08/12/2028: To Tser Falls

The road to Tser Falls has proven dangerous.

From out of the forest emerges a familiar face, its features twisted now with rage and hatred. Sheriff. He was taken by the hags in exchange for passage along the road, back when they carried Ireena toward Ravenloft.

Dag ducks, opened by one of Morgantha’s spells and bleeding freely. Sheriff’s blade arcs toward him, and again — whatever the hags have done to him in his time with them, they have granted him no gift for swordplay.

Across the clearing, Elvir closes on Morgantha, drawing blood before her claws answer him and find nothing they can touch. The hag wails in frustration, fading from view into the Ethereal Plane. Before she vanishes entirely, she shrieks to her sister, “Sister, let us go to Mother!” Offalia lashes a claw at Zzizix and disappears after her.

The hags leave their servant to face the group alone. Sheriff’s eyes are round, but his face is set with a terrible determination.

By now, Stefania is at her husband’s side, hands pressed to the worst of Dag’s wounds, something in her touch steadying him. Her free hand plucks a vial of amber fluid from her skirts, and she rips the cork free with her teeth. The glowing potion closes his deepest wounds, and he staggers to his feet, finding his blade.

Sheriff turns on Violet Robin and finds only air. Elvir strikes him again. Dag closes the distance in three long strides and ends it in two clean movements.

Whatever magic had been holding Sheriff together lets go the instant he falls. His body slumps and dissolves into something dark and formless, sinking into the frost-hard ground before their eyes. What he carried does not go with him — daggers, a set of bracers, parcels wrapped in leather and canvas, all left scattered where he dropped. They clean what they collect with handfuls of wet leaves from the muddy road.

No one speaks for a while.

⚔

The Tser Falls encampment appears out of the dark as a single great fire and a ring of wagons. The smell of horses and roasting meat reaches them before every eye in the camp finds them, and every conversation stills.

Berlioz, who leads the camp, comes to meet them himself. He recognizes Arabella at once — Victor’s daughter — and his grief for her father is plain and unhidden. He has already arranged for her: a woman resembling Victor, likely kin, will take her in. Arabella, who has known for some time now that her father is gone, says little, but she does not look away from Berlioz as he speaks.

At the camp’s edge, a Vistani woman named Raquel keeps close watch over a stranger — a tiefling, ashen-skinned, black veins tracing beneath his skin, his hair long and dark, his eyes an unsettling blue. He is new to Barovia, one who wandered into the encampment out of the dark. He remembers little of himself, and what he does know, he blames on Count Strahd. Madam Eva, who leads this branch of the Vistani, has commanded her extended family to show the newcomer every courtesy — there is a plan for him, she says, though she does not say what.

Raquel turns the words over as she sends him forward to meet the newcomers. He introduces himself, haltingly, as Yeager.

In exchange for safe passage — the group agreeing to guide Yeager through Barovia — Berlioz offers what hospitality the camp can spare. Venison, wine, a place by the fire among the dogs. As the food is passed around, Berlioz draws Raquel aside, his voice low, meant for her alone. But the night carries sound further than he intends, and the party catches enough of it: Vallaki is not long for standing. The Vistani may have a hand in what comes.

Berlioz asks, gently, what became of Victor at the end. Dag and Violet Robin admit they did not see it happen — only that Vistani blades were involved, and that the fighter responsible, one of the camp’s best, is already dead himself. It is enough. Berlioz asks nothing further, and whatever debt might have been owed goes unspoken, unclaimed.

Later, the camp rises together for Victor. Prayer gives way to dance around the fire, voices low and old, and some in the party join without needing to be asked. Arabella watches the flames for a long time before she moves toward the circle herself. The child does not cry. Tears will come, but not tonight.