08/04/2026: The Road to Berez

The road to Berez has turned out to be far more treacherous than anyone bargained for.

⚔

Mist clings low over the evergreens, and the stench arrives before the creatures do — a thick, rotting sweetness that coats the back of the throat. Two ghasts, gravecallers both, have cornered the party mid-track, their green-grey flesh peeling in strips, their claws black with old blood. In the middle of the chaos, a figure steps quietly from the tree line, unnoticed by all but the trees themselves.

He is barefoot despite the cold mud, wrapped in a plain cloak over a leather vest covering chainmail. What might be long, drooping ears hang past his shoulders. His skin, where it shows at wrist and throat, is a mottled reddish-orange, faintly damp, faintly amphibian — wide yellow eyes perched on stalks above a long, bill-like snout. A two-bladed scimitar and a greatsword cross his broad back; a dagger and crossbow ride at his hip. He watches, and he waits.

One of the ghasts rears back and rakes its claws across a dragonborn’s arm — the one the others call Biblo — but the strike costs the creature dearly. Biblo’s axe answers in the same breath, and the ghast shrieks, three of its four claws sheared off at the root, blood pouring black into the mud.

A hairy, impossibly tall goblinoid closes the distance faster than the stranger thought anything that large could move, blade already singing. Beside him, a small-boned tiefling — or perhaps something closer to a demon in truth — lifts one hand almost lazily and looses a bolt of Magic Missile. The ghast folds and does not rise again. At her hip, a grey wolf whines and shrinks back from the stench still rolling off the corpses.

⚔

The battle done, a shadow detaches itself from the treeline and drifts toward the stranger, hissing a single word into his long ear: “Hey!”

He startles, whipping his head around — and finds no one there.

“That’s Nike,” the tiefling says, stepping forward with a small, tired smile. “I’m Soulfire. Thank you for the help here.”

Introductions follow, wary and quick. A second dragonborn approaches, her coppery scales catching what little dawn light filters through the mist. “Are you interested in coming with us?” she asks. “Fair warning — some of us are a bit chaotic. Working our own angles.” She gestures with a clawed hand toward the towering goblinoid. “I’m Crystal. That’s Zilk. He’s a bugbear, in case the size didn’t give it away.”

From the shadows, an elf with two-toned hair steps forward, arms crossed, studying the newcomer with open suspicion. “Are you sure you want this?” she asks. “We’re in trouble with the Vampire Lord.”

The stranger — Jar Jar — does not flinch at the name. He knows of Count Strahd well enough. Ninety years and more since Kresk made him what he is — not born, made — and the name still carries weight even out here in the mud and the cold.

There’s a flicker of recognition around the group when the Abbot’s name comes up in turn. Jar Jar’s maker. A few nods. No one asks him to explain further, and he doesn’t offer to.

⚔

The road narrows as they press on, mud sucking hungrily at every boot and foot. Something catches Nike’s eye — a small leather pouch hanging from a low branch, swaying slightly though there’s no wind to move it. She snatches it down and hears a metallic clicking from within. Loosening the drawstring, she finds a sling coiled around a handful of steel bullets.

Zilk leans in, nose wrinkling slightly as he inspects it. “That’s got magic on it. Should go to Shifty — slings are a kobold’s weapon of choice.”

Nike hesitates, already half-turning to hand it over, then closes her fingers around it instead. “I’m selling it,” she says flatly. “It’s worth gold.”

No one argues. Not yet, anyway.

Berez waits ahead — or what’s left of it. Jar Jar knows the story, or as much of it as anyone does: a village erased from the map by Strahd’s own hand, wiped clean for reasons no one living can say for certain, its ruins swallowed by a vast, hungry swamp.

They follow the River Luna south, and the ground turns to bog beneath them. The mist thickens until it swallows everything past arm’s reach, cold and wet against the skin, muffling sound until even breathing feels loud. They creep forward blind.

Crystal breaks the silence first, hurling a Fire Bolt into the white nothing ahead. For one bright instant, the mist glows — and something answers the light. A tall, slender silhouette, crowned with wide, curving horns.

“Do hags have horns?” Nike’s voice is tight, nervous.

“Not night hags,” Crystal murmurs, eyes still fixed on where the shape had stood.

Soulfire sends a scatter of Dancing Lights drifting toward the spot, pale pink and green orbs bobbing through the fog. They settle on the truth of it: not a hag at all, but a tall pole, crowned with what looks unmistakably like a minotaur’s skull. Something dangles from its jaw on a leather strip — a pendant, large and strange.

As they draw closer, the pendant resolves into something far worse than jewelry: an eye. A single, enormous eye, darting back and forth to track Soulfire’s lights, and then — slowly, deliberately — swiveling to fix on each of them in turn.

“Some kind of guardian,” Nike guesses, taking a step back.

“I think you might be right,” Soulfire says quietly. Her Detect Magic is still singing in the back of her skull — a deep well of abjuration magic radiating from the thing. Old. Protective. Watching. And evil.

Crystal doesn’t wait to discuss it. Another Fire Bolt streaks out, and the leather thong holding the eye catches and burns to ash in an instant. The eye drops, landing face-down in the mud with a wet, unpleasant sound. Jar Jar draws one of his blades and flips it over with a bare toe, driving the point down toward it — and misses, the blade skidding off into the muck.

Nike crouches and plucks it up before anyone can stop her. It’s cold in her palm, heavier than it looks. Mud sloughs off as it blinks — actually blinks — and spins to face her, pupil widening.

“It’s looking at me!” She hurls it away from herself like it burned her.

Crystal’s third Fire Bolt finishes the job. The eye splits with a dry crack and goes still, turned to inert stone. Whoever — or whatever — was watching through it now knows exactly where they stand, even if it can no longer see them do it.

Nobody seems entirely sure whether that’s better or worse.