Noticing Ismark's distate, Alev tilts his head, curious. "Who are these 'Vistani' people?" He asks. "I heard that name a couple times now and I still don't know what that's even supposed to mean!"

Ismark explains with a sour expression, "They are travelers of the planes. They wonder from place to place, drink your wine, have a loud party, and then disappear the next morning. Here, they are the spies of Strahd. I have never met one who hasn't tried to swindle me."

 ((This RP section will end tonight.))

Rudick lets out a guttural chuckle. "Well, if they tend to be spies, one certainly had plans to get close to you, Ismark. For one of the ladies from the night before.. day before... whatever... they came about asking about you. And by her angle, she was not above going the more 'intimate' route with you." He chuckles and shook his head, feeling for once uplifted in spirit for a moment. "But what do you think, Ireena? Is your brother comely enough for it to have been genuine interest and not this whole spying business?"

Skip bursts out laughing, not expecting such a statement from the usually dour half orc

Ireena shoots a look at Ismark, and then her face scrunches up in disgust as she says, "Ew, no! He's about ugly as they come."

 Ismark sighs indignantly and says under his breath, "Living with women is such a chore..."

You step off from the bridge and back into the muddy path. Shortly afterwards, the take takes you into the forest for about 2 miles before you exit on the other side. The pine trees of the forest are dark and imposing. They loom over the muddy trail, silent as death itself. Despite your time here, the only animals you have seen were the ravens at the church and a few days running along the streets back at the town of Barovia. 

Just after you break free from the clutches of the forest, an old wooden gallows creeks in a chill wind that blows down from the high ground to the west. A fraid length of rope dances from it's beam. The muddy road splits here, and a signpost opposite the gallows points off in 3 directions: Barovia Village to the east, Tser Pool to the northwest, and Ravenloft/Vallaki to the southwest. Northwest fork slabs down and disappears Into the trees, while the southwest fork clings to an upward slope. Across from the gallows, a low wall, crumbling in places, partially encloses a small plot of graves shrouded in fog.

Ismark says over the pounding rain, "I want to show you guys the Tser Pool if that's ok."

Sergei shrugs. “This is your expedition.”

Skip Gallowson looks upon the gallows mournfully, the memories of not knowing his father a painful spike to his heart. Though he had taken the gallows as his name, to own the pain so that others could not use it against him, seeing the hangman’s apparatus all of a sudden, so casually placed, tore his small heart in two. He bows his head and stays silent for a moment, before he puts a grim smile of determination upon his face and turns to Ismark “then please lead on sir. Is there a significance to this pool for you?”

Looking at the gloomy trees around them, Alev just nods, hoping that there won't be any creepy creatures at this pool.

Leann narrows her eyes at the land around them, and the gallows in particular. "Would it not be wise to make haste to our destination?" She asks. "If this greater vampire is after your sister, stopping to see some pool does not seem wise." She shrugs as her companions speak their own views. 'If the pool is of such interest to you,then lead on, let us just be on our guard."

Rudick nodded in agreement with his companions here and there, but only has this to say in the end: "If it might get us out of this rain, and give me a chance to rest my arm for a while... Fine by me. But it would not linger there for long." With that, he motions using a free arm for Ismark to take point. The Orc naturally follows closely behind, and hoped the others stayed formed up around or behind Ireena.

Ismark explains, "So far, you've only seen why Barovia is a terrible place. I want to show you the Pool so you can see something that's not depressing." Ireena adds, "It's his favorite place to visit."

You begin to begin to leave the crossroads, you hear a creaking noise behind you coming from the gallows. Where there was nothing before now hangs a lifeless gray body. The breeze turns the hanged figure slowly, so that it can fix its dead eyes upon you. While most of you see and unfamiliar corpse, Rudick sees himself hanging from the rotting gallows. Rudick sees that his body is bloated and decaying, and parts of his flesh has sluffed away or has been eaten by carrion birds. A small, unnerving smile is frozen on his dead face, watching you as you depart.

“I wonder who that poor bugger was. Or is. Or is meant to be?” The gnome asks, a note of melancholy in his voice

Alev gives a quick look to the hanged corpse before looking away. "Yeah, something not depressing would be really nice..."

With a frown for the corpse, Leann shrugs and moves off with the others. She isn't quite sure she wants to try to figure out why the corpse was not there one moment, then there the next. She doesn't recognize the person, so is ready to continue along.

Sergei is pretty sure no one was hanging there at first, but on the other hand he’s seen worse in the house of horrors. He squints at it with his all-black eyes, examining with detect magic but doesn’t get too concerned. 

Though taken aback in seeing himself hanging there, Rudick spends a long moment staring back at the apparition (or so he figured). Then growling, he turned away fully to focus on following after Ismark and whoever else at that point, muttering under his breath, "I've defied it once, and do so again. And if it can't, when it comes..." The rest is unintelligible for those actually paying the Orc mind. And if the subject broached, he is back to his dour self and waving off such inquiries.

Even the news that their dalliance with the pool seemed to have more to do with fancy than usefulness is ignored by Rudick, still distracted with his own thoughts.

Sergei, the body has a faint aura of illusion about it, but nothing else.

As Ismark leads you on, The road gradually disappears and is replaced by a twisted, muddy path through the trees. Deep ruts in the earth are evidence of the comings and goings of wagons. A few minutes later, you come to a clearing next to a river that widens to form a small lake Several hundred feet across, and the water is the clearest you have ever seen. You can see all the way to the bottom, and you even spot a few fish. 5 colorful round tents, each 10' in diameter, are pitched outside a ring of four barrel-topped wagons. A much larger tent stands near the shore of the lake, it's sagging form lit from within. Near this tent, 8 unbridled horses drink from the river. The mournful strains of an accordion clash with the singing of several brightly clad figures around a bonfire despite the rain. A footpath continues beyond this encampment, meandering north between the river and the forest's edge.

Sergei asks Ismarck,

"Were you expecting company at the lake? Who's this?"

Ismark face tightens and says while Ireena lays a hand on the hilt of her longsword, "These accursed Vistani ruin everything. Hopefully they haven't noticed-"

 His sentence is cut off as you hear someone from the encampment shout, "Hehey!" You see a man clutching a green wine bottle in one hand shouts out with a drunken slur to the party, "Hey strangers! Come and join us! We've got plenty of wine!"

 A few of the other Vistani make sounds of agreement while then one who spoke to you raises the wind bottle and chugs down a portion of it to prove his point.

Hearing the music and the singing, Alev says. "They might not be that bad. Don't judge a book by its cover, and all that..."

As long as they don't attack, he will walk closer to the tent and try to talk. "You can keep your wine, I'm not interested in getting drunk with a bunch of strangers in the middle of nowhere." He says with a threatening tone, a tone that says 'don't even think about it' that he learned to use back when talking with fellow criminals. 

Expecting them to try to steal from him or try to do any other funny business any second now, he glares at the drunk man, a soft draconic hiss leaving his beak.

In a more friendly tone, he adds, glancing over at the other tents. "Nice music you have here, though. What was that song you were singing earlier?"

Intimidation: 18