5th Day of the 4th Quarter of the Moon of
Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.
Days in Barovia: 8. The moon waxes gibbous.
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Paris snapped awake. It was well
before dawn, the sky above still dark but… The Golden Bully Hut was gone! And
then, there was fire: a burning explosion, unbearable heat, in the midst of
their camp. Cornelius and Dickie, barely conscious, were already flinging themselves
away as they came too, scrabbling and rolling; Paris threw himself down,
minimizing the impact of the blast, but Clarence was engulfed by the inferno.
As Paris recovered, nightclothes
smouldering, he saw Strahd von Zarovich stood hand outstretched towards the
camp. The devil’s face was a cruel rictus of rage.
Paris cried out in retribution – “That’s not how the Bully Hut’s supposed to work!”
and Strahd was briefly engulfed by hellish flames that licked at his cloak
and flesh but seemed to do no damage; in Paris’ ears boomed the lub-dub, lub-dub of some enormous heart, as the foppish wizard, never without
his wand, flung a ray of frost at the vampire. The ice rippled around Strahd
and again the effect seemed mitigated, and the great heart beat once more.
Paris gestured, and the Golden Bully Sword appeared; huge and pendulous, it
struck at the vampire who brushed it aside to the sound of the heart.
Dickie sprung to his feet. “Attack us in our sleep, will you? You
bloody bastard!” He charged toward Strahd, rolling as he passed Van Richten’s
sword-cane, thrown towards him in the blast, coming to his feet now with two
weapons; dagger in one hand, silver sword in the other. He slashed at the
vampire, and as the blades sliced through Strahd’s flesh it reknit immediately,
and Dickie now heard the heartbeat boom.
Strahd’s hand, long nails
outstretched, lunged at the bare flesh of Dickie’s chest, and came away bloody.
Clarence, skin red raw, eyebrows
gone, backed away from the monstrous lord of Barovia desperately casting a
protective enchantment that encased him in armour of ice.
“Paris, there’s a fire in the Bully Hut!” Cornelius shouted, then,
noticing Strahd engaged with Dickie, “What?
You’re supposed to be dead, fiend!” He grasped the Holy Symbol of
Ravenkind, hung around his neck- “This
time, no fancy tricks will let you escape from the Bullingdon Boys! We have the
Morninglord on our side!” He channelled the divine power of the symbol- the
power to paralyze vampires- and Strahd slowed, his muscles locking stiff… But
then, shuddering the vampire overcame the effect, his flesh tearing from the
stress then immediately reknitting to the sound of the great hard. “No! That was lost, forever!” He roared,
as Cornelius charged towards him.
“Not anymore,” Paris called, “You’re
facing the big boys now, Strahd!” and the Bully Sword swung down, striking
Strahd once again. Lub-dub, lub-dub. Van Richten’s sword in Dickie’s
hand flashed, skewered Strahd, and lub-dub,
lub… the heartbeat stopped, the silver sword came out bloody, and the wound
did not immediately heal. Dickie stepped away from the swing of a clawed hand,
but Cornelius was not so nimble and Strahd wrapped an iron hand around his
throat.
Clarence wove an enchantment to
send Strahd away, and the vampire’s
form began to flicker and fade, phasing out of existence but Strahd screamed in
anger and through sheer force of will overcame the spell; his physical body
tearing from the strain of the exertion of will, hand still clamped on
Cornelius’ throat.
Cornelius’ fist wrapped around the
holy symbol, then pounded into Strahd’s face, bones beneath the dead white skin
crunching, the cheekbone collapsing. A ray of frost from Paris went errant and
the Bully Sword swung and missed, and Strahd drew Cornelius close, sinking his
fangs into his neck. Cornelius shuddered as for a second time, Strahd drank
deep of him, drawing forth his very essence.
Dickie’s dagger slammed into
Strahd’s side, and the creature released its hold on Cornleius; throwing the
elder Bullington into his manservant, Strahd stepped back and threw a fireball
at Paris. This time the wizard was too slow and took the full front of the
blast. The vampire’s cheekbone pushed itself back out as it slowly started to
heal.
As Clarence summoned his energy to
throw at Strahd the vampire sought to quash his magics; but the bronze hand artefact
within Clarence’s robes absorbed Strahd’s counter-spell, and a backpedalling
Clarence let loose two eldritch blasts. As these narrowly missed the vampire
Cornelius rushed in holding up the holy symbol and releasing a radiant blast of
divine energy. Searing white light surrounded Strahd and his flesh smoked.
Paris, wheezing, singed, burned,
wheezed “A-ha! Two can play at that game!”
and hurled a fireball of his own at Strahd, catching the vampire and Cornelius
both in the explosion. “Err, sorry,
sorry, whoops!” Paris cried as Cornelius barely kept his feet, swaying
uncertainly. Paris started towards him, and motioned for the Golden Bully Sword
to crash down upon the distracted Strahd.
Dickie flew towards his wobbly
master, grabbing his pack from the wreck of their camp as he ran; on the move,
he drew out the potion he had pilfered from the abbey, and pressed it into
Cornelius’ hands – “Drink this!” –
stepping in between him and their foe. His dagger flashed, keeping Strahd at
bay.
Strahd was still smouldering from
the divine magic, his regenerative powers halted momentarily; His hands
flashed, striking at Dickie and Cornelius who would have been slain, if not for
the surge of healing energy that filled him as he drank the potion.
More arcane energy leapt from
Paris and Clarence, chilling frost and shimmering eldritch power; Cornelius,
feeling invigorated, crushed the potion bottle in his hand then threw a flurry
of potent punches at the vampire lord. Strahd staggered back- “You cannot kill me! I am eternal!” The Golden
Bully Sword smashed into him, and as his guard fell open, Dickie’s dagger
plunged up, under jaw, into the skull.
As Dickie pulled the blade back,
Strahd toppled… and collapsed into mist as he hit the ground, melding
seamlessly with the ankle-high fog. Strahd was gone.
Beauty Sleep
“How many times do we have to kill this man?” Paris asked.
“I think we’re going to have to find a very… Specific way of killing
him,” Dickie suggested. “Speaking of
which, has anyone got an empty bottle?”
Among the scattered contents of
their camp an empty vial was found. Dickie scraped thick, black blood off of
sword and dagger and into the vial, as best he could- Van Richten’s plan
required blood of the Barovian royal line, and perhaps Strahd’s blood would
suffice. “That’s one hell of a way to
wake up.”
“So, um. I don’t know what happened with the Bully Hut there,” Paris
said sheepishly, “my apologies.”
Cornelius huffed. “Your ‘apologies’, Paris? One of us could
have died back there!”
“Strahd must have overpowered your magic,” Clarence said.
“Well, he needs to make his magic more powerful!”
“Some of us could have died, but none of us did, and that’s the
important thing,” said Dickie. “And
we’ve beaten him again! The bastard’s got nothing on us.”
Clarence winced as his fingers
probed reddened flesh. “Still, it was
quite unpleasant to wake up to.”
“I for one am growing quite tired of that man clamping his teeth on my
neck.” Cornelius was, in the flickering firelight, looking slightly paler
than usual.
“If we can drive him off this way, once we’ve got all the tools we’ll
make short work of him,” Paris boasted confidently. “We’ve got… two to four victories under our belt already.”
“Undoubtedly he will be much stronger in his place of true power.”
“But we can probably defeat him for good there,” said Dickie,
recalling the Tarokka reading.
“I feel we’re getting significantly more battered every time we face
him, although maybe this time Strahd wasn’t entirely to blame?” Cornelius
looked accusingly at Paris.
“My aim may have been slightly… askew, and for that I apologise.”
“You engulfed him in 20 feet of flame!”
“Admittedly, yes but… Ah… It was all part of my plan,” Paris lied. “I knew if Cornelius was caught in the
crossfire, Strahd would immediately turn his attention to Dickie.”
Dickie looked affronted that Paris
would try to throw him to the wolves in such a manner, not that he believed the
dandyish wizard’s excuse.
“He punched me again straight after!” Cornelius shook his head. “Look, it is not yet dawn, and I need rest.
Paris, summon the Bully Hut again, and this time with more security!”
So, Paris once again conjured the golden
dome, reassuring his companions that this time it had “additional security
features”. Considering the hallowed of the Church of Saint Andral repelled
Strahd, Cornelius decided to bless the Bully Hut for added protection, waving
his holy symbol around and calling upon the Morninglord.
Paris, confident in the safety of
his conjuration, regardless of the evidence, fell asleep immediately. Cornelius
joined him. Clarence began to read the tomes of alchemical and surgical
knowledge he had purloined from the abbey, but soon was gently snoring, his
head resting on the pages. Dickie did not sleep.
Some hours later, Cornelius was woken
by the smell of roasting rabbit, that Dickie had caught, dressed and started
cooking while they slept. Clarence joined them for breakfast, and they charitably
let Paris sleep. Looking over the map, they determined that to get to Berez,
where hopefully they would find some ancient man or ghost or beggar with some
treasure for them, would take them the better part of a day. The ruined village
was not as far to the east as Vallaki but much further to the south.
Eventually, having somewhat
recovered from the predawn assault, the Bullingdon Boys broke camp and headed
east along the Old Svalich Road. The morning was damp and cloying and thick
with twisting strands of fog; a normal morning in Barovia. The road was muddy
from the night’s rain. As they approached the Raven River, the fog rolled heavy
off of the waters, and the dirt road abruptly gave way to the slick stones of
the bridge.
The air carried a foul stench; the
scent of corruption and decay that they had not smelt the last time they came
this way. The air was filled by the drone of a thousand tiny wings. As the fog
gave way before their progress, a strange silhouette became visible at the far
end of the bridge. A misshapen pile, buzzing with vermin, formed by the corpses
of half a dozen dead goats.
Something huge and white sat upon
the slaughter pile, regarding them with empty eye sockets, teeth like swords in
an immortal rictus grin. The Bully Boys felt the hairs on their necks stand on
end as their primal instincts told them to RUN from this enormous, predatory,
reptilian visage: the gigantic skull of an enormous lizard lost to time… or… a
dragon.
“This seems… familiar,” Cornelius said.
The buzzing of the flies rose and
fell, and rippled, and converged, coalescing in tone and pitch as a legion talking
in a thousand tiny voices.
“My poor boy,” the droning voice buzzed, “my poor sweet Strahd. Do you know what you’ve done to him?”
Cornelius took the voice, emanating
from the swarm of flies flittering around the skull and slaughter, to be
addressing them. “What we have done to
your Strahd is beat him off! That’s what’s happened every time he tries to test
us!”
The horrid buzzing carried on over
Cornelius. “He was always too good for
that slattern, mother knows best, but he would not hear me.”
“Maybe he didn’t hear you because you make no sense, you crazy woman.
Now, your pile of goats is in our way.”
“You persist in making him miserable.”
“He started it!”
“You cut him to the bone, you break his body- and his heart!” The
buzzing grew in intensity, anger in the voice.
“Well if he stopped trying to kill us we wouldn’t have to!”
“And also if he renounces his claim to the state of Barovia,” Clarence
added.
“Yes,” Cornelius joined in his brother’s opportunism, “and confers it to us, the Bullingdon Boys.
And… Gives us money!”
The buzzing droned over him, “He’ll thank me for getting rid of you, then
he’ll listen to his dear old mother!”
The flies gathered on the skull,
forming a humming, shivering pile of thousands upon thousands of fat black
bodies, and the pile shifted and took shape, narrowing here, widening there,
truncating, branching, until the millions of flies formed the silhouette of a
person. And then a person was there, in place of the swarm of writhing insects.
A haggard, ancient, hideous woman, masses of wild thick hair held haphazardly
in place by long bone pins. She sat in the cranium of the skull, apparently
hollowed to allow a seat, and the skulls eyes began to glow with sickly green
light as it slowly rose into the air above the pile of goat corpses.
Mother Knows Best
As the skull ascended the Bully
Boys saw that two goat corpses trailed it, dangling behind from a length of
rope. From his pack, Dickie drew a length of rope of his own, with a grapnel on
its end. He twirled it one, twice, and released: the iron hook flew true, landing
in the lap of the hag, and as Dickie yanked the rope the grapnel caught on the
edge of the skull and the vehicle tipped ponderously towards him.
Clarence grasped the bronze hand
taken from the tower of Exethanter, speaking a word of power and gesturing
forwards. The bronze hand expelled some of the magical force it had absorbed
since Clarence has acquired it, and a huge hand manifested in the air next to
the witch. The fingers on the bronze hand closed, and the huge magic hand
bodily plucked the flailing hag from the skull and began to drag her towards
the party. But her figure dissolved back into a swarm of flies, screams of
protest turning to angry buzzing. The spectral hand shut closed, crushing a few
dozen insects, thousands of others swarmed back to the skull, still tethered to
Dickie.
The bloated corpses of the goats
at the end of the bridge ruptured, releasing the writhing bodies of scores of
small snakes which slithered across the wet stones to surround the Bullingdon
Boys.
“I say to you what I said to Strahd: you cannot defeat us, for we walk
in the light of the Morninglord!” Cornelius yelled, holding the Holy Symbol
of Ravenkind aloft. Searing radiance burst forth, pushing back the fog and engulfing
the serpents, a great number of which curled up, writhing, and died.
Paris held an imaginary flute to
his lips and weaved his head; a dozen snake heads followed his, eyes upon him,
then drowsily slumped to the ground in slumber. Dickie heaved on the rope,
trying to pull the skull down, but whatever magical force kept it aloft
resisted his attempt to move it. As he braced against the rope, Dickie’s dagger
scythed around, and he hacked and slashed until no serpents remained within his
reach.
The giant spectral hand swatted
down among the swarm of flies, splattering hundreds of them against the skull. Clarence
scrambled away from the snakes around him and retreated to the far end of the
bridge, the direction from which they had come.
The rope in Dickie’s hand slacked
as the skull swooped towards him, and the two goat corpses trailing it were
dropped down upon the Bullingdon Boys as the flies transformed back into the
witch. The goats smashed into the stones of the bridge either side of Paris,
Dickie and Cornelius, releasing even more snakes; and up close, the Bullingdons
could see the bodies writhed with finger-sized maggots. The skull then began to
ascend vertically but Dickie heaved, stopping it from moving away.
Snakes hissed and nipped and
writhed and bit, and where their fangs sank into Paris, Dickie and Cornelius’
ankles, the pain of the bite was amplified by venom which burned like fire.
Furious, Cornelius lashed around him, punching snakes, snapping their necks,
stamping on them with booted feed; tying them into knots, smashing them against
the bridge and throwing them into the river as they snapped at him.
Paris waved his wand and to a huge
crash of thunder… an underwhelming wave of energy gently buffeted Cornelius,
Dickie and the snakes. Embarrassed by this poor showing, the wizard conjured
the Golden Bully Sword, swiping at the hag in her dragon skull vehicle.
Dickie was still heaving at the rope
and slashing at snakes, and Clarence directed some blasts of eldritch energy
into the swarming serpents as the giant hand smashed into the hag. Cowering in
the seat, she reached out and touched the spectral hand, and it vanished, the
magic dispelled. The skull heaved against the rope but Dickie held fast and
actually pulled it closer to the ground. “You
think you’re getting away from this?”
Frost crackled from Paris’ wand,
freezing serpents solid, and the Golden Bully Sword crashed again into the hag,
knocking her down in her seat and causing two blasts of energy from Clarence to
go skittering off the skull. “Dispel my
magic? I’ll show you!” he cried.
The witch touched the grappling
hook and it shrunk to twice its size, reduced by her magic, and lost its
purchase; skittering off the skull it fell to the ground, and as she cackled
madly the skull sped away upriver, into the fog. “I’ll get you, Bullingdon Boys!” the witch cried as she escaped…
Or would have escaped, had Paris
not thought quickly, grabbing Cornelius and then, where one moment they had
been stood on the bridge amidst snakes and dead goats, they were now balanced
precariously on the front of the dragon’s skull, inches from the witch.
Dickie, suddenly alone on the
bridge, rope limp in his hands, looked up; some eighty feet away the skull
bobbled ponderously, with two new figures astride it. He began sprinting,
flying past Clarence at the end of the bridge and turning up the shoreline,
unslinging his longbow and drawing and loosing an as he did; the arrow fell
harmlessly into the fog as Clarence started running behind him, unable to match
pace but flinging eldritch energy at their enemy.
The hag looked shocked as Paris
and Cornelius appeared in front of her, atop the reptilian snout of the skull,
but rapidly recovered; she cast her hands out, muttering. Cornelius resisted
the enchantment but Paris was ensorcelled; his eyes rolled back and he let out
a loud snorting snore, then, fast asleep, tumbled from his perilous perch into the
river below.
Paris came to gasping with cold as
fetid water rushed into his mouth. Weighed down by his clothing, he began
desperately paddling to the shore where Dickie and Clarence were directing
missiles at the skull above.
“Well, I guess it’s just you and me now, you old hag,” Cornelius said.
Gnarled Bullingdon hands curled into fists and flew at her. Relentless punches
crunched into the ancient creature, pounding flesh and cracking bones, until
finally he cast the broken corpse of the ancient creature from the skull into
the river.
Standing atop the skull, nowhanging ponderously in the air, Cornelius looked down to his party, grinning,
and began to sing. “Jolly beating weather…”
