Is it still the Moon of Songs? If so, then, the Season of Wines, Year 766.
Days in Barovia: Weeks. Months? The moon
cannot be seen from this dungeon cell.
How long had
she been locked in her cell? Weeks now? A month? Elliana Roche could count
herself lucky, at least- the stone bench that ran along one wall of her prison
was above the level of the water that flooded the dungeon. From what she had
seen, not every cell held such a bench. There was not competition for the best
cell; the malformed creature which acts as a jailer had come only to hers since
Anslem was taken.
How long ago had that been? He had
been held down here with her for only a few nights, before the Devil invited
him to dinner. And since then… Nothing. Elliana shuddered to think what
dreadful fate may have befallen her friend, the noble leader of the Spency
Squad.
And Strahd too no longer visited
her; no longer persisted with the awkward, stilted, one sided conversations, no
longer suggested that he may take her for his bride. From the mutterings of the
jailer she took it that some old flame had come out of the woodwork, and while
Elliana did not miss the dark lord’s affections, just to be discarded and
forgotten was… Infuriating.
She had waited long enough. Anslem
was gone, Strahd was no longer interested in her. Amity would find his way back
to her soon- Elliana could feel him, close now- it was time to escape.
Flickering lamp light signalled
the jailer, the water rippling as he waded awkwardly towards her cell. He came
into view: five feet tall or less, hunched, wearing rotted rags and carrying a
bucket. Panther’s ears sat upon a face half-covered by lizard scales, patches
of black doggish fur coated his arms, and as he splashed through the water
Elliana saw the foot of a duck, absurd, webbed and yellow. This strange amalgam
of beast and man muttered to himself, and Elliana interrupted him with a
directed cough.
“Well, it’s time for dinner again, I suppose?” she asked, trying to
play it cool.
“Yeah, we got some good slop for you,” the jailer replied in his
strange stilted tones, leaning towards the bars to show her the contents of his
bucket. Elliana saw the key on the chain around his neck dangle forward, and
then a black shape was upon the jailer, swooping down from the dark ceiling to
flap and flurry and peck and claw at the jailer, snagging the key in a black
beak as the man-beast flailed in confusion. Amity!
Elliana threw out her hand and a
lash of energy leapt towards the distracted jailer, wrapping around his neck,
smoking as it burnt his rags. She heaved on the magical lure and the jailer
crashed into the bars of her cell- his head slammed into the iron and he fell
limp in the fetid water.
Amity fluttered through the bars
and with a friendly “Quork!”
deposited the key in Elliana’s hand. She unlocked the cell door- free! For the
first time in weeks, to walk more than ten feet in a line, even if that ten
feet was through stinking dungeon water.
The jailer would survive. She
locked him in her old cell, propped up on the bench. In the cell adjacent her
equipment had been unceremoniously dumped- sword, armour, everything, left in a
thin layer of water and forgotten. She grimaced at the prospect of wet
leathers, plate and arms unoiled, weeks of rations spoiled, everything sodden. She
took the hilt of her sword and revealed an inch of the blade: the weapon looked
keen, and still glowed with a faint grey light.
A while later she was
uncomfortably armoured. There were six more cells in this block- five empty,
one holding an old corpse. Stairs led up to a corridor, then across the way
back down to more cells- maybe Anslem had been returned to a different block?
Or other enemies of Strahd, who could help her escape.
The lantern of the jailer and glow
from her sword revealed the first few cells, imprisoning only corpses; these
Ellania opened to give their inhabitants what dignity she could. But the
occupant of the final cell was alive. “What
are you doing, beast?” a deep Barovian voice asked, “cleaning out the cells? New guests coming in?”
Ellania shushed the man, and
peeked into the cell. A young, dark-skinned man, strong looking, clutched the
bars of the cell, his teeth chattering, soaked from head to toe, his clothes
shredded.
“I am no servant of Strahd,” Ellania told him.
“Let me see you.”
She turned the light on herself as
she stood proudly before his cell. “Elliana.”
He nodded at her. “Emil.”
“I’ve been a prisoner here for some time. But now I’ve got this.” She
showed him the key.
“Please, free me! I need to return to my family.”
As Elliana opened his cell, she
asked how Emil had come to be here. Chased into the castle by direwolves, he
explained, then made prisoner by the devil’s servants.
“Hopefully we can both get out of here and find our families.” Elliana
bitterly recalled drawing the Wizard card from the Tarrokka deck, when the old
Vistani fortune teller told her she would find her father in Barovia. So far,
she had only lost what family she knew.
With sword in one hand, lantern in
the other, her raven Amity upon one shoulder and Emil following behind, Ellania
headed back to the corridor connecting the two cell blocks. She turned left, for
it was as good a direction as right. The corridor led to a large chamber where
dark shapes thrust out of the brackish water. The ceiling was festooned with chains,
hanging like the strands of a web. A balcony set into one wall overlooked the
chamber, host to two large thrones- a viewing platform, with a thick curtain
behind it.
The flickering light of the
lantern revealed the dark shapes in the water: racks, iron maidens, stocks and
other instruments of torture; host to the skeletons of their latest victims,
jaws frozen open in silent screams. A thin draft came from behind the curtain.
“I’m glad I never saw this room as a prisoner,” Emil said, staring
at the instruments of torture, “but if
they capture us trying to escape I think we’ll feel the touch of some of these
devices.”
“I don’t intend to be captured alive again.”
Emil gave her a weighing look,
then turned back to the room. “I don’t
see a way out.”
Amity fluttered across the room
from Elliana’s shoulder, startling Emil. He swept over to the balcony on black
wings, then peeked beyond the curtain. Concentrating, Elliana saw through the
black beady eyes of her raven: a room dominated by a central stone brazier,
which seemed to produce no heat. From deep alcoves either side of the brazier reared
huge iron statues of knights on horseback, poised to take charge with swords
drawn, facing each other.
The rim was carved with seven
cup-shaped indentations placed evenly around the circumference. Within each
indentation was a spherical stone, no two stones the same colour.
Over the brazier hung a huge hourglass,
suspended by thick chains, all of the sand seemingly stuck in the upper
portion. Written in glowing script on the base of the hourglass is a verse.
Cast a stone into the fire:
Violet leads to mountain spire
Orange to the castle’s peak
Red if lore is what you seek
Green to where the coffins hide
Indigo to master’s bride
Blue to ancient magic’s womb
Yellow to the master’s tomb
Elliana’s
breath caught. Magic’s womb- that’s where the old Vistani woman had said she
would find her father. “There’s something
there,” she told Emil, “maybe a way
out.”
As Elliana and
Emil crossed the torture chamber, figures rose around them: rotting corpses,
slime-grey arms reaching out of the water, encircling the pair.
“Stay behind me, Emil,” Elliana told the
unarmed, unarmoured man, “I can take
them.”
Her glowing
sword flashed, clothed in green flame, the blade slicing through an elbow as the
fire leapt to another zombie; a head rolled on her backswing, and she cleaved a
creature in two through the waist. But the torso, still animate, wrapped its
arms around her legs, and another of the undead barrelled into her from behind
and her mouth was suddenly full of stagnant water as she fell, unliving hands
scrabbling to find a chink in her armour.
There was a
bestial roar and the weight was thrown off her; as she clambered to her feat
she was a creature, half-man, half-wolf, tearing into the undead with claw and
tooth. She threw herself back into the frey and soon it was just the two of
them, Elliana Roche and the wolf-man hybrid Emil. He stood panting for a moment
then his form blurred, and he was a man once more.
Elliana
laughed. “Well, there’s certainly more to
you than meets the eye.”
“I’m sorry, I would have told you but…
People don’t always react well,” Emil replied sheepishly. “There’s more to you as well, it seems,” and
he gestured to the destruction she had wrought with blade and magic.
“I spent some time with a party of
adventurers before the devil overcame us. You learn some things.”
The pair
made their way across the chamber without further assault, and climbed up on to
the balcony. Beyond the curtain, they found themselves before the heatless stone brazier as Amity flapped
back to his perch on Elliana’s shoulder.
“I have no talent for sorcery,” Emil
said, looking at the strange contraption before them. “What is this thing?”
Ellania
deduced that casting one of the coloured stones into the brazier would open a
portal of some kind to one of the locations in the verse. She knew where she
would go; with nothing else to follow, why not follow her fortune telling to
ancient magic’s womb.
“As I said, I am no sorcerer. I will take my
chances on the mountain,” Emil told her. He picked up the violet stone and
cast it into the brazier, and the heatless flame burst upward in a gout now
violet tinged. Sand began to fall from the hourglass.
“If I do not see you again, it was a
pleasure to escape with you.”
He offered
her his hand. “Emil Toranescu.”
“Elliana Roche.”
“Good luck.” Emil reached out, his hand
touching the violet flame, and with a pop of rushing air he was gone.
“Seems simple enough,” Elliana said.
Amity quorked in reply. She took the blue stone in her hand; cast it into the
brazier, where the flame leapt azure; reached out her hand, and disappeared.
