Session 27 – Goodbye, Clarence

7th Day of the 4th Quarter of the Moon of Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.

Days in Barovia: 10. The moon is full.

The Masked Mage

“Hello, dad,” Elliana said.

Cornelius’ jaw was on the floor. Dickie didn’t try to hold back his laughter, deep and incredulous.

“B-b-but, but, this is, this is ridiculous, how could you possibly be my daughter? I’m only twenty-seven years old.”

“It’s true,” Dickie giggled, “How could anyone be Paris’ daughter? He’d have to be with a woman less than twice his age!”

“Well, I think perhaps we can talk about this outside,” said Elliana, looking from the strange reactions of Paris’ companions to than man she took for her father himself. She began to shiver as the deadly cold of the Amber Temple crept into her. “It’s quite cold in here.”

“No, talk about it now!” Cornelius demanded.

Elliana’s teeth were chattering, and after a moment she blinked as if in revelation and smacked a hand to her head. “Wait, of course!” She reached into a pouch on her belt, and pulled out a flickering flame that sat on her palm. The magical ember warmed her and she sighed in relief. “That’s better.”

“Another wizard- I’d be glad to tutor you!” Paris offered, “Although I hope you don’t end up like my last pupil.” He looked askance at the body of Clarence draped over Cornelius’ shoulder.

“I wouldn’t call myself much of a wizard- I haven’t had enough training for that, but-“

“If you do magic, you’re a wizard. Right boys?”

“Well, I suppose we shall see if we are travelling together,” the young woman replied. “This offer to assist you in your quest to vanquish Strahd still stands?”

“Sure,” said Dickie, “why not.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced?”

“I’m sure I introduced everyone of worth…” Cornelius mused.

Dickie ignored him. “Bren Tanner, although folks call me Dickie.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Bren. Elliana Roche.”

“The pleasure is entirely mine, milady. Now, shall we get out of this horrible, frozen temple of faceless evil.”

The Bullingdon Boys and their strange new companion turned to leave, a raven perched on Elliana’s shoulder, Clarence’s body draped over Corenlius’.

A voice boomed down from above them. From the statue of the god of secrets, standing forty feet tall, dominating the temple. From the face, wreathed in impenetrable darkness.

“Bullingdon Boys! You stand before the faceless god of secrets- and all of your secrets are revealed!”

Sulphurous smoke billowed from the dark void of the statue’s face, pooling on the floor around enormous stone feet where it coiled heavy and black.

“You are no heroes! You are frauds!”

The smoke was writhing, coiling, taking form.

“Seriach! I invoke you!”

And the smoke formed a solid shape, a huge and terrible beast, black-furred and red-eyed, a creature the like of which they knew: a hell hound.

“Now, behold the faceless god!”

The darkness around the statue’s face fell away, revealing a hollow head and crouched in that space… the masked mage, who had harried their trek from Berez to the Amber Temple.

This foe stepped out of the statue into the air before them, its fall caught by skeletal wings; it swept low over the party, then up, and landed hands and feet clinging to the ceiling. The masked mage threw out a hand, crying “Rise for me, Clarence!” and Clarence’s corpse rose, languid and sluggish, mouth slightly agape, eyes aglow with fell green light.

As Clarence’s body animated a gout of flame swept over the group, vomited forth by the hell hound. Elliana raised her sword and some of the fire seemed absorbed into the blade.

“Don’t harm Clarence! He can still be saved, I’m sure!” cried Cornelius, as the Sunsword sprung to life in Dickies’ hand: a blade of concentrated sunlight appearing as he swung the magical weapon at the fiendish hound.

The blade swung wide, Dickie not used to the balance of a weightless blade, but Elliana’s dimly glowing blade swung true. Ensconced in thunderous energy, it smashed into the shoulder of the hound, and the creature too was engulfed in magical energy.

A wand twirled in Paris’ hand and a ray of frost joined him to the hellhound for a moment; the creature sagged and balked under the onslaught. “Freeze!” he shouted, laughing at his own wit.

Cornelius had a vial in hand. He pulled the cork with his teeth, downed the contents- silver fluid holding iron filings- and in one motion smashed the vial into the face of the hellhound; the creature whined as it collapsed into the black smoke from which it had formed. “Ignore Clarence, focus on the wizard!” the last Bullingdon shouted.

This instruction fell on deaf ears as zombie Clarence lunged at Paris. “Clarence, it’s me! We used to be friends!” Paris cried, and either motivated by some lingering loyalty or due to his clumsy reanimation, Clarence’s strike swung wide.

Then a fireball erupted in their midst. Heat, flame and smoke engulfed them. Empowered by the potion, the worst of it washed over Cornelius; Elliana once again absorbed some of the blast into her blade; Paris was already throwing himself out of the way, but Dickie, thrown to the ground by the explosion, did not rise to his feet, did not curse or swear, did not move at all. The sword of sunlight went skidding from his hand, radiant blade still protruding.

The mage fell upon them on wings of bone, taloned hands outstretched. But he recoiled as he came near the sword of sunlight; and Elliana’s blade struck, catching on the white mask upon the mage’s face, sending it tumbling. It revealed an awful face: one half burned ruin, slick black flesh pocked with craters and deep cracks, that oozed red and wet; hair growing only from one side of a scalp divided by awful scarring; lips burnt away exposing teeth- canines unnaturally long and sharp. The functioning eye stared at Elliana, wild and mad. Patches of oily black fur sprouted haphazardly from the face, and in the centre of the forehead a third eye sat closed, weeping milky fluid.

The voice was changed, rough and hoarse, but even through the ruin of fire and maladies of dark gifts Cornelius and Paris recognized the face: the face of  someone they had once called a Bullingdon Boy.

“Yes, it is I! Victor Vallakovich, last scion of Vallakovich!”

Paris recoiled at the grisly revelation, his hand over his eyes. From the ring on his finger an enormous spectral rams’ head appeared, slamming in to the unmasked mage, the vampire Victor Vallakovich, and there was a crunch of bone and Victor went flying back.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up, you stupid child!” Cornelius shouted as he raised his holy symbol. Light poured forth from the gem at the centre of the device, and Victor was lit from two angles- Cornelius and the sunsword- and was paralyzed, frozen, rigid.

Clarence  lurched again in Paris’ direction, dead hands grasping, but the lithe mage slipped away from him saying “But Clarence, you were like a son to me!”

As Victor stood statuesque, the ruined half of his face began to bubble anew under the light from the Sunblade: the weapon emitted true sunlight, anathema to vampires!

“I don’t care much for who you are, but I don’t appreciate you throwing a fireball at me!” Elliana cried as she strode towards the statuesque Victor. Her dimly glowing blade scythed through Victor and the top half of the masked mage, flesh ruined and bubbling, skeletal wings protruding from the shoulders, tumbled to the ground; and after a moment the legs collapsed too.

As Victor fell she spun, closed on Clarence, shoved the zombie to the ground and put her boot on his chest. “What do you want to do with this? I understand it’s the corpse of your brother-“ she grunted as Clarence feebly struggled- “but it’s a little undead at the moment.”

Paris rushed to Dickies’ side, and placed a hand on the smouldering servant. Healing energy trickled from Paris and Dickies’ eyes flickered, a low moan escaping his mouth.

“Out! Out, demon!” Cornelius cried, holding his holy symbol out with one hand and splashing holy water on the animated corpse of his brother with the other. The blessed water left pockmarks and spitting blisters on Clarence’s pale dead flesh: the zombie writhed but could not escape from beneath Elliana’s boot. “Paris! Paris, what do we do?”

“Just, uh, thinking back to something that happened, um, some years ago…” Paris blustered, walking back from Dickies’ side, “If we keep doing what we’re doing and hack his body to pieces… Eventually his spirit will find peace. Clarence, my respects.”

Frost leapt from the wand in Paris’ hand, crawling up Clarence’s arm and freezing his hand; a few fingers shattered as the zombie flailed the limb.

“There must be a better way, Paris! You’re desecrating the corpse!”

“No no, trust me, this is the only way. Trust me, if he could communicate he would thank us.”

Elliana shrugged, placing the tip of her sword next to her boot, above Clarence’s heart. She pushed, and the blade skewered the dead Bullingdon, the sword scraping on the black marble floor beneath the corpse; Clarence fell still, and for the second time that day he died.

Funeral for a Friend

Paris eyed Victor’s hideous corpse. “Clarence never was the best judge of character.”

“I take it we won, then?” Dickie grunted as he sat up, looking around the temple chamber.

“Of course!” Paris replied, “have we ever lost? No!”

Cornelius once again took Clarence’s remains into his arms. “Burn the other one,” he ordered Dickie, “we’ll  take my brother outside.”

“Of course,” Dickie muttered, wrapped in furs, his breath condensing in the freezing temple as soon as it left his mouth, “burn it. Definitely can do that in here. Definitely possible.” He picked up the sword of sunlight and at his command the blade dissipated. The temperature was well below freezing and without any fuel to hand, prospects for burning Victor’s corpse were poor. He grabbed a foot, and began to drag the lower half as Elliana collected the upper.

“Who was this fellow, anyway?” she asked the dour manservant.

“Some damn fool of a boy. Meddled with powers he shouldn’t have.” Dickie shrugged. “Seems to happen a lot round these parts.”

“Last scion of Vallakovich?”

“Yeah, that house isn’t doing so well.”

“Anslem never thought well of the nobles in Vallaki. They had failed in their duty to the peasantry.”

“Eh. Can’t say he was wrong. Still, tragedy what happened to the Vallakovichs. Killed in a housefire by an intruder.”

“Really?”

“Just so.”

“Huh. And what, this one was brought back by the devil?”

“Could well be. Who knows? Bloody wizards.”

Dickie fell into a dark silence as they carried their grim load up the stairs onto the balcony and out through the main entrance to the temple. It was a strange sensation as they egressed onto the snow-dusted mountain face, where it was considerably warmer than within.

“I don’t want to carry Clarence around much longer. I suppose we’ll have to have his funeral here.” Cornelius lay the body of his brother on the ground. He called for his companions to gather round. Dickie tactfully hid the remnants of Victor behind a snowdrift as Elliana’s raven fluttered down to land on her shoulder. Cornelius ordered his manservant douse Clarence’s body with oil and surround it with whatever flammable materials they had spare.

“Clarence was my brother,” Cornelius eulogised, “and yes, he was a coward and a dweeb, but he stood behind me for all of our hardships, and for this I am thankful. In the end it was his hubris that killed him- hubris, and an unknown and unknowable entity of evil we canst dare not imagine.”

Paris looked sidelong at Elliana who’s face held a somewhat puzzled expression at the strange delivery.

“His judgement was often poor- as we can see by the circumstances of his death. But his heart remained in the right place, I think? He may have died in screaming agony as a horrible being burst its way out of his body, but now he rests with the Morninglord.”

Dickie, eyes closed and head bowed respectfully, had to clench his jaw to keep from laughing.

“It falls to me, Cornleius, to carry on the Bullingdon line-“ Cornelius voice was choked- “alone.” He sniffed. “I think we should all say some words. Paris, you go first, he was your pupil.”

Paris blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. “Um… Clarence, I was your teacher. I feel… well, I taught you everything you knew, so I feel I have to take some credit here. I clearly did my job too well. You made a pact with a dark power in an attempt to become as powerful as I- Paris Digby, mighty wizard- but not everyone is destined for greatness.” Cornelius was sobbing into a floral hankerchief. Elliana looked around in nervous amazement. “I’m sorry, I failed you.” Paris bowed his head.

There was a pause.

“Dickie!” Paris hissed, head still bowed.

Dickie shared a look with Elliana; a look that said I know, I’m sorry, get used to it.

“Well.” The manservant gathered his thoughts. “He got involved in some tough business. But I’ll say this for Clarence: he saved my neck more than once. And, as insane wizards involved with dark powers beyond the knowing of man go… He was pretty good. As Cornelius says, his heart was… mostly… in the right place. And we shall miss him.”

“Elliana, do you want to say some words?” Cornelius asked.

“I can’t say I knew your friend, at all… But if he was an enemy of Strahd, then he was a friend to me.”

“Kind words from you all.” Cornelius stood, arms outstretched. He called out to the sky, “He returns to you now, Morninglord! Your servant, Clarence...” he screwed his face up as he tried to remember, “Clarence… Something Bullingdon. Quincy Bullingdon!”

Fire leapt from Cornelius’ fingers to Clarence’s body. Even in the cold air, the body took light; the oils catching at once, the robes themselves a heartbeat later as tiny flames skated over the liquid. A rising heat came from the body which was shortly lit like a candle, heat and steam and smoke driving the funeral party a step back as the flames rose to whirl and writhe over Clarence’s corpse.

The air became so hot that it started to shimmer; for an instant Clarence was clad in cloth of flame and curling smoke. The odour of burning flesh touched their nostrils. The smoke grew thick, and glowing cinders rose to float into the dusk. Clarence was lost to the flame, consumed and converted and carried into the sky as a pillar of smoke.

And for the last time they said goodbye to Clarence Quincy Bullingdon.

…

A long moment later, Cornelius sighed. “So. As one Bully Boy leaves, another may join us. Elliana, will you become a Bullingdon Boy, and fight with us to defeat the devil Strahd?”

She looked at them, one to another. “He has taken too much for me to leave this place before he is defeated. I am with you.”

“Good. Put your hand on my scroll of pedigree, and recite after me the Bully Oath.”

She placed her hand on the scroll.

“I- say your name-“

“I, Elliana Roche-“

“Do swear by these words,”

“Do swear by these words,”

“That as a loyal Bully Boy I will always uphold the Bully Values,”

“That as I loyal Bully… ‘Boy’, I will always- wait, what are the Bully Values?”

“I’m about to tell you, that comes next.”

“Will always uphold the Bully Values,”

“Money!”

“Money?”

“Loyalty to my fellow Bully Boys!”

“Loyalty to my fellow Bully Boys,”

“And good running shoes in the event it all goes south!”

“And good running shoes in the event-” Elliana paused, composed herself, resigned. “In the event it all goes south.”

“From this day to my last day!”

“From this day until my last day.”

“I will not rest until my coffers are full; my tankard overflows with fine wine; and the rights of Cornelius Pfeffil Bullingdon as the Marquis of Saxonia have been restored.”

Elliana begrudgingly repeated Cornelius, who continued:

“Let all who hear me fear these words!”

“Good lord, there’s more of it?” she muttered. “Let all who hear me fear these words.”

“And, now, everybody together,“ conducted Cornelius, “Bully! Bully! Bully!”

“Oi! Oi! Oi!” chanted Dickie and Paris, Elliana catching up by the last ‘Oi!’

“Whenever someone says Bully Bully Bully, you have to say Oi Oi Oi,” Paris explained to Elliana.

…

As the enrolment came to a close, Dickie asked Paris quietly “Did you have to do that?”

“What?”

“The pledge thing.”

“Uh… No. Did you?”

“No.”

“I think he’s just written it, but, let’s not embarrass him. To be honest I think the Bully Boys has become much more of a ‘thing’ than it was when I signed up.”

“Fair enough. I mean, I met Cornelius in prison- he didn’t have a gang then.”

Barmecide Feast

“So, now we’ve got that out of the way,” Cornelius said to the newest and female-est Bully Boy, “I suppose the one thing we all want to know Elliana… Who is your mother?”

“Her name is Maria Roche,” Elliana said, looking at Paris.

“Oh,” Paris said quietly.

“Quite.” Elliana smiled sharply at him, as the colour drained from Paris’ face. She unbuckled a clasp on her armour, reached in to a pocket and pulled out a small oilskin bag, poured the contents into her hand- a locket on a chain. “Do you recognise this, father?”

“I, uh, couldn’t possibly be sure.”

She flipped the locket so that he could see the inscription on the back- To Maria, From Paris.

“Surely you’d remember this one, Paris- she’d be the only person you’d ever shagged below sixty!” Cornelius said viciously.

“Yes, uh, I, um,” Paris mumbled, as Elliana opened the locket to reveal a lock of hair within; brittle with age, but the colour an undeniable match for that on Paris’ head.

“Now, look,” said Paris, managing to compose himself. “When I met Maria I was a kid, I was still playing the lute for my living. It was before I became a wizard!” He frowned. “Don’t tell anyone I was a lutist.”

“She used to sing me the ballad you wrote for her.”

“You can sing, Paris?” Dickie asked incredulously. “What, you were some sort of… Bard?”

“You told me you were trained in a college of magic!” said Cornelius.

Paris glared daggers at them. “I was, but I was not lucky enough to be born into riches like you, so I had to do a bit of… Barding, and… other things, here and there, to pay for the fees.”

Elliana explained how it was Paris’ fault she was in Barovia in the first place. A Vistani fortune teller had told her she would find her father in this land, and that had led to her getting involved with the Spency Squad.

All of the Bullingdon Boys’ Vistani fortunes had now come to pass. They had found their ally, albeit as a spirit trapped in a ring, in Van Richten; the Tome of Strahd, to give them knowledge of their enemy, recovered in Berez; in the Abbey of Saint Markovia, at the pool of the white sun they had found the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind; and in a vault deep within the Amber Temple, the sword of Strahd’s brother, the weapon of vengeance- the Sun Sword. All of the fortunes, bar one: to find the devil, Strahd von Zarovich, and defeat him. In the depths of darkness, the one place he must return; in his tomb in the bowels of Castle Ravenloft.

It had been a long day for all of them, and night was beginning to fall on the mountainside. It was decided that in the morning they would make for Ravenloft. Dickie still carried a rosary of prayer beads, one of which held an enchantment that would carry them to the castle as wind; no long slog across Barovia awaited them.

Cornelius carried a scroll found in the abbey that would produce a great feast, Dickie recalled; Cornelius gave him the parchment, which Dickie passed to Paris, who had been trying to impress his daughter by conjuring the Golden Bully Hut.

Paris studied the enchantment, shrugged his shoulders and uncertainly read from the paper. And their nostrils filled suddenly with delicious flavours as a majestic feast appeared within the golden dome: floor cushions around small tables that held a plethora of exotic dishes, carafes of wine, a whole lamb centre stage roasting on a spit.

Elliana, Cornelius and Dickie couldn’t hold back their grins, almost drooling in anticipation of the wondrous food before them. Paris looked smugly at his daughter. “I expect you’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I wish I’d had a mighty wizard for a father.”

“You mean, you wish you’d had a mighty wizard for an absentee father?” sniped Cornelius as he flopped on a cushion and tore the leg from a roast chicken.

Dickie was trying a little bit of everything- he didn’t want to leave a single dish unsampled. Elliana was unrestrained; Ravenloft’s dungeons had not provided the finest fare before her escape.

After the meal was complete, Paris took a quiet moment to talk sincerely to his daughter. Sincerity was not his forte, and he was somewhat intimidated by this large armoured youth with a glowing sword who claimed to be his spawn. It was without his usual bravado he explained the circumstances of his leaving her mother; how it had been agreed it was best that Paris leave by both himself and Maria, before either was even aware that she was with child; how the persistent and unwanted affections of the lady of the house where Maria worked and where Paris was patronized had led to an untenable situation for the young bard.

Elliana revealed to him that she had inherited more than his hair colour; that she too could do magic, although without any tutelage she did not have total control of her arcane functions.

She asked about how the Bullingdon Boys had come together and received three stories of how they had all met, varying in details large and small.

And finally, completely satiated by the magically conjured feast, comfortable and warm within the Golden Bully Hut atop snow-clad Mount Ghakis, the Bullingdon Boys- all four of them- fell asleep.

…

“And now only one thing remains,” Cornelius said as they rose the next morning.

Dickie nodded grimly. “Castle Ravenloft.”

“I can’t quite believe we’re finally going to kill Strahd,” Paris said.

“It’s what we’ve been planning this whole time,” Cornelius replied.

“Well, for quite a long time it looked like we were-“ Paris glanced at Elliana, who was strapping on her armour, and continued in hushed tones, “like we were just going to pretend to.”

“Well it’s not like we had any choice,” Cornelius whispered back, “it’s the only way to escape. Look, Paris, we agreed on a plan. We defeat Strahd. We take Barovia for our own. We exploit the peasants for every pound of gold they’ve got, and then we raise an army to go back to Saxonia, and reclaim it as the land of Bullingdonovia. Help me with this, Paris, and I will make you a duke.”

“Can’t argue with that,” said Paris, “maybe my dream of naming a city after myself isn’t so far off.”

Dickie and Elliana were studying the map. Paris and Cornelius joined them and they discussed their plan to assault Ravenloft. Cornelius had a silver horn which would summon a spectral host of knights, the Order of the Silver Dragon; these they would send on a frontal assault. While Vladimir Horngaard and his phantom cohort drew every eye in the castle, the Bullingdon Boys would revert back to wind form and fly to the tower where the Heart of Exethanter resided. Destroying the enchanted heart would weaken Strahd; once this was done, they would find the devil, slay him, and find him in his tomb to make the death permanent.

When they were packed, armed and prepared, Cornelius addressed them all.

“Come! Let us tarry no more. The Bullingdon Boys will defeat Strahd today! Before the sun sets, Barovia will be free. Bully! Bully! Bully!”

“Oi! Oi! Oi!” three voices replied

And Dickie crushed the topaz prayer bead in his hand.