Field notes

Kept by the party. Today we tried to have one ordinary morning and nearly managed it.

---

Wings

At half past six Yeska knocked on the bunk-room door. Father Lucian wanted to know what Sirius planned to say at the sermon. Sirius had apparently invited the whole town to one, at eight, in the church that had burned down the day before.

Sirius doesn't remember any of this, since it happened on his missing day. He took it very well. He told us it wasn't the first time he'd woken up to learn he was giving a sermon to an entire town, and that it had happened at least twice before. Nobody asked about the other two times.

Yeska had more news: people are calling Sirius an angel. Sirius said that seemed inappropriate. He explained that the wings are on loan from Lathander and that anyone with enough faith could have them. Yeska heard only the last part. "Can I get wings?" Sirius said possibly, if he prayed long enough and did enough good. Yeska left the room saying, "I'm gonna get wings," and he was not saying it to anyone in particular.

We spent the next few minutes helping Sirius with his speech:

• Fëanor told him not to mix religion and politics. Sirius replied that politics is always religion.
• Lily told him to tell people to be true to themselves. Sirius asked what he should do if some people's true selves were unkind and selfish. Lily said, "Like rich people." Sirius reminded us that he is nobility and offered anyone a free punch in the kidneys.
• We told him who the new burgomistress is. He thought it was a very good choice.

Twenty minutes

Drew had one request for the day: breakfast. She wanted a normal breakfast in a normal room, with no vampires, no riots and no life-changing decisions, and half an hour in which nothing happened. She also wanted it not to be made of people.

Urwin met us at the bar and said it was a strange morning. He had a couple of things on his mind, but he would give us twenty minutes first. He looked at something under the bar while he said it. He served gruel. Most of us asked for the most boring breakfast he had, and someone checked that it had no meat in it. Sirius asked for "a normal breakfast for normal people." Then Urwin mentioned that his wife and children were missing ("well, not missing"), said he would tell us about it in twenty-three minutes, and walked off.

We did not last twenty-three minutes. His family went to the Wizard of Wines, the Martikovs' old home, when the vampires came. He has heard nothing from them since. Nothing has come from the winery either: no letters and no wine. The Blue Water is dry. He thinks he shouldn't have let them go.

He also passed on a letter. A Vistani traveller left it at the west gate last night, addressed only to the party. Sirius asked which party and said he couldn't remember joining one. Drew read it while we ate. It concerns the smaller lake to the west, the one with the tower in it.

Morning Lord time

The church is a burnt shell now, open to the sky. Father Lucian has never sworn anyone in before, because the old way was simply "father to son, I'm your baron now, take your lumps." He was hoping Sirius could give the ceremony some legitimacy. When he learned that Sirius had lost a day, he asked, very gently, whether there was anything he could do. Sirius told him the good deeds matter more than the memory of them. He added that the day he lost hadn't had much wine in it, and he hadn't got married during it, so he was fine.

Sirius wanted a flower for the ceremony, ideally a sunflower about to bloom. Fëanor said this didn't seem like a land where sunflowers grow abundantly, and he asked whether flowers could be borrowed off a grave.

Fëanor also offered some magic for the service. Several of us pointed out that this congregation had very recently survived a fire. He assured us it would be radiant light, not fire. "Some say burning radiant light, but that's a subjective interpretation of art." Father Lucian asked him, for the avoidance of doubt, not to cast attack spells on the congregation. Fëanor promised he would cast an attack spell that attacked nobody, "so just a spell, really." Lucian asked him to save dangerous experiments for science time, not Morning Lord time. Fëanor said the Morning Lord was moving through him. Lucian let it go.

Then the water glasses started to shake. Izek came up the aisle with Ireena behind him and guards on either side. Sirius held out his hand for a brotherly clasp. Izek looked at the hand, then at his own burning arm, then back at the hand, and left him hanging. Sirius said he understood.

Ireena told us she hadn't slept. When Sirius named her yesterday, her first feeling was anger, but she thinks we can make this work. She has opened the town's books, and the town is out of wine.

Something gentler than a sword

By eight the pews were full. One of the Wachter brothers came, and so did nearly everyone else in Vallaki. A grey shaft of something close to sunlight came through a gap in the clouds, and Father Lucian read from the Book of the Morninglord. Then it was Sirius's turn.

He told them about the raven feather his grandfather gave him and the years of training that followed. He summed those years up as "quite a lot of being struck with things." He said that since coming to Barovia he has found many problems a sword can't solve: "You cannot comfort a frightened child with a sword. I've considered this." He said this town has wounds that need something gentler than a sword. He told them they didn't need to put on a cheerful face for the Morning Lord, because the Morning Lord sees them as they are. While he was speaking he began to glow (Shield of Faith). Fëanor stood a little apart from everyone in a ring of harmless radiance. Small illusory sunflowers kept appearing near the altar, one at a time. Clancy stood behind the altar the whole time, looking magnificent.

He didn't only talk about faith. He gave them jobs. The people in the Reformation Center need healers, food, clean bedding and somebody to sit with them when they're frightened. Anyone who can mend a roof will find work. "If all you can do today is sit, and watch, and be kind to someone, then do that, and I would consider that a very fine day's work."

He spoke to Ireena too. He said she is brave and kind and very good at telling us when we're being foolish, and that she would need more help than "a title and a very large collection of problems." He asked the town to tell her the truth and bring her their troubles before they turn into disasters. He told her she wouldn't have to know everything on her first morning.

"I so swear," said Ireena.

In her first words as burgomistress she announced that the Reformation Center will become a hospital and that her door is always open. Vallaki applauded. Fëanor says that watching the sunflowers made him homesick. Sirius told him it's good to be sad sometimes.

On retainer

In the mansion Ireena has taken over the treasury. She paid us 200 gold for services to Vallaki and called it an investment; the long-term plan is getting rid of Strahd. She offered another 200 if we bring the wine back. Sirius pointed out that he would have gone for the wine for free, and then took the money anyway.

She also said that Vallaki used to fish the lake and that being able to fish it again would feed the town. When we asked what's wrong with it, she said, "Lake's haunted." That was all the detail she had.

Sirius asked whether he had looked glorious yesterday. She told him he had looked like an angel of the Morning Lord.

About the letter, Ireena's first question was who writes like that. We told her we have some friends. She said the lake in it isn't the big lake to the north. It's the smaller lake to the west, Lake Baratok, with the tower. Nobody goes near the tower, and people who have tried to open its door have been hurt. It lies between us and the bunch of grapes on our map.

We argued about which way to go first. On one side was a missing family at the winery. On the other was a lake that could feed a whole town. Somebody summed up the second argument as "teach a person to lake." We chose the northern lake first and the long road south after it. The Vistani camp is on the way north, which settled the question of the toy.

Shopping

Third Eye Potions and Sundries. Anya runs it. She has grey skin, slightly pointed ears and calls everyone "dearies." She told us we looked like we needed willow bark powder, for the nerves. She sells "mending draughts" (she won't call them healing potions, which she thinks is crass) at 50 gold each, and she only had four. We bought two, plus a healer's kit and some mustard poultice. She doesn't haggle, and she was clear that this policy is not open to negotiation.

Yonvich & Sons. It's a stationer with very few books for sale. An old man runs it with three grown sons, who each say "Hello." in turn. They were the old Baron's licensed printers, and they told us you need a licence to copy a map in Vallaki. Sirius wanted a hymnal. They told him the shop is not a library and that he had better buy one, and somebody groaned. Sirius explained that only three people in the country are more noble than he is and that none of them was in the room, then invited them to try again. "Welcome to our humble shop, noble sir." He bought the hymnal and tipped them a gold piece as a lesson in what being nice gets you. Afterwards we agreed the shop smelled lovely and was very boring.

Blinsky's Toys. This is the happiest place we have found in Barovia. Blinsky sells toys for all little girls and little boys. He also has a monkey, Piccolo, who stares at people. One of us hid from it. We told Blinsky the truth about who the toy was for. He didn't mind: every toy is a Blinsky original, so every toy is unique. Drew pitched him a line of headless dolls with interchangeable heads. Sirius told us that as a boy he had a headless doll and gave it a turnip for a head, until the turnip was taken away because the family needed it. We decided against the jack-in-the-box, which we found creepy, and bought nesting dolls for the Vistani girl. We also picked up tin whistles from the free bucket and several spinning tops. Fëanor has worked out that he can play two whistles at once, one in each nostril. Someone pointed out that we will never sneak up on anything again.

Sirius commissioned two pieces: a Morning Lord doll and a Clancy doll. Blinsky asked what the Morning Lord looks like, and the conversation went badly. Blinsky pointed at Fëanor. Sirius said, "Slightly less left-wing." Sirius found a picture in which the god appears to be eating a baby, and Blinsky offered to add a lever for the jaw. Sirius described a radiant sunburst coming out from behind the figure, and the wording of that description could have been better. Blinsky summed up the order as "big yellow man, sun out of bum, jumping out of heart." When we got to the horse, someone asked whether it could make poop come out. Blinsky said it would come with multiple poop options. Sirius left the shop in a huff. Both dolls will be ready in two days. Fëanor says this is the first time he hasn't felt homesick. Drew says that if the adventuring doesn't work out, she's coming to work here.

Thimdul's Armaments. The bearded old smith pointed at Fëanor and said, "You busted the Baron's brains out, didn't ya?" He called Fëanor a hero and gave us 10% off. Fëanor, who hasn't come to terms with having killed a man, pushed the discount up to 25% and then admitted he didn't want to buy anything. Sirius told him the Baron deserved it, and that he should kill a poor evil person one day, for balance. Fëanor concluded that self-defence isn't murder. Sirius said that was why Fëanor is the theologian. In the end Fëanor traded his longsword for a morning star, which suits him in name at least. He's worried about hitting himself in the head with it. Lily bought studded leather. Sirius has put his name down for the half plate, which he can't afford yet.

Then Thimdul told us something we filed under "odd". A few days ago Bluto, the town drunk, came in with a doll from Blinsky's and had it filled with lead shot. He wanted to make sure it sank. Bluto drinks with the Wachter boys and has been seen going up to the cursed lake. We decided he was arming himself against the ghost. We called it ghost self-defence.

On the way out Drew gave Lily her silvered short sword. Then she held up a hand, said "Shush," and made herself a new one out of nothing. She can also make bags of holding, goggles and a coin that "hurts people," for no particular reason. She has offered to make a little leather helmet for Fëanor's morning star so he doesn't sit on it.

The general store has no rations left. Food in Vallaki is running short.

The camp

The Vistani camp is two hours north. When we got there it was busy, and search parties were heading out in ones and twos. "Have you seen a little girl?"

She is Aragal's daughter, and we were carrying her present. Aragal was at a table outside, shouting directions. When we told him we had brought her a doll, he called it a cruel irony. She is fourteen, rebellious, and in the habit of wandering, but Vistani aren't supposed to be in danger here, because the devil's creatures don't hunt them. She's been gone since morning. If we find her, we can have our pick of the camp's trader wagon. We told him we don't need a reward to look for a child, and we went north to the lake as fast as we could.

The sack

The cold reached the lake before we did. Two boats were out on the water. One held a group of fishermen who sat completely still. In the other was a man with a wriggling sack in his arms, and a girl was screaming inside it.

It was Bluto.

Fëanor ran for the jetty. Drew got Clover out and called across the water to ask whether he needed any help. She wouldn't fire at the boat while the girl might be in it. Sirius came down the shore on Clancy, put out his wings and flew. When Bluto saw an angel coming at him, he threw the sack over the side.

Drew had prepared a new spell that morning, Vortex Warp, which can pull a creature out of anywhere to a spot she chooses. She had prepared it in case one of us drowned. She cast it on the sack. The girl fought the magic without knowing it was help, and it slid off her. She sank.

Clover shot Bluto out of his boat and into the lake. Fëanor's spell hit him as well. Lily ran under Clancy, jumped off the end of the jetty and started swimming. Osric commandeered a rowing boat and rowed out after her.

Sirius folded his wings and dived. In the dark water he found the sack, took hold of it and laid his hand on it, and the girl inside didn't die. Then he burst back out of the lake on his wings, still holding her.

Bluto is still sinking.

Where we stand

• Ireena is burgomistress. We're working for her: 200 gold paid, another 200 when the wine flows again. The Reformation Center will be a hospital. Vallaki is low on food.
• We have someone in a sack. We think it's Aragal's daughter. She's alive, just: Sirius has her, and he's in the air above the lake with the sack in his arms.
• Bluto is in the water and sinking. He bought a doll weighted with lead shot so that it would sink, and he has been seen with the Wachter boys.
• The second boat is full of fishermen who don't move.
• The winery has gone quiet. Urwin's wife and children went there and haven't written. There's no wine.
• New kit:
  • Fëanor: a morning star
  • Lily: studded leather and a silvered short sword
  • two of us: potions of healing
  • Drew: a healer's kit
  • Sirius: a hymnal
  • everyone: tin whistles
• Blinsky owes us a Morning Lord and a Clancy, due in two days. The nesting dolls are in the bag for the girl.
• Still to do: Ireena's letter to her brother, a word with the Ravens, and the tower on Lake Baratok.

Questions on our minds

• Who is in the sack? (We think we know, but we haven't seen her.)
• Why would Bluto drown a Vistani girl, and who put him up to it?
• Who are the fishermen in the second boat, and why don't they move?
• What happened at the Wizard of Wines?
• Which of Blinsky's poop options did we actually agree to?