06/24/2026: The Vistani and his Daughter

Wintersplinter has been dead for minutes. The steam still rises from its wreckage, curling into the grey sky above the western gate. Around it, Vallaki is discovering what it has lost. The Vistani, Viktor and his daughter, crouch in the brush just outside the city gate, have seen the unlikely fall of the behemoth after it had bashed down great sections of Vallaki’s stockade walls.

And from within the city, the cries come first — grief before accounting, always. Then the orders, sharp and clipped, guards pushing through the crowd toward the rubble. Torgan stands facing a city watch guard at the ruin of the gate. Both men are still bleeding when the two emerge from the tree line.

Viktor, the Vistani man Torgan has been traveling with, and his daughter, a child of about nine, are suddenly by his side. The Vistana moves quickly but without running. Torgan does not notice that the man seems frightened and trying unsuccessfully to hide the fact from the girl holding his hand.

He comes to a stop at Torgan’s shoulder and does not waste time. He speaks to the guard before them with the particular quietness of someone who has rehearsed this moment and is not sure it will work.

Viktor bows his head to the bloodied guard and, in a rush of words, gets out, “I humbly seek sanctuary for myself and my daughter. We are sought by the Casimiri Vistani who dwell with the Dusk Elves to the west of here, and we need shelter and aid.”

The guard’s expression closes like a door. “No Vistani. For any reason,” he snaps, “This order has stood since the honored ancestors of Burgomaster Vallakovich first set it down.  Not tonight, not ever.”

Torgan, who is not generally a gentle man, looks at the dazed child and asks Viktor quietly what danger they are in. Earlier, while moving through the woods away from the Vistani encampment, the two dared not speak for fear of detection. 

Viktor sends Arabella a few yards away, out of earshot, before speaking again.

The story comes out in pieces. “I am a Vistana of Madam Eva’s blood, many generations removed. I married outside of my family’s band — Volenta, a beautiful woman of Casimir’s people. Our daughter was born with her many times great-grandmother’s gifts: she has second sight, the kind that Casimir’s band does not have and very much wants. Volenta is gone now. I cannot say where or even why, but things between us have not been well for some time. Now, my daughter and I need help.”

Torgan still stares blankly at him.

Viktor sighs, then says simply, “I want to bring Arabella to Tser Falls, to Madam Eva, to be raised among my own family and guided by the only person in Barovia who might understand what my girl is becoming. I just needs to survive long enough to do it.”

⚔

Krelldutt arrives in time to hear the end of it. Then he goes looking for Dunlarr.

Dunlarr listens, his brows climbing. Around them, the city is accounting for its dead — five guards, two civilian so far, bodies still in the rubble. He speaks quietly, but there is no give in him.

“You know this is an issue for all here in Vallaki, Krelldutt. I am sorry, but they won’t tolerate Vistani–gods know why not. And I can’t ask them for any other sacrifices after the day we have had.”

Krelldutt offers a compromise: “What if Viktor and Arabella sleep outside the walls? I’ll ask a few of the Order of the Feather to watch over them? Perhaps a guard or two could be spared—”

Dunlarr cuts him off. “Krelldutt, there are no Watch nor guards to spare. The western end of the city must be secured.” There will be no argument that moves him, and Krelldutt knows it.

Bayleaf has drifted toward the commotion, drawn a problem he hasn’t been asked to solve. He stands, regarding the man and child, not registering the difference in dress nor bearing from the Vallakians.

Viktor turns to him with the particular desperation of a man running out of people to ask.

“Sir Elf, can you intercede on our behalf? For the sake of my daughter. She is only a child, innocent and helpless. Please — you must help us. Help her.”

Bayleaf, who knows no one in Vallaki, offers something that is not quite a promise. He will ask, he says. Viktor watches him begin to drift away and makes a desperate decision.

Viktor calls out: “I know where the knight Komzin is being kept.”

Bayleaf stops. Krelldutt looks up. Viktor has their attention now, and he knows it, and he does not let it go.

“I will tell you where your man is when my child and I have a safe place for the night, and protectors to get my child and I safely to the Tser Falls encampment.”

The negotiation that follows is between exhausted people who need things from each other. By the end of it, there is a plan: an abandoned house just outside the walls, a smokey by serviceable fireplace, an interior room for Viktor and Arabella, Torgan in the next room. Krelldutt and Dag Tomescu, a son-in-law of the Martikovs, will take chairs by the hearth. Bayleaf at the door. Violet Robin nearby.

It is not much. It is what they have.

⚔

Komzin opens his eyes to the ceiling of a hazy felt tent.

He is on a scratchy rug. His wrists are bound. His armor and weapons are in a pile across the room, near enough to see and far enough to be useless. A Vistani guard sits on his haunches by a brazier, staring into the coals with the particular vacancy of a man on a watch he considers unnecessary. A second man snores beneath blankets a few yards away.

Outside, voices drift through the tent wall. “The tree monster,” one of them says, “has fallen. Unbelievable.” 

Another voice answers, “We should move the prisoner before Strahd looks for someone to blame. Soon after dark. He is still drugged. It will be easy.”

A third: “Any word on the girl and her father, the traitor?”

“They have escaped into the forest. Two of ours were found dead on the western slope. The tracks show that the dwarf helped them.”

A pause, then a growl: “He will pay dearly for that. I swear it.”

The voices move away. Within the tent, Komzin rolls to sitting. His arms are bound at the wrist, hands in his lap. His guard has moved to the tent’s entrance, speaking in a low voice to someone outside, his back turned to the knight.

Komzin spots a discarded blouse near him, and he seizes it in his fists. He scoots toward the brazier, clumsy with the drugs still in him, and dips a sleeve into the flame. The silk ignites fast — much faster than he’d expected. A burning strip drops onto the horsehair carpet, which begins to smolder immediately.

The guard is back in three strides, stamping it out, and then Komzin is on his back, the vicious kick still throbbing through his ribs. He lies there looking at the ceiling. The tent smells of char.

He closes his eyes. There is nothing to do but wait.

⚔

The safe house is quiet by the time the city’s distant sounds settle into something like stillness. Viktor and Arabella in the interior room. Torgan in another. Dag and Krelldutt dozing in chairs before the hearth. Bayleaf outside the front door. Violet Robin in the small office off the hall, a few feet away from the elf and alert in the way only rogues manage to be while apparently asleep.

The back door opens without a sound.

The Vistani swordmaster is good at his work. He moves into the room like a spider, avoiding small bit of light the glow of the fire provides. It is the creak of a floorboard that gives him away — one step too many, one board that had no give left in it.

Krelldutt is already turning. Dag beside him. And from outside, more of them, pressing through the door he’d left open behind him.

Steel finds steel in the dark.