Cast · St. Andral's

Headmistress Claudia

AliveAlly

The stern, exhausted headmistress holding twenty orphans together with no funds. We started badly and ended on the same side.

Running St. Andral's Orphanage on no money, with Milivoj under her eye and Felix in her attic.

Last seen: St. Andral's Orphanage
Belongs to: Vallaki
First met: Session 8
Last seen in: Session 9

What we owe, and what we are doing about it

Carry the Locket to the Abbot

A demon in a rusted locket, bound for the one priest Claudia thinks could deal with it. Nobody opens the lid.

The shadow demon that rode Felix, and then Drew, is shut inside Felix's old locket: rusted, oval, an X scratched into the lid, and an inscription inside in Celestial that none of us can read. Sirius worked out the rules. The locket holds the demon to this world. Breaking it would only set the demon free somewhere else. It cannot get out on its own; someone has to open it and look. Claudia has opened it, Drew opened it "for the lols", and Sirius opened it on purpose to pull the demon back in. It has lived in Drew's bag of holding ever since she made the bag.

Claudia named the only person she thinks could handle it: "If there's someone in this Morning Lord forsaken place who can do something about a demon, a proper demon, it'll be the abbot, which it pains me to say." Father Lucian offered to keep it for us; we decided it was safer where it was. The abbey is above Krezk, and Krezk is on the road west. Until then, nobody opens the lid.

Krezk since Session 9
Come Back for Felix

"We'll be back, Felix." Osric said it over his shoulder in the orphanage attic, and we meant it.

Felix came to St. Andral's a month before we did, found unharmed and soaked in blood beside his stabbed parents. At the orphanage he was only "mostly Felix". The rest was a shadow demon that left the other children bruised and pushed a boy called Cedric out of a window. We swore to Claudia that no harm would come to him, climbed into the attic, and drove the demon out. It went into Drew for a while, and Sirius shut it in Felix's old locket. When the fight moved downstairs, Osric checked that the boy was still breathing and told him "We'll be back, Felix."

Claudia says he is okay. We have not seen him since. We still don't know who he was before, who killed his parents, or how much he remembers. Next: go back and see him, properly, before we leave for the west.

St. Andral's Orphanage since Session 8
Find the Missing Orphans

Lazlo, Hans and Franz ran from the orphanage, and from Felix. The hunters sent after them have not come back either.

The children at St. Andral's told us first: Lazlo, Hans and Franz had run away just over a week earlier. Claudia thinks they ran because they were afraid of Felix. Milivoj stole the bones of St. Andral for them. Two hunters at the Blue Water said they could probably find the boys, but wanted 300 gold to give up their own hunt and go into the woods, and a cloaked stranger with very nice shoes offered Milivoj exactly that for moving the bones. "I had to do it to save those kids." The hunters took the money and went.

Nobody has seen the boys or the hunters since, as far as we know. Lady Wachter told us the werewolves to the west "capture children". Nobody asked us to look, and we have been busy, but three boys are out in Barovia on their own. Next: ask at the Blue Water after the hunters, and keep our eyes open on the road west.

since Session 8

Who: Headmistress of St. Andral's Orphanage in Vallaki: bun, frown lines, and a spine.
Where: The orphanage, when she is not out failing to find a doctor she can afford.
Status: Alive, overwhelmed, and keeping Milivoj on his word for us.
First met: Session 8, when she came home to find armed strangers in her groundskeeper's bedroom.

A bad start

"What are you doing?" She came striding in while we were examining Milivoj, and she was furious that the children had let strangers in. Sirius asked her to calm down and not take that tone, since he had just laid the Morninglord's healing on the young man to no effect. We said the priest had sent us, which was nearly true. "And you think that gives you the right to wander into an orphanage, of all places, amongst these children."

Then the fight went out of her. "I suppose I could not get the doctor to come. We do not have the funds." She introduced herself properly ("I am Headmistress Claudia Belasco. I run this orphanage. I keep it shipshape and upright"), said she would check our story with Father Lucian later, and added, with feeling, "I swear we are cursed." When Sirius showed her his holy symbol, she pointed out that anyone can wear one. "No, they can't," he said. "Not in the way that I'd wear it." He winked.

What she told us

She has about twenty children and nobody to help. A month ago a boy called Felix was found in a house in Vallaki beside his stabbed parents, covered in blood and unharmed. She took him in. The other children started turning up with bruises. He pushed a boy called Cedric out of a window, and Cedric died, so she locked Felix in the attic. Three more boys, Lazlo, Hans and Franz, ran away just over a week ago, and she thinks they were afraid of him. Milivoj "came into some money" from somewhere and sent two hunters after them. She did not ask where from.

She had taken Felix's things off him and kept them in her office drawer. Among them was a rusted oval locket with an X scratched into the lid. That locket now holds the demon that was wearing Felix, and we swore to her, before we went up to the attic, that no harm would come to the boy.

When we found the runes carved on the children's bedposts, she shrugged ("The kids, they scratch stuff into the beds all the time") and then agreed to have them all scratched out.

Custody, and counsel

Once Milivoj was awake and had confessed to us, he told her himself: "Claudia, I stole the bones from the church." She kept him anyway. "Me and Father Lucian, we are partners in this enterprise, kind of… I can see he's been punished." She had him promise to stay put, and he said, "Yes, ma'am."

She admitted she had opened the locket once herself, out of curiosity. And, plainly reluctant, she told us who could deal with it. There is a quiet not-quite-schism in the church, she said: Father Lucian, the best of men, with modest gifts; and the abbot above Krezk, blessed with far more, who "can heal people, body and mind. There's stories he can raise the dead", and who helps nobody outside his walls. "If there's someone in this Morninglord-forsaken place who can do something about a demon, a proper demon, it'll be the abbot, which it pains me to say."

We kept the locket rather than leave it with her. It only takes somebody to open it by mistake.

What we owe her

We told her we would be back. Felix is still in her attic, and we promised him the same.
The locket is going to The Abbot, if we can get it there.

What we still don't know

What does she decide about Felix? Can a house of twenty children take back the boy the demon wore?
Did she ever check our story with Lucian, and what did he tell her?