Komzin, Rakthe, and Bayleaf approach the brazier, and the three climb within. Komzin selects a yellow stone and casts it into the flickering green flames at the center. The three experience the now-familiar flash of light, the sharp sulfurous smell, and the nauseating pull of magical teleportation.
They find themselves in a vast chamber. A single oil lamp hangs from the ceiling, its light reflecting endlessly against dense, honey-colored walls carved from solid amber. The air smells faintly of pine resin and dust. Three sides of the oblong room feature giant menhirs, each carved with a different symbol: a castle, a temple on a mountain, waves and trees. Between the castle and waves menhirs, the amber material is fractured, creating an opening large enough for passage. The gap extends deep enough to hide within, and a cool, metallic breeze flows from its darkness. On the fourth side, a staircase spirals upward into shadow.
Footsteps pad down from somewhere above, descending toward them. Soon, a tall, jackal-like creature moves delicately down the stairs, one arm cradling several scrolls. The parchments rustle softly with each step.
“A gnoll,” hisses Bayleaf, gripping his weapon. “They travel in packs.”
Rakthe nods, drawing their trident. Komzin seems less sure, but is unable to identify the creature. He joins his allies in drawing his weapon and standing ready.
The creature faces them. It stands easily seven feet tall, and spectacles balance delicately upon its long snout. The creature’s eyes glow like molten lava, and its arms are jointed in reverse from their own. It regards the adventurers with apparent curiosity, its head tilting slightly.
“Stop whatever it is you are doing!” demands Bayleaf.
The creature’s hand freezes inside a pocket within its sky-blue robes. Slowly, infinitesimally slowly, it withdraws its clawed hand to shake out what might be a handkerchief. It removes its spectacles for cleaning, each movement deliberate and measured, then pushes the cloth back into the pocket.
It cocks its head at the group. “Would you care for some tea?” The words emerge in a cultured, almost pleasant tone.
“Be careful, Komzin!” Rakthe lashes out with their magical trident, leaving a tear in the creature’s furry forearm and robe. Violet blood wells from the wound, spattering onto the amber floor.
The creature, affronted, moves the scrolls into the other arm and examines his injured limb. “That was unnecessary.”
Komzin suddenly realizes that the creature is likely an arcanaloth, a jackal-like fiend far more powerful than the three of them combined. The creature runs a long, red-clawed finger—one with an extra joint—along the wound, and it binds itself closed. The blood ceases flowing. Pushing the spectacles back upon its nose, it demands, “Are you here for treasure or for knowledge? Both are kept here at the Amber Temple.”
“Knowledge,” sputters Komzin. “We seek a specific scroll that contains a ritual.”
The creature nods. “You will need permission from the Head Librarian, Exethanter the Lich, to read any of the materials kept in the Great Library. I am his servant and assistant, Neferon.” He gestures upward with one clawed hand. “We must go up. Exethanter no longer comes down.”
They ascend the sweeping stairs to an impossibly tall space filled with what at first appear to be stars. The trio squints upward, and the points of light slowly resolve into hundreds of floating oil lamps, their tiny flames illuminating the void above. The smell of lamp oil and old parchment fills the air. Six towering bookcases rise into the darkness, each equipped with a lever on one side. Their shelves move upward at a steady pace, powered by unseen means, each carrying books, scrolls, parchment and writing implements or wooden boxes drift upward in an endless rotation.
Neferon excuses himself and passes through a door. Only Komzin hears the cranky whine of an elderly man demanding to know why he is being disturbed.
“Tell them to come back later!” the voice mewls, thin and reedy.
Neferon emerges. “The Head Librarian is too fatigued to meet with you now. You may rest here.”
“How long will Exethanter be?” asks Rakthe.
The arcanaloth tilts its head. “Until Exethanter is no longer tired.”
Trying another approach, Bayleaf probes, “How long does Exethanter usually rest?”
The arcanaloth stares with unblinking, lava-bright eyes at the elf. “Until Exethanter is no longer tired.”
The party settles in to wait, the only sounds the steady grinding of the moving bookcases and the soft flutter of flames from the floating lamps above.
⚔
The taproom of the Blood on the Vine was barely larger than a generous pantry, its low ceiling blackened by years of hearth smoke and lamp oil. The air hangs thick with the sour-sweet smell of spilled wine, sweat and the particular mustiness that clings to all of Barovia’s buildings like mold.
Duster sits rigidly across from the new Burgomaster, his feathered form hunched on the ladder backed chair that creaks beneath even his slight weight. His dark eyes track Bildrath’s every movement with the unsettling focus.
“More wine!” Bildrath’s voice is thick, a slurry of consonants. He gestures broadly, nearly toppling his goblet. “Parriwimple! Wine, you great oaf!”
The enormous man-child shuffled forward with the earthenware jug filled by the barman. He clutches it against his broad chest, his movements are careful, almost apologetic. His massive frame seems to convey a fear of being struck. Bildrath snatches the vessel from him, wine sloshing out in a dark arc, to spatter across the scarred table.
“Clean that up, oaf!” Bildrath’s face flushes purple, his jowls trembling with indignation.
Parriwimple’s eyes well as he scuttled away, his shoulders hunched around his ears.
“Idiot,” Bildrath snarled, though whether to Parriwimple’s retreating back or to Duster was unclear. He turns his attention to the kenku, one eye slightly unfocused. “But he is blood, you understand? Family. We care for our own in Barovia.” He laughs—a wet, ugly sound. “What little family the mists leave us.”
With unsteady hands, he tops off his own goblet until wine spills over the rim, then lurches forward to slop more into Duster’s barely touched cup. The liquid is cheap and sour-smelling, more vinegar than wine.
Bildrath raises his goblet high. “To the newest Burgomaster of the great Village of Barovia!” His words caught on each other, stumbling from his lips. “May his rule be long and… and strong! Long and strong!”
He drains the goblet in three great gulps, rivulets escaping the corners of his mouth to darken his collar. He drags his forearm across his chin, blinking blearily. For a moment he stares into the middle distance, his features going slack, eyelids drooping like melting wax.
“I am the new Burgomaster,” he mumbles, his voice suddenly small and wondering, as if the reality of it had only just struck him. “I am the—”
His eyes rolled back, showing yellow-tinged whites. The sound of his face hitting the table is a wet crack that makes Duster flinch. Then Bildrath the First, Burgomaster of Barovia for all of three hours, slides gracelessly from his chair to collapse onto the muddy floor with a heavy thud.
The snoring begins almost immediately—great, rattling snores that speak of a man who will wake with more than just a headache.
Parriwimple’s wail is pure anguish. He rushes forward, nearly tripping to drop to his knees beside the unconscious man. His enormous hands flutter helplessly over Bildrath’s inert form, tears streaming down his broad, simple face.
Sorvia—one of the three Vistani women seated at the tavern’s bar—rises with the fluid grace. She approaches the stricken men and places one dark, long-fingered hand on Parriwimple’s trembling shoulder.
“Do not weep for your uncle, Parriwimple,” she said, her accent thick as honey. “He is not dead. Only dead drunk.” She squeezes his shoulder. “Come now, stand. Stand, and take him home.”
Parriwimple looks up at her with a mix of desperate hope and confusion.
“Listen—he snores like an ox. Dead men do not snore.” She tugs gently at his elbow, guiding him to stand at Bildrath’s head. Blood seeped from the merchant’s nose where it had struck the table, spreading across his upper lip in a dark smear. “Take him home. Or to the Burgomaster’s mansion, if you are not afraid of ghosts.”
Parriwimple’s eyes go wide with alarm, but he stoops to gather his uncle into his arms as easily as one might lift a child. Cradled against the giant’s chest, Bildrath looked almost small, his head lolling back, mouth agape. Twin runnels of blood mark his lips and chin.
As Parriwimple turns toward the door, Sorvia smoothly plucks the heavy coin purse from Bildrath’s belt. The leather is fine, the coins within giving a satisfying weight. She slips it into a pocket of her layered skirts.
“When he wakes, Parriwimple,” she calls out sweetly, “tell him he may come here to retrieve his wallet. I will settle his accounts for the… celebration party he hosted here at the tavern.”
Parriwimple nods and departs into the night.
Sorvia returns to her companions at the bar. They titter as Sorvia counts out coins from Bildrath’s purse, her nimble fingers sorting silver from copper with practiced efficiency. At her knee, someone clears their throat.
Duster stands before them. Three pairs of dark Vistani eyes fixes on him, their whispers dying away into a wary silence. In the guttering lamplight, Duster is a decidedly unsettling figure. His feathers, which might once have been glossy black, now bear a sickly greenish sheen, like oil on stagnant water. They ruffle outward at odd angles, unkempt and disheveled, as if he needs to bathe. His dark eyes are rheumy, filmed over with something that might have been cataracts or might have been something stranger. And beneath the smell of wine and wood smoke, there clings to him the faint but unmistakable scent of decay.
The kenku cocks his head and points one taloned finger toward the door through which Torgan, the newly hired dwarf brewmaster, has disappeared earlier.
“I’m a brewer!” The words emerge in Duster’s halting, piping voice—a magpie’s mimicry of Torgan’s speech, uncanny in its imperfection.
Sorvia’s lip curled slightly, but her expression smooths into something professionally neutral. Though she listens to Duster, her fingers never pause in their counting. She waves one hand dismissively toward the cellar door. “Go then. Help Torgan. Maybe you will be useful, maybe you get in the way. We see.” She returns her attention to the coins. “Go.”
The cellar stairs are narrow and steep, their treads worn smooth. The walls are slick with condensation. The temperature dropped with each descending step, and the smell shifts from wine and smoke to something earthier—damp stone, old wood, grain, and yeast.
Torgan stands amid the tavern’s modest brewing supplies, his stocky frame moving with the certainty of a craftsman. He’s rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms corded with muscle and threaded with rust-colored hair. His beard, neatly braided in the traditional style of his clan, sways as he moves from barrel to sack to shelf, taking mental inventory.
The cellar is better stocked than he’d anticipated. Several barrels of fresh water stand along one wall, their wood dark with moisture. Sacks of grain—wheat and barley both—lean against the foundation. A pair of small canvas bags full of hops hang from a ceiling hook, contents dried but still pungent. And there, on a shelf fashioned from an old board, sits a bottle of frothy yeast mixture, still fizzy and viable. Empty barrels and bottles for storage line the far wall.
“Not bad,” Torgan muttered to himself. “Could work with worse. Could work with—”
“Help you. Brew ale.”
Torgan spins around at the sound of footsteps, his hand instinctively dropping to the hammer at his belt. But it is only the kenku—the strange creature from upstairs. The bird-man stands at the base of the stairs, his head tilted, his filmed eyes reflecting the lamplight in an unnerving way.
The dwarf takes in this odd potential assistant. The kenku tries to communicate something, his beak opening and closing, his hands gesturing in frustrated, incomplete patterns as he searches for the words he needs.
“I… brew ale,” Duster repeats, more forcefully this time. “Good. Help.”
Despite his appearance, there is something earnest in the attempt. Torgan softened slightly. After all, brewing was better shared, and the work would go faster with help—even incompetent help could carry sacks and fill barrels.
“A fellow brewer, are you?” Torgan nods, gesturing around the cellar. “Well then, welcome to it, friend. There’s work enough for two. We’ll need to—”
He stops mid-sentence as he watches Duster approach the grain sacks. The kenku pokes at one experimentally, then begins pulling at its ties with his talons, managing only to tangle the knot further. He pecks at the fabric. He tries to lift the entire sack and staggers under its weight.
Torgan’s beard twitches. “Have you… have you worked with grain before?”
“Grain,” Duster echoes. “Yes. Grain for… for ale.”
“Right. And the mashing process? Water temperature?” Torgan keep his voice carefully neutral.
Duster cocks his head. “Hot. Water hot for… for brewing.”
A cold stone of realization settles into Torgan’s gut. “How long have you been a brewer, exactly, Mr Duster?”
Duster is silent for a long moment, his head tilting first one way, then the other, as if the question needs to be examined from multiple angles. “Three weeks,” he finally pipes. Then, after another pause, “Month? Not long.” His next words come with what might have been eagerness: “I’ll help you.”
By Moradin’s beard, Torgan thinks. He’s not a brewer. He’s barely even seen brewing.
Before he could formulate a response that wouldn’t sound too harsh, footsteps echoed on the stairs. Sorvia descends, a thin straw mattress rolled under one arm and a threadbare blanket under the other. She drops them onto the second sleeping platform—a rough wooden shelf built into the wall—with a decisive thump.
“Mistress Sorvia,” Torgan says quickly, seizing his chance. “Might I have a word? In private?”
She raises one arched eyebrow but gestures for him to follow her to the far corner of the cellar, out of the kenku’s earshot. Duster remains by the grain sacks, apparently fascinated by the weave of the burlap.
“The bird,” Torgan says in a low, urgent voice. “He’s not a brewer. He knows nothing. He’ll be more hindrance than help, and I’d really prefer to work alone. I do my best work alone. Always have.”
Sorvia’s dark eyes studies him with an expression that might be amusement. “You may be called the Master Brewer,” she says slowly, as if explaining something to a child, “and he can be your apprentice.”
“But he doesn’t—”
“Your apprentice needs training,” Sorvia interrupts, her voice hardening. She turns and begins to climb the stairs, her skirts swishing. “Help him.”
“Mistress Sorvia, please, I—” But she is already gone, the door at the top of the stairs closing with a solid thunk.
Torgan stands for a moment, fists clenched, breathing hard through his nose. Then he turns and stumps back into the main cellar.
And stops.
Duster has apparently decided to make himself at home. His few belongings are spread across the lumpy mattress of his sleeping platform. Four daggers—no, not just daggers, but beautiful, deadly things with blades as long as a man’s forearm—lay arranged in a precise line. Their edges gleamed even in the dim light, sharp enough to split a hair. The handles are wrapped in dark leather, worn smooth by use.
“My blades,” Duster says proudly. “Keep them sharp. Very sharp.”
“I can see that.” Torgan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Listen, just… stay away from the brewing equipment while I’m preparing it? Just stay over there.”
“Help,” Duster offers.
“No. No helping. Just… just stay there.”
Torgan turns his back and busies himself with examining the grain sacks more closely, trying to calculate quantities, trying to think about anything other than the catastrophe that his employment at the Blood on the Vine was becoming. Behind him, he hears the faint sounds of Duster rummaging through the food stores.
Fine, Torgan thinks bitterly. Let the bird eat. Maybe he’ll choke.
But the frustration builds like steam in a kettle. He can’t work like this. He won’t. Sorvia would listen to reason—she had to.
He climbs the stairs two at a time and emerges into the taproom.
It is empty now save for Arik, the taciturn barman, who is wiping down the tables with a rag that looks only marginally cleaner than the surfaces it is drawn over. The Vistani women are nowhere to be seen.
“Master Arik,” Torgan began, approaches the barman. “I need to speak with Mistress Sorvia. Where might I find her?”
Arik didn’t look up from his wiping. “Gone to bed.”
“It’s important. About the brewing arrangements.”
“Morning.” Arik moved to the next table.
“It can’t wait until morning. You see, she’s assigned me an apprentice who doesn’t know the first thing about—”
“You like brewing?” Arik interrupted, his tone flat.
Torgan blinked. “Well, yes, but—”
“The new Burgomaster likes the kenku.” Arik wrung out his rag in a bucket of murky water.
“Teach the kenku brewing.”
“But he’s completely—”
“You like brewing,” Arik repeated, as if this settled everything. “The new Burgomaster likes the kenku. Teach the kenku brewing.” He picks up his bucket and heads toward the back room without another word.
Torgan stands alone in the empty taproom, fists clenched so tight his knuckles have gone white.
He returns, seething, back down to the cellar.
Duster has helped himself to a strip of dried meat and is tearing at it with his beak, tilting his head back to swallow each piece. His filmed eyes tracked Torgan’s descent with that unnerving, unblinking focus.
“You,” Torgan said, jabbing a finger at the kenku. “Listen closely, because I’m only saying this once. You stay out of my way. I work alone. You sit there—” he points to the sleeping platform, “—or you go somewhere else, anywhere else, but I wish to work by myself. Understood?”
Duster’s head bobs up and down. “Understood,” he pipes. “Stay away. You work.”
“Good.” Torgan turned his back on the creature and begins examining the barrels more closely, looking for any signs of rot or poor cooperage that might affect the brew.
But even as he works, he is aware of the kenku’s presence behind him—silent now, still, but there. And across the cellar, visible from the corner of his eye, is another door. A heavy wooden door with iron fittings and a substantial lock.
The tavern’s office that Sorvia had mentioned. Where the sisters keep their records.
Locked.
Torgan tried very hard to focus on the barrels. But he is aware of the locked door there. And he can feel Duster’s strange eyes on him, watching, always watching.
It is going to be a very long night.
⚔
Krelldutt's group rides out from Vallaki just after the sun rises. Feesh, Joolian, Udo, Blinski, and Friedrich the dog travel in the light rain. Fish is worse for the wear from an evening of wine, and he lags behind, sometimes disappearing entirely.
The road rises steadily upward toward the ridge ahead. “Somewher up there,” thinks Krelldutt, “are the ruins of the hags’ windmill.” Krelldutt pulls his head deep into his hood, hoping that it hides his face. He does not wish to have any further interactions with the weird sisters.
At the crest of the hill the tortle reigns his horse and tells the others of his history with the hags. “Hags?” scoffs Joolian, “Like old women? You fear old women?”
“No,” Krelldutt explains, very patiently, “I fear powerful witches. Also known as hags.” No one can think of anything else to say, and the group moves on. A five minute ride beyond the trail to the ruined windmill brings them to a pair of downed trees that block the road. Udo and Joolian swing down to see if they can move the logs.
Nervously, from atop their horses, Blinsky and Krelldutt scan the road. Feesh’s eye are closed above his pale and very drawn face. He appears to be sleeping in his saddle.
A voice calls from behind some of the brush, “Travelers! Stuck on the road! How unfortunate.”
Krelldutt’s blood freezes. The voice is terribly, horrifyingly familiar. Standing by the side of the road, the frail figure of an ancient woman--Morgantha-- reaches for Joolian.
“Look out,” cries Krelldutt, “she’s a hag!” Feesh snorts awake in time to see Joolian and Udo throw themselves backward toward their mounts. The old woman’s rheumy eyes find Krelldutts’s round, frightened one. Morgantha’s lips peel back in a snarl and her body enlarges, thickening and darkening. At a height of nearly nine feet tall, she reaches Krelldutt’s horse in five strides.
“You!” The shriek is rips the stillness of the dreary damp morning. “Bella! Come help me avenge Offalia! The turtle murderer has returned!”
Alarmed, Krelldutt’s horse rolls its eye in alarm as the stench of rot that surrounds Morgantha causes the animal to panic. It bolts.
A second monstrous hag steps from behind a large oak, arms outstretched. The air splits as a glowing chartreuse blast of energy soars from gnarled, purple fingers, shattering a branch behind Krelldutt.
Screaming, his horse pounds away toward the road as Feesh snaps back to life, giving cover with his crossbow as the others carefully negotiate around the downed trees. They return the favor to allow Feesh to pull his horse to the far side of the trees, and the group race away.
In the distance, the ferocious, screaming howls of the furious hags echo out over the valley.
It takes longer than he’d like for Krelldutt to calm himself. The ride is filled with a crush of disturbing memories: the destroyed windmill could be seen in the distance from where they were ambushed by the hags. The group pass over the same bridge where they’s been followed by the animated body of the dead Creaker. They pass the path into the woods where they received the Tarokka reading from Madame Eva, and then the ruins of the house where Creaker was killed. Here, they see the disturbed earth that might have been his grave.
Krelldutt forces thimself to stop thinking this way when memories of Deprimer burying their kenku comrade with full Gothic rites. It is too painful.
They continue reaching the small stone bridge over the River Ivlis. The Village of Barovia is just beyond.
They have made it.
Returning to Madam Eva’s prophecy, the one telling them what they would need to defeat the vampire Strahd. Krelldutt thinks of what they now have, the Sunlight Blade in his belt and the Tome of Strahd in Deprimer’s office in Vallaki.
But it also reminds him about the items they still need to find: the Symbol of Ravenkind and an ally described as "a man of faith stretched to his limits."
