7th Day of the 3rd Quarter of the Moon of
Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.
Days in Barovia: 3. A half-moon rises.
Bearer of Bad News
As Paris and
Clarence’s “tutelage” of the baron’s son began, Clarence and Dickie headed to
the church, to inform Ireena of her brother’s death and deliver his remains. Of
these they had only his severed head; Dickie found a suitable basket in which
it could be carried surreptitiously.
On their way
to the church, a Barovian with lank greasy hair and furtive eyes approached
them. He delivered to Cornelius an invitation to dine with the Lady Fiona
Wachter. Having checked that the Lady Wachter was wealthy – “She is the wealthiest woman in all Vallaki.”
- Cornelius accepted the invitation with enthusiasm.
Outside of
the church of St. Andral, old father Petrovich was talking earnestly with a
tall youth. The boy looked sullen and uncomfortable, and the priest seemed to
be pleading with him. “I’m not a thief!”
the boy shouted, and shouldering the shovel he carried, turned on his heel and
left. “Please, Milivoj!” the priest
called after him, unheeded.
“Ignore that boy, father!” Cornelius
called out, “We have much more pressing
business!” Petrovich directed them to Ireena, who was within the church
where they had left her the previous night. She looked perhaps a touch paler
than when they saw her last, and her scarf was worn tight around her neck.
Surprised to
see the pair, she enquired “Cornelius!
Bren! Have you found the bones of the saint?”
“Not yet!” Cornelius told her. “But we have… we have some good news for
you, and some less good news. I’ll start with the good news first.
Just hours ago, that devil Strahd sought to
come upon me once again, but in the streets, in front of an audience of people,
I beat him off. Now I’ll admit, the man was lunging at my neck like some kind
of anaemic sex-maniac, and I may for a small amount of time have fallen to the
floor. But he still fled before my might! Yet one more nail in his coffin! As
long as we Bullingdon boys are in Barovia, all will be safe!
The bad news… I think I’ll let Dickie
handle.”
Ireena
looked at Cornelius with disbelief. “You…
You bested Strahd? In combat?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I find it hard to believe that a man like
you could overcome a man like him…”
“Well, I’m still here, while Strahd has fled
to his castle once more!”
She turned
to Dickie. “Bren, is this true?”
“We did indeed have an encounter with the
devil, and we do indeed live to tell the tale.”
“Dickie here is just being modest! He made a
pincushion out of the man!”
Dickie
recalled how he had thrust his rapier clean through Strahd’s throat, and how
the wound had healed even as the blade withdrew. “Takes to being stabbed like no one I’ve ever seen, I must say.”
“I’m amazed,” she said, disbelieving. “What was the bad news?”
Dickie let
out a long sigh. “You may want to prepare
yourself, my lady, this news is… I think you will find it diffuclt.”
“What is it? What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
“It’s with regard to your brother.“
“Ismark? Is he… What’s happened to him?“
“The devil has taken his life.”
Ireena let
out a quiet, stunned “What?” and
could not seem to find any words.
“I’m very sorry.”
“But hey! Now-“ As Cornelius spoke,
Dickie raised his voice: “CORNELIUS! Now
is not the time!”
Ireena was
distraught. She couldn’t believe that Strahd could have done this. She refused
to believe Ismark could be dead. She should have just gone with Strahd from the
start, Ismark and their father would still be alive. She blamed Cornelius – he
came to Barovia and antagonised Strahd and now her brother and father were
dead. If it wasn’t for the Bullingdons this never would have happened!
Cornelius
didn’t take well to being blamed. “Look
here a minute! I don’t think you can go pinning the blame about this on us. It
is not my fault that I was too mighty for Strahd to best, and in his jealous
rage he killed your namby-pamby of a brother! I think everyone here needs to
calm down and think about the facts of the situation!”
“If I may present you with a fact, my lord:
you are dealing with this situation in a very insensitive manner. I think it
would be for the best if you stopped shouting inside the church.”
“Fine, Dickie! I’ll just let the honour of
the Bullingdon house be besmirched.” Cornelius’ voice dripped acid.
“You have no honour,” Ireena spat at
Cornelius. “I see it now, he’ll come for
me again and I’ll go with him, I’ll put an end to all of this. I wish I’d seen
it sooner, father and Ismark might still be here!”
“He is not a moral creature, my lady. There
is nothing that could have been done to prevent this.”
“You don’t know him! This was all a mistake.
If I never see you again, Cornelius Bullingdon, I will be happier for it.” Ireena
stormed away from the pair, as the commotion drew Father Petrovich into the
church.
Cornelius
explained away Ireena’s distress with his usual tact. The priest asked if they
had found the bones – they told him they were working on it, and left him with
Ismark’s head to inter.
Toys in the Attic
Meanwhile,
in the attic of the Vallakovich mansion, the baron’s son Victor held Clarence’s
Tome of Ancient Secrets. “This… This is
power.” Victor’s eyes snapped up from the book and met Clarence’s for a
moment, then the boy turned on his heel.
“I don’t set much store by spellbooks,”
Paris said, ignored, as Victor stood over the near-complete teleportation
circle and began to murmur; a sussuration at first, that grew into a mumble of
disjointed half sounds. “Now now my lad,
let’s not be trying anything too risky before you’ve completed your studies,” Paris
said with rising concern. The faux-wizard could see Victor was trying to
activate the teleportation circle, using something he’d found in Clarence’s
book. Victor’s voice rose into an arrhythmic chanting. “Just pop that book down-”
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl
fhtagn!”
Above
the teleportation there was a sudden blackness, a sphere of absolute darkness
and cold that seemed to suck all of the heat out of the warm. Black, and cold, and
vacuous. Victor stood before it rigidly, hands locked on the book, eyes rolled
back into his head.
“What the hell did you put into that book,
Clarence?!”
From the
darkness shapes formed and emerged; clumsy pentapods with sloughing flesh,
sucker-pod feet and bodies that split open to reveal hundreds of rows of teeth
in a lamprey-like mouth. A half a dozen of these detached from the darkness and
began to blindly waddle towards Clarence and Paris.
Paris waved
his arms in an approximately magical manner – “Return to your sleep, ancients!” – the enchantment had no effect
on the strange creatures, but Victor was caught up in the spell and folded into
unconsciousness, his rigid muscles relaxing and the book falling from his
hands. The sphere of darkness disappeared with a wet sucking sound, but the
awful creatures remained.
Clarence
invoked his eldritch power to summon a cloud of scything daggers in the midst
of the creatures; sucker-ended limbs were hewn from bodies and the pieces
churned into chunks of strange, bloodless meat. The remaining two creatures
avoided the arcane death-trap and blindly stumbled towards Paris. A
lamprey-mouth clamped on each shin and began to grind at the flesh of his legs.
“Leave off my legs, fiends!” the room
began to shake, the eldritch creatures fell from Paris as he channelled his
magic. “Ha-ha! See how the earth bends to
my will?” Clarence lashed out with an eldritch blast, destroying one
creature, as the other clumsily regained its feet and lunged again at Paris –
this time it only caught the hem of his cloak, which it began to gnaw blindly. “Foolish beastie, chewing on my cloak!” the
words, laced with psychic power, caused the creature to twitch and shudder and
finally fall still.
Victor
moaned and began to rouse, and as he came too he groggily reached towards
Clarence’s Tome of Shadows – but the book floated through the air into Clarence’s
hand.
“Now that, my boy, is why you shouldn’t play
with magic you don’t understand!” Paris chastised.
“What happened? Where’s my book?” Victor
managed to stand.
Clarence was
not impressed. “You attempted to tap into
something that is… not yours.”
“You remind me of Clarence at your age –
always meddling with things he didn’t understand.”
“You tried to redirect the energy that flows
to me through this book to your own purposes, but were unable to… control… what
you had tapped. It is a magic specific to me, and it did not react well to your
signature.”
This only
confused Victor further. “I don’t
understand… What are all these things?” the chunks of the strange monsters
were starting to liquefy and evaporate into a foul-smelling mist, which shortly
dissipated. “What happened – my
teleportation circle!”
The circle
was ruined; the sigils had burned away, the cat skulls and candles scattered.
“The materials have been consumed by the
energies you tried to summon through them!”
“Now consider that a warning young sir.
Leave the magic to the big boys.” Victor gave Paris a jealous scowl at
this.
The baronet
began to pat down his pockets, looking around for his spellbook. Clarence
presented it to the boy. “I… I don’t know
what you did, but father won’t be pleased!”
Clarence was
not threatened. “The condemnation of
those who fail to understand the true nature of reality should never concern an
adept.”
“You’re right… I shouldn’t care what father
says, he doesn’t know anything anyway. Where did you get that book?”
Clarence
gave Paris a sidelong glance. “It is not
important.”
“You bought it didn’t you, Clarence?”
“It is… not important. I can however assure
you that I can assist you in creating your own link to the powers that lie
beyond this reality!”
“Clarence, I assume you’re speaking, ah,
metaphorically?”
“… Of course.”
“Indeed. I find my ‘power that lies beyond’
is actually within myself!”
Clarence and
Victor ignored Paris. Clarence addressed the boy again. “If you’re interested in finding an artefact such as this, I’m sure one
can be… found… for you. I shall meditate upon this problem.”
“Yes, that seems like, ah, what I need to,
um, progress, in my studies. As a wizard. Yes.”
“Yes,” Clarence replied, “As a wizard. As a perfectly normal wizard.”
“Yes, a perfectly normal wizard, which we
all are.” Paris joined in.
Clarence
left the boy with some advice. “I
recommend you reflect upon the sensation of the energy that you tapped today. Think
of what it meant, how it felt, as though to see for the first time beyond the
veil of mundanity – to see into the root of existence that transcends all
expression.”
“Yes, I shall think on this,” Victor
addressed Clarence, “thank you… teacher.”
“You’re very welcome, my lad!” Paris
replied.
Clarence
swept out of the attic, cloak swirling and Paris on his heels.
…
Clarence
went to find a quiet room for some… private meditation, and Paris ran in to
Cornelius and Dickie, returned from the church. Cornelius explained that Ireena
had not taken the news of her brother’s death well; but on the plus side, they
had been invited to diner with a very, very wealthy lady, which should cheer
everyone up.
Alone in a
quiet room of the Vallakovich mansion, Clarence lit a single candle and knelt
over his Tome of Shadows.
“My lord, whom I serve, you who were before
time began and will be after all upon this planet has turned to dust. I know
well that you have seen the power residing within this child, as well I have.
But he yet lacks tutelage! If he is to become a servant of yours, to grow his
own connection to your immense majesty, then he requires knowledge - how to
summon his own tome of shadows and channel the strength that you provide. I
shall teach him. But I yet need more power! I need more! Fulfil our pact and
you will have another servant in this world.”
There was no
immediate response, but as Clarence’s heart sank the candle flickered as if in
a breeze, although he felt no wind, and the pages of his book fluttered to lie
open on a particular page, a page with which he was familiar, the newest page
of the book where obscure diagrams and illustrations seemed to become more
detailed and clear before his eyes.
A Bone to Pick
Having
brought Paris up to speed, and after some debate about his brother’s legitimacy
as a bachelor and Paris’ history with rich old ladies (non-existent and
dubious, respectively), Cornelius gathered the Bullingdon Boys to find the
bones of St. Andral, as the priest had beseeched them.
Their leads
so far pointed towards the gravedigger boy, Milivoj, who Cornelius and Dickie
had seen outside the church that morning. Dickie recalled he had seen the boy
before – leaving a house when he had returned the rescued child Myrtle to her
mother.
Dickie led
them to the home of the boy, in the more deprived area of Vallaki. The door was
locked, but when they knocked a voice answered from within – the door opened to
reveal the small face of a child. She told them Milivoj was not at home, and
may be at the church. Dickie caught a glance of the room behind her and saw
something out of place in the squalor: a very fine toy Vistani wagon with
detailed horses and little Vistani dolls. Clearly something expensive, and
clearly out of place.
“Hey, that’s a very nice wagon you’ve got
there.”
“It’s my toy! Milivoj got it for me.” She
went over to the wagon and started to play with the figures. “It’s fun to play! You want to play?”
While the
child rolled the wagon, Paris used his magic to conjure the sound of the wagon
rolling and faint voices of Vistani conversation. The child laughed and clapped
her hands at this.
“A most marvellous use of the power to
reshape reality according to your whim,” Clarence said sardonically.
Cornelius
had no interest in joining in the fun. “Dickie.
Clarence. Paris. Are we babysitters?”
“Just a moment, milord,” Dickie
responded, “this may prove useful.”
“It’s important to make the little people
feel special!” Paris added.
Cornelius
satisfied himself inspecting the architecture of the house, while Dickie picked
up the toy wagon. On the bottom there was an engraved plate that read “Is no fun, is no Blinsky!”, and a
second engraving had been made directly into the wood on the bottom which read “To my darling Stella”.
“This is a very nice wagon. I hope you have
lots of fun with it,” Dickie said, handing it back to her. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to go talk
to your brother. You have a nice day.”
Dickie’s
conclusion was that Milivoj had stolen the bones, sold them, and used the money
to buy his sister the toy. Blinsky’s toy shop was near the Baron’s mansion but
Milivoj wouldn’t have sold the bones there; so the party determined they needed
to go to the churchyard to find him and track the bones.
Fortunately,
they ran into him within minutes, as he appeared to be returning to his home
from the church. As he appeared, Dickie suggested that they try to be gentle –
they don’t want to get onto the wrong side of the town guards.
“I shall force him to tell the truth if he
resists our questioning,” Clarence said.
“Just give me the bell if you want me to
cast Zone of Truth,” Paris said.
“And if things get hairy, I’ll get
punching!” Cornelius said.
Dickie
sighed. “You are all such wonderful
companions. I appreciate you deeply.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
“Lead on, our good detective!” Clarence
encouraged, and Cornelius said “These are
your people, Dickie, we’ll leave it all to you.”
Dickie
hailed the muscular youth.
“What do you want?”
“I was wondering if you could answer a
question of mine.”
“Who are you?”
“We are… friends to the people of Barovia.” This
brought a snort of derision from Milivoj, who obviously wasn’t impressed with
this position.
Dickie cut
to the chase. “Where’d you get the money
for that lovely toy wagon?”
Milivoj
claimed ignorance. Dickie didn’t believe him. “Really? That lovely toy wagon you gave to Stella?”
“I don’t know anyone called Stella.”
Dickie was
sure he was lying, at least about the wagon if not about the name. He told
Milivoj they had visited his house, and that he found it unlikely Milivoj could
raise the funds to acquire such an item as the toy wagon.
“What business is it of yours what toys my
sister has?”
“It’s not the toy per se. It’s more the
source of the income.” Dickie attempted to jog Milivoj’s memory, drawing a
gold coin from his pouch and rolling it across his knuckles.
Cornelius
cleared his throat, and whispered “Dickie!
Who’s money is that you’re holding?”
“My share, milord.”
“Hm. Very well,” Cornelius said
unhappily.
The gold
piece certainly got the boy’s interest. Dickie reassured him that there was no
interest in accusing or punishing Milivoj; they simply wanted to find the
missing item and help it find its way back to the church. Persuaded that he
will not get in any trouble, and that his sister Yorshka will keep the toys,
and with the promise of payment in gold for the information, Milivoj opened up.
“He asked me to do it. I didn’t think there
was anything wrong, you understand, they’re just old bones. He said he could
provide for Yorshka and for me.”
“Who is he? What did you do?”
“I took the bones from the crypt and gave
them to him. It was Ernst Larnak, maybe you’ve seen him around town, he works
for Lady Wachter.”
Dickie
recalled the invitation he and Cornelius had received earlier, and described
the messenger to Milivoj – it was indeed Ernst Larnak.
“That’s him, but you can’t let him know you
found out from me.”
“How could I possibly tell him that? I’ve
never even met you, my lad. I have no idea who you are.”
Milivoj was
confused at this, then understanding dawned in his eyes. He turned to go, but
remembered the gold – which Dickie gave to him, with an additional two coins.
Cornelius shook his head.
“I never saw any of you either,” Milivoj
said, and left.
The
situation reminded Paris of his history before joining the Bullingdons. “Sometimes when a wealthy old woman wants
you to do something you don’t want to do but she’s offering you a lot of money
to do it, you just have to grit your teeth.”
...
The hour of
their dinner invitation drew nigh and the Bullingdon Boys found their way to
Wachterhaus; a grand, fine mansion north of the town square.
Upon ringing
the gargoyle-faced doorbell, the door was opened by a manservant who said “Welcome to Wachterhaus,” and led them
in to a parlour, and offered to take their coats. “The Lady Wachter will see you shortly.”
As they
waited before the fireplace under the gaze of a large oil painting of a
nobleman with a broken nose, the Bulligdons speculated at the absence of Ireena,
to whom they had extended the invitation. Soon the manservant returned, and
introduced the lady of the house.
Fiona
Wachter was a handsome woman of later-middle years, dressed in finery and with
regal bearing. She approached Cornelius and held out her hand – he clasped it
between his enthusiastically.
“Greetings, dear lady. I am Cornelius
Pfeffil Bullingdon the third, marquis of Saxonia and vampire slayer.”
“I am the Lady Fiona Wachter of Vallaki and
it is my pleasure to meet you.”
“And it is my pleasure to meet you!” Cornelius
replied, “But also you must meet my
companions: my brother, Clarence; apprentice wizard to the mighty Paris Digby-“
“Charmed, my lady,” Paris kissed her
hand.
“Friends to ladies and the elderly
everywhere,” Cornelius added.
Paris smiled
awkwardly. “Ha, Cornelius’, ah, little
joke.”
“Yes, yes, and another little joke I have
with me – Dickie, my manservant.” Cornelius clapped Dickie hard on the back
as she cracked a small smile. Dickie gave a respectful bow. “A pleasure to meet you, milady.”
Lady Wachter
nodded and smiled at them all in turn. “It
is excellent to meet you, I have heard quite a lot about you since you entered
town. Now, if you will join me for supper, I think we could get to the business
of things. How do you feel about killing the baron?”
