Meeting the Martikovs and Traveling to Krezk
General Summary
Excerpt from Seir’s Little Black Book (Session 12/17/20): Penned in Borokin’s hand, via dictation
Zin and O thought the old man seemed suspicious, and didn’t believe him. Zin decided it was necessary to manhandle the poor old creature, and went for his arms. However, as Zin made an effort to reach for the man, he tried to get away. O went for his legs, and Zin tackled him to the ground, with a slight popping noise. Honestly, I don’t know why they all get so violent all of the time. “What are you doing here?” Zin asked. “This is my home… please don’t hurt me!” A reasonable request. No shit! I suppose he could have been lying, though. A damn shame I blew all of my zone of truths on some druids with no information that Letho decided he just wanted to torture anyway. “We’ve been attacked too many times to trust you, sorry,” O explained. The man asked her to be gentle with his hips, and Zin started making to carry the man upstairs. O stayed behind to start closing doors. However, the man started begging them to get his family in, but O didn’t see anyone outside and shut the doors. Zin pulled the man upstairs and sat him at the dining room table. He untied one of his hands so that he could eat some of your food. I asked you to get everyone else in the room, and Zin went to get O. I quizzed the old man about his relatives’ names, just to help confirm that he is who he claims he is. He said that he was overtaken by the druids a few weeks ago, but was able to get out ahead of time with some warning from the ravens. Zin and Khaylen went outside to search for the man’s family. Letho and I stayed with the elderly man, and you set out a meal. Thoradin decided to go and keep an eye on the druids, and O kept a more general watch. Khaylen and Zin approached the stand of trees that the man claimed his family was in. It was starting to get dark, but they could see some movement in the trees. Khaylen reached out with a mage hand to offer some food in the forest ahead of the pair. She made sure that the mage hand was visible. They called out to the trees, and saw a group of young men, both looking quite hungry. They were suspicious of Khaylen and Zin, and asked where Davian was. Amongst the group there were some men, a mid-thirties woman and man, several children (a teenage boy, a couple of younger boys, a small baby). There were far more people there than the two thought could be possible. Zin didn’t want to let the people in. Khaylen wanted to make sure that they were helped though, feeling sympathy for their plights, so she asked them to hand over all of their weapons before taking them inside. One of the men handed a knife to Khaylen, asking her to cut herself (“we can’t trust you until we see you bleed”). She cut her shoulder, which convinced the man that everything was okay. Noticeably, all of the weapons they were handing over were silver. Khaylen made sure Zin couldn’t take any of them. Perhaps we should be doing such blood-tests? As far as I know, mine appears normal. Zin and Khaylen brought all of the people inside. They discussed where to meet, and decided upon the kitchen, rather fond of the idea of eating. The man with the baby offered to make hot cakes (I’m already fond of him). Khaylen asked you and O to go keep an eye on the kids, and handed you a knife. O griped about feeling like she was being sat at the kid’s table (that is what happens when you are a child, ohohoho), but went along with it. A raven with blue-tipped wings flew into the kid’s room and landed on one of the cabinets. O tried to grab it with her hands. This understandably went about as well as you would probably expect. The bird flew under the bed. When O went to chase it, it burst out in her face, and went to the ceiling. She aimed a spell at it in an effort to intimidate it. It just cawed. The children asked O to not bother the bird, saying it was harmless. As we talked, Davian claimed that the ravens were no longer loyal to Strahd. He called the druids “the faithless”, and said that they had coexisted with the family in the valley for a while, and had just suddenly attacked. The faithless apparently lived in great numbers nearby (“dozens”). He said that his family only survived by running out into the trees due to the warning from the ravens. The man also claimed to have been hiding near the house for a long while, and that he tried to warn us all away from coming onto the farm. Khaylen and Zin joined us in the room, amongst the adults in the family. It was quite crowded in there, and one man handed off his baby to begin cooking with what was left in the pantry. I commented about how shocked I was that the ludicrous amount of food Letho bought actually came in handed. Khaylen asked the people about why they had her cut herself. One man introduced himself as Adrian, and said that he’s never met a furry creature that wasn’t some variety of werewolf. Supposedly, werewolves wouldn’t bleed with a non-silver weapon. Khaylen tried to caress his face with her tail. He was not amused. After the food was made, Zin took some of the food and walked it into the childrens’ room, sneaking some into his mouth as he went. He was a bit confused by their standoff with the bird. O tried to speak to the raven in infernal. My ears are somewhat attuned to the language, so I could hear their call-and-response, where she told the bird she knew what it was and it responded by repeating its words. Khaylen asked about the birds to the group, while the woman asked about Irwin and Dannika. Adrian didn’t want to talk about Irwin, so after a quick check-up on their family (Davian seemed to stiffen at the sound of Irwin’s name- seems odd for him to care about such petty family squabbles at this time) he started spinning a yarn on the birds. Supposedly, the ravens have been here for a long time, before humans. The humans evidently were meant to guard the fertile part of the valley. Supposedly, the ravens are watchful, the wolves are not. There exists some sharp sense of duality between the creatures who ally themselves with Strahd (wolves) and creatures who don’t (ravens). So, the faithless are the druids who have supported Strahd’s rise to power. When Strahd was still human, the land was occupied by another nation. The forest folk were tired of being subjugated in the lands they once called home, so some allied themselves with this mortal man they revered as a savior. When he turned, some turned on him, but some remained loyal. There are very few left of the old people. We admitted that we had the prisoners in the house, and Adrian and Davian lost it and insisted that we needed to kill all of the prisoners. They were offended at the thought of us not killing all of the faithless. Adrian, Khaylen, and I all headed downstairs to check on Thoradin, who had moved the prisoners into the basement. Khaylen grabbed O, because she knew how the combat ended. As O left the room, Borokin was crying- apparently O was giving him a hard time. In the basement, I saw the bodies of the druids for the first time. The one Letho had tortured… … … … I feel sick. You don’t need to hear about it. We talked to the family, who seemed to be coming around to the idea that they couldn’t stay in the house, especially if there were dozens of faithless ready to attack nearby. The family said they wanted to pick up some stuff from the house and then move to Villacki. They said they only had some purple grape mash left, by the way. Apparently, their fields weren’t doing too well- they were assisting crop growth with magic, and that magic was dying. Letho brought up how the crops were related to magic, and how we saw creatures bursting from the cask. I showed the two men my potion, and they insisted I speak to Davian about it. We also went upstairs, sending Borokin down to keep an eye on the prisoners with Thoradin, who was now a bit worried for the prisoners’ safety. I’m sorry you had to see that. Thoradin joined us upstairs. Davian started talking about the winery. When the schism between the faithless and the other forest-livers began, there were some Barovians who aided the druids who opposed Strahd. These were the Kreskov clan. And, in exchange, the forest people gave them gifts, gifts which protected the land and made it a place of bounty for generations. One of the people was a wizard, who planted the gifts in the land. Since then, grapes have grown from otherwise barren soil. One of these gifts was lost a long time ago, another went missing when Davian left care of the winery to Irwin. The last was lost when the faithless attacked. As each gift has been stolen, more of the blight has spread. These gifts were gems, representing the powers of the three ladies sacred to the valley. We showed the family the potion I grabbed and the druid’s staff. Adrian smelled the potion and said that it smelled of the faithless’s twisted magicks. Adrian agreed to let us take some of their wine to Kresk, scratching up a note with his signature on it so that those in Kresk would trust us. With that, we all went to bed. The pigeon seems to have fully joined the ravens at this point. We set up a watch. I really wanted to make sure nobody snuck down in the night to kill the druids. As far as I could tell, though, nothing happened besides a child waking up to some nightmares. We awoke to a foggy morning in Barovia. There seemed to be no immediate threats. The family refused Letho’s offers of money, saying their family could take care of them in Villacki. Khaylen gave them back their daggers, but they agreed to let us keep one of them. Khaylen gave the silver to O. As we left the house, we noticed two large horses, just out in the front. They seemed cleaned, well-fed, and well-cared for. Strange, given the fact that they were locked in a stable for weeks. I asked the family about it, and they were incredibly shifty about it. Khaylen agreed with me on the horses. We also discussed what to do with the druids, once the family went back in the house to get their things together. I expressed my displeasure with Letho about the torture, but he blew it off. We all eventually decided to take the druid prisoners and release them back to their friends, as I have no especial hatred for the druids and don’t really want to kill or torture them. Khaylen wrote a note saying “dear Strahd: you owe us one” and offered to pin it on one of the prisoners we released. She brought up the good point that we don’t really to take a side (with or against Strahd). I personally see the writing on the wall that Strahd’s a pretty evil fellow, but I’d rather not burn any bridges that I might need to upkeep for our mutual survival. It seems he has an interest in us, and may be responsible for the fact that I’m alive. We began our walk along the trail. Khaylen, Zin, and Thoradin went hunting in the woods. You and O argued over who could drive the cart, youtalking about how he knew everything about driving carts, had driven hundreds of carriages, etc etc. However, O just sat next to me and started driving, so all you could do was argue. Your bickering was actually quite amusing. Ah, young love. ...ahaha, just kidding, you can stop protesting. You can strike out that line if you want. The hunting group, in the woods, were able to sneak up on several large rabbits. Thoradin attempted a wicked trick shot, to shoot two rabbits with two crossbows, at the same time. He, uh, halfway succeeded. Khaylen also got another rabbit, and Zin tried to chase one down and strangle it. I have no idea how Zin pulled it off. He claims that he just ran it down, and strangled it. Thoradin and Khaylen corroborate this. You and O went hunting for squirrels. Apparently O tried to create the illusion of a sexy squirrel with your face. Khaylen put together a note to leave on the druids: “Our Dearest Lord Strahd, In our travels, we stumbled upon apparently some of your servants. In self defence, one of them was slain, but we offer these two back as gifts, in hopes of gaining your forgiveness, and potentially your favor. I'm sure we will discover more of your influence, and we want you to know that our intent is not malicious towards your position or your desires. We only ask for patience, and for a chance to right any transgressions you perceive. If you have need to communicate with us, we are amenable, though our journey's destination is ever changing. Sincerely and Meekly, your humble guests, Khaylen, Daughter of Jo'dara's Caravan & co” Letho was insisting to tattoo Khaylen’s messages onto the prisoners, despite the fact that he cannot see anything. I pushed his hand away, but it was a bit of a struggle. His hand was icy cold. Much colder than me. Khaylen corroborated this. Letho said he wasn’t worried. He got very defensive when I tried to bring up the problem to him. He clearly thought this was a trust thing, and, while it is, I think it could also be a question of possession, or contamination. I have no idea why he isn’t worried. After a few more hours of travel and releasing the prisoners, we saw, off in the distance, a small peninsula with a stone tower jutting out. Eventually, we finally came upon the town of Kresk. Built into the side of a snow-dusted mountain spur, it had high walls. We could hear the toll of a bell, from a stone abbey high above the settlement, as well as the sound of people inside the wall. As we went to go knock, we saw several archers appear, all with bows trained on us. Khaylen held up Adrian’s note as we all stood with bated breath. Todo: ask the family about what stuff they got out of their house, their horses
Report Date
08 Nov 2022
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