[[1490-12-22|<< 22 Nightal 1490]] | [[1490-12-24|24 Nightal 1490 >>]] ## 23 Nightal 1490 A hell of a lot happened today. Where do I start? With the fact that I’m rich now, or with the fact that Rictavio is probably a legendary vampire hunter? Given that I have more money than I’ve ever had in my entire life, I think that warrants precedence. I woke up this morning wanting a crossbow that I certainly couldn't afford, so I suggested we head to the Vistani camp outside of town. Skoll wanted to go fishing first. I didn't argue – it worked out well enough well the last time. But we didn't do any fishing. The skies told of a coming storm, and a drunken man on a boat was a recipe for disaster. Skoll – again, the bleeding heart – was worried for him. Naturally, Skoll turned into a crocodile. After I managed to shake off a little of my shock, I followed him across the water; I had no desire to see one of my companions bludgeoned to death by a drunken man with an oar. It turned out that Skoll had no reason to be worried for the man. He – Bluto Krogarov – had kidnapped a Vistani child. For "good luck." So we pushed him into water and let him drown. I can’t say I regret it. The Vistani weren't looking so good when we got there, and it wasn't just because they were missing a child; some of their houses had been burnt down. A man named Arrigal talked to us about it. The attack happened mere hours before we arrived, and someone had left a note: "from the people of Vallaki." It turns out that the Vistani are not well-liked in Barovia – for their differences, they are met with bigotry. The girl we saved – Arabelle – is the daughter or the Vistani Luna River Caraven’s leader, Luvash. To reward us for returning Arabelle to him, he gave us a shit ton of treasure, worth a shit ton of money. AND he gave me a crossbow. Luvash also gave us plenty of information. For starters, he doesn’t like the Lady of Vallaki; she’s a cruel woman, and – if I had to guess, from how Luvash was talking – probably in cahoots with Strahd. This was disappointing to find out; I was hoping that she would be cool thanks to her fued with the Baron, but it seems like there aren’t too many cool people in Barovia. As for Stahd, Luvash confirmed that he treats the Vistani favorably; he was saved by some Vistani during some battle, and the rest is history. Luvash said he feels hypocritical accepting free passage from Strahd – not hypocritical enough not to take it, apparently, but it's not like I blame the guy. He also marked down some locations on our maps: “Druidlands,” “Wolflands,” Ravenloft, some ruins named Berez, and a wizard tower. That’s right: the fucking wizard tower from the old lady’s fortune. Which brings me to Rictavio. Well – almost. I’ll get there. On the way to wizard tower, we saw some fucked up creatures made of spiky, pointy bark. There were like six of them. Since we’re not stupid, we snuck around them. We also found some mud-caked guy in the forest – after trying a couple different languages, we managed to have half a conversation in broken Elvish (they spoke a _really_ interesting dialect). The mudman’s name is Tural, and they gave us some mushrooms. Skoll, true to form, gave them some bread. The wizard tower itself was old and decrepit. There was a wagon outside, covered in mud – though the wagon itself was a bright, vibrant purple with gold trim. It also had a sign that said “keep out” and was radiating magic, so we left it the fuck alone. The door of the tower was locked. It depicted a bunch of figures in a circle, along with the word “Khazan” above them. While Nia and I were discussing what to do, Skoll imitated the figures on the door – and it opened. Because of course it did. The first three floors of the wizard tower were unused and falling apart; it was the fourth floor where things got exciting. For starters, there was some armor standing in the corner. When Nia said “Khazan,” it became animated. Nia – genius that she is – had the idea to give the armor a pen and paper and interrogate him for all he was worth. The armor was extremely helpful. He also named himself Christopher. The first thing Christopher did was open up a wall in the back. Inside, there was a chest containing the holy symbol from Yva’s fortune. So I guess we can call a wrap on that one. “Khazan” is the name of the wizard that owned the place. He hadn’t been there in a long time, though, much like the sword of sunlight, which had also been there at one point. Christopher even had some information about Strahd for us. Turns out the fucker’s full name is Count Strahd von Zarovich. Loser. He also told us about van Richten, a legendary vampire hunter who was researching Strahd. Van Richten left the tower for Vallaki a couple months ago with a fresh journal, after burning all his old ones – a couple months, it should be noted, is exactly how long Rictavio has been staying at the Blue Water Inn. But it wasn’t until van Richten’s apprentice showed up that things clicked. His apprentice – Ezmerelda – arrived on a horse, beaten and bloodied. I did a piss-poor job of healing her, and then Skoll did a slightly less piss-poor job of healing her, and then she told us that she’s looking for her mentor, a half-elf vampire hunter, who happens to bear a striking resemblance to our one-and-only Rictavio. We asked Ezmerelda if she wanted to go back to Vallaki with us. She came along, but Rictavio wasn’t at the inn – apparently, after taking Freek and Myrtle to Barovia, he had broken off from the main road. When we had spoken to Rictavio in the morning, he said that he wouldn’t take the kids without help – which is really funny, considering he could probably take 10 of those scarecrows at once. The bastard. I volunteered to go with him; I wanted those kids out of my hands as soon as possible. But it turned out that I didn’t need to go at all, because Nia thought to recruit those depressed hunters who frequent the Blue Water Inn. Yevgeni and Szoldar are their names. Way too serious for my liking, but they managed to get the job done. I paid half in the morning, on Ireena’s coin – we hadn’t gone to the Vistani camp yet – and half in the evening, on my coin. I feel a little shitty to admit it, but I may have stolen three gold from Ireena in the morning. It was clear that she had plenty to spare; still, I did feel like a complete ass after getting rich as fuck, so I slipped the gold right back into her coin purse when she wasn’t paying attention. Before they all left, Skoll wanted to show the kids Rictavio's monkey. Ended up scaring the piss out of them, on account of the fact that traumatized little kids don’t appreciate some guy screeching exactly the way a monkey screeches. It would have been funny, were it not absolutely miserable. After Skoll managed to calm the kids down, we took them back to the hunters and Rictavio. Rictavio – the bastard – left his fake journal on the table with all his fake circus stories, and then he had the gall to get mad when he walked back in on us reading it. Well – when he walked back in on Skoll reading it, that is. I made sure to keep my distance when I saw Rictavio come in through the door. After that encounter is when we went and got rich and then met Christopher and Ezmerelda. Good times. Once we got back to Vallaki and told Ireena about the crazy fucking day we had, we went to the church on her suggestion. We talked to the priest there. After we confirmed with Father Lucian that the amulet from the tower was indeed the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, Nia and I told him it was a fake. He believed us, for some fucking reason. The priest himself was, of course, depressed as all hell. I asked him what was up; he told us that the bones which make the church hallowed ground (Saint Andral’s bones, to be specific) had been stolen. This would leave the church suseptible things like vampire attacks – but if we could recover the bones, the church would be safe. I figured that Ireena would have a safer place to stay if we got those bones back, so we asked around. It turned out that the gravekeeper – Milivoj – was paid a nice price to reveal the location of the bones. I couldn’t fault him much for it; he, like most others in Barovia, seemed pretty destitute. Milivoj was paid by one Henrik Van Der Voort, the keeper of that creepy coffin store in the Vallaki town square. For his part, Henrik knows how to board up his doors and lock his windows – but he was lacking a little on his chimney security. Maybe he wasn’t expecting an owlfolk to climb down it? It didn't take long to find the bones. Back at the church, Father Lucian confirmed them as Saint Andral’s. I secured Ireena sanctuary, and then we were on our way. At this point, I felt dead on my feet – it was a pretty eventful day. We told Ireena that she has a safer place to stay, but I told her not to go quite yet. For…reasons. In other news, Nia has a tressym familiar. Apparently, it's not supposed to look like a skeleton – just another one of Barovia's wonderful quirks. Also, Skoll's started to grow wooden antlers out of his head, which I think has less to do with Barovia and more to do with him being kind of strange. I can’t help the fact that I am starting to care about all of them. Nia, Skoll, Ireena. Even Rictavio, the bastard. It’s definitely not something that I’m used to. I don’t find myself caring deeply about people often – or at all, really. I don’t like it much. Regardless, today wasn’t a bad day, all things considered. More days like this one and I may find myself enjoying my limited time in Barovia. But it will be limited, if I have anything to say about it. --- ## Page Tags/Properties **Tags:** #Journal **Category:** [[Journals and Writings.base|Journals and Writings]] **Character:** [[Krue d'Avenir|Krue]] **Campaign:** [[Curse of Strahd]] **Date ([[Calendar of Harptos|Harptos]]):** 12/23/1490