Victor Vallakovich

Victor Vallakovich took half an hour out of Sirius, two days out of Fëanor ("a nice boy, boy height"), and, we think, something out of Izek, who cannot remember ever climbing the stairs to his attic: "Every time I go up there, things seem to change around." He skipped the festival, which nobody was allowed to skip. When we kicked in his door that afternoon, the room was empty apart from his book and a teleportation circle on the floor, still warm. Fëanor read it as single-use, damaged and untraceable. The book is his own account of breaking Stella Wachter, one memory wipe after another, "and that's how he learned how to be a good mind mage."

We have no idea where he went, and no trail to follow. Barovia does not let people out, so he is somewhere in it. Stella, and her brothers, deserve to see him answer for it.

Who: The late Baron's son. According to his father, a perfect, devout young man who studies the good book in the attic.
What he did: Broke Stella Wachter's mind on purpose, and wrote it down. Took half an hour out of Sirius and two days out of Fëanor.
Status: Missing. His attic held a spent teleportation circle, still warm, and no clue where it went.
First met: Sirius met him alone in Session 10. Fëanor met him some time in the two days he can't remember. Neither of them can describe his face.

Victor is the person in this story we have never properly seen. Two of us have been in a room with him, and both came out with a hole in their memory and a pleasant feeling about it. Stella Wachter came out of his company three years ago and has not been herself since. When we finally kicked his door in, he had gone, and left a book that said exactly what he'd done.

What we heard first

Stella's brothers told us about him on our first night in Vallaki, over a lot of wine. Their sister had been betrothed to the Baron's son about three years earlier. "His son drove our sister mad. The Baron says it was a preexisting condition, a nervous break. We know what happened. Victor, he did stuff to her. He must have." Their mother put it more simply: "That beast of a son broke my daughter in some way." She hired us to find proof. Someone at her table added that they say his son is a sorcerer.

His father saw it differently. "My son, who is, of course, a very righteous young man, spends so much time in the attic studying the book of the Morning Lord." And: "My son is perfect, thank you very much."

The missing half hour

The Baron let one of us go up. Sirius went, with Izek to make sure he didn't wander into any other rooms. About thirty-five minutes later he came back down, pleasant as ever. He thought they'd had a four- or five-minute chat. He couldn't remember Victor's face and thought he might have been facing away the whole time. He couldn't remember whether the room had any furniture.

"Well, you know when you remember you were talking to someone in a dream and then you sort of wake up? Sort of like that."

By the end of the walk back he had worked it out himself: "I was either drunk very rapidly and then got better, or something strange happened." Our verdict was that he had been sorcered.

The nice boy

The Baron kept Fëanor as surety. When Izek gave him back to us on the steps of the burned church, he was missing about two days. The last thing he clearly remembered was going to ask a man some questions about nails.

"I just remember going into room to ask some questions, but I met a nice boy."

Boy height, he said. Very boy-like. He wasn't sure about much else. Osric, who does not claim to be the smartest man in the world, saw the pattern: people who go into the room with the boy come out with strange memories. Izek told us the Baron had asked him to see his son, and Izek, it turned out, remembered a night of men in masks that we remembered as vampires. We made a rule: never go upstairs in the Baron's house.

At the festival, Lady Wachter said it from the fountain to the whole town: "A tyrant whose own son abused my daughter and has avoided any and all consequences of that crime."

The empty attic

He was not at the festival, which his father had made compulsory for every soul in Vallaki. Under Zone of Truth his father could not say why. After the square, Izek took us up to the attic. He did not remember ever walking those stairs. "I do not like this." The door at the end said Do not enter. It was kicked in.

The room was empty. On the floor was a teleportation circle, single-use, damaged, and still gently warm, as if it had just been used. Fëanor read everything it had to tell him, which was that it would never work again and could not be traced. The rest of the attic was full of arcane testing equipment. He had been practising.

And he had left a book. In it, in his own account, is how it happened. He was betrothed to Stella Wachter and found her annoying. One day he wiped her memory by accident and was horrified. Then he saw that nothing bad happened to him. So he did it again, on purpose, and again, experimenting on her mind and wiping it each time, round and round until it broke her. That is how he learned to be a good mind mage.

Some of us had wondered, before, whether his father made him do it. That idea did not survive the book. "I am going to destroy this little man."

What we promised

Lady Wachter offered us fifty gold to find proof of what he did to Stella, and then cancelled the job. We found it anyway, and too late for her. Stella's brothers asked us who would look after her now, and we told them we would, with Ireena. See Find Victor and A Cure for Stella and Lydia.

What we still don't know

Where did the circle send him? Nothing in the room could say, and Barovia is not a place people leave.
What is in Sirius's half hour and Fëanor's two days, and can anyone put it back?
Has he been in Izek's head too? Izek doesn't remember ever climbing those stairs, and says that every time he goes up there, things seem to change around.
Who taught him?