Field notes

Kept by the party, written up the same night. Anything Sirius can't remember, he can read here.

---

Tea with the twins

We left off in the twins' sitting room. The elves had heard us out over tea and told us, very politely, that they would be cleaning our heads. Fëanor opened the fight by conjuring a flying sword next to "the twin on the right", for reasons he described as political. Neither the sword nor his fire bolt connected. Osric walked up to Ilimir and hit him twice, hard. Lily stabbed him and, while she was close, tried to lift a spellbook off him. She came away with some of his clothes. He carries no book, no pouch and no focus, which tells us his power is in his voice.

We should have taken more note of that, because Ilimir had already turned to Izek and said four words in Elvish: Cinder. Linden. Name day. Those of us who speak Elvish knew they weren't a spell. They worked like one anyway. Izek fought it. He went for the sister, Ivalice, instead, shouting "Stay out of my head," and missed her twice.

Ivalice poured her teapot onto the floor. Coloured smoke spiralled up out of the steam, and anyone who stared into it stopped moving. It caught Sirius and Osric. Drew dropped a Shatter on both twins and on the teapot, partly to hurt them and partly so they couldn't use it again. The teapot burst and released a second cloud. That one held nobody new; the two already caught stayed caught.

All is well

Ilimir spoke to Izek again: Stare. Orphan. Instruction. All is well. Izek's eyes went glassy. We had been told he would do that and we let him finish the sentence. Lesson noted.

Lily woke Osric the quickest way available, with a knife, and apologised afterwards. Ivalice reached behind the low bookcase, opened a hidden door and strolled through it, saying, "Take care of them, Izek."

"Your wish is my command," said Izek, in a voice with nothing behind it, and slammed his burning arm into the floor. The fire caught all of us except Lily. It also woke Sirius, who used the moment to hit Izek and tell him to wake up.

Drew answered fire with fire. The first Scorching Ray killed Ilimir, who went over in flames. The other two rays missed Izek, who is very large and very well armoured. Sirius then gave Izek a radiant, thunderous blow that sent him sliding along the bookcase and left him on the floor. Nobody would call it gentle, but nobody died of it.

Stop right there

There were two guards beyond the secret door. They could say exactly one sentence: Stop right there, criminal scum. Sirius tried to reason with them. He pointed out that we were clearly not evildoers and that he was a paladin, and he mentioned that each of them probably had a lovely wife whom he'd hate to have to console. They said their sentence. Sirius did not notice that they only had the one.

Both guards died. Fëanor killed one with spells; the other fell in the same exchange of blows. Sirius would like it noted that the job was to save all of them. Fëanor would like it noted that you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Sirius replied that it was a man, not an egg. The question of when an egg becomes a chicken has been postponed.

Izek came back to himself face down. "What happened?" he asked, and then, "How?" We told him he hadn't been himself. When he saw the dead guards he said he had been to one man's wedding. We told him the truth: the guards had been under the same control he had, and they weren't strong enough to break it. Then he said, "Let's go kill that elf." Someone suggested every other elf in the world as well. We settled on the one.

Doors

Lily found a magical glyph sealing a pair of doors and, having learned the hard way about touching things in houses like this, left it alone. Drew read it as a thunder trap, and after some adjustment of her goggles and one licked finger she dispersed it. Beyond were a mess hall with a large 7 painted on the floor, two rooms hung with nothing but chains and shackles, a stair going down, and a ladder going up. We agreed, for the record, that we hit things for justice. Sirius allowed that it was sometimes only medium justice.

The cosy room

The last door opened on the nicest room in the building: a couch, armchairs, a small kitchen and a grey curtain across the back wall. The air smelled faintly of herbs. Sirius went in first. When he turned round, he had lost a day.

His last memory is of fighting vampires in the church. He doesn't remember the bones, the Wachterhaus, the festival, the Baron, Strahd or the horse. He took the news calmly and asked where the vampires were. We told him there weren't any vampires, only elves, and he said, "Okay, let's look for the elves."

Then Ivalice's voice came out of the walls. She surrendered on conditions: her safety, sworn on whichever lord we follow, in return for giving Sirius his memories back. Sirius said that anyone who asked him to swear by his god was going to get murdered, in a holy way. He asked whether his face looked bothered, and it didn't. He threatened her settee. He also asked her to take away whatever happened on his third birthday while she was in there.

We found her behind the curtain. She kept bargaining. "Cleaning heads" had been vital work, she said, done on the Baron's authority, and the Baron "agreed with our perspective, as did his son." She claimed to know where the son is and offered to tell us in exchange for her freedom. Only one of us read her well, and none of us believed her. Sirius offered terms: give back the memories first as a show of good faith, then we'd talk. She said she was a duly empowered arm of the state.

Izek walked in behind her, and nobody moved to stop him. "Stay out of my head," he said, and cut her down. Whatever she took from Sirius died with her. Sirius says, sincerely, that he doesn't mind much.

The making of a mind

Afterwards we gave Sirius the short version: the Baron is dead, Lady Wachter is dead, Strahd came and enjoyed himself, and Ireena is burgomistress at Sirius's suggestion. He approved of all of it. He asked who Cliff was.

The plush rooms held the twins' research: detailed notes on the making of a mind and the unmaking of a mind. Drew went through them and found the phrase that releases the guards. We read it to the two guards we tied up last night. They woke up asking what day it was. The phrase doesn't work on the prisoners upstairs, whom the twins made into "a different kind of instrument." Drew has kept every book.

Lily cut out half of each twin's tongue. Her reasoning was that if anyone in this land ever brings them back, they shouldn't get their words back with them. We had been thinking of Lily as sweet, and we've adjusted.

About a third of the upstairs cells are occupied, and the prisoners in them range from frightened to vacant. We left the worst of them in their rooms, where they're safe, until doctors can come. This building should be a hospital now.

The silent room

Downstairs, a door opened into silence. We could see each other moving but heard nothing. A pale blue orb gave off a little light. Sirius sat against the wall and smiled. Then he picked up the orb. It went into his bag of holding, and the rest of us could hear again; he couldn't. Fëanor knows common sign language. Sirius knows none and was happy about it. He narrated his prayers aloud, at volume, for about an hour, until his hearing came back.

Henrik was in one of the cells. He has spent about two days without light or sound. "I can hear again," was the first thing he said. He'll recover. Two of the others may not.

Where we stand

• The Reformation Center is ours. Both twins are dead. The guards are free or dead. Henrik is rescued. The other prisoners need care we can't give them.
• Izek is free of the conditioning and openly on our side. Ireena commands him.
• Sirius is missing a day, the one that matters most, and has made his peace with that. He has met Clancy again for the first time ("Holy shit. That is a glorious animal") and spent the walk back working his way through horse names beginning with C.
• We carry the Orb of Silence (Sirius; it may make spellcasters very quiet indeed), the twins' research (Drew), the code phrase for the guards, and the good map from the mansion.
• The plan: sleep. In the morning, buy a toy for the Vistani child, call at the Vistani camp on the road north, then go to the lake. The winery is the better part of a week to the south. Brief the Ravens of Barovia, and have Ireena send a letter to her brother.

Questions on our minds

• Did Ivalice know where Victor went, or was that one last bargain?
• What exactly did the Baron and his son "agree" to?
• Can anything undo what the twins did to the prisoners upstairs, and would their notes show how?
• What else can the Orb of Silence do?
• Has anyone told Sirius about Strahd's visit in full?