A recap for the party. Read this before we begin again.
It ended not with a battle but with a kindness. Lily’s rope went soft and sure around the boy’s wrists — don’t make his father watch us give up before we’ve tried — and you brought Father Donavich down into the dark to hear his son with his own ears. And Doru told him everything: how the devil caught him and drank from him and made him drink in return; how every command Strahd spoke became a fetter on his mind, a truth he had no choice but to obey; how he had been sent home free to feed on anyone he wished. “I do not think I am in the Morninglord’s light anymore,” he said. “I’m so hungry.” The priest turned his face away. “Do what you must.”
Even then, the boy could not let you. He wanted to die — this is not me — but Strahd had forbidden him his own destruction, and the command held him even tied to a post, even begging. So you ended it, quick as you could, and what fell was not a body. He crumbled to dust. Nothing about it was natural. You left his father on his knees before the altar, praying like a man drowning, with the only comfort you had: you both made the right choice.
Ismark was waiting outside with a map drawn in his own hand — Vallaki four long days west, a winery, a camp of Vistani at Tser Pool — and the castle marked so you would know where never to go. And then his sister dragged the rest of the truth out of him: he knew. He knew what waited in that crypt, and he sent you down to it, because he would not trust Ireena to anyone who couldn’t survive it. “You will learn,” he said, “not to trust people in Barovia.”
You learned faster than you wanted to. That night came a knock at the door, and Ismark’s voice floated back up the stairs gone strange and sweet: everyone come out, it’s fine. And one by one you looked at the man in the hall and knew — simply knew — that he was a friend. Only Fëanor kept his wits, and his magic showed him the truth: every one of you, enchanted. He said so. You smiled at him. He met the visitor on the stairs with a bolt of holy light, and missed, and the man laughed with real delight — “good to see some backbone in some fresh blood” — and then Fëanor loved him too.
Strahd. Ruler of these lands, rightful lord. I am this land, and this land is me. He stood in your host’s home and asked his guests for a token of fealty, and Sirius — grinning, willing, charmed to the marrow — gave him his throat. The devil drank, not deeply, and left you with a courtesy: “Remember this when tomorrow you feel more like yourselves. I own this place. You may have your fun — but I get what I want.” You all agreed he seemed a thoroughly decent fellow. Ireena, who had watched this same spell hollow out her father, sent you to bed.
Morning brought the horror home. You checked Sirius for fangs and found only an unholy craving for bacon; you watched Lily wake and eat another of the old woman’s pies without a word, without even noticing — the second time now. Then you shouldered four days of rations, took Ireena from her brother’s keeping, and walked out of the Village of Barovia on the one road there is.
The land tested you gently, for Barovia. Voices cried help me, help me from the trees, and proved to be nothing but cold floating lights — you did not follow. A mossy standing stone waited by the roadside, carved with a winged woman bearing three eyes, and ringed, over and over, with the very symbol on Fëanor’s heirloom stone — a symbol, you now know for certain, that belongs to no world of yours. And when seven wolves and two dire wolves poured out of the treeline, Drew reached into her pocket and made real the thing she’d been dreaming of: a small, cheerful machine called CLOVER, which stepped forward and burned a wolf to ash. The pack fled. You took a pelt and walked on.
By evening you followed cart-ruts to firelight and fiddle music — the Vistani camp at Tser Pool, warm and loud and generous, the first laughter you’ve heard in this grey country. Their price was only a story, and Sirius paid in truth: the wastrel boy of Waterdeep, the grandfather, the raven’s feather, the school that taught him to love the sun. Good story. Good trade. Food went round. For one hour, Barovia was kind.
Then the flap of the great tent swung open, and a large man stepped into the firelight and looked at each of you in turn.
“What took you, Drusilla, Fëanor, Lili-grai, Osric, Sirius? You are expected.”
You have never met this man. You never gave your names. And somewhere behind him, in the warm dark of that tent, something has been waiting for you to arrive.