12/02/2025: The Road to the Amber Temple

The party stirs as dawn breaks over the shattered bones of the minotaur skeleton. Fifteen days—that’s all the time they have to reach the Amber Temple, retrieve the resurrection ritual for Nicolas Wachter, and return to begin their war against Strahd. The urgency burns as they pack their gear and resume their journey south.

By midmorning, the sky opens up. Rain hammers down in sheets, soaking through cloaks and turning the road to churning mud. Water streams from hat brims and drips from noses as the wagon lurches through puddles that seem bottomless. The cold seeps into bones, making fingers stiff and joints ache. When they turn toward the Tsolenka Pass, Mount Ghakis looms ahead—its peak completely swallowed by roiling mists.

Crystal peers ahead through rain to scout. Everything appears waterlogged and miserable. Then, through the mist, an enormous figure emerges.

A knight approaches on what might be called a horse—though the creature is so gaunt its ribs stand out. The rider himself towers. He is impossibly tall: his armored boots nearly dragging through the mud with each labored step of his mount. Massive leather saddlebags, bulging, slap wetly against the poor beast’s bony flanks. The knight raises one gauntleted hand, palm forward. The universal gesture is unmistakable: stop.

He dismounts with the creak of armor and wet leather, swaggering toward them with the confidence of a man who knows he holds all the power. Rain streams off his dark plate armor as he plants himself before their wagon.

“I am Sevegny Chernobog,” his voice rings out hollowly, somehow cutting through the rain. “Tax collector for the great and terrible Count Strahd von Zarovich, Lord of all Barovia. By his authority, I demand ten percent of your wealth. Now.”

The party exchanges glances. Ratrick’s whiskers twitch nervously. Nike’s hand drifts toward her weapon.

“And if we refuse?” Crystal asks carefully.

Chernobog’s helmet tilts slightly, and though they cannot see his face clearly through the visor, his tone carries a smile. “Resist at your peril. If you do not wish to part with your gold, I will accept your wagon, your boy—” he gestures at Shifty, “—and your cat.” His gauntlet points at Shifty’s pets, sheltering on his lap.

Zilk steps forward, ever the diplomat. “Perhaps we could discuss the specifics of this tax? What exactly does it cover? Are there exemptions for—”

“Do I have to pay?” Shifty interrupts, his young voice hopeful. “I mean, I’m basically still a child, right?”

“Everyone pays,” Chernobog says flatly.

Biblo’s hand is definitely on his weapon now. “We could just fight him,” he suggests quietly.

“We could run,” Nike counters, eyeing the miserable horse. “He’s only be able to catch one of us, right?”

After several minutes of heated whispered debate—Zilk advocating for negotiation, Biblo for combat, Nike and Ratrick for fleeing—they arrive at a consensus. They’ll lie about their actual wealth. How would a random tax collector know what they carry?

Ratrick clears his throat. “We don’t have much, actually. Perhaps fifty gold between all of us? Times have been hard—”

Chernobog reaches into one of those massive saddlebags and pulls out an enormous leather-bound ledger. The pages make a wet slapping sound as he flips through them, running an armored finger down columns of names and numbers. Rain spatters the ink but doesn’t smudge it—whatever this book is made of, it’s no ordinary paper.

“Ah, yes. Here you are.” His finger stops. “You have emptied the treasury of Argynvostholt. Twenty thousand gold pieces to each.” He looks up from the ledger, and they can feel his gaze through the helmet. “That will be two thousand gold pieces. Per person.”

The silence that follows is broken only by the drumming rain.

“How—” Crystal begins.

“That’s—” Ratrick sputters.

“WHAT?!” Biblo shouts.

Chernobog taps the ledger with one gauntleted finger. The sound is like a hammer on an anvil. “Lord Strahd knows everything that happens in his domain. Every coin that changes hands. Every treasure claimed. Every lie told.” He pauses meaningfully. “Did you truly think you could deceive him?”

Zilk’s shoulders slump in defeat. With a heavy sigh, they begin counting out gold pieces. “Fine. Fine! Here’s your darn tax.” He draws out the coins to pay the tax collector on behalf of the group.

The knight carefully records each payment in his ledger, his quill scratching names and amounts with meticulous precision. As he counts the group’s gold into a canvas bag, he glances up at the ratling. “Lord Strahd is a student of magic—a scholar of the arcane arts. What might you have in your stock that would interest such a collector?”

Ratrick’s ears perk up. His tail, which had been drooping miserably in the rain, suddenly twitches with entrepreneurial excitement. He frantically digs through his pack, tossing aside rope, rations, and various oddities until—“Aha! This!”

He holds up what appears to be a tiny stub of wood between his fingers. “A magical item of extraordinary rarity! Behold—the world’s smallest violin!” Ratrick proclaims with a showman’s flourish. “So small you can barely see it, and it even comes with its own miniature bow! Perfect for a refined collector such as Count Strahd!”

He gently, almost reverently, places the minuscule items onto Chernobog’s vast, rain-slicked gauntlet.

The knight squints down at his palm, moving his hand closer to his visor, then farther away, then closer again. His helmet tilts at various angles as if trying to catch the light. After a long moment, he reaches into a pouch and produces a platinum piece, which he hands to , who carefully wraps the objects for transport. The “violin” disappears into Chernobog’s saddlebag with surprising care.

“Uh, friend,” Ratrick says carefully, his merchant’s instinct sensing opportunity. “I might have something that could assist with your vision…”

“There is NOTHING wrong with my eyes!” Chernobog snaps, his voice sharp as a blade.

Undeterred—and perhaps unwise—Ratrick produces what looks like two magnifying glasses clumsily lashed together with bits of wire. “Of course not, of course not! But these are merely to… enhance your already excellent sight! For examining the finer details of Lord Strahd’s collections!”

Before Chernobog can protest further, Ratrick ties the contraption around the knight’s helmet with a leather thong, adjusting it so the lenses sit before his visor.

The effect is immediate and horrifying. Through the magnifying glasses, Chernobog’s eyes are grotesquely enlarged—and they aren’t eyes at all. They’re small flames, guttering in deep, empty sockets. The fire flickers and dances where pupils should be, casting a hellish light.

The party, except Ratrick, collectively takes a step back.

“Yours, friend,” Ratrick says smoothly, his voice only slightly strained, “for the very reasonable price of nineteen gold pieces.”

Chernobog tilts his head, apparently examining the world through his new lenses. After a moment, he reaches into his pouch again and produces two more platinum pieces. “Keep the change,” he rumbles, tucking the “spectacles” more securely around his helmet.

With his business concluded, the knight mounts his miserable horse and rides back into the rain, becoming a dark silhouette that gradually fades into the gray downpour.

⚔

Hours later, as the rain finally begins to ease, their wagon rolls beneath an ancient oak tree. Its thick branches spread wide, offering the first real shelter they’ve seen all day. But from those branches hang three iron gibbets—cages meant for prisoners. Two contain skeletal remains that rattle gently in the wind. The third holds a living man, a thin and miserable looking orc.

“Please!” The voice is weak, barely more than a rasp. “Kind travelers! I’ve had nothing for weeks—no food, only rain water. Please, if you have anything to spare…”

The man blinks, focusing on the party. His face goes slack with recognition. “Nike?”

Nike stares up at the cage, incredulous. “Fred? FRED?! What are you doing up there?”

“I got caught,” Fred finally admits miserably, gripping the bars of his cage.

“Taking things? Without asking?” Nike demands.

“Well,” stammers the embarrassed Fred, “it was more like borrowing…”

Biblo emits a barking laugh. “If you weren’t planning on giving it back and you took it without permission, that’s stealing…”

Ignoring the dragonborn, Fred continues, “They left me here as a warning. I thought I was going to die. Then you fine people…kind people…came by…Help a pal out, Nike? I’d owe you.”

Crystal and Nike exchange glances, then move to the chain. Working together, their combined strength manages to lower the cage with a rusty screech of metal on metal. The gibbet finally strikes the ground harder than expected and they wrench open the door.

Fred practically falls out, his legs too weak to support him. Crystal catches him, then presses two gold pieces into his trembling hand. “Get yourself somewhere safe. Get some food. No more stealing.”

“Thank you,” Fred breathes, tears mixing with the rain on his face. “Thank you, I—”

His hand moves with the unconscious habit of a lifelong pickpocket, even weak as he is. His fingers dip into Crystal’s pocket and emerge with a wand. The movement is so automatic that Fred doesn’t seem to realize he’s done it until the wand slips from his fumbling grasp and plops into the mud.

An awkward silence follows.

“Right,” Fred mumbles, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’ll just… go then.” He limps away down the road.

⚔

Further south, Zilk spots something half-buried beneath dead leaves near the roadside. An old barrel, its wood swollen with age and moisture. The emblem of the Wizards of Wine winery is burned onto the side. Within, protected from the elements, sits a wooden box, a small bottle and what appears to be a scroll case.

The box contains four intact healing potions—their amber liquid still clear and potent—a sealed jar of goodberries that glow with faint green light, and a scroll case. Inside the case is a letter, the ink faded but still legible. It’s signed by Davian Martikov and dated nearly twenty years ago.

”Martikov is the name of the family that own the Blue Water Inn in Barovia,” Zilk notes. The party exchange looks. 

He reads the scroll aloud: “…regarding the three girls found in the forest. All red-headed, all approximately the same age. The first we’ve identified is called Olenka, from Kresk. The second Ulara, from the forests tribe to the north. The third is called Ireena. She has been orphaned but has been adopted by the Burgomaster of the Village of Barovia…”

“A bit late to be useful,” Ratrick mutters, though something about the discovery unsettles them all. Three red-haired girls, all found in Barovia at the same time? The implications churn in their minds as they continue onward.

The road leads them to a small shrine, little more than a carved stone alcove. Inside, resting on the offering plate, is a single black feather. When Crystal picks it up, a frisson of magical energy tingles against her fingertips. She turn it over, examining it in the fading light, but none of them can identify what kind of magic it holds. Crystal tucks it carefully into her pack.

⚔

By evening, they’ve reached the foot of the true mountain climb. The temperature has plummeted. Rain has turned to sleet, and then to snow. Fat white flakes drift down through the darkening air, already beginning to accumulate on the ground and on their shoulders.

Crystal builds a fire, coaxing it to life with dry tinder from her pack and building it up with magic. The flames throw warmth and dancing light, but despite huddling close, Ratrick begins to shiver. His teeth chatter audibly. His fur, still damp from the earlier rain, offers no warmth against this cold despite the cold weather cloak of wolf pelt provided by Zilk. The shivering grows worse, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. Ilya moves closer, but is unable to help Ratrick.

Through the falling snow, a figure approaches from the mountain path above. An old woman, bundled in layers of wool and fur, emerges from the swirling darkness. Her face is weathered like old leather, creased with a thousand wrinkles. She speaks in broken Common, her accent thick and unfamiliar. Through gestures and halting words, she makes her request clear: she wishes to share their fire.

Nike nods welcome, and the old woman settles herself near the flames with a grateful sigh. From somewhere in her layers of clothing, she produces strips of dried venison—dark, tough, but flavorful. She passes them around, nodding in satisfaction as they eat.

Then her eyes fix on Ratrick, still shivering violently despite the fire. She reaches into her clothes again and pulls out a thin gold ring. She extends it toward him, making a gesture: put it on.

Ratrick hesitates, his wet paw hovering over the ring. Everyone in Barovia knows better than to accept gifts without caution. But the cold is seeping into his bones, making thought difficult. Finally, with trembling fingers, he slips the ring onto one digit.

Warmth pours into his frozen paw. It flows up his arm, spreading through his chest, his other limbs, all the way to the tip of his tail. Within moments, not only is he warm, but his fur and clothes are completely dry. The relief is so sudden and complete that he gasps.

The old woman nods approvingly. Then Nike speaks in Elvish—a thank you, perhaps, or a greeting. The woman’s eyebrows rise.

“Ah,” she says, also switching to Elvish, though her accent remains thick. “Not many in Barovia have tolerance for elves. They remember too much, see too clearly. Your life here in this land must be very hard, child.”

Her words hang in the cold air as the snow continues to fall, piling silently around their small circle of warmth and firelight.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​