Well, that was officially awful. As I made clear before, the Dursts' house is full of bullshit. It's no wonder that the nobleman with the naughty bedroom eyes wanted nothing to do with these people. To rub salt into the rather painful wound, there's a particularly beautiful apple calling my name that Avery says I'm not allowed to eat until he fusses with it, or blesses it, or or or just steals it for himself to turn into the perfect garnish for one of his drinks.

How did we get to be so battered and bruised, lying in the grass outside the Dursts' manor and licking our wounds? Because Elizabeth Durst has somehow managed to become a creature of pure malevolent hatred. She was so enraged by her husband's affair -- was it that he'd been unfaithful or that he had had his dalliance with the help, I wonder? -- that she sacrificed baby Walter, son of Gustov and Matilda, on the dark altar in the basement, turning him into a horrifying abomination.

Rather than starting a fight with the putrid mess of flesh and bones, Allynia called out to Rose and Thorn, asking the children to help calm their brother's anger. The two did their best, telling Walter to calm down and not to hurt anyone. In the same way, I did my best to reach the poor child, telling him that we were going to try to get his body free of the mess ensnaring him, that it might hurt a little, but we would be as quick as possible.

Unfortunately, Walter wasn't having any of it, and the bad baby kept trying to grab me and stuff me in its mouth like an oversized binky. Which it finally succeeded in doing, and let me tell you, now I've SEEN THINGS that cannot be unseen -- or unsmelled. It was awful, having marinated in fetid water for hundreds of years. Allynia made another plea to our ghostly companions, this time to Walter's mother, which was finally enough to soothe the boy and shake off the last of the cult's curse.

Enraged, the specter of Elizabeth Durst rose from the filthy water to scream at us, the usual villain speech: I'll kill you all, none of you will get out of here alive, I'll just have to make my bastard husband's son into a putrid undead monster thing AGAIN now because of you. As one does. This was made all the more urgent by the fact that the house began shaking in time with her rage, large chunks of the ceiling falling down on us. I scooped up baby Walter's remains, and we all bolted out of the crypts. (Moss had an especially difficult time with it, but Cassandra kept dragging him back up to his feet.)

I cannot reiterate enough that this house? Bullshit. Just all of it! We got lost in the dark trying to find our way up from the basement, bits of stone falling on us all the while, then we finally get back up the secret stairs to the fourth floor, only to find the house ON FIRE. Because of course it is. With spinny, chompy whirling blades of death in doors and windows so we can't leave. Having had enough of this place, Avery decided to have us go through the spinning, whirling blades of death out onto the third floor balcony. At least there, we had a moment's reprieve from all the smoke. We were able to knot a rope and climb down to (relative) safety. Going last, Moss got a little more smoke in his lungs than everyone else, and he almost fell. With a little assistance, we all made it down to solid ground--

And just like that, it was as if nothing had ever been amiss in the house as all. Everything was quiet, the smoke was gone, and it all was as it had been when we'd first arrived. Except for a small basket sitting by the iron gates of the Durst manor. Inside was an assortment of food, a bottle of wine with a label "Champagne du le Stomp", and a note in a familiar handwriting, stating "Welcome to Ravenloft" signed "Strahd von Zarovich".

Bedroom Eyes knows who we are.

I have got to stop calling him that.