Thick, cold fog swirls in the courtyard. Sporadic flashes of lightning lance the weeping clouds overhead as thunder shakes the ground. Through the drizzle, you see torch flames fluttering on each side of the keep's main doors. High above the entrance is a round window with shards of broken glass lodged in its iron frame. The ornate outer doors of the castle hang open, flanked by fluttering torches in iron sconces, and flooding the courtyard with warm light from inside. Twenty feet inside the castle is a second set of doors. Overhead, in the vaulted entry foyer, four statues of dragons glare down, their eyes flickering in the torchlight.
You keep your hand near your longsword as you carefully step through the courtyard, reaching main doors of the castle. Nobody is here to guide you, but the sound of organ music is coming from inside the castle's main hall, drawing you forward. You can't help but notice how dead and decrepit the castle looks, even from here - it's in great disrepair, yet, somehow, it loses none of its magnificence. It seems majestic and terrifying all at the same time. It feels like a haunted place. You find yourself doubting how anybody could live here, but you must remind yourself that the Lord of Barovia is supposedly a vampire, so it's possible that nobody, in fact, is. Does he know you know he's a vampire? Will that come up during the conversation?
You push through the second set of doors, which groan with the pain of their great age as they open, and enter the main hall. Cobwebs stretch between the columns that support the vaulted ceiling of a great, dusty chamber dimly lit by sputtering torches in iron sconces. The torches cast odd shadows across the faces of eight stone gargoyles squatting motionlessly on the rim of the domed ceiling. Cracked and faded ceiling frescoes are covered by decay. Double doors of bronze stand closed to the east. To the north, a wide staircase climbs into darkness. A lit hallway to the south contains another set of bronze doors, through which you hear the sad and majestic organ tones that you heard from outside. Obviously that is where you are supposed to go. On the other side of that door, however, is an arched hallway which stretches for twenty feet, ending at a spiral staircase that goes up and down. Next to the hallway, a suit of armor, oiled and glistening, stands at attention in a shallow alcove.
A thought occurs to you. You are flooded with flashbacks of sitting in the lobby in the Baron's mansion in Vallaki. The rest of the castle lies before you - there are not one, not two, but three separate directions you could go, other than inside the organ room where you believe Strahd is waiting for you. It's not your fault you aren't with a chaperone. This may be the castle of the Lord himself, but... do you dare..?
>Stick to the plan. Meet Strahd.>Cast a spell or use an item (list: https://pastebin.com/chuTtwgW)>Other (specify) 