Chapter 34

New Forms

With the first and second floors of the winery adequately secured and the leader of the attack driven off, the four liberator's boarded up one of the bedrooms with furniture and settled in for a watchful evening of rest. Dyson and Pieron elected to remain awake first for outside the darkening rooms of the winery a soft rustling could still be heard of the blights shambling about the vineyard. While they positioned themselves next to the door, Fabian and Erros laid together to sleep, weary from the difficult day of combat and travel. The cloud-covered moon did little to illuminate the room once the last purple hues of twilight faded, and in the dark Fabian's eyes slowly closed and she drifted to sleep, just as Erros kicked her leg beneath their quilt. Fast asleep he dreamed of a wild chase on the edge of life and death as he sprinted wildly through the old-growth pine after an unseen quarry. He kicked again, but calmly Fabian reached out to quiet his slumber, only to rest her hand on an enormous fur covered haunch. She bolted from the bed to Pieron and Dyson's alarm, and the three squinted through the darkness to barely make out the large form of a creature in Erros's place, snarling now and thrashing about. Three times his size, it fell off the back of the bed to a resounding thud, threatening to snap the very floor boards beneath them, and silhouetted by the window rose to a threatening height, awake now for sure, with teeth barred and yellow eyes glaring in the thin blanket of moonlight. Fabian stood before her companions and slowly inched to the door, determined not to startle the creature they still considered friend and get to a safe distance, for his posture was of a wild animal without familiarity or concern. In a sudden and disorienting crash out of the darkness Erros in his wild visage careened through the window to the ground below, and rushing to the splintered frame they saw a form dash across the yard and into the blight infested vine rows. Refusing to leave their friend to his fate in the dark, they in turn grabbed the sill and lowered themselves to the yard, Dyson donned his latest invention for it's first field test and squinting through the googles crystal lenses was able to see enough in the night to guide the group after Erros. The destruction he caused to the lattice rows was evident enough, and the sounds of snarling and tearing and the cries of slain blight-folk created a bread crumb trail to follow windingly through the vineyard. They trailed their friend at a distance for nearly half a tense hour before he reached the eastern edge of the vineyard and vanished into the trees. At the shattered fencing that marked his departure, the three debated their next move in whispers through the chill air. They considered warning the Martikov's camped nearby, but a piercing howl already a near mile away to the south assured them they were out of Erros's path, and their concern turned instead to where Erros would find himself when he eventually awoke. Though none of them were skilled trackers, Fabian offered to use Dyson's cat's-eye goggles to follow Erros's trail through the night, while Dyson and Pieron return to the winery to defend against any counterattacks. Adrenaline coursing through them, their weariness momentarily at bay, they bid each other the best of luck and hurried quickly to their respective tasks.

Fabian stumbled half blind through the nearly impassable forest floor, determined not to lose Erros's trail. She ignored her tired body and followed what signs she could find in the vegetation of his passing, correcting her course at the frequent howls and moving as fast as she could. The path led her up hill at first towards the foothills of Mount Ghakis to the east, before he seemed to correct southward into the unknown wilds south of the winery. She passed the carcass of some animal, mutilated beyond recognition, and knew she'd kept her path true, but still she found it impossible to gain ground, the howls growing more distant with each hour she trudged along. She knew she was now several miles from the winery when Erros seemed to turn back west, then northwest. She passed a road and knew she'd crossed back west of where she'd started, but Erros howled to the north still. What drove him back north she couldn't be sure, but couldn't spare even the energy to ponder, focusing entirely on one foot step after the next lest she drift to sleep and stumble on the many precarious crags and rocky pock-marks that dotted the treacherous mountain-forest floor. She didn't know how many hours she'd been trailing but it became clear when she could remove the googles and navigate through the trees with the soft blue haze of the approaching sunrise. In that pre-dawn hour heard a final howl after a long time without, and emerged from the trees into the southern edge of the winery's valley. Ahead a lone werewolf walked slowly between the dead rows before collapsing, it's fur peeling back and molting into Erros, unconcious in the grass. Though she was ready to collapse herself, Fabian pulled forth a final surge of strength and ran out to her friend, arriving to find him sitting up, blood-filled vomit soaking into his trousers. Wordless she helped him to his feet, to which he muttered a feeble but sincere thanks, and together they trudged up the hill to the winery.

As they walked through the dead third of the vineyard the sight of ravens soaring high overhead caught their eye, and they saw beneath them a scarecrow mounted atop a post. It looked out over the grape rows and towards the winery, hidden from the road by the rise in the hill. Expecting, though hardly prepared for, a fight with blights still roaming the hills, the two keep up their guard but reached the winery unassailed, and called up to Pieron and Dyson to help them inside. Together again, they gathered their gear and propped Erros up on the cool stone floor of the central fermentation hall for him to recover his strength. They spoke in great length of the night before, and Erros explained that he could not recall anything that had happened since he went to sleep, only the vague impression of the dream he felt while his body acted entirely on it's own. They assumed a cure was possible, though through Pieron's research in Vallaki it seemed unknown to most. Erros felt that he was yet unfamiliar with all of the abilities and consequences of his new condition though to himself he quietly began to wonder if a cure was even something he wanted. They decided that their best course of action remained the Abbey of Saint Markovia, that if a cure resided in Barovia, the Abbot would at the least know of it, and seeing the Abbot meant delivering Krezk's wine. Fabian accessed her connection with Omar and asked the horse to come with their wagon to the winery entrance. Dyson and Pieron reported that since they'd returned the vineyard had been silent and unmoving, that it was most likely what blights Erros hadn't ripped to shreds had scattered into the wood. It was certainly clear their behavior changed somewhat lacking the presence of the leading forest-folk. While Omar was making the safe, rejoining journey, they decided it was time they investigate the wine cellar they're blockaded the night before. One of the staircases into the basement they'd found impassable by the sudden growth of a mighty tree root, this being peculiar enough to hold on clearing it out until better rested. Though Erros and Fabian were still want for that rest, they'd simply run out of time, and together they pulled aside the barricade to the glass blowing workshop that led to the wine cellar's second entrance. At the top of the stairs, Fabian spied a workbench in the corner of the glass shop with a strange set of alchemical tubes, flasks, and vials atop it. Curious, she walked to the station, which seemed to be used in the testing and chemical curation of the wine, and pulled out the three vials she'd found on the forest folk attacker. They were a perfect match, though the folk hadn't seemed interested in ransacking the place for valuables or supplies. They pondered why three, and only three, of the near dozen glass vials would be the only trinkets nabbed. This raised questions of what the forest-folk ultimately wanted with the winery, and the group speculated that it had something to do with how the wine was made, the magical nature in which the grapes can grow so abundantly could perhaps be at the expense of the forest or the people within it, and it all felt likely connected to the supposed Ladies Three, the ancient fanes of Barovia, and the vision they'd shared of the tree turned dark with blood-red sap.

They were left with more ponderings than conclusions and still the three vials nagged at Fabian's heart, but they shifted their attention back to the important task at hand and quietly Dyson led them down the stone cellar steps to a well-built wooden door. Erros did his best to sniff the air but sensed only more of the earthy plant-growth odor that dominated the entire winery, and Dyson reached for the handle to slowly pull aside the door. A gentle gust of warm arm billowed out as the rooms equalized, and thick columns of dust particles settled in the light of their torches. The room beyond was pitch black but the unmistakable smell of the forest emanated, almost suffocating, into the stairway. They slowly stepped inside and found their boots not on cold stone but on living root and vine. The walls were covered with snaking plant-growth, dense bundles of leaves and grasping tendrils from the ceiling, as if a thousand years of overgrowth had retaken the room. Though there was no light but the dancing flames atop their torches the plants looked lush and green, and blanketed wine racks along the center of the room. Fabian reached for a bottle and wrestled it from the plant's grip, causing thenearby column of woody growth to shudder. She recoiled as the human form of a blight unfolded from it's hiding place, but instead of attacking it swayed and contorted, almost as if awaking from a deep slumber. Leaping back the entire group pulled their weapons and whispered warning to each other as all about them the room began to rustle awake, teeming with blights hidden amongst the vines. In the far corner, another creature stirred, and a truly human arm raised with fingers outstretched. A woman, forest-folk by the look of her clothes, stood half consumed in the wood of a thick trunk, the plant matter oozing over her face and burrowing into her side. She opened one eye to look pleadingly across the room, the other gouged out by root and sprouting leaves, before noticing the intruders were not her kin and clenching her fist into the sigil of a spell. With the curt commands of a high functioning, battle-hardened company, the adventurers quickly formed rank and prepared themselves for one last fight over the fate of the Wizard of Wines.