Iron & Gold, Curse of Strahd
Previous chapter: 18 - The Abbey — Next chapter: 20 - Yester Hill
19 - The Winery[1]
A sign on Old Svalich Road pointed to the Wizard of Wines, and they obeyed it. The road turned into a gravel track and split; a sign that said “Vineyard” indicated one direction, and instead of forest, they were now in meadow, with unpainted fences along the sides. The gravel track turned into a muddy track, and Ninefingers said, “I don’t get it. These are the only people who actually travel in Barovia, going to each town. Why is the road in such terrible shape?”
“Good question,” said Felewin.
The area was clearly a vineyard, and the road was headed toward a stately building. Grapes and abandoned half-buckets for hauling grapes were on either side of the road. There was a stand of trees off to one side. “Is that a person?” asked Ninefingers.
It looked like a man in a dark cloak and cowl. He was waving them over.
“Be ready,” said Felewin, “but let’s talk first.”
They traipsed over to the man. Others appeared well behind him, out of the trees, but they were a motley group: four other adults and four children of ages ranging from toddler to young teenager.
The man—an older man, with a resemblance to Urwin back in Vallaki—said, “We need help. Did you come for wine?”
Felewin said, “Yes, but what do you need help with?”
“I am Davian, owner of this winery. Forest folk and blight-monsters have taken over, two days ago.”
Ninefingers said, “Why? As near as I can tell, wine is the only thing that makes it livable for most people.”
Felewin shook his head. “Never mind. How many?”
“I saw at least two of the forest folk, and there were maybe a hundred of various blight monsters. They’ve been gathering from Yester Hill, down the road.[2]”
“Good to know,” Felewin said. He said to the others, “Do you know anything about these blight monsters?”
“Oooh, I hate those,” said Hrelgi. “The really small ones are kind of flammable, if that helps?”
“Might.” Felewin said to Davian, “If there are that many, we might need to get into the winery as a defensible position. Are there keys or something that we need to do that? Or is it locked up?”
“Most of us were in the fields when they forced us out. Nothing is locked.”
“Secret entrances we should know about?”
“My father always said there was one, but he never told me where it was.”
Felewin nodded, trying to project an image that was calm and trustworthy.
One of the others behind Davian said, “The horses….Flora and Coop….They have food but will probably be beside themselves with worry. They pull the wagon.”
Davian nodded. “Coop’s clever about stealing food but their bedding’s going to be a sight.”
Felewin said, “Best draw me a map in the dirt here.”
Davian did, pointing out the entrances and warning Felewin that the loading dock had an open upper area. “Windows?”
Davian nodded. A woman behind him said, “They’re poisoning the vats,” and everyone in Davian’s family nodded. “You have to hurry.”
Felewin said, “We will talk later about how you know that, but obviously securing the building is first. Hrelgi, you and Uthrilir take the door the family left by, here. Ninefingers, you can take the front door, and I’ll go in the loading dock. Once the building is secure, we deal with the crowd.” He turned. “Hrelgi, we know we’ll need to set some things on fire. Figure out how as we run.”
“I can’t read and run!”
“Learn.” Felewin turned and started to sprint, though he knew the others would beat him.
As they jangled and ran, dry leaves rustled along their sides as things came out toward them.
“To the building!” Felewin abandoned the zig-zag pattern he had been using and aimed straight for the loading dock.[3] According to Davian, there were two doors that led into the winery proper. The front door actually led into the cooper’s room.
Ninefingers beat him, no surprise, but discovered that the front door had been blocked already; by the time he had tried it and diverted course, Felewin had caught up, and charged straight into the loading dock. The change in lighting made it difficult for him to see, but he[4] saw the door to the south, ajar, and he headed for it.[5]
Ninefingers said, “Hey, wait up!” When he got beside Felewin, he said in a low voice, “Forest folk upstairs on winch; I can’t reach him,” and pointed through the door to the ramp up.
Felewin nodded and headed that way, saying, “This door’s damaged; see what you can find to barricade it.” He looked around. “If you’re not busy.[6]”
Felewin managed to steal up the ramp, and his eyes were now used to the darkness, so he saw the forest folk sitting on the winch. He fired his crossbow[7] and got the forest folk in the side, near the kidney. The forest folk gasped, and turned to look; the man or woman (Felewin couldn’t tell) was carrying an elaborate staff of black wood that looked like dozens of intertwined or overlapping branches. The forest folk said something that Felewin couldn’t understand (in a man’s voice), and dropped off the winch into the wagon below.[8]
The forest folk landed badly, however, and the staff slipped from his hand. It hit the railing of the wagon, flipped over to the ground, and whacked itself against the ledge of the loading dock. Then it rolled under the edge.
The forest folk, however, screamed and died, having pushed the arrow all the way into his body and out the other side.
Felewin knew that it would be bad to let the forest folk or their army get that staff. He abandoned his crossbow, ran to the winch, grabbed the rope, and lowered himself to the wagon.[9]
Meanwhile, Ninefingers saw a female forest folk with a horned headpiece pouring something into the farthest of four vats; she had either already poisoned one or two vats, depending on which direction she was going. Ninefingers also saw the door opening at ground level; he hoped that was Hrelgi and Uthrilir, because his interest at the moment was grabbing one of those barrels and barricading the broken door.
So he shed all stealth and made himself loud and obvious, hoping to keep attention away from Hrelgi and Uthrilir. As he watched, something small, maybe his size, maybe smaller, skittered across the floor and hid behind one of the barrels.
What was that?
He could spot Hrelgi coming through the door. He said loudly to the forest folk, “Busy but you’re next!” He trotted over and grabbed a barrel other than the one he knew was hiding a…thing.
Hrelgi was flipping pages again. Why doesn’t she ever prep anything? Ninefingers thought. Magic, go figure. He started hauling the barrel, which fortunately was empty. An empty barrel was easier to move but a worse barricade. Still, you had to start somewhere.
With luck, she would attack him, giving Hrelgi enough time—
The woman cried, “Attack!” And pointed at Ninefingers.
Well, I’ve distracted her.
Small humanoids about the same size as Ninefingers started coming out from under the barrels and the balcony around the room. There were maybe two dozen of them, and they were all headed for Ninefingers.
He dropped the barrel and ran.
He heard Hrelgi chanting.[10] He heard the shriek as the forest folk, like the flesh golem that morning, shot across the room and hit the wall. Her horned headpiece came off her head and fell off the balcony and down to the floor.
Five of the creatures (plants?) were ahead of Ninefingers; he drew his sword and swung it around him. Surely even one of…these…wouldn’t charge into an arm’s-length of steel.
Outside, Felewin had finally grabbed the staff, as the first of the blights made it to the loading dock. Felewin got onto the dock. The door into the winery was still ajar; Ninefingers hadn’t blocked it off yet.
Something must have got him busy, thought Felewin.
He sprinted for the broken door; he was going to have to hold it shut with his body.
The female forest folk tried to say something but couldn’t.[11]
Ninefingers slowly advanced; if he could get his back against a wall, at least they couldn’t sneak up on him.
“Bring her to me,” Uthrilir said. He had his mace out. Most of the weird plant things were after Ninefingers, but there were a half-dozen near him.
Uthrilir hit one blight and felt the fibres of the plant break, but not enough.[12] How could you tell if the thing was wounded?
Several of them tried to tear at him with their twig-like hands; one managed to scratch him.
Hrelgi cast almost the same spell[13] and the forest folk flew toward her; Hrelgi stepped out of the way and the forest folk hit the other wall, and did not get up.
Uthrilir said, “Thanks but Ninefingers needs help.”
Outside, Felewin pressed against the door, and tried to break the staff while waiting.[14] The staff resisted like a living thing, and then gave a human-like scream that even Ninefingers, Hrelgi, and Uthrilir heard.
“What the hell?” Ninefingers said, as every blight dropped dead.[15] The pressure against the door behind Felewin stopped, but he did not move, mindful that it might be a trick.
“Oooh, they were being controlled by a Gulthias staff! Good job, breaking it!”
Ninefingers said, “They’re gone?”
Hrelgi nodded. “All the local ones. Out to the fields, but not beyond.”
“But that still leaves the forest folk,” said Uthrilir. “Hrelgi, you check upstairs. Ninefingers, you check the basement; I’ll check this floor. Yell if you spot something.”
Ninefingers grabbed the barrel and hoisted it up. “Felewin might want to know.”
Hrelgi nodded and sprinted up the stairs nearby. Once she was on the balcony, she paused to look up a spell in her book; the headache from reality-backlash was almost gone.[16] She had both knives out, though it was difficult holding the book and the knife and the other knife.
The first door was ajar, and Hrelgi found a…woman, caked in mud and twigs, looking through a cabinet and tossing things on the floor. Hrelgi wasn’t trying to be quiet but she wasn’t trying to be loud, either, and the woman hadn’t noticed her.[17] She softly spoke the spell, and the knife flew from her hand into the forest folk, who hadn’t yet noticed that her blight servants were dead.[18]
“Attack!” the forest folk cried, and the blights did not move.
“Got one!” yelled Hrelgi, and she drew her other knife.
Uthrilir heard her, but had entered a room full of barrels for storage. There was a door in the wall, and he headed for it.
Ninefingers and Felewin wrestled the barrel into place to keep the door closed, while Ninefingers told him what was going on.
Just then they heard Hrelgi’s yell. “You know that room; I’ll do the cellar,” said Felewin.
“I can see in the dark,” Ninefingers said. “You go up; I’ll go down.”
Felewin didn’t say anything; he started running up the ramp as Ninefingers started running down. Felewin made it into the house proper, but there was nothing in the hallway, and there was only one other door. He took it.
Ninefingers made it down to the cold cellar. Wooden pillars and beams held the ceiling up, and a thin mist covered the floor. Most of this half of the room was taken up by a rack of bottles. Ninefingers spotted a pair of antlers over behind a barrel, and heard the words of a spell.[19] The wood of the wine rack exploded, causing bottles to shatter and fly out.[20] Some hit Ninefingers and bounced off his armor; some lightly cut his arms, legs, and face.
Upstairs, the forest folk swung her staff but missed Hrelgi, who came in close to slash her with her other knife. Felewin could hear the grunts and screams, and hurried as fast as he could. He yelled, “I’m coming! Uthrilir, cellar!”
Uthrilir hadn’t found anything yet; he checked the cooper’s workshop with the barricaded door in a perfunctory way and started for downstairs.
The growth of the wine rack presented a difficult shell for a human to get around, and Felewin or Hrelgi couldn’t have done it, but Ninefingers was small. He spotted an opening and squeezed through it. While he was doing that, though, the forest folk hit him with a staff. Fortunately, his armour absorbed some of the blow, but the forest folk was at a disadvantage: there wasn’t enough room to use the staff effectively.[21] Ninefingers could and did stab with his sword.
Upstairs, the forest folk managed to hit Hrelgi, and she missed, but the quarterstaff didn’t do much except throw her aim off. The forest folk’s next shot was easily blocked, and Hrelgi managed to stab her again, but the damage from the knife wasn’t enough: the forest folk was still moving.
Felewin arrived and said, “Need help?”
“Please!”
“Get behind me.” He elbowed his way forward, in front of Hrelgi. With one stroke, he took the forest folk’s head off. “You were doing pretty well, there,” he told her.
“She got a couple of shots in.”
“My first sort-of real fight was in a tournament. Lost terribly.” He grinned. “Stopped assuming that because I was big, I was better.”
In the cellar, Ninefingers stabbed the forest folk again and killed him. The coppery smell of death and blood filled the air, as Uthrilir said, “Ninefingers?”
“Back here. With a dead one. That makes four of them.” Ninefingers squeezed out. “Think there are more?”
“Haven’t checked the glassblowing room or the stables.”
“Maybe we do those together, huh?”
The glassblowing workshop was empty of forest folk; the horses were glad to see them. Ninefingers wrinkled his nose. “Oh, yeah, that bedding needs to be cleaned out.”
Felewin joined them. “Good girls,” he said to the horses. “I can’t take you out yet because we don’t know if there are more things out there.”
There were not; they met Davian’s family already walking back to the house. Davian looked at the sky. “Early afternoon. You have time to Krezk — I think that’s where you said you came from, right?”
“I didn’t say,” said Felewin. “You have sources of information I’d like to know about.”
“They’re entirely good,” said Davian.
“I’ll judge that,” said Felewin.
Davian set his mouth, and finally, his youngest son said, “Shapeshifters. We’re shapeshifters.”
“Werewolves?” asked Ninefingers. His hand went to the hilt of his sword.
“No. No, wereravens,” said the young man.
“Cool,” said Hrelgi. “So you can fly over an area and see what’s happening?” The young man nodded.
“And you’re good?”
“We’re people,” said Davian. “Some of us are good, some are not.”
“But mostly we’re good,” said his daughter.
“I’ll get you a drink and explain our problem,” said Davian.
“Um, she might have put something in the one vat,” said Hrelgi. “Maybe a spoilage agent, maybe a poison. I’m just going to call it poison. It’s not my area, but I think I can purify it out.”
“Do all four,} said Felewin. “We don’t know which end she started from.”
Hrelgi got the vial that the forest folk woman was pouring from. “So the poison remembers being in this vial, right? I just need to convince the poison that it needs to be in the vial again.[22]” There was much flipping of pages and then Hrelgi cast the spell. The magic went fine but she had a terrible headache afterward.
Davian poured wine out for each of them. “We only work as a winery because we use magic.”
“Understandably,” said Ninefingers.
“Each of our grape varieties has a magical seed or gem planted with it. That’s what lets us harvest so often despite the weather.”
“How big are these seeds?” asked Uthrilir.
“About the size of a pine cone, maybe as long as my hand. They shine with a green light. They’re gone. I know that the forest folk took one of them. While we were out of the house, Baba Lysaga took another one.”
“And the third?”
“It’s been gone for months; I don’t know who took it.” Davian looked around the table at each of them. “Without those seeds, we cannot produce more wine. Once this batch is finished fermenting, that’s it. No more wine.” He held Felewin’s gaze. “Please get them back.”
Felewin rubbed his eyes. “We’ve already failed at our first venture. The person we were guarding is gone.”
“But she’s safe now,” said the young man. “I saw it.”
“You saw?” Felewin sighed. “Right. Wereravens. So what happened?”
“I’ll tell you if you get one of the gems back.”
Felewin turned to the others. “Apparently we’re going to Berez anyway, but Yester hill is close.”
“We need to be rested,” said Ninefingers.
“Can we stay here for the night?” asked Felewin.
“Of course,” said Davian.
“Then I need one more favour,” said Felewin. “I need someone to keep an eye on Yester hill. I need that person to be able to tell me the terrain and what we’re likely to meet. If possible, tell me where the gem is.”
“We don’t know where it is; we just know they took it.”
Felewin said, “Well, someone needs to keep an eye on it. We need to know how many of them there are. You can tell me about the terrain now, but how many people are there? What about those plant things?”
“Blights,” said Hrelgi.
“Those. Are there more? Can they make them?”
“Oh, no. Not unless they had access to a Gulthias tree. Of course, they had a Gulthias staff…so yes? The blights are produced by a Gulthias tree, and those are really rare.”
Felewin said, “So there’s probably only one or two in Barovia. What do they look like, Hrelgi?”
“A tree. I mean, blackened and twisted, I suppose, but like a tree.”
The young man, whose name was Elvir, said, “There’s lots of trees there, but there is one big one.”
Davian said, “Here. You’ve got the trail in. The hill is mostly bare but there are two rings of big mounds of rocks—”
“Cairns,” said his daughter.
“Cairns. They’re maybe half again as tall as you are. At the very top of the hill is a ring of boulders and stones.”
“Tight, like a natural wall, or spread out?” asked Felewin.
“Tight. Height varies, but at the low parts it’s still taller than this fella” (he indicated Uthrilir) “and at the tall parts, it’s taller’n you. There’s two places the path go through; we never fly near it because the ring gets hit by lightning a lot. Inside that ring is a statue made of branches and vines all grown together. The statue is maybe ten times as tall as you are.”
“But it doesn’t get hit by lightning?”
Davian shook his head.
“We might have to burn that statue. We’ve got some oil, but do you have some?”
“Lantern oil, yeah.”
“We’ll need some. But none of that is a tree.”
“There are trees and shrubs in a little grove, still inside that second set of cairns. Most of them are small, but one is black and twisted.”
“How do you kill a Gulthias tree?” asked Felewin of Hrelgi.
Hrelgi said, “Well, they come from the body of someone with evil magic. The first came from the stake used to kill the vampire Gulthias. You can burn it, and that gets rid of it for a while, but they grow back.”
“Can we purify the area?” asked Uthrilir.
Hrelgi shrugged. “I’ve never gone after them. I know about them mostly because those little plant blights can wreck all the plant life in a garden. I know a town that got destroyed because of them.”
“So in the short term we should burn it and in the long term purify the area?” asked Uthrilir.
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Hrelgi.
Ninefingers said, “The gem might be in the tree, or shoved into the statue, or buried somewhere. What do they want with it?”
Hrelgi said, “The gem gives life to plants; that’s why you can plant things here.” She looked around the table. “They want to bring life to some kind of big plant, something bigger than their Gulthias tree can do.”
“But Baba Lysaga—” started Davian.
“Different thing,” said Hrelgi. “She came the next day.”
Felewin asked, “Are they going to do it tonight? Do we have to stop this right now?”
Hrelgi shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“If that’s the kind of ritual thing they’re going to do, how many people do they need?”
“Two, three?”
“More is better,” Uthrilir said, “but if it’s like any ritual I know, you just need enough people to keep the chant going.”
“And we think they need the gem and the tree,” said Felewin.
“Get rid of one of them and the ritual doesn’t work,” said Ninefingers. “The easy one to get is the gem except it’s hard to get into the wall of stones there. The hard one to do is destroy the tree, but it’s easier to get to.”
“How far away is Yester Hill?” asked Felewin.
“Two and a half, three hours by foot,” said Elvir.
“We can’t get there by nightfall,” said Felewin. “Not unless we had riding horses, and those fine beasts out there are draft horses, not riding horses.”
“I can make them riding horses,” said Hrelgi.
“You’re not taking our horses,” said Davian.
“I’m just going to make them fast,” said Hrelgi. “You can come with us and protect the horses. They’ll be strong enough to carry all of us and a bundle of clothes for you.”
“Uthrilir? Ask the Lady for healing for Ninefingers.[23] We’re heading out.”
Previous chapter: 18 - The Abbey — Next chapter: 20 - Yester Hill
Monsters
To be included: Blights and druids
Mechanics
[1] Mythic suggested theme: Transform Enemies (Ambiguous Event)
[2] Davian is a wereraven. He knows this because he’s done looking.
[3] Felewin tries to load and cock the crossbow as he runs. He rolls a 3, margin 7, so even though it’s nearly impossible he does it.
[4] It’s difficulty 2 to see the door in the dimness and Felewin is awareness 3, so he spots it
[5] Ninefingers, however, can see in the dark and rolls a 7 on his investigation roll.
[6] Felewin does not have Stealth but his is Fitness 5, and he rolls a 3, making is Stealth by 2, which is the Difficulty that Heavy-Footed gives him. So he’s actually quiet.
Ninefingers does have Stealth, and rolls successfully, getting margin 3.
[7] Druid is man-sized and not moving; distance is about 7 meters, and long range on a crossbow is 60 meters, short range is 15 meters…so this is point lank, difficulty -2. Felewin rolls a 6, making it margin 6. 3 Inj for the Druid.
Mythic: does Druit have barkskin? CF 8, roll 87: No. Druid takes 3 Inj, has -2 to all rolls.
[8] By rules as written, the fall will cause 2 Fat damage, so while Felewin is reloading, he falls down. Felewin’s only chance is that the druid does something stupid with the staff.
Mythic: Does he drop the staff? let’s say likely becasuse the injury makes him have an extra 2 difficulty on every roll. CF 8. Rolls 3, so he does drop the staff with an exceptional failure. roll d6 and odd: he breaks the staff or even he injures himself fatally: Even: he dies.
[9] Felewin makes his Athletics roll, rolling a 6 and having a margin of 4.
[10] Hrelgi’s using Fabrica Motus; she rolls 6 (margin 3) and she rolls 9 on her Reason+Composure (margin 2 because it’s trivial). She rolls 8 o the athletics skill to hit the Druid, so she succeeds.
The question is, does the druid have barkskin active? She does, and it provides armor 2…but 3 of the 4 damage get through;
[11] Reactions Felewin: 12 Ninefingers 10 Hrelgi last Uthrilir 12 forest folk 9 Twig Blights 7 Needle Blights 8
[12] End of Wednesday.
[13] Hrelgi makes the Athletics roll, margin 0; she makes the spell roll, margin 2; she makes a second Athletics roll margin 0 to get out of the way. The Druid hits the ground and bark skin protects her from 2 of the 4 Fat damage, but 2 more renders her unconscious. Hrelgi rolls 9 on the R+C spell, which fails it by 1. She’s not casting magic next turn.
[14] Felewin needs to make an Athletics roll, difficulty 2. He does, rolling an 8.
[15] Does Hrelgi know this stuff? Let’s say it’s Reasoning+any Fabrica spell, and she’s already shown that she knows pests, so dificulty 0. Hrelgi rolls a 6, which makes any Fabrica spell by a margin of 2.
[16] Mythic: left or right? Odd left, even right: 2 on a 1d6, so she goes right, and approaches upstairs from the west.
[17] Hrelgi rolls 3 on Athletics, 5 on motus, and 5 on R+C. I’m going to say the force of the propelled knife is equivalent to a Fitness 4 person; 2 Inj.
[18] Reactions: Hrelgi is always last, so the druid goes first and then Hrelgi. Uthrilir isn’t going to meet anyone; Felewin 12, Ninefingers 11, basement druid 6
[19] The druid gets this as a freebie: the wood of the wine rack behaves as if it were still in a living plant and it’s an Umbral Change. It’s the shattering bottles that really do the damage, and we’ll treat it like an explosion, of a 2 inj charging powder .His armor protects him from 1 Inj but 1 gets through.
[20] Reactions: Felewin 11, Ninefingers 9, Uthrilir 9, Druid upstairs 9 (hrelgi last), Druid in basement 7
[21] Reactions down below: Ninefingers 13, Druid 6 Felewin gets Margin 2, druid margin 0;
[22] Hrelgi uses a Fabrica Ge and Fabrica Materia pair, with a Reasoning+ Composure after each. Materia casting, though the second one doesn’t count. The Materia is 6, which makes it, and the R+C is 10, which also makes it (barely); the ge is 8, which makes it. The second R+C is 11, so Hrelgi has a headache.
After a while she does it three more times. 8 and 8, 8 and 7, 6 and 10.
[23] Uthrilir rolls a 7 for the Lady’s blessing, and gets 2 levels of help, for Felewin. Hrelgi has healed herself.
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