05/13/2026: Battle with the Druids of Yester Hill

Battle of the Druids of Yester Hill

The cave beneath the Gulthias Tree smells of wet stone and worse things. Two warrior druids are working through the party with methodical patience, spears leveled now rather than thrown. A druid at the back holds concentration on an Entangle spell, and the vines have made the tunnel floor nearly impassable. The second druid — the one Krelldutt has been trying to reason with — shows no sign of being moved by anything short of catastrophe.

Catastrophe, as it happens, is close.

The gladiator plants his feet and drives his spear into Torgan. The dwarf goes down hard, unconscious, bleeding out at the man’s feet.

Krelldutt looks at his companion on the floor. He looks at the two warriors still standing. He looks at the druid maintaining concentration on the spell that is slowly closing off every exit. He reaches up and adjusts the Barrister’s Wig, which is, as always, on his head.

“Can we stop this madness?”

“You shall pay for invading our home,” the druid tells him. “You’re dead, turtle man.”

Krelldutt squares his shoulders. “Fair enough.” Krelldutt wades in with his weapon flashing.

⚔

Violet Robin arrives at the tunnel mouth with a shortbow already nocked. He has flown to the vineyard in raven form, and what he found there was worth the urgency. The Martikovs are already gone, transformed and flying hard toward Vallaki. The great blight creature — Wintersplinter — is moving. Violet Robin has returned to Yester Hill with the group’s horses. He met Blinsky and Piccolo at the foot of the Gulthias Tree and descended into the cave to find this.

He finds a warrior in his sightline. The rogue puts an arrow in him, staggering him backward.

The old druid woman, who has been watching all of this with the expression of someone who expected no better from outsiders, makes her decision. She bolts for the exit and disappears up the tunnel.

⚔

When the druid leader’s turn comes back around, Krelldutt tries again. This time the tortle lets the Guidance cantrip settle quietly over his words before he speaks. The druid looks at the tortle in the wig. He looks at the unconscious barbarian bleeding on the floor. He looks at the rogue in the doorway. He looks at Feesh, who is still standing despite having been poked with spears more times than seems reasonable. He looks at what remains of his own forces.

“Stand down,” he tells his warriors. “Leave your man there. We will cut his throat if you do anything other than get the key.”

Krelldutt agrees. He will retrieve the key. He will leave with his people and not return.

The druid points to a tunnel. “The key is down there. Go get it. Do anything that you should not, and we cut the dying dwarf’s throat.”

This is, all things considered, a reasonable position.

⚔

The key is where the druid said it would be. Krelldutt retrieves it, gathers his comrades and leaves. They find themselves within standing stones. There are three towering granite stones, thick and broad, each marked with a symbol: a castle, a temple and what might be a water symbol.

Krelldutt presses his his broad, calloused palm flat against the surface of one of the stones. A shimmering keyhole appears beneath the incised symbol.

He looks around. No one has followed him into the circle.

“Are you coming with me?”

Torgan, from the floor where he is being kept alive through collective effort, tells him to go ahead. Scout it. Come back. The dwarf needs rest before he can manage anything else.

“Sure,” Krelldutt says, grimacing at him. “Just what I am paying you for.”

He inserts the key and turns it.

The world goes sideways. Wind tears at him from every direction. He squeezes his eyes shut.

He stops abruptly, slammed into a swamp. The spongy ground takes the impact. Black flies find him immediately and begin their work. Through the foul fog, four standing stones resolve out of the mist. Beyond them, dead trees press in from every side.

In the distance, something very large is moving toward him.

The figure who emerges from the fog is woman-shaped and enormous, her bulk filling the mist around her. Behind her, a shack sways on spindly birdlike legs. She stops at the edge of the standing stone circle and rearranges her expression into something that might be warmth.

“My dear,” she croons, “have you come to visit your Auntie Baba?”

Krelldutt does not back up, though every instinct is suggesting he should. He asks her, politely, whether she happens to know the way to Vallaki.

She knows the way to Vallaki. She has a map in her hut. She’ll make tea.

He declines the tea. He tells her he needs to fetch his companions first. Her face rearranges itself once more — something is happening behind her eyes even as she clasps her hands together in apparent delight at the prospect of more company — and she wheels and strides back toward the walking house.

Krelldutt finds the menhir carved with what looks like grapes. He inserts the key with considerable haste.

⚔

Back in the Yester Hill circle, he delivers his report: a swamp, four standing stones, a house on chicken legs, a woman of considerable size and dubious intent offering directions and sandwiches.

Violet Robin checks his internal map of Barovia. The swamp — flooded ruins, bloodthirsty witch, far to the south — is Berez.

“You, friend,” Violet Robin tells him solemnly, “are fortunate to have returned to us.”

⚔

They are preparing to move when the old druid woman comes scrambling stiffly back up the hill toward them, waving for their attention. She has something to say about the Gulthias Tree.

She says it carefully, with the air of someone who has decided that the only leverage she has left is information. The tree’s sap is kept potent by a magical spear buried in its heartwood — Blood Drinker, she calls it. The sap carries the same properties as humanoid blood. Once a month, Rahadin rides down from Ravenloft and collects thirty flasks of it for the master. Strahd drinks it instead of feeding from the population of Barovia. It is, in its way, a mercy.

She holds up a vial of thick red fluid.

“If the spear is not returned,” she says, “the sap becomes ordinary. The tree becomes ordinary. Strahd resumes feeding from people instead. You. I. My grandchildren.”

Torgan says nothing. He is the one who pulled Blood Drinker from the tree. He is also the one who, while being chased by druid wolves, threw it into the bushes somewhere to the southeast.

The party steps away from the old woman and huddles.

“So we have a month,” Torgan verifies.

“We could just let the tree go ordinary and use the month to figure out how to kill Strahd,” Violet Robin suggests.

“Torgan,” Krelldutt says. “You took the spear?”

“I threw it into the bushes to the southeast,” Torgan whispers.

Torgan tries briefly to negotiate. The old woman does not negotiate. She explains that she will simply mention the party to Rahadin when he next arrives. That is the full extent of her position.

“If you wish to continue your existence,” she says, “you will give us back the spear.”

Torgan sighs.

“Very well. It’s off in the bushes to the southeast.”

She whistles. Druids fan out down the hill. There are quite a few bodies in the undergrowth from the earlier fight, serving as useful if unwelcome landmarks. The party elects to be gone before the dead are found.

⚔

Something small and invisible lands on Krelldutt’s shoulder. Its claws are sharp.

“I got a message for you, boss.”

Krelldutt swats at it. It skitters over his fist like a child jumping rope and lands back on his shoulder, hissing with professional indignation. It is an imp — Komzin’s imp — carrying a proposal for a meeting in Vallaki. It also mentions, helpfully, that on its journey here it spotted something very large moving very quickly through the forest in the direction of Vallaki.

“If I were you,” it advises, rubbing its little claws together, “I wouldn’t go to Vallaki.”

Krelldutt gives it a message for Komzin: they are coming. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he tells the imp it may deliver the message whenever it feels safe to do so.

The imp becomes briefly visible, practically vibrating with glee at the latitude it has been given. Then it vanishes.

⚔

The Wizard of Wines is nearly deserted. The whole Martikov family is gone — transformed, airborne, flying hard for Vallaki. One woman remains with several small children, too young for any of this. She has one healing potion left, the most basic kind, and she gives it to Torgan without hesitation.

The party debates with the resigned pragmatism of people who have already made their decision.

“We should rest here,” Torgan says. “As we are, we are of no use to anyone. Either the thing has been taken out by the time we arrive, or it’s weakened enough that we, at full strength, can deal with it. But us running to Vallaki wounded, with no healing —”

“How much havoc can Wintersplinter wreak in ten hours?” Krelldutt asks.

They agree on one hour. Then they ride.

Outside, somewhere in the dark between the vineyard and the walls of Vallaki, seventy feet of rotting vegetation and mindless vengeance is putting one enormous foot in front of the other.