Muriel Vinshaw

Danika asked on our first night at the Blue Water, taking care to say she was not commissioning us: the Martikovs own the winery down south, and the latest shipment was several days late, which is not common. "Our family wine keeps this entire bubble afloat." It has not come since. Urwin has watered the inn's wine to half, then to a tenth, and now serves one meal a week. He sent Danika and the boys down to the winery to see what was wrong. Muriel's partner Falkon went to report to the clan there and never came back: "I reckon there's something afoul in the winery." Roger's band, forty-odd years ago, were warned off it at a dozen miles.

It has a promise on it now too. After their mother died in the square, Karl and Nikolai told us the inn was running dry, and we gave them our word: shut down the Reformation Center, then go to the Wizards of Wine. Danika's route is to stop at Krezk, if they let us in, and turn south from there; about a week's travel. Once the Center is dealt with, that is where we are going.

Who: A wereraven of The Ravens of Barovia, married into the Martikov family. An undercut, feathers in her hair, and a very low opinion of our work.
Where: She left us at the Blue Water on the morning of the festival and slipped away. We don't know where she went.
Status: Alive, and no longer with us. On good terms.
First words to us: "Hi. I heard you were admiring my plumage. You also snore."

Muriel was the Ravens' eyes on us from the day we reached the village of Barovia, and for two days in Vallaki she was their claws. She killed two vampires and a skeleton for us, sat out a church fire on a pew because Izek was watching, and came up with the plan that got us into Wachterhaus. Then, the morning after, she decided that this was more than she had signed up for, and said so. We don't blame her. We owe her a great deal.

The introduction

Urwin had told us their watcher was called Mirabel, and Sirius had asked him to pass on a compliment about her beautiful plumage. The night of the canapé party, Urwin pointed us to a woman at a table in the Blue Water. She had got the message.

She thought the old man had given away far too much. "I understand the old man has let slip our secret that we've been holding for centuries. You say a few harsh words and he crumbles to dust. He's gotten old and fat." Lily introduced herself. "I know." Her name was Muriel Vinshaw, and she was not a Martikov by birth. "Married in." She had been following us "from basically the start. We saw you in Barovia Village… you shouldn't be eating those pies." She knew about the cards as well.

"I am more of the active part of the Ravens of Barovia. Things are getting a bit squiffy here in Vallaki. I will, if you'll have me, lend a hand. Because you've been mucking it up so far."

"I can stab things. I can turn into a raven and follow things." We took her on.

She had one opinion on Vallaki's two rulers: "There's no good options. I lean towards the option that doesn't keep kidnapping people off the street." She had known people who went into the Reformation Center. "It's a bad business." And she had news of the winery: her partner, Falkon, had flown there to report to the main clan and had not come back. "I reckon there's something afoul in the winery. But that is for a future endeavour."

The Coffin Works

The next morning she brought us a heavy chest the bard had left with her for us the night before, and then she came with us to Henrik's shop. When the six crates burst open and the vampires came out, she started with a sword. Then one of them got its claws into Lily, and she had had enough of pretending:

"Fuck this humanoid bullshit."

She changed into something between a woman and a raven and pecked the vampire fighting Sirius through the sternum. It crumbled to dust on her beak. Then she killed the one that had nearly killed Lily. Two of the six were hers. She flew to the burning church in raven shape, so that the townsfolk wouldn't see what she was, and changed back when she got there.

The church, and the cellar

In St. Andral's she stayed human for the whole fight, because Izek was there, and a spy doesn't show the captain of the guard what she is. She missed every swing. "God, I hate this." At one point she simply sat down on a pew and waited for it to be over.

Afterwards, it was Muriel who told us how to get into Wachterhaus:

"Speaking as a spy… You don't need to always go in with knives. You can go in with feathers."

The house was open as a hospital, and the Ravens had cloaks. So we went in as commoners, and down in the cellar, when the skeletons came up out of the floor and there were no guards to see, she was finally free to be herself. "Action: beak." She finished the last skeleton. Standing in the fake pentagram afterwards, she offered one professional observation: "There's undead and then there's demons. Often they're different."

Upstairs, and out

In the Wachters' upper hallway she opened a sickroom door for us and sent the doctor downstairs, slipped into Stella's room, and had to be talked out of shooting Lady Wachter's raven in a room full of people. She and Lily stayed behind to watch after the rest of us went out of the windows, and got out the same way. On the street, when someone suggested she report to the Baron: "I'm not talking to the Baron. I thought we were gonna leave the city and go to the lake, honestly." That night Sirius invited her to spend the evening guarding the bones with him in the roofless church. He promised to try his best not to snore.

The resignation

In the morning, over breakfast at the Blue Water, she told us:

"I hate to say this, but yesterday was too rich for my blood. I thought I was it, but turns out I'm not. I'm not gonna come with you anymore."

We thanked her; her pecking had been quite incredible to witness. "I did get a lot of vampire dust in my face." Sirius asked if he could have her number. "No." And she slipped away into the shadows. There was no falling-out. The Ravens are still our allies, and she is still one of them.

What we owe her

Two dead vampires at the Coffin Works, one of them with its claws in Lily, and the plan that got the bones home. We never did go to the lake with her.

What we still don't know

Where did she go? Our guess, and our hope, is west to her family.
What has happened to Falkon, and to the winery?
Was she the raven that watched us on the road, the one Lily couldn't talk to because it wasn't an animal? She said the Ravens had been watching since the village. We think so, but nobody asked her.
~~Who is "Mirabel"?~~ Answered, Session 11: Urwin's name for her. She introduced herself as Muriel, and Muriel she is.