Towering trees, whose tops are lost in heavy gray mist, block out all but a death-gray light. The tree trunks are unnaturally close to one another, and the woods have the silence of a forgotten grave, yet exude the feeling of an unvoiced scream.
If the characters are traveling in Vistani wagons, they can continue on to the village of Barovia without incident.
If the characters are following the road on foot, the party member who has the highest passive Wisdom (Perception) score notices something:
You catch the scent of death on the air. I The character can follow the stench to its source: The foul scent leads you to a human corpse half-buried in the underbrush about fifteen feet from the road. The young man appears to be a soldier. His muddy clothes are torn and raked with claw marks. Crows have been at the body, which is surrounded by the paw prints. The man has obviously been dead for several days. He holds a crumpled envelope in one hand.
ALTERNATE DESCRIPTION
However, when the players find the corpse of Dalvan Olensky, he is not holding a crumpled envelope, and his clothes appear to have been torn by brambles and thorns, rather than claw marks. He doesn't appear to have any visible wounds, but a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check reveals that he died of exhaustion.
Dalvan
In the wake of Strahd's attack on the village of Barovia, one of the survivors—a young man named Dalvan Olensky—was overcome with terror and despair. Determined to find a way free from Barovia, Dalvan traveled to the Vistani encampment at Tser Pool, seeking out the reputed Vistani seer Madam Eva. There, Madam Eva read his future in the Tarokka cards, and drew the Horseman—a card that predicted that he would die in the Barovian valley.
Determined to help his village no matter the cost, Dalvan joined forces with Doru and his rebel movement. The two of them recruited the locals and marched on Castle Ravenloft. During the fight, Dalvan managed to slip into the Castle's treasury and stolen SOMETHING.
He fled the Castle when strahd was roused and was chased down by SOMEONE.
Upon emerging from the fog, the players can see a fourth tree, which bears another forty-three tally marks an an arrow that points further along the direction of the footpath. In addition, the fourth tree appears to bear a carving and has an object protruding from its trunk. If the players inspect it, read:
Someone has stabbed an old, dagger in the trunk of this old, gnarled tree. Beside it lies a rough carving of a figure atop a horse, just above two sets of rough-hewn words:
"THE HORSEMAN RIDES. THE SEER SPOKE TRUE."
Madam Eva regrets Dalvan's fate—but as the avatar of the Seeker, she is bound to read the future when asked, and knows that no efforts to escape can unravel a future that she has foreseen.
Dalvan was intending to flee as far east as he could, possibly even out of the valley. He was caught and killed by a mysterious being.
Wolves
If the characters linger in the woods, they hear a lone wolf howl far off in the forest. Each round, one more wolf adds its voice to the howling, with the sound getting progressively closer to the party. If the characters are still in the woods after 5 rounds of howling, five dire wolves arrive and attack. If the characters are trying to leave Barovia, these dire wolves are joined by a pack of twenty wolves. The wolves and the dire wolves stop their attack if the characters return to the road and head toward the village of Barovia.