or two of the fermented liquid these towns seem to brew.  Although the name of this tavern seems to imply that it serves... blood?  He did not think humans drank blood.  Perhaps werewolves do?  And what did the "on the Vine" part of the name connote?

Shaking his head at his own ignorance of city lifestyle, Soren follows gamely, glad that the party has agreed to lay low.  Even Burr, who seemed to hold some distaste towards the rabid pack that had killed their leader.  Understandable.  Soren fishes in his pocket for coins. "Yes, I will buy beer, Zefla."

He reaches for Silvanus' Guidance so as to be ready in case the tavern holds any threats that he can perceive.

As the party approaches the tavern they get a better look at the town square.  The tavern dominates the square; a stable, or perhaps a crude, open air smithy, stands abandoned, the only other prominent structure here.  There are a pair of large homes here, but the windows are dark and no smoke rises from their stone chimneys.  A stock and gallows platform sits in one corner of the square, but mercifully they look as neglected and unused as so much of the rest of the village.

Climbing onto the creaking wooden porch of the tavern, you see the sign has been altered.  The name of the tavern is actually Blood of the Vine.  Someone has carved an 'n' over the 'f' in an act of dark-humored vandalism.

Stepping through the double doors, which are propped open, you are struck by how dark it is inside.  All of the windows are closed and the only light is from the open door and from a roaring fire in the front hearth.  It is a mismatched space.  Old tapestries hang from the exterior walls and a set of stag antlers are mounted above the fire.  But the interior wall across from the fire is new, bisecting the room, undecorated and looking out of place.  It feels like a remodeling project that was only partially completed.  Four wooden tables with varying number of chairs are arranged around the room with no regard to symmetry or flow, and six stools are pulled up to a long bartop.  Near the front door, a picture frame hangs on the wall but it is empty.

Behind the bar a pudgy man is busy cleaning; he has arranged small wooden cup, larger glass goblets, and wooden pitchers along the bar and is working his way down, polishing each one before stacking them on shelves behind the bar.  At the table nearest the fireplace, three middle-aged women sit and talk in quiet conversation.  They are dressed in long, neck to ankle garments that are vaguely reminiscent of paintings of the desert folk of far Calimshan, though whereas the desert garments are sheer and light, these are made from thick, crude fabrics.  What they lack in elegance, they make up for in color - the clothing is dyed in bright blues and oranges.  It's a mild shock to your senses as you realize this is the most color you have seen since you traveled through the mists.  In addition to the bright clothes, the women wear copper and brass bracelets and hoop earrings and have rings on most of their fingers.  They look up at you briefly when you enter and then return to their conversation, a little quieter than before.

The barkeep, without really looking up from his task, waves a hand slowly across the room as if to say 'go ahead and sit whereever.'

Soren, generally uncertain in such situations, moves towards the second table from the north instinctively.

Being in strange territory, he does not wish to intrude on the conversation that the strangely-garbed women are having by sitting at the closest table.  Nor does he want to show a lack of confidence by choosing the farthest table, so once more, he splits the difference.  If the barkeep does not come over to take their order in the next couple minutes, true to his word to Zefla a moment ago, he walks respectfully up to the bar, to order their drinks.

Quietly (privately) to the group, he observes, "I do not think those women are part of this pack, this town.  They are dressed as if from elsewhere,  It seems as if no one from the town likes this tavern.  Perhaps they are too angry at each other as we saw outside, or afraid like Gertruda's mother."