Chapter 28

Striking West

As the four adventurers stood in the dark, their adrenaline subsiding and the flush draining from their faces, the cold night air quickly seeped beneath their clothes, and they made their way back to the inn. They resigned themselves to depart at dawn, and shared one last meal together in the Blue Water, warm but empty. At Fabian's insistence they pulled ten kings from their pack and slid them across the bar to Urwin as a way of thanks. Danika chimed in that it wasn't necessary but they accepted the coin all the same, promising to keep their eyes high above the city and roads, and try sending word if they were needed back to defend Vallaki's people. Then Danika tapped a cask of wine, her final barrel of Red Dragon Crush, and poured a toast to the groups success and safe return.

As Erros, Dyson, and Pieron drained their cups, and Danika poured another, Fabian pushed aside her chair and walked confidently to the stairs. She gripped the handrail, and pulled herself to the catwalk above. Ahead was Rictavio's room, and they had but hours before their departure. She paused briefly at the door, contemplating wether she should simply thrust it open, but resigning to a firm knock. On the other side she heard the thud of a body falling out of bed and a panicked "Just a minute!" There was a loud whack as Rictavio bumped into a table, some shuffling and the creaking of a wardrobe, the scattered sound of a pile of books toppling to the ground, then the half-elf was leaning in the open doorway, light from the common room revealing the carnage of the darkened room behind him. Fabian assumed by the commotion that she had woken the poor man up, yet he now stood fully dressed, hair kept, with an awkward smile upon his face. She apologized for the intrusion, and reiterated they would be leaving soon. He began to say how much he would miss having her around, but resolved to not regret the choices they had and hadn't made in their short time together, Fabian placed her hand on his chest, pushed into the room, closing the door, and kissed him. Their lips briefly touched, before Rictavio stumbled back pushing her gently away. She apologized and shrunk back explaining how she thought they had a spark of chemistry, some shared feelings. They both turned red, and Rictavio tried to reassure her that they did, that the past weeks spent together were some of the best of his life. He said how proud he was of her, to see her so strong and successful, and that he truly loved her. But they couldn't. There were things about him she didn't know, things he couldn't tell her. For Fabian, the rejection still stung, but they spoke a while longer, and Rictavio tried one last unsuccessful time to convince Fabian to stay. Now sufficiently drunk, Erros, whose keen eye misses little, followed Fabian's path up the stairs to listen outside the door, but hearing different sounds of intimacy than he had hoped, he quickly returned to the common room feeling a bit dirty. With a final goodbye, Fabian left Rictavio and rejoined her companions, grabbing a glass of her own, while Erros, perhaps burdened by his guilt, drunken decried the weird puppet-man, vowing that he wasn't good enough for her. She smiled, and together they drank a goodbye to Vallaki. It was not that much later that Fabian was the last to retire, and the only one still sober.

In the morning the group spoke little of the night before. They gathered their things, fastened their weapons and armor, and made for the western gate. As they retrieved Patches from the stable, the guards looked on with a mistrustful eye but kept their distance. Fabian spoke an ancient incantation and conjured forth a fit and regal steed, whom she promptly named Omar, and together they departed through the gate, which the guards were happy to open and even happier to lock behind them. They walked their horses south a ways to the hill of the Vistani camp, and passed through the ring of dark elf houses at the base of the hill to find the camp waking up and bustling itself with morning chores. Their arrival was well received by all, and a few faces that the group recognized wished them well on their travels, but it was Arrigal they came to speak to. With four travelers and only two magically conjured equines, they required a cart that could traverse the rough Barovian roads with an ease only the Vistani had mastered. Arrigal entertained the idea, offering to loan them a small covered pack wagon but asking for collateral to cover its loss should it not return. Erros gripped one of the patches on his cloak and ripped it from its meager stitching, producing in his hand from thin air a bag filled with gold. He tossed it to the Vistana leader and a wagon was quickly procured and fitted to their horses. As they left Arrigal made one last offer, were they to return with the two overdue casks of wine from the Wizard of Wines winery, he would gladly let them keep the wagon for good.

From the camp they travelled north, cutting through Vallakian farmland on their way to the Von Holtz estate, Fabian waving to the farmhands she'd worked alongside the past few weeks. The party found the manor undistributed, and entering, they spread out through the house to search every nook and cranny for clues on where Ireena and Vasilli had gone. They found no writings or secret chambers, and Pieron was unable to identify any magical spells or wards on the house, save for the unnatural desecration that still lingered. Erros did find that the larder strangely lacked any scrap of food, and Dyson discovered evidence that the three vampire guards were likely sleeping on the hard wood beneath their beds each night. Together they ruminated again on what secrets Vasilli could be hidding and what peculiar circumstance had befallen the two so quickly after the groups departure, again coming to no solid conclusions. Fabian folded Ireena's scarf neatly and placed it in her pack should they find her again, and they climbed aboard their wagon and rode back to the main road.

It was a brisk 50 degrees with a light breeze that rustled the pine needles above their heads once Vallaki disappeared behind them. Pieron was driving the wagon, and though she had next to no experience working with animals, the intelligent and loyal Omar easily lead Patches and the group true along the Old Svalich road. The massive wood about them was tranquil and still, disturbed only by the occasional red squirrel scampering up a trunk, and lone ravens soaring high over head. As the road veered southwest, and gently descended the Vallakian plateau, the trees thinned and the sound and smell of running water wafted on the air. They emerged from the trees to a mighty river, undoubtedly the Luna, that emptied the mighty Lake Zarovich south past the base of Mount Ghakis. A rocky bend blocked their vision north, but south they saw for miles, as the river stretched out beneath them into a wide treeless floodplain, snaking as it bent west out of sight. On the far side of the river, a road followed the bank a great while, assumingly leading to Old Berez, now sunken into that wretched marshland, and before them a mighty stone bridge spanned the Luna taking them further west. As they rode over the waters, Dyson glanced back the way they came, and spied a stone monolith, tall as a man, built on a rocky outcrop overlooking the bridge. A single eye was carved deeply into the structure and starred unblinking southward toward the distant mountains. He pointed it out to the group and they guessed it could have something to do with keeping vampires from crossing the river, and they pressed on to the crossroads they had spied from the eastern bank. Fabian hoped out of the wagon to lift a fallen signpost back into it's position, aligning it correctly with where they knew they had been. To the northeast lied Vallaki and Ravenloft, the southeast Berez, the northwest Lake Baratok, and to the southwest, Tsolenka Pass and Krezk. They continued along the travel worn road and were enveloped in the trees once more. A giant of a hill towered immediately to their west, shouldering the road south and around it like a riverwater around a stone, and for several hours they journeyed further south, gradually up, before evening back out, nestled between the rocky cliffs of a sharp rise and the southern slopes of the hill. Through a small gap in the trees the strange shape of a castle caught their eye, several miles off and a few hundred feet up the cliffs to their south. It looked as though an entire half of the keep had caved in, and Pieron recognized it as the castle visible from Vallaki on a clear day. Knowing little about the keep they pressed on for kresk, but kept a look out for a road up the rock.

Just as the road began bending back north, their horses abruptly stopped at the foot of an ancient stone bridge. A large ravine stretched out in front of them over the road, thirty feet wide and twelve feet deep, and the bridge built to cross it looked to be swallowed back up by the forest around them. The horses pawed nervously at the ground, and a nudge from Pieron was ignored. Erros dismounted and walked gingerly forward to investigate. Halfway across the bridge it felt sturdy enough, but just as he turned the movement of a large form at the base of the bridge caught his eye. He wiped about to see nothing, but carefully leaned over the side to peer into the darkness underneath the stone. A mass of yellow-white ropes of silk stretched out from below, and in the shadow he saw a gangle of limbs retract out of sight. He called back to the group to warn them of the ambush, and weapons drawn they walked out to meet him. As they neared the end of the bridge, two massive spiders emerged to block their path. Their slick fleshy bodies a pale pink and vibrant blue with inky blank fangs gnashing at the air, they stared down their prey through milky white eyes, as they had countless times before. But this group was ready, and with a shout Erros cast a terrifying spell, ensnaring their simple minds and driving them screeching into the woods. He charged after them sword raised high in a bellowed battle cry, as Dyson, Pieron, and Fabian ran back to the cart. Afraid that the bridge was unstable, they scrambled to release the horses and sent them one at a time across, and with all the strength she could muster, Fabian grabbed the cart and pulled it across the bridge, as Pieron did her best to help push. Its wheels creaked on the stone, as Erros yelled that they could break the enchantment and return at any moment. Dyson readied his maul and scanned the treeline for movement, as Pieron pushed and strained, and Fabian grunted as thick vines and cracks beneath the wheels halted all momentum. Their boots crunched the bodies of hundreds of blue and white spiders fleeing from the bridge, as the seconds stretched into infinity. And then they were across. Dyson rounded up the panicking horses as Fabian and Pieron worked quickly on the straps. Omar was hitched, so they moved to Patches, and Erros yelled that they'd returned. The spiders charged their wagon, one lunged at Pieron and Fabian threw it back with her shield. Erros rushed to Patches and helped Dyson finish the hitch, climbing onto the drivers seat just as the second was upon them. Fabian raised her hand and shouted a word of torpor over the beast assailing her, and with a crash it crumpled to their feet unconscious. As she helped Pieron into the wagon, Dyson grabbed the reins, and jerked them, sending the horses into a hobbled start, as the second spider slammed into the wagon and clawed at the wheels. Erros stood and cast his spell again, forcing the great creature back once more, as Pieron leaned forward and helped Dyson steer the horses. Together they galloped away. It took an hour for them to feel confident that they weren't being followed, and they counted themselves lucky after such a close encounter.

As the evening sun fell low and the towering mountains that rimmed Barovia cast growing shadows over the land, the group turned their attention to shelter from the cold and dangerous Barovian night. Just as they readied themselves to pull the wagon off the road into the trees, they spied a sign and a thin underused path leading up the great hill. The sign read "Greenteeth Enchantment's, Solicitors will be stewed." Still desiring to meet the woods witch they'd heard of in Vallaki, they drove up the steep hill for a winding mile until they reached a small grove and a strange makeshift hut. Propped up on stilt's in the thick trunked fir trees, strange glowing mushrooms hung from ropes, and jars of insects swayed from the branches they were tied to. Suddenly unsure if this was a wise idea so late in the evening they hesitated, but just then the door burst open and none other than Jeny stepped forth, a cheesy grin plastered on her obnoxiously welcoming face.