01 - arriving

[alliegiance]

HOUSE GUESTS

The world has built up centuries’ worth of stories.

Stories passed with love from parent to child, snug in their beds, their words the only sound that could exist in a world muted beneath thick, soft snowfall. Bawdy songs and outrageous tales scream-sung in taverns. Jokes and anecdotes shared between friends, an unseen piece of one another exchanged. Bits of comfort stolen and divided among a ragged circle, a ring seated in a campfire’s glow as though it exists as the last warmth in a cruel and cold land. Stories you press your hands against for warmth – tug around yourself as you might a comfortable blanket. Stories so dear that you hold them hard against your heart until they leave an imprint. The sort you can’t wait to escape into.

This will be another sort of story.

A dead land. A cold scar of a valley, choking with trees hard and dead and wild, seamed by a single treacherous road. Godless churches, black and cold in the ever-gathering mists. Soil centuries unkissed by both dawn and its Lord. A people hardened by fright, starved by a land that gives to them nothing and takes from them everything. An ancient castle, maze-like and imperious and named by a son for his mother. The deadly lair of a vampire king.

The vampire king.

Here in the valley you stumble your way to, gasping and sick from the poison, live a thousand, thousand miseries. Ruled by their king, from his throne in the castle Ravenloft. He is the ancient, and he is the land.

He is Strahd von Zarovich.

Though you will soon wish otherwise, you now have his attention.

(random.org for your rng pleasure)

1. THE VILLAGE BAROVIA Julien | Joon-gi Han | Gale | Halsin | Reliani

If “run-down” were a place, chances are good that it would look something like the valley’s own castle seat.

It is a ravaged village, lashed together by nothing but the tenuous will of the land’s own master. Barovia Village has no walls, no armored guards.

No protection.

The roads are gouged mud and the people retreat from you like dogs beaten one too many times. Their homes are rotting and bug-eaten wood, and each looks ready to collapse into the mud for good. The priest is too maddened by the state of his son to do anything but pray to a God who will never answer. The only purveyors of goods here are a cutthroat scam artist who has found a number of ways to squeeze blood from a stone, and an old woman tottering a chipped-up cart of meat pies up and down the village’s central artery. The bar is run down and full of drunks trying to wash away some tragedy. The wailing of a mother bereft of her child cuts through the village. The burgomaster is dead, and his children, Ismark and Ireena, are reticent to bury him for the beasts that circle and attack the walls and doors of their home.

Standing imperious and undeniable above this slump of tragedy are the black towers of Castle Ravenloft, clear and sharp even as the mist softens the lands before her. From one of those black spires, a pair of red eyes silently fixes on this very roof.

He watches. And he waits.

2. THE TOWN OF KREZK The Ghoul | Lozelle | Vasilka | Shadowheart

By virtue of comparison, the town of Krezk must seem like a veritable paradise.

The town is stationed securely at the other end of the valley from far-flung Barovia Village and the valley's castle seat. Built from rock, old and sturdy homes nestled around cobbled roads. The town is nestled in the trees and cliffs, surrounded by wolf-song and fog, but hedged in by a sturdy stone wall. The village's crust of snow has built into a blanket this far north, but the town yet defies the cold. The people here maintain what gardens they can and raise animals for food.

They smile.

But above the village sits a compound to rival Castle Ravenloft. An ancient monastery. The place where, so it's said, the sainted hero Markovia made her first stand against the Beast in the name of the Morninglord, and struck out on a holy crusade against he and his forces of darkness.

She failed, and the monastery closed its doors, standing silent for well over a century. Only a handsome pilgrim found it in him to disturb its rest, demanding the right to reopen the monastery for the good of the people.

That pilgrim is the Abbot, a mysterious figure who still operates the abbey to this day, fighting ailments spiritual and physical alike.

And it is he who will stay the guards and, on the very eve of a frigid and harsh winter, make another demand of the townsfolk who would shut you out to conserve their own supplies - let me take them.

code bases by tricklet

Comments

[moonlessblessing]

The face beneath the wide-brimmed hat was withered, the skin drawn tight against the hairless skull, like old leather left to dry in the sun. She immediately noticed how his nose had been cut away, which only served to confirm her suspicion that this man must have been a criminal of some sort.

But she didn't have time to dwell on such thoughts. At the precise moment she met his eyes, she found the corpse returning her gaze. There was no time to react before his hand snapped forward, faster than a striking snake, and clamped down on her wrist.

Shadowheart cried out and trying to jerk her arm free of his implacable grip, but the corpse's fingers felt like a vice. "Let go of me!" Her voice shrilled with growing panic as she dug in her heels, pulling against him with all her might.

Whether she managed to break his grip or he decided to let go, it didn't matter. Shadowheart felt herself falling backward, landing hard on her rear. She scuttled back, kicking up snow in her wake as she tried to put some distance between herself and the corpse.

Was he, though? His eyes held too much intelligence to be a mere corpse animated by necromantic magics. He certainly carried the tell-tale stink of death about him. Or he could just be in desperate need of a bath.

"What... What are you?" Her right hand twitched against the cold earth as she contemplated the merits of reaching for her mace. "I thought... I thought you were dead..."

Keep him talking, keep him distracted. At least long enough for her to regain her feet and put herself at a more advantageous position.

[ghouliecooper]

He let go just as she started to yank backwards, allowing gravity to take her. While she floundered in the frozen grass, he got to his feet and dusted the snow from the tattered cloak that fell past his knees.

Not that he was ignoring her-- element of surprise or not, he wasn't about to lower his guard to someone as well armored as this woman seemed to be. Though there was a sword at his waist, his hand hovered over the smaller sheath beside it, and he took a few slow, measured steps forward.

Looking dead had been the whole point. The locals would keep their distance, and even if they were dumb enough not to, the barrier he put in place would have spooked even the least superstitious yokel.

"Ain't from around here, are you?" As he took a closer look at her, he only grew more certain of that fact. Aside from her carelessness around the seemingly dead, she had the looks and bearings of a cleric, and anyone openly striding around Barovia in a god's name already had a giant target on their back.

[moonlessblessing]

Her eyes widened, a small line of irritation wrinkling her brow. Was it really so obvious that she was a foreigner? Her fingers curled into the frozen dirt as she inwardly chided herself for such carelessness.

But maybe she could still turn the situation to her advantage. The corpse-like man hadn't drawn his weapon yet, so perhaps she could find a means of walking away without a fight.

"How can you tell?" she asked. His answer might prove enlightening, and if there was some means of shoring up this visible weakness, she might be able to make herself less conspicuous around the locals.

While waiting for his answer, Shadowheart slowly gathered her feet beneath her. She made sure to keep her hands within plain sight as she stood, and took a careful step back for good measure.

[ghouliecooper]

The sky had begun changing into deeper shades of dark, but he still steps closer and squints at the pitch-black discs that adorn the woman's armor. A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, but twitches away in an instant.

"Well, first of all, any Barovian half your age knows to leave a dead body the hell alone." His eyes rise with her as he holds her gaze and takes a few casual side steps in the direction of the arm she doesn't favor. Old battle tactics flicker between neurons without his prompting, but his hand stays still.

"And because you've somehow ended up in the one part of the Shadowfell where your lady's word don't mean shit."

[moonlessblessing]

She takes note of his smirk, feeling the small hairs at the nape of her neck standing on end. Though she tries to maintain a cool facade, her brows furrow as she realizes she might have bitten off more than she could chew.

And that growing suspicion is confirmed when he makes mention of the Dark Lady. There's a sharp intake of breath, a subtle shifting of her stance as she tracks his movements, watching the way he circles toward her left side. He's sizing her up, no doubt, testing for weakness.

She cannot let him see her fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is a weakness when it lives in one's heart, but it makes an effective weapon for those who know how to wield it.

This stranger has honed it to a razor's edge. He is a hunter, a predator. She hears the wolves howling in the distance, and wonders which is more dangerous: the beasts stalking through the forest, or the stranger circling her flank.

"So, you know of my Lady. I'm surprised you can recognize Her symbols. Most people don't." Shadowheart keeps her tone measured, forcing down her apprehension. "Then, I take it that you are one of Her enemies? Let me guess..."

She pivots on her heel, keeping the stranger in her sights, but again makes no move to reach for the mace strapped to her back. Not yet, at least. Her shrewd gaze takes in his battered attire, searching for any clue as to his true allegiance, but there is little to be found in the way of armor or holy symbols.

"An adherent of the Morninglord, perhaps? Though, as I understand it, all undead creatures cower beneath His stern gaze. Hard to imagine that He would regard you kindly in your current state."

[ghouliecooper]

He couldn't immediately recall how many years of wandering it had taken before he stumbled upon worshipers of Tyr, and those lost years of devotion flooded back to him. He'd crossed swords with Sharrans in the name of justice more than once. Those efforts ended up being of as much worth as the melting snow beneath his boots.

Now, he couldn't help but find a bit of amusement in the fact that the followers of Shar would sooner accuse someone who recognized them as an enemy than an ally. No wonder they fell on swords for their lady so often, with intuitive skills like that.

Her accusation, though, pulled a husky chuckle out of him-- just one, quick to disperse into the cold air. That certainly isn't most people's first guess.

"Don't give a good goddamn about his regard, neither." He nodded to her equipment. "You holy types know all the tricks, right?" He gestured broadly around, though his gazed settled on the treeline as the wolves howled towards a crescendo. "What kind of presence do you feel around here?"

[moonlessblessing]

He barks a laugh, a dry and brittle sound, as though his throat is unaccustomed to shaping it. There is no breath that mists before his cracked lips in the chill air, and so Shadowheart knows with certainty that he cannot be among the living.

What sort of creature is it that stands before her, then? In certain superficial aspects, he reminds her of Withers, but the two could be no more different than night from day. She squints at him, lips pursing into a thin line as she tries to recollect all that she knows concerning liches and their ilk.

But his question interrupts that line of thinking, and the howling of the wolves sends another cold shiver down her spine. Is it her imagination, or do they sound closer now?

"What sort of... presence?" she says slowly. She feels like a lowly acolyte being questioned by the Mother Superior. "I don't—"

Is this some trick to get her to lower her guard? Yet, by the same token, she cannot help but feel like a lost child groping blindly in the darkness, desperately searching for a hand to take hold of her own.

Slowly, Shadowheart closes her eyes and bows her head, trying to clear her mind of all distracting thoughts. There is the familiar darkness behind her eyes, the cold air freezing the tips of her ears, the howling of the wolves.

The true essence of the Lady of Loss is this: absence. Absence of light, absence of warmth. Absence of feeling and thought. She is the gentle void which existed at the beginning of the world, and to which the world will one day return...

But the darkness surrounding Shadowheart teems with eyes and teeth, and it hungers! It feels like every predator in the forest is staring at her with shining eyes and slavering jaws, gaping wider and wider—

Shadowheart snaps her eyes open to find that the mist has thickened around her, nearly obscuring the figure before her in a cold veil of white. Dark shadows move through the mists, hunched low to the ground, their eyes refracting back the light with a predator's eyeshine. She can hear the low, rasping breath and hungry growls of the four-legged creatures loping in circles around them both.

The wolves have slipped closer, somehow, hemming them in. But it feels like there is something else among them, some other presence, as the corpse put it. Yet the more Shadowheart tries to reach for it, the more it slips between her fingers, as insubstantial as the mist itself.

But it's there—it watches. It waits.

And it hungers...

"What... what is this?" Shadowheart's eyes dart everywhere, trying to track the movements of the wolves circling closer, but there are just too many! "Is this your doing?"

This was a trap all along, wasn't it? Shadowheart reaches for the mace strapped to her back and pulls it free, brandishing it before her, along with her shield. She wants to believe that she can fight back, but terror keeps her rooted to the spot.

[ghouliecooper]

With the dreadful aspect he'd placed around himself lowered, the wolves wasted little time closing in for a meal-- more desperate than usual, if they drew this close to the town walls. Slavering jaws gnashed and hackles bristled over exposed rib cages, but that fact was no reassurance. A starving animal would fight twice as hard as one fed.

As the woman readied herself, he could already tell she would be no help, and not just because she saw him as a threat. The tension in her stance and the fear in her eyes made her look like a child drowning in the equipment of her betters. In the first half of a blink he drew not the sword at his waist, but the pistol holstered beside it. In even less time, he fired in the woman's direction.

The shot thundered above the yelp of the wolf behind her that took the bullet to the snout before it could complete its pounce at her. A moment of shocked silence fell over the pack just long enough for him to let off a second shot, and it tore into the haunches of another wolf that had been edging its way towards him. Some of the pack, spooked by the noise, scampered back into the forest. A few had lingered after the first shot, but once they smelled the blood dripping onto the snow, they beat a similar retreat, harrowed by bullets at their heels.

[moonlessblessing]

Shadowheart tried to mutter an incantation beneath her breath, but the words scattered from her mind. All she could hear was the relentless pounding of her own heart within her ears, the shallow breath filling her lungs.

She watched as the corpse reached for the weapon holstered at his side. Time seem to slow to a crawl as he extended his arm and leveled the iron barrel at her head. Every muscle tensed as she prepared to raise her shield, trusting that it would be enough to block the incoming blow.

There was an explosive crack of thunder; the smell of black powder and sulfur wafting through the cold air. She heard the air ringing with the reverberations as one of the wolves behind her yelped sharply.

She turned, and between one heartbeat and the next, another thunderous crack split the air. Another wolf yelped, flinching back as blood bloomed from its flank.

How was he doing this? Magic? But she heard no incantations uttered, nor felt the Weave vibrating as its threads were plucked to shape a spell.

Shadowheart watched in stunned silence as the wolves fled, whimpering, back to the forest. The last echoes of thunder faded into the distance, and only then did Shadowheart lower her weapon.

She looked back to the stranger, willing her heart to slow to a more manageable pace. "You... you saved my life." She shook her head in disbelief. "Why?"

He had every chance to eliminate a potential threat, but instead he chased off the wolves that threatened them both. She tightened her grip on her weapon, realizing that he may simply be waiting for a more opportune moment to take her out.

But if that was the case, why didn't he just kill her to start?

[ghouliecooper]

[He didn't holster his pistols until there was enough distance between them and the fleeing wolves to draw it again in enough time if needed. As the cleric regains her composure, he makes his way over to the wolf he left with a face full of shot. It whimpered and writhed, pawing at the fire it felt on its face and only worsening the wounds. The ghoul knelt beside it and produced a knife from beneath his cloak. With his other hand, he ran his fingers through the fur at the top of the wolf's head. Instead of putting up a defense, it keened at the touch, as if it knew what came next. Just as easily as he stroked the blood from its eyes, he plunged the knife into the wolf's gullet. With a final, strangled, half-bark, it went limp.

Once the the gruesome work was done, he acknowledged the woman's existence again.]

Looks to me like I saved myself.

[He turned the wolf to be flat on its side and started to carve through its skin. His knife drew a line from the still gushing hole in its throat all the way down to the tail without splitting open the belly-- no more mess than necessary. He kept at his work skinning the hide as he spoke.]

And I don't think your pelt would fetch as much.

[Only then did he look up at her to flash an ugly, crooked grin.]

[moonlessblessing]

[ Shadowheart stands there and regards the stranger in tense silence. He pays her no mind. She holds her mace in a white-knuckled grip, her fingers aching from the cold. It feels like her only lifeline in this strange and threatening world, where danger lurks a half-step away at any given moment.

She watches as he stalks toward the wounded beast and kneels beside it with a quiet sort of reverence. He reaches out to stroke its bloodstained fur with one hand, and there is something so achingly tender about the gesture. Like he's offering a friendly pat on the head to a tired old dog instead of a bloodthirsty beast that would just as soon bite the hand that feeds.

The wolf keens at the touch, lips peeling back over sharpened teeth. Shadowheart can see the abject fear in its yellow eyes, and something tears itself loose within her heart.

She hates wolves, it's true. But she didn't want it to suffer a slow and lingering death.

This one won't, at least. As the stranger draws his knife, Shadowheart averts his gaze from the gruesome sight. She whimpers softly as she hears the knife slice wetly into flesh and listens to the soft, strangled cry of the wolf as it finally breathes its last.

Shadowheart draws a shuddering breath before opening her eyes once more. She sees the stranger spare a glance in her direction before resuming his work.

Somehow, his words manage to break the tension that's kept her rooted to the spot. She carefully holsters her shield and mace once more, convinced that it is finally safe to do so. If the stranger truly meant her any harm, he wouldn't be so stupid as to turn his back on her. ]

Well, then I suppose I'll keep my words of gratitude to myself.

[ Her tone is not unkind, and her lips quirk with the shadow of a smile. The stranger's grin is ugly as sin, but still, there's a reflection of genuine warmth in it.

Shadowheart takes a cautious step forward, boots crunching through the pristine crust of snow. She lays a hand against her breastplate, fingers resting against the obsidian disk at its center. ]

But I'll give you my name, instead. I'm called Shadowheart. And you are...?