From Across the Multiverse to Barovia: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (IC)

[Lateral]

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Anann is shocked for a second, but then begins to chuckle softly. Dispensing with the theatrics (but not the darkness, just in case), she replies: "Och, I suppose that works. Sorry about that, I've been with soldiers for months."

"And just Anann would be fine. The titles're only good for impressing the posh or superstitious ones, anyway."

[Jeff the Green]

"Here is where I must leave you then," Urik says to Aswin. "I'm heading south, to Barovia village, and in any case the Vistani are camped up north. I... won't be welcome there."

Annan

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Annan's reply receives another guffaw. "Well then, just Annan," the man says, "get rid of that shadow thing around you and we'll go. We won't be bringing you to Madam Eva until we see that you're actually Annan the shadow girl and not Annan the ghoul or Annan the elf."

[al'Lan Mandrag]

"Wait, Loner!" Arya shouts out as Urik turns; "Explain to us: why would the Vistani not welcome you? Tell us what you know!"

[Lateral]

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Anann sighs. "Very well." She dissipates the darkness and gives a small flourish. "There, see? Human. Mostly."

Meanwhile, noting the fact that some animals are wielding weapons, she silently reaches out to them. <I must know. What are you? Be you men in the shape of beasts, or beasts that wield the tools of men?>

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The setting she's from has elves. Britannic elves, granted, but still elves.

Also, Greater Telepathy. I can communicate with them even if they have animal intelligence.

[Jeff the Green]

"I'm sure Ireena could tell you the same, but the Vistani are thieve and smugglers, almost to a man. Many are also murderers and some pledge allegiance to less savory things than mere criminals. I slew one while he was robbing graves, and the Vistani do not forget things like that. His brothers, cousins, and for all I know even more distant relatives, want my blood. Whatever your plans in the north, I would urge you to not offer any of them insult or injury, or you may find yourself running from Vistani daggers the rest of your life.

"Be well, friends, and may the Light hasten your steps!"

Annan

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Two of the men, both carrying polearms, swords, and, judging from the way their clothes hang, several hidden blades apiece, step forward and lead Annan away from the fire to the large tent. "Madam Eva," one of them calls, "an intruder. Says she wishes to speak with our commander."

The Madam is a large woman. Not in the sense that she's fat, though she probably does enjoy food more than is strictly healthy, but in the sense that she's easily twelve feet tall. She hunches over a table that would seat two normal people for dinner comfortably, but which is dwarfed by her bulk. She is wrinkled and covered in liver spots, and her skin covers her knobby hands like rice paper.

She stares at the cards on the table, ones you aren't familiar with. A wizened man with a lantern and a staff. A warrior in a chariot pulled by lions. A woman whose eyes are bound, carrying a sword and balance. She draws another and places it on the table: a skeleton in armor carrying a bow and an hourglass. "You," she says, never looking up from her cards, "are not from Barovia." Her voice crackles like dry weeds and carries with it the faintest sense of a power beyond what her frail, if giant, frame would suggest.

[Lateral]

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Mireann projects her thoughts towards Madam Eva alone. <I've never heard of this "Barovia," no. Last evening, I was in Leinster.>

[Sallera]

August nods cheerfully, raising a hand to see the warrior off. "And the darkness hide yours. We bring no trouble to the Vistani, so we need not fear their vengeance." A confident assessment, given the personalities of some of his brave companions, but no doubt they had the sense to treat fairly with those they sought aid from. This was but the next step in their grand quest; he knew not yet where it would lead them, but that Madam Eva would give them answers and questions alike was clear.

[Mahrke]

Isaac has no farewell to bid to the travel, still scrawling notes and formulae in the book they'd picked up. Sheafs of parchments are blackened with ink from his writings, which have taken tangent after tangent, diverging greatly from the original intent of his studies. Isaac Pellivander was a scholar, through and through, and it shows even in this lightless, grim world.

The expression on his face is a rare one, for even as their new companion takes his leave, he smiles at another tiny step of progress; he was determined not to be as helpless as he appeared in this strange land, and the formulae he'd created might help him do just that.

[Jeff the Green]

Urik nods and turns away, making a steady march to the south with Huginn flitting ahead with a croak.

The day is gray, as seems usual for Barovia, but the mist is less pronounced. When you reach the crossroads, nothing seems quite so gloomy and no shades appear. It seems as though the clearer skies has banished them.

Some hour or so after taking the eastern fork in the road, while T'riss stalks a wild goat she spotted on a rocky outcropping, Ashlyn frowns as though considering something that bothers her. After several minutes, she breaks her silence. "Master August," she asks, "what didst thou mean by invoking a blessing from shadows upon Sir Urik? To my church, and to the people of Barovia, meseems, shadow is an enemy that cloaketh danger and giveth succor to evil."

Annan

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"Please speak with your lips, girl," the giantess replies. "Too many things that would speak directly to the mind are dark things, and I would like to know that you are as human as you seem. Do you have a name, or do I merely call you by your card?" She still does not look up from her cards. A knight bearing a sword, covering the hermit. A queen with a star, covering the charioteer. Seven shillelagh, covering justice.

[Sallera]

August smiles, spreading his arms and bowing his head with eyes half-closed. "I spoke of the dark, not the shadow. Shall I tell you a little of the balance? It is different here, but where I come from, there is only the light and the dark. The shadow is but an illusion, a place where both light and dark exist. The true line between the two can be percieved only by its surroundings; it does not exist. It is the space between spaces, the gap between moments, and it can only ever be approached, not reached - but within it, anything is possible. Those such as myself who seek the balance cannot find it by light alone; we must feel the blessings of darkness as well."

"Here... yes, there is shadow." August's voice grows deeper and somehow fearful, the oratory of a doomspeaker. "How it exists, I know not, and only this raven shields me from its paradox." He brushes the rotting token with one hand, seemingly not noticing as two tail feathers fall off, and a small globe of something resembling nothing so much as ordinary ink appears between the fingers of his other hand. He holds it out to Ashlyn with an unusually understated gesture, and his words become softer, more ordinary. "This is the shadow, for example; you may use it to write with." With another gesture, his other hand's shadow plucks the globe of ink from his fingers, lifting it into the air. "This is the shadow; it will hold your pen." A third gesture causes his now-empty hand to glow softly. "This is the shadow; it will light the page as you scribe your tale."

Looking at his summoned implements thoughtfully, he eventually brushes them aside, only the globe of ink remaining as it stains a nearby rock. "If one considers it in depth... I think to speak of the shadow is as meaningless here as it is where I am from. Instead of not existing because it is impossible, it does not really exist because it is too many things at once. Perhaps... anything at all."

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Oh, I've missed writing August. We're getting close to a level up, so I figure he should get close to the revelation he needs to learn Shadow Evocation.

Liquid Night, Umbral Hand, and Black Candle, one use each.

[TheFallenOne]

"I must confess I couldn't follow all of that, but I agree that shadow is not inherently evil", Aswin chimed in. "Think of the raven. An animal black as night, feasting on the flesh of the battledead. And yet a powerful symbol known in this place for protection, and hope." He lightly touched the bone raven keeping the corruption of this place away from him. "I don't think it is a paradox. One thing can have different natures, so perhaps shadow is both light and dark and yet neither. Danovich was a good man, but grief and madness turned him towards evil. Things and people can change from one extreme to the other, gradually or suddenly, but it doesn't invalidate what they once were. That's why we could in good conscience mourn the man Danovich was but still slay the man he had become. It is no contradiction, it is the flow of things, and if the direction they take is the wrong one we have to step in and push back with all our might."

[Lateral]

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Mireann seems uncomfortable. Although she knows little about tarot, it takes little to understand the armored skeleton. "Anann, I think, will do. Now, if it's not too much trouble, I'd like to know where my country's gone. Och, there's a war on!"

[Jeff the Green]

Ashlyn nods thoughtfully, but Komori looks at August skeptically. "Where I am from the dark is invariably evil as well," she insists, "even though it may not seem so at the beginning. Using its powers subtly and slowly but inescapably warps the mind and body, until nothing is left but a shell, like the mad priest you fought."

Annan

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Madam Eva looks at you and chuckles. You see her eyes for the first time, an almost impossibly dark blue with flecks of gold. "I've never heard of Leinster before, but I'm fairly sure it hasn't gone anywhere. Land tends not to. Instead, the more interesting question would be 'where are you now, and why?' I think you may find that more important than any war."

[Sallera]

"Ah, then that is what makes a witch, is it not? But I do not practice witchcraft; nay, no more than I am a knight such as Aswin or Ashlyn. The void is neither light nor dark, but one must understand light and dark to approach it. Did you not say the phoenixes of your land understood this?" August shrugs expansively.

"The shadow of this realm, on the other hand, I still do not understand. It may be something that is nothing on its own, existing only when given form by another. It may be as Aswin suggests, as changeable as the moon, but remembering its past shapes to return to them again. But to corrupt, to curse and devour? Nay, that is witchcraft's province, and I do not think the shadow here can be so very different from what I seek, in the end. Not when I find it in the same place the void ought to be."

[Lateral]

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Anann's voice becomes cold. "I care less for myself than for the fate of my people. The soul twice dead needs not her breath, as but once visits the raven."

"...Though it couldn't hurt to know where I am, I suppose."

[Jeff the Green]

Komori stares at August. "The phoenix clan knows of the void, yes, but they are masters of secrets and do not share it. The only others who dare touch it are servants of the Lying Darkness. You are not a phoenix."

"Thou art unkind, Kuni Komori!" accuses Ashlyn. "Master August hath been nothing but kind, generous and soothfast. His use of sorcery and shadow confuseth me, with none more schooled in magic or mystery than I to guide me, but I accept his explanation, as shouldst thou."

Komori turns her glare on Ashlyn, but then a cloud seems to lift from her features and she looks back at August with a far more open and apologetic face. "I apologize, August. Maybe the shades did some lasting damage to me."

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Madam Eva shrugs her enormous shoulders. "If your people can win their war without you," she says, "then why worry about them? If they are not, you must return home, which in turn requires answering the question. So I repeat. 'Where are you now, and why?'"

"The first part is easy. You are in the camp of the Vistani, near Tser pool at the base of Tser falls, in the domain of Barovia, of the Demiplane of Dread. The second one, I do not know. The cards have yet to tell me, and they may never. You may have to find out on your own."

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"Vistani" sounds a bit Latin to you.

[Lateral]

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"'Demiplane of Dread?' Ooh, ominous. And yet, you say you are 'Vistani,' in the land of 'Barovia'... hmm..."

"...Tell me, please, from where do your people hail? Such names... well, they sounds almost Latin. It would be a tragedy if the long arm of the Roman Empire extended here as well."

[Mahrke]

"Enough..." vocalizes the professor, tone exhausted. "Enough. Since the moment of our arrival, we have all proposed to -know-. To know that it was faerie magic that brought us to this place." He looks at August. "To -know- that this is the afterlife." Those deep brown eyes turn to Aswin. "To know that shadow is synonymous with evil, or that a broken mind is beyind repair." His gaze flits from Kuni to Arya. "Even I am guilty of -knowing- that tales of spirits and zombies would find root in the mundane, instead of magical." He gives a shuddering, hacking cough into his sleeve, swaying for a moment, before continuing. "Our knowledge is contradictory, and oft far from the truth. So I caution all of you, from this point forth, embrace the spirit of the empiricist. Doubt what you -know-, and treat it as a hypothesis to be tested. We would do well to not bigot ourselves against possible allies, or miss important clues, simply because of what we 'know'."

Long-winded reproach leaves out, conspicuously, Triss. An indication of veiled respect and admiration of her ways...of an open-mind scarce seen?

[Jeff the Green]

Annan

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"The Vistani hail from Barovia; we are the original people," Madam Eva says dismissively. "As for your Roman Empire or Latin, I have never heard of them, unless of course you mean Latian, the ecclesiastic language of Sol Invictus."

[Lateral]

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"Mmm. This place, I think, will take some getting used to. And yet... Danu permitting, I may yet save my people, but only if I survive to make my way home. Tell me, please, of the dangers of this land you call 'Barovia.' This church of 'Sol Invictus,' who speak 'Latian'... these names sound so Roman, and yet just different, as if in imitation or in mockery."

[Fireheart]

T'riss looks up from dressing the deer. She offers a smile at the older man, noticing he left her out of his tirade.

"The Professor is likely correct. We do not know the truth in this land. Some magic brought us here together. For a purpose that we have yet to fathom. I cannot believe that this is Arvandor, where the Dark Lady's servant go when fallen."

She shakes some of the blood from her knife. "I do not know about your lands or worlds...but in my realm, Light and Shadow are not neccesarily enemies. Evil may work within the Shadows but so may the Good. Many in my realm would look up on me in the sunlight and see me as Evil, and many have. There are few who look beyond the darkness of my skin to see my true heart."

[TheFallenOne]

"It's true, many consider those of dark appearance or animalistic features to be predisposed to evil. And there may be some truth to the sentiment." He turned his head to look at T'riss, flashing a wide grin. "But I think I've shown well enough what I think about judging someone based on just that when I threw half a ton of ladywolf in that Vistani's face."

[al'Lan Mandrag]

All this talk of shadows and light passed Arya by. What di she care of these humans philosophy. Her matched short swords told anyone that cared to look that the clans of the Far Plains use both weapons to their advantage; light to blind and shadow to hide.

[Sallera]

August seems unfazed by either Komori's accusations or her apology. "Certainly, I am not a phoenix, but my master knows many secrets, and I am a servant to no one save her."

The thrust of Isaac's admonishment may have passed him by, but he nods regardless. "Well, there are some things that are truths, and some that are changeable. Our quest may take us through changeable roads, but the waypoints are as true as anywhere else. We know this much from those we spoke with when first we arrived."

"Of course, Lady T'rissaste," August says, bowing to her. "I am sure only the wisest could hope to see your true heart."

[Jeff the Green]

Komori remains silent and drops the subject, and once T'riss finishes dressing her goat you return to your saddles and continue northeast. The forest withdraws from the road as you progress along it, and you eventually pass into an area where the road barely deserves the name. It is filled potholes and the ground is almost marshy. Komori's horse stumbles and throws her into a puddle of muck that smells distinctly of brimstone, but she pulls herself up and back into her saddle without help or stopping to clean herself. For the rest of the day she sneaks furtive suspicious glances at August and T'riss.

The day ends with you mercifully out of the marshes and the forest still well away from the road, so you make camp on top of a small hill that grants a wide view of the road and plain. Komori pitches her tent silently and quickly and seeks her bedroll, still muddy from her misadventure.

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{table=head]Character|Spot|Listen
Arya (LLV)|(1d20+2)[17]|(1d20+6)[26]
T'riss (DV 120)|(1d20+11)[20]|(1d20+11)[29]
Drifa (LLV)|(1d20+7)[18]|(1d20+7)[13]
August (DV 90)|(1d20+16)[29]|(1d20+2)[18]
Ashlyn|(1d20+2)[20]|(1d20+2)[19]
Ireena|(1d20+3)[6]|(1d20+3)[16][/table]

Annan

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Madam Eva chuckles again. "Oh, I think you'll find Barovia is difficult to become used to," she says. "Everything is dangerous here. Elves, werewolves, the undead, witches and warlocks, nymphs and pixies, even the Lord Count Strahd von Zarovich. And the Vistani and me, of course."

[Lateral]

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"Fun. Would there be anything in particular I should know about?"

[Jeff the Green]

Annan

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"No, I shouldn't think so," she says. "I'd think that would be quite enough, honestly.

"Now, I have no reason to keep you, but the Vistani will. You snuck into our camp, and they'll try you. Probably cut off a hand or something. Iorge, Marius," she says to the two burly men standing behind and to either side of you, "I'm done with this one."

The two men grab you and begin dragging you toward one of the fires.

[Lateral]

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"Ah. Well, I find this rather silly, but suit yourself. Still, if you're planning to maim me, I suppose it couldn't hurt to-"

She cloaks herself (and her carriers) in darkness. <Well, that. I'm rather fond of my limbs, sorry.>

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Other than that, she won't do anything until they do. If they attack her, she'll teleport and make a break; if they throw her in the fire, all the better.

[Jeff the Green]

The night passes peacefully enough, though the chitter of bats and howling of wolves is perhaps unnerving. Occasionally the lookouts spot the sources of the sounds, shadows in the night that never come too close to the fire and enormous bats the size of horses fluttering overhead.

Knowledge Nature DC 14

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Dire bats.

A breakfast of goat stew is more satisfying than your previous meals, and you set off in reasonably good spirits. Some few hours after noon, you spot what must be the Vistani camp, a group of maybe fifty tents and several caravan wagons, all decorated in garish colors and surrounded by a palisade. The entrance facing the road is guarded by two unprofessional-looking, but well-armed, Vistani.

Annan

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The two Vistani are startled by the shadow and your voice change, but keep a steady hold. They drag you out towards the fire and begin binding you to a post with some horses.

Every few minutes one of the Vistani will walk by and toss dregs of soup or rotten vegetables or spit in your general direction. Some even hit you. Eventually, though, the man who originally spoke to you by the fire—an older man with silver streaking his black beard—bangs his spoon on a pewter plate and shouts out to all his fellows. "You shame yourselves, Vistani," he says. "Annan Shadow-Girl's trial isn't until sundown and you have heard no testimony, yet you inflict punishment anyway. You can have your fun after the verdict; after all, a few hours wait is nothing, yes?" The possibility of an acquittal seems not to occur to him.

[Lateral]

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Anann shrugs, as best she can. <It matters not. Though, frankly, I'm a little sick of standing here.>

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In the meantime, she's used her Cure Moderate Wounds SLA, so she's back at full HP.