Datasets:
mickume
/
dnd_drow

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
text
stringlengths
0
41.4k
When Roes questions him about it, wanting to know where and when he heard the tale, he is evasive in his answers.
Roes mentions our original intention – to go outside and smoke some pipeweed. Gorm seems game for it. I eye Rictavio. This guy is incredibly charming, but there is something wise in his eyes.
I try to persuade him to join us, with pretty words and just one eyelash flutter. He laughs, and agrees to accompany us outside.
I smoke pipeweed. Roes smokes tobacco. Perhaps this – the lack of pipeweed and abundance of wine – is why Barovia sucks so hard. I certainly know it contributes to Roes challenging Rictavio to a boxing match.
Roes drunkenly misses their first swing. Rictavio boops them on the nose. 
Seething, I shout a word of inspiration, because it looks like Roes really needs it, and because fuck playing fair. This is Barovia. 
Roes punches Rictavio straight in the gut.
"Good hit!" he wheezes, graciously tapping out before any real damage can be done.
"I'm a world-class warrior," Roes brags, and Ireena giggles.
Gorm still has pies, and is kind enough, or fearful of my tears enough, to share one with me. Roes resists, worried about our collective pie addiction, and with good cause. 
But I have the loveliest dreams at night. 
In the morning, the market calls to Gorm, and he leaves while Roes and I are still getting out of bed. We make our way out into the world slowly; I, for one, am savoring being alive. It's a new day, a new chance. It is no more the day we defeat Strahd and find our way home than yesterday was, but it is one day closer t...
I'm actually feeling pretty optimistic until Roes and I make our way from our room to the tavern, thinking and talking only of our breakfast. 
Then we see a light flash outside and somehow we just know that Gorm is in trouble. 
We run outside to see that, not far away, a mob has hold of the Baron and his family. Gorm, hands glowing, is holding the mob off of Victor, the Baron's son.
I don't see who throws the first stone, only that it hits the Baron in his already bloody cheek, and that it is followed by another, and another, until the Baron and Baroness are both dead.
Victor is on the ground, beaten and unconscious, in his nightclothes. Gorm picks him up and runs to Roes and me. We haul Victor up to our room, where I heal him back to consciousness. 
"Where are my parents?" is the first thing he asks. But when we tell him that his parents are dead, he laughs, hoarsely, and then sighs, "Finally, I'm free..."
Victor then begs us to take him back to the Baron's home for his – wait for it – spellbook and teleportation circle.
Remembering Madame Eva's  cards, I offer a quid-pro-quo: we will help Victor get his things back if he joins our quest to protect Ireena and kill Strahd. 
Ireena accepts our offer of protection, and even seems excited to travel with Gorm, Roes, and me.
We disguise Victor, and it's a good thing too, since the looters have made it to the Baron's mansion first. Still, Victor looks terrified in his disguise, looking around for mobs and kidnappers. He won't go inside the Baron's home with us until the place is secure, so Ireena stays with him while the three of us go insi...
Since Roes searched the first floor the last time we were here, we proceed to the second storey. The second door we try is the Master bedroom, where Victor has said there is a trap door leading to the attic. We find the trap door easily enough, but Gorm gets struck by lightning trying to open it.
Damn the kid for not telling us the door's booby-trapped!
Inside, the tables are covered in parchment – normal, completely sane, admirable, even – and also several purring, moving cat skeletons, which is slightly less normal, sane, and admirable. Near the fireplace, three children stand with their backs to us. They don't respond when we speak to them. I have to get close enou...
What the actual fuck, Victor? 
In the course of investigating the room, I come across some scuff marks on the floor by an area rug. I lift the rug up, falling forward and instinctively closing my eyes.
When I open them, I am no longer in Victor's weird little lair.
When I open my eyes, I see gray stone everywhere. 
I am in a roughly square room with alcoves to my left and right. The alcoves contain statues of men riding horses. In the center of the room stands a gray stone pillar with a brazier on top. On the other side of it are three doors.
That's all I really have time to see before Gorm comes through the portal.
"You left Roes?" I demand too sharply, because I am seriously about to cry.
"They're with Ireena and Victor, or they're coming through," Gorm shrugs.
Why did he come after me if he is that nonchalant about our lives? I wonder if Gorm will ever consider Roes and me his friends.
We begin to investigate the room while we wait for Roes, Ireena, and Victor to come through the portal.
All around the brazier are little stones sitting in recesses. On the same podium sits a plank, under the brazier, and on it is carved a riddle for each stone, telling where they will take us if we throw them in the brazier.
Gorm and I decide not to investigate any more, and wait for Roes behind one of the alcove statues. I suspect we are somewhere we really don't want to be, like Castle Ravenloft. The circle of teleportation is one-way.
Gorm and I argue about what to do until Roes finally shows up and shushes us both. I'm frightened, but at the same time, I'm glad someone else has a bad feeling about this too.
We go over the riddles again and again before settling on the indigo stone – the one whose riddle says it will take us "to the Master's Bride" – and we're just hoping that presumptuous fuck means Ireena. We know Strahd wants her, know what he intends for her, and we have to protect her from this terrible fate.
So Roes throws the indigo stone into the brazier, and the fire turns indigo. Each of us, at the same time, reaches out a hand to touch the beautifully colored flames.
We reappear in a large belfrey. In front of us, a severely deformed boy with animal parts screams.
We three scream too.
"Which way is out?!" Roes screams to be heard over our fright.
He points towards the stairwell and we run away.
We sneak down the stairs, into the chapel. We walk out into an alcove.
Gorm reminds us of Madame Eva's prophecy, and goes immediately to investigate the church for hidden holy symbols.
"Who are you?" asks the young priest when he sees us. 
Roes begins to cry. I try to tell a compelling tale of our journey, but the priest cuts me off, saying he doesn't care about our past. We are in Krezk, in the Temple of the Morning Lord, and this man introduces himself as the Abbot.
Someone enters the church. Like the boy in the bell tower, she doesn't look quite right as she hobbles over and whispers something in the Abbot's ear before hobbling out again. The Abbot follows her out without another word to us, not even an assurance of our welcome. That, his general rudeness, makes me feel less awkw...
Behind a golden sun disk hanging above a fireplace, Gorm finds the amulet we've been looking for – the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. It looks like a sun, made of silver, with a ruby in the center.
There is only one parishioner, one witness, and she is busy with her prayers. Roes goes over to talk to her, and I follow. She had red hair and what, at first, appears to be scars all over her body and face that, upon closer inspection, are actually stitches holding her body together. She doesn't speak to us, only maki...
Freaked out, Roes and I thank her for her time – causing her to grin so wide that she pops a stitch as we rush to leave. 
Outside we encounter a thick fog in the courtyard. The place is surrounded by scarecrows standing in for guards.
We go through the two large double doors by the well, ignoring the spider people chained up outside – a problem for later – as we step outside the Abbey at Krezk and onto a path.
We can hear howling – like people in misery – as we set out for the city gates. The abbey, we have discovered, is on a hill in the middle of the town.
As we try to leave, guards approach. They are reluctant to let us leave. They want to take us to the Bergermeister of Krezk, for questioning I assume, but I persuade them to escort us to the exit instead. 
We head for the wizard Khazan's tower once we are free of Krezk. We expect to get there a little after nightfall, which worries me. Traveling through Barovia during the day is dangerous enough.
When we approach the tower there is a black wagon near the bridge in front. As we fearfully approach the bridge, a man in very fancy burgundy and black attire steps out from behind the wagon. He has black hair, and gray skin, like Kasimir, and long pointed ears. He must also be a gray elf, native to Barovia.
As he approaches, the sound of screaming fills my head. This must be what madness feels like.
"Rahadin," Gorm spits out. "What does the Devil's right-hand man want with us?"
"I approach in peace under my Master's orders," he says, his voice smoother than any wine I've had in Barovia.
"What the fuck do you want?" Roes barks impatiently. 
I wonder if Strahd knows about Ireena and Victor. Are they still safe in Vallaki? We just left them outside of Victor's house, after all.
Rahadin interrupts my thoughts with, "The Master invites you to dinner." He holds out an invitation. 
Roes cackles, then says, "We're busy."
Rahadin, still holding out the invitation, shakes his dark head. He is looking at me.
"The Master invites
to dinner," he says again, handing the invitation out to me.
I take it from him reflexively, and open it with curiosity overflowing. The blood red wax seal depicts a tower and a bird – perhaps a raven? I cannot tell – rampant in front of it. It is addressed to Lady Sidonie Fogsinger.
As I open the fine parchment and read the invitation, Rahadin backs away. The screaming in my head recedes. The carriage takes off. He doesn't even wait for my answer.
Then again, I couldn't even get out of dinner with the Baron of Vallaki. 
The invitation is for tomorrow night. Year 735, 3rd Moon, 14th Night – we will have survived the hell of Barovia for two whole weeks.
"We're not doing this, are we?" asks Roes, and I let all my breath out in a
I am not alone, despite what the invitation says. I don't have to do this alone.
We go up to the tower, where I immediately go to sleep. Roes sits on their perch. Gorm tries to attune to the amulet of Ravenkind we just found.
I wake to the sound of elevator music, though it's clearly not morning yet. I can see Roes and Gorm coming down, and I am very prepared to be righteously pissed at them for waking me.
"Wake the fuck up," Roes calls to me from the platform. "Someone's hurt outside." 
And, like that, my anger is gone, and I am up again.
We run outside – into the night, I might add – but I see no one, and nothing but the old wagon we've already searched. As I am about to complain about this waste of already terrible sleep, there is a loud THUD, and the wagon shakes.
"Are you hurt?" Roes calls out to whomever is inside.
"We mean you no harm," Gorm adds.
"How many of you are there?" a woman's voice calls back from within the wagon.
"There are three of us," I tell her, "but we truly mean you no harm."
There is scuffling inside the wagon. Then: "Did you take my stuff?" she asks. "I had bandages in here."
We look at each other guiltily.
"Uh... no?" Roes says, more of a question than a statement.
"Good job," I mutter, slapping my own forehead. I turn my attention to the woman in the wagon and say, "Come out and I can heal you."
She cracks the wagon door open, looking out at us warily. The Vistani woman steps back to admit me.
"Be quick," she says, "the wolves are after me."
So I use my magic to heal her, and ask her name. It's Esmerelda D'Avinir.
From where he stands outside the small wagon, Gorm offers Esmerelda some wolfsbane he's been carrying since the Vistani camp. Esmerelda takes it and begins to fashion it into something.
We hear the howls coming closer.
"Come with us into the tower," says Gorm.
"We'll protect you," I add.
Esmerelda just nods her assent, as if it makes no difference to her, so we lead her into the tower.
"The two of you are not from here," Esmerelda says, not rudely, but not delicately either, just as a statement of fact.
"Neither are the Vistani," Gorm points out, and I could smack him! The Vistani have been nothing but kind to us!
Esmerelda objects heatedly, as anyone would expect her to do. Then, in perfect Elvish she asks me, "Are you really from the outside?"
I answer affirmatively, in that same language. 
Esmerelda suddenly draws her rapier and holds it to my throat.