Chapter I — The Road to Vallaki
The Burgomaster’s manor had once been a proud home.
Now it looked abandoned.
Roof shingles sagged and slipped from their places. Vines strangled the paneled wood. Grass had grown wild around the warped iron gate. Had the party not been told where to find Ireena Kolyana, they might have walked past the house without realizing anyone still lived there.
Ireena waited outside beside an old traveler’s wagon, wrestling it from its shed when the entire thing finally surrendered to neglect. Both wheels collapsed beneath it.
She put her hands on her hips.
Everything in the manor, she complained, had been allowed to rot.
Validus offered to repair it.
One strike of the hammer later, all three remaining walls fell off.
PaK solved the problem more efficiently. Rose and Thorn were small enough that he could simply carry them.
Before leaving, Da’amir handed PaK the silvered Durst longsword. The weapon had never sat naturally in his hand, and PaK could make better use of it. Then the group started west while there was still daylight enough to reach Vallaki before its gates closed.
Haleria kept watch without frightening the children by turning the journey into a game of I Spy.
Road.
River.
Trees.
Then Rose pointed ahead.
A rope swing.
The “swing” hung from an old wooden gallows.
The road divided beside it beneath a leafless willow. The gallows had not been used in some time, but nearby lay a small collection of graves.
One remained open.
The others did not.
Lumi. Mundo. Costin.
Names Da’amir knew without understanding how he knew them.
When he stared at Lumi’s grave, something broke through the fog surrounding his past. Church bells rang somewhere in his memory. Warm sunlight touched his face. There had been light in Barovia once, real light, and Lumi had found it.
Perhaps Da’amir had found it with her.
Perhaps he could again.
He stood frozen before the graves as tears gathered in his eyes.
Validus closed his Black Ledger and rested a hand against his back.
The dead could still be honored by those who remained alive.
Da’amir disagreed.
Being alive was not enough.
If Lumi had discovered something capable of bringing sunlight into Barovia, something tied to those bells, then remembering her might yet help them find a way through the Mists.
Validus gave him time.
Then he cut the old hangman’s noose from the gallows.
When the rope struck the wood, there came the phantom sound of a trapdoor opening and a body dropping beneath it.
An echo.
Validus wrapped the rope around his whip for later study.
Before they left, Da’amir placed copper among the graves, one for each of the dead, and one for the empty grave waiting beside them.
Then the road climbed toward Tser Falls.
Chapter II — The Mists Remember
By early afternoon, the dirt road clung to the side of the mountain before opening onto an ancient stone bridge.
Black-mossed gargoyles watched from its corners.
Beside it, Tser Falls dropped nearly a thousand feet into a mist-shrouded pool below. The river disappeared into the forests beyond, winding through a Barovia that seemed endless from such a height.
Da’amir climbed onto the stone railing.
Ireena laughed and joined him.
She spoke of the river, of Tser Pool, and then of Lake Zarovich near Vallaki. Her father had taken her fishing there when she was young. They would catch enough fish to salt and feed the household through winter.
For a moment, it was simply a good memory.
Then the waterfall struck the rocks below.
Mist boiled upward.
It gathered on the stone, jeweled the air, clung to eyelashes and silvered Ireena’s hair.
Her voice stopped.
Recognition entered her face.
Then terror.
Her hand rose to her breast as though searching for something that should have been hanging around her neck.
She looked into the water far below.
“You killed him.”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“You killed him.”
Then, quietly:
“I would rather have the darkness than you, old one.”
Ireena stepped from the bridge.
PaK moved before anyone else could.
He caught her cloak as she fell and hauled her back over the railing. Whatever had taken hold of her vanished almost immediately. Ireena screamed, confused, insisting that she must have slipped.
She had balanced on that bridge countless times with her father.
Haleria pointed toward the moss and water coating the stone and supplied an explanation Ireena was willing to accept.
Rose and Thorn applauded PaK.
He told them that when they grew up, they could become big and strong and save people too.
Then, almost to himself, PaK admitted that he liked memories.
They were warm.
He simply did not have very many left.
The party continued west.
Chapter III — The Black Carriage
Near three in the afternoon, cobblestones began appearing beneath the dirt.
The road forked east.
Waiting at the crossroads was a black carriage pulled by two equally black horses. Steam curled from their nostrils in the mountain cold.
There was no driver.
The carriage door opened anyway.
Inside, on the seat, waited a letter.
My friends, know that it is I, the Count of Barovia, lord of these lands, who have brought you to this land, my home. And know that I alone can release you from it. I bid you dine at my castle so that we may introduce ourselves in civilized surroundings. Your passage here will be a safe one. I await your arrival.
The letter was signed:
Strahd von Zarovich.
Ireena froze.
Rose and Thorn clung to PaK at the mention of the Devil.
Refusing the invitation was possible.
It was not necessarily wise.
Validus knew enough of Darklords to understand that when trapped in another creature’s domain, deliberately insulting its master before understanding the rules could be considerably more dangerous than accepting his hospitality.
But taking the children to Castle Ravenloft was another matter.
Ireena offered to continue to Vallaki alone with Rose and Thorn.
Da’amir gave her his heavy crossbow and twenty bolts.
Validus handed her the hangman’s noose.
“The stench of death will guide you.”
Ireena stared at it.
Then accepted it.
They agreed to reunite at the Blue Water Inn in Vallaki, assuming the Devil proved as hospitable as his letter promised.
Rose and Thorn begged them not to go.
The party climbed into the carriage anyway.
Before anyone could reconsider, its doors slammed closed and the horses began carrying them east.
Toward Ravenloft.
The Raven Spread
During the long ride, Haleria reached into her bag and withdrew her cards.
If they were going to dine with the Devil, she reasoned, they might as well ask fate what waited ahead.
Eight cards were drawn.
The first belonged to Da’amir.
The Seven of Cups, reversed.
Illusions. Confusion. Too many possibilities collapsing toward a single truth.
Da’amir was already a man without certainty in his own past. The card suggested that the journey ahead would force him to separate what was real from what merely appeared real, and that the answer, when it finally came, might be less comforting than ignorance.
The second belonged to PaK.
The Chariot, upright.
Direction. Momentum. Control.
But the question was not what PaK possessed.
It was what he would have to leave behind.
Haleria interpreted it as a surrender of control and direction. PaK could not simply decide where this journey carried him. There were roads ahead that would demand he allow himself to be taken somewhere he did not understand.
PaK stared blankly around the driverless carriage.
Did that mean he needed to get out?
Haleria assured him that it did not.
The third card belonged to Validus.
The Seven of Pentacles, upright.
Diligence.
Patience.
Labor whose rewards could not be harvested immediately.
Whatever waited in Barovia would not be solved quickly. Validus’s path would require perseverance, study and work carried out without any guarantee that the result would come when he wanted it.
The remaining cards were no longer tied neatly to individual travelers.
They belonged to the journey itself.
The fourth card was the Knight of Pentacles, reversed.
Something important lay ahead, knowledge, perhaps, but knowledge that had become stagnant, obstructed or deliberately withheld.
A truth that should move had instead been buried.
A history frozen in place.
The fifth card was the Four of Pentacles, upright.
Security.
Possession.
Something held tightly enough that preservation itself had become a cage.
Haleria struggled with this one.
The others understood only that something necessary to their journey would be found where something, or someone, refused to let go.
The sixth card was the Ten of Wands, upright.
A burden.
A responsibility.
Something powerful enough to help them and heavy enough to become an obligation once taken up.
Whatever they found, carrying it would not be easy.
Then Haleria turned the seventh card.
The Eight of Pentacles, reversed.
Work unfinished.
Craft turned imperfect.
A master whose labor had ceased to improve and begun instead to repeat itself.
The card sat strangely among the others.
A warning about someone whose endless work had become stagnation.
Someone who had spent far too long doing the same thing.
Finally came the eighth card.
The Seven of Swords, upright.
Secrecy.
Deception.
A victory or ending that would not be reached through strength alone.
Something waited at the end of this journey that could not simply be confronted openly.
The card disturbed Haleria enough that she covered it briefly with her hand.
Then she gathered the spread.
Eight cards.
Eight warnings.
Da’amir surrounded by false possibilities.
PaK surrendering control.
Validus condemned to long labor.
Buried knowledge.
Possession masquerading as security.
A terrible burden.
A master trapped in repetition.
And an ending defined by deception.
Haleria packed the cards away.
By then, dusk had fallen.
And the carriage had reached the castle.
Chapter IV — You Have Seen Only Wounds
Castle Ravenloft rose from the mountain through fog and rain.
The drawbridge lowered just before the horses reached it.
Chains groaned.
Lightning illuminated three towers, stone gargoyles and a moat disappearing into darkness far below.
The carriage crossed without slowing.
Inside the entrance hall, organ music echoed through cobwebbed columns and decaying frescoes.
A dusk elf descended the staircase.
“My master has been expecting you.”
He introduced himself as Rahadin, Lord Chamberlain to Count Zarovich.
Validus attempted introductions in return.
Rahadin raised a hand.
Introductions were unnecessary.
He already knew precisely who they were.
Then he greeted Da’amir separately.
It was lovely to see him again.
Rahadin led them deeper into the castle, remarking that it had been some time since the Count had enjoyed having Da’amir’s friends for dinner.
Before they could enter the dining room, however, there was etiquette to observe.
Armor came off.
Weapons remained at the door.
The Count did not appreciate battle dress at his table.
PaK struggled with the straps of his armor until Rahadin stepped forward, touched a single fastening, and sent the entire suit clattering to the floor in one effortless motion.
Then the doors opened.
The dining room was magnificent.
Crystal chandeliers burned overhead. White marble walls surrounded a long table laid in satin. Sterling silver platters bore the Zarovich crest and the words Never Again Conquered. Every place held more forks, spoons, knives and glasses than PaK knew what to do with.
At the far end of the chamber stood an enormous pipe organ.
A figure sat before it.
The music stopped.
The organ continued playing.
The man rose.
Strahd von Zarovich towered over them, pale and gaunt, black hair streaked with gray falling behind armor and fine black-and-red robes. A curved sword hung at his hip.
Only after the doors closed completely did he speak.
They had crossed his borders.
Walked his roads.
Taken shelter beneath roofs in his domain.
Spilled blood on his soil.
Spoken his name where men had learned to whisper it.
Yet they had never been properly introduced.
He raised his glass.
He was Strahd von Zarovich, son of Barov and Ravenovia, Prince of Borca, Duke of Zeidenburg, Baron of Mordent, Count of Barovia, Lord of these Lands.
But the title they knew was simpler.
The Devil.
A title given by historians who did not understand his reign.
They had seen Barovia as those historians saw it:
A village beneath rain.
A father and his vampire son.
Hungry children trapped inside a house whose sins had survived its masters.
Wolves in the forest.
Graves beneath the dirt.
Mist upon the road.
“You have seen only wounds.”
Tonight, Strahd promised, they would see what his valley truly was.
Everything placed before them had been raised in Barovia, hunted in Barovia, caught in its waters or harvested from its soil.
And while they sat beneath his roof, they were his guests.
There would be no wolves at their heels.
No dead clawing at their doors.
No mist bathing them in cold.
They would eat.
Drink.
Ask questions.
And Strahd would do the same.
Chapter V — A Divided Room
There was only one assigned seat.
Beside Strahd.
“Da’amir, my old friend, I must insist. It has been so long.”
Strahd proposed a toast celebrating his old friend’s return home.
Rahadin produced two bottles.
One was Red Dragon Crush.
The other, Champagne Du La Stomp.
Before anyone selected a glass, each guest received a private Message.
Whatever Strahd whispered changed the mood immediately.
PaK and Da’amir chose red.
Haleria chose champagne.
Validus hesitated between the two before joining her.
Strahd smiled.
“I do love a divided room.”
The wine itself was more than wine.
Red Dragon Crush steadied Da’amir and PaK as they sat before the Count. The champagne bound Validus and Haleria together for a brief time, their vitality magically linked.
Then Strahd asked for stories.
Da’amir struggled through an old tale he barely remembered. Strahd laughed anyway, then explained to the others that before Da’amir had “found the joys of self-employment,” he had been a minstrel in the Count’s court.
A talented performer.
Especially famous for a Catfolk dance beloved by foreign dignitaries.
Surely his new companions had seen it.
They had not.
Strahd insisted.
Da’amir danced.
Poorly.
Strahd merely smiled.
His old friend was out of practice.
Now that Da’amir was back where he belonged in Castle Ravenloft, Strahd was sure it would all return to him.
PaK told Strahd about his creator, about being ordered into a machine, climbing inside because he had been told to, and emerging transformed into something his master immediately called a failure.
Strahd understood betrayal.
He too knew what it meant to become a monster through the cruelty of someone trusted.
Haleria spoke carefully of Dementlieu, Mordent and her Vistani blood.
Strahd knew more than she expected.
He identified her people.
He knew the laws surrounding her exile.
And in Barovia, he informed her, that exile meant nothing.
Within his land, his authority came first.
Outside Barovia, the Vistani had preserved legends of Vistan.
The local Manusa remembered something different.
They remembered Strahd.
Haleria said little after that.
Validus described himself as a keeper of histories from a family intertwined with the occult.
Strahd knew of them too.
“Ah, you must be the Dryfus.”
Then Rahadin returned with the first taste of dinner.
A mousse of roasted Barovian chicken whipped with butter, paprika, garlic and aromatics, served beside crisp crostini.
Comfort food elevated into something aristocratic.
Strahd did not eat.
He only drank.
And while his guests tasted the food, he began learning exactly who had entered his land.
They explained the case that had brought them through the Mists: Elisabeta Durst and the Priests of Osybus.
Strahd approved.
The cult had long been a thorn in his side.
They had not entered Barovia to overthrow him.
For now, that was enough.
Rahadin replaced the empty glasses with bowls of roasted pumpkin soup, deep amber beneath a swirl of cream.
Over soup, Strahd described Barovia as sick.
Rotting.
Its people feared him and called him Devil. Administration had become increasingly impossible.
Heroes such as themselves might therefore be useful.
There was, for example, a mad wizard somewhere in his realm.
If the Van Richten Society removed that threat, Strahd would pay double their normal rate and, once their business with Osybus was finished, allow them to leave Barovia.
The offer was accepted for investigation.
Strahd learned that Validus was considered the group’s senior occult expert.
Da’amir would accompany them as his courtly ambassador.
PaK admitted that he did not entirely understand why he was there.
The others told him what needed doing.
So he did it happily.
Strahd seemed to appreciate the answer.
Chapter VI — The Ancient
The next course was stranger.
Fangberry and Gulthias-tree salad arrived arranged more like art than food: beetroot, cucumber, carrot, red onion and dandelwolf greens bound beneath a dark berry reduction and the bitter tannic flavor of Gulthias blood.
Strahd proposed politics.
What was to become of Rose and Thorn Durst?
They were children of nobility. Their parents were dead. The estate could not simply be abandoned.
Strahd offered to administer the property until the children reached adulthood.
Validus wanted them protected from the sins of their parents.
Haleria agreed.
Da’amir was asked his opinion of Ismark, the new Burgomaster of Barovia Village.
Strahd had sent a wine basket following Kolyan Indirovich’s death and received no response.
Da’amir hoped Ismark might bring some growth to the village.
PaK was asked for his thoughts on politics.
He thought cows needed milk for strong bones.
Strahd called the observation riveting.
Then came Lake Zarovich trout, pan-seared until the skin blistered crisp and finished in browned butter, herbs, garlic and lemon.
This time Strahd gave the table to his guests.
Validus asked about the Mists.
Strahd called them his prison.
His punishment.
A receipt for a bill already paid.
The ghost of a life he could never return to.
The Mists kept sunlight from truly rising and prevented the dead from properly resting.
“I am its prisoner, and the Mists are my warden.”
Haleria asked about one of his many titles.
Baron of Mordent.
For the first time that evening, Strahd seemed genuinely delighted by the question.
At sixteen, he said, his hereditary title had not simply been given to him.
His father, King Barov, demanded that he earn it.
Mordent had once belonged to Borca before breaking away. Reclaiming it would prove Strahd worthy.
The coastal stronghold was considered nearly unconquerable.
So Strahd refused to attack it conventionally.
He found exiled orcs and promised them freedom and territory if they attacked by sea.
They did.
They died almost immediately.
That was the point.
Their assault drew Lord Weathersby onto his balcony to observe the battle from what he believed was safety.
A hidden marksman put an arrow through him.
Meanwhile Mordent’s defenders chased what they believed to be an elven threat into the mountains and forests.
The Borcan army struck through the old road.
Elven arrows fell behind them.
By nightfall, Mordent belonged to Strahd.
The story revealed something beneath the charming host.
Strahd did not need to destroy every enemy himself.
He only needed to understand what people wanted, what they feared, and where they would move once properly motivated.
Then attention returned to Da’amir.
Strahd explained what had happened between them.
Da’amir had once traveled with another band of adventurers.
Then he had betrayed the Count.
Joined them in an attempt to put Strahd down “like a wet dog.”
Strahd’s warmth vanished.
He described tearing Da’amir apart and leaving him as roadkill to be found later and stitched back together by Validus.
The room changed with him.
Fear rolled outward from the Count.
Even those who resisted it felt something ancient and wrong pressing against their instincts.
Strahd touched Da’amir’s face almost affectionately.
The playful slap threw him to the floor.
“My dear old friend. I thought the cat always landed on their feet.”
Then, as quickly as the anger arrived, it was gone.
“Get up.”
PaK was next.
He asked how old the castle was.
Four hundred and thirty years.
Strahd had built Ravenloft as a tribute to his mother, Queen Ravenovia, who died before reaching it. The village at the heart of the valley had been named Barovia for his father, who also died before seeing what his son had conquered.
In their place came Strahd’s younger brother.
Sergei.
Things were never the same after that.
Rahadin arrived with roast beef in a Purple Dragon Crush reduction beside buttered spätzle.
For several moments, even the conversation stopped.
Then Strahd apologized to Da’amir.
Things had not been the same since his wife died.
He lost his temper more easily now.
Validus, still fighting the terror lingering in the room, asked her name.
And how she died.
Strahd spoke of Tatyana.
She had been his sunlight.
His earth.
His air.
His music.
She had been taken from him on what should have been their wedding day.
The Dark Powers had promised him everything he wanted only to tear it away.
Worse, Barovia had too few souls.
The dead were born again.
So was Tatyana.
Strahd had found her more than once.
Each time, just as she came within reach, the Dark Powers took her away again.
The last time had been in Berez.
He claimed she had remembered him.
Kissed him.
Their wedding had been arranged.
Then her brother, Kasimir, and the town priest, Grigor, condemned the union.
They killed her.
Strahd answered by drowning Berez.
He butchered those responsible.
The dusk elves received worse.
Kasimir lived, but his people were mutilated, enslaved beneath the Vistani and denied any future by the murder of their women.
Haleria had listened sympathetically to Strahd’s grief.
By the end of the story, she had gone pale.
When she asked what became of those Strahd blamed, he smiled and told her that he had granted them the honor of burial beneath his castle.
The implication was not difficult to understand.
Then Strahd turned back to Da’amir.
Before his death, Da’amir had supposedly found a lead on the newest reincarnation of Tatyana.
What had the name been?
Ireena?
Strahd asked his old friend to find her again.
Bring her to Ravenloft.
Then she and Strahd could finally be married.
Da’amir agreed.
PaK, meanwhile, had only one observation.
From the way Strahd spoke of his wife, she must have been the most beautiful woman in the world.
Strahd had been very lucky.
The Count agreed.
Chapter VII — One More Day
Rahadin brought the cheese course.
Golden-brown pierogi stuffed with Vallaki farmer’s cheese, potato and onion arrived with sour cream and butter.
Nothing extravagant.
Just the food of shepherds and farmers.
The people Strahd called the lifeblood of his valley.
Dinner was nearly finished.
Before dessert, Strahd offered each guest a courtesy.
If there was anything the lord of Barovia could do to make their stay more comfortable, they needed only ask.
Validus asked for safe passage to Vallaki.
Granted.
Strahd promised that the roads would be clear of his “children of the night” for them.
But he warned that the worst monsters they encountered might be waiting behind Vallaki’s walls rather than roaming outside them. When its guards looked at PaK from behind loaded crossbows, Validus could decide for himself who the monster truly was.
Even Strahd, he reminded them, was forbidden from entering Vallaki.
Haleria asked for something different.
Protection from the Vistani of Barovia.
She had suffered at the hands of her own people. Exile could mean death if the wrong Vistani recognized her.
Strahd’s answer was immediate.
“They would not dare.”
He would send a bat to Luvash at the Vallaki Vistani camp. Haleria was to be welcomed among them as though she belonged to their own tasque.
Then Strahd turned to Da’amir.
“Old friend, thanks for coming.”
Nothing more.
PaK asked to play cards.
Games, he explained, were a good way to become friends.
Strahd agreed.
Would they play for sport, or merely revelry?
PaK chose revelry.
No prize.
No stakes.
Just a game.
After dinner, Strahd told him, they would meet in the study for cocktails, cake and cards.
Then dessert arrived.
Dobos torte.
Layers of sponge and dark chocolate buttercream crowned in hard amber caramel that cracked beneath the fork.
Strahd announced that he had spent the evening bringing his world to them.
Now each of them would bring something of home into his.
How did their people end a meal?
Validus raised his glass.
Where he came from, they offered final words to the host, toasted whatever fate might bring, and drank to the hope that everyone present would live one more day.
Strahd raised his goblet.
“That is a request I can grant.”
Haleria explained that her people ended evenings through music and prastonata, the telling of their people through story and song.
Rahadin retrieved a violin.
Strahd handed it to Da’amir.
“My minstrel.”
Da’amir played.
At first uncertainly.
Then better.
For an instant something almost familiar returned: music beside a Vistani fire, fragments of a life buried beneath his missing memories.
Haleria began her people’s story.
A lost homeland.
A great sorrow.
Endless wandering.
A bone-deep longing for a home that could no longer be reached and memories of a time when her people had known greater glory.
Strahd listened.
Then told her that the local tradition was different.
She might find that the Manusa of Barovia sang a version with much more hope for a Dukkar.
Haleria’s eyes opened.
Her face went pale.
Her hand shook around her glass.
Strahd simply raised his own and continued the evening.
Da’amir’s tradition required a drink and a good joke.
Strahd leaned back.
“Make me laugh, minstrel.”
Da’amir told of being crushed by the Death House bathtub, sending Strahd into an insane bout of laughter.
Then attention turned to PaK.
PaK stared down at what remained of his food.
He did not have traditions.
He ate.
Then he went back to work.
Strahd looked genuinely appalled.
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
If that was PaK’s tradition, however, then it deserved respect.
Rahadin was instructed to take him to the kitchen.
PaK would do the dishes.
Then they would play cards.
PaK was delighted.
“Dishes and cards. What more could I ask for?”
Before the night ended, Haleria offered one final joke about a genie whose last wish transformed a man into an irresistible chocolate cake.
Strahd answered with one of his own.
A priest once asked whether he feared damnation.
Strahd did not.
He had met too many priests to believe Hell could possibly be worse.
Haleria nearly choked on her drink.
Strahd rose from the table.
PaK appeared to be a worthy opponent, and the Count needed time to formulate a winning strategy.
The others were free to explore Castle Ravenloft while they waited.
The study was just upstairs.
And surely Da’amir remembered the way.
The doors opened.
Dinner was over.
The night in Ravenloft was not.