Chapter 15
Meeting the Mad Mage
Brom departed to return dutifully to his mother, leaving the party in the street before Bluto's humble cottage to discuss their next move. Erros was the first to act, walking up to the dusty window, past the weed-choked garden and chipping paint, and peering inside. Within he saw a disheveled living quarters, but no Bluto and no Arabelle. After conferring with the group and checking behind her shoulder, Eliza opened up her lockpicking kit and made short work of the back door. Once within, the group searched for any sign of Arabelle, under beds and within chests, even prying up the floorboards. They found only fishing gear and signs of a widower in grief: women's clothes folded neatly below mounds of disheveled rags. After a brief consideration of waiting for Bluto to return and a discussion of the best hiding places, the group decided it might be best to search the lake front first, where they'd heard Bluto was known to fish.
Once on the shore of Lake Baratok they found a boathouse, 8 tied up boats, and 9 tie-off pegs. Taking this as a good sign, they set out on the cold water of the immense lake, Fabian and Dyson rowing two commandeered watercraft to accommodate them all. It was a tiring 2 hour row across the lake, but Erros's keen eye spied a boat on the far side, drawn ashore near a feeder creek. In lieu of tracks the group hiked inland along the creek's banks, and a short distance in they happened to find Bluto. He was drunk and asleep, a burlap sack wiggling at his side. Fabian rushed to open the sack only to be socked in the face by a startled Arabelle, as Athrin and Erros worked quickly to restrain Bluto with their animated rope. Arabelle made to run, demanding that the group prove it when they reassured her they'd come at her family's behest. Unable to produce Arrigal's name from their memories, she ran, but was quickly halted by Fabian's sleep spell and Erros' spirited tackle. At the group's inquisition, Bluto blubbered about a mage of the woods who'd asked him for help finding an assistant. The Mad Mage of Mount Baratok. Except he didn't actually ask Bluto, he never seemed to notice him. And he didn't actually ask for assistance, Bluto only heard the words "need" and "help" and not in succession. And he didn't actually see the mage, just his pointy hat. And before that he saw the mage in the form of an ordinary deer. The group had a good bit to decide.
Fabian insisted on returning Arabelle to the Vistani at once. Now awake they had managed to convince her of their good intentions, and Eliza accompanied them back across the lake. Erros, Athrin, Dyson, and Pieron decided to remain and wait for this wizard to show up as Bluto said he would. They decided to leave Bluto tied up and hide in the trees, afraid for their own safety from both the perhaps real mage and the certainly real Barovian night that had begun descending on the Baratok slopes. It surprisingly took Bluto an hour to start screaming for help, which he managed to keep up for nearly 30 minutes, before Erros and Athrin expressed concerns for the manner of creature that the noise would likely attract. The two emerged from hiding to silence the drunk with wine and a sackcloth hood: luckily for Bluto, in that order. Athrin informed him this was a test from the wizard himself and Bluto tried to comply. It was back in their hiding places that Erros and Athrin spied a peculiar owl perched over Bluto and watching them through the brush. Erros tried to cast a psychic spell upon the creature, which quite alarmingly had no affect. Plan B was hucking a stone. The owl went down, beamed into the shrubs, with a thud that would imply the weight of a full grown human. Athrin, Erros, and Dyson, rushing to investigate, found the Mad Mage himself dusting his robes off, muttering beneath his breath.
He was murmuring quite incoherently and offered little in the way of friendship, but turned hostile at the sight of Erros's robe and Athrin's rope. The Mage accused them of being spies for Strahd, even saying Strahd himself was there on the slope with them. As he readied a spell for attack, the group quickly laid down their weapons. The Mage accepted their surrender, taunting them to slink back to their master with the warning of the Mage's power and sound mental state. As the Mage sauntered off, Erros and the rest snuck behind him unnoticed, and saw him disappear into a magnificent palace that vanished as it's door closed. Athrin made note of the doors location with a hastily drawn map and the group set off back to the boats, Bluto in tow.
By this time Eliza and Fabian made it back to the Vistani camp to be greeted with a celebrating congregation of Arabelle's family and friends. Arrigal thanked them for what they'd done, not believing they would be so successful in so short a time. He admitted to them that the elixers they use to traverse the mists, which they sell to travelers at hefty prices, simply don't work, and it is by Strahd's permission that the Vistani move freely through his lands. But in lieu of the reward that was promised Arrigal offered to fetch any supplies the party might need from the outside on their next trip to Daggerford. He invited the two to share in their celebrations and Eliza and Fabian accepted. What followed was 2 hours of drinks, stories, songs, and toasts, and the two gained a great reputation amongst the Vallakian Vistani, Luvash and Arrigal included. The rest of the party at this point touched down on the south shore of the lake. But as Fabian and Eliza took their leave to rejoin their friends, a strange figure intercepted them on the outskirts of the camp. A dusk elf like Rhahadin, but older and lacking any ears, he introduced himself as Kasimir. Kasimir needed help escorting him safely to the high southern slopes of Mount Ghakis, where there resided a ruin with an item he desperately needed. He promised that the pay would be immense and that he would be ready to leave at any point, only cautioning that they leave before winter or wait until spring. Eliza and Fabian were open to the proposition but told Kasimir they would need to convene with the rest of their party first. And at that the two made their way back to town.
