Session 10 — The Church Is Missing Its Bones

Session 10 — The Church Is Missing Its Bones

Sable went to sleep in a tree. This was, in hindsight, suboptimal. Barovia has bats. Barovia has will-o'-wisps. Barovia's children sneak out at night and transform into ravens to investigate things, which is fine, except when the wisps find them first and start doing zaps. The night was long. The sheets needed washing. Irwin gave her a potion, which fixed approximately a quarter of the problem.

What Happened

The Night. While the rest of the party slept in their beds like sensible people, Sable Burrowbane was up a tree in the city forest of Vallaki, which she had selected as an acceptable substitute for actual woodland. She settled into a nest of branches. The forest had opinions.

She was woken by small flashes of light, loud squeaking, and small fangs. A swarm of bats. Then another. Then a third. And two will-o'-wisps, bobbing with the offhand menace of creatures that run on spite and lightning. She took 19 damage before she could respond — 10 piercing, 9 lightning — and was already bloodied when her initiative came up.

She cast Rope Trick, touched her rope, climbed up, and pulled the portal shut behind her. Whatever the wisps were expecting her to do, it wasn't that. They hovered around the general area of her last known position, confused. The space inside felt wrong — dimmer than usual, the air thick and pressing like fog against skin, the neutral gray of the extra-dimensional room replaced by something with weight. She could see out. The bats and wisps could not see in.

Two ravens flew into the scene and engaged. They were doing fine, then one took a hard shock from a wisp and dropped. The other dove to protect it. Things looked dire.

Sable lowered the rope just enough to poke her head out, shot the nearest wisp on a 27 to hit, shot again, pulled back in. Repeat until the tactical situation improved. Nat 20 on the wisp threatening the fallen raven — 19 points of damage, which was its entire remaining health and slightly more. The bats fell shortly after. She ended the fight from a hole in the air, which is either cowardly or exactly correct depending on how you feel about survival.

The conscious raven transformed. It was Brahm — eleven years old, holding his unconscious brother Bray in his arms, looking up at the place where Sable's rope had been with the expression of a child who has just understood that things went somewhere other than planned. Then the remaining bats and wisps transferred their attention to the child in the clearing.

Sable climbed down and finished them.

She hit both boys with Cure Wounds: nine hit points each. Bray opened his eyes, confused. Brahm, having watched someone disappear into a hole in the sky and then reappear to save his brother, informed Sable that they had saved her, which was the most Barovian eleven-year-old thing anyone could have said.

They walked back to the inn. Sable, at 12 of 51 hit points, bleeding visibly, ears hanging flat against her skull, knocked on the innkeepers' door and reported that she had found their children, thrown some healing at them, and would like to go to bed now. Danica stared for a moment, then Irwin produced a potion of healing from the attic and handed it over without ceremony. Sable downed it. She was still not looking great. She went to bed. The sheets needed washing.

Morning came for everyone else first.

The Church. The three conscious members of the party, plus Ismark Kolyana and Ireena Kolyana, set off to St. Andrew's Church in Vallaki while Sable took a well-earned long rest. The church is on the eastern edge of town: a slouching centuries-old stone building with a bulging steeple, walls lined with cracked stained glass depicting pious saints, and a garden of gravestones behind a wrought-iron fence with mist threading through it.

Brother Moro rolled a 16 on Religion. He knew more than most. St. Andrew was a paladin of the Morning Lord — the same faith represented at the church in the village of Barovia, though that building is considerably more battered. In the early days of the church's founding, legend holds that an angel in the form of a raven delivered the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind to St. Andrew, who used it to fight vampires. The party had an immediate and unanimous reaction to this information.

Merich rolled a 9. He knew none of this.

Inside: a priest cleaning up after the dawn service, a boy in vestments assisting, a brawny young man holding a shovel he would not put down, and an elderly woman dusting. The priest looked up, welcomed them to the wrong church, and introduced himself as Father Lucian Petrovich.

When Celeste mentioned they were looking for a safe place for Ireena, Father Lucian's expression did the thing — the same look of silent recognition that Danica and Irwin had done the night before. He suggested his office.

The bad news: days ago someone broke into the crypt beneath the chapel and stole the bones of St. Andrew. The bones were what gave the church its protection against Strahd's influence. Father Lucian had not told anyone — panicking the town seemed like the worse outcome, on balance — but he could not in good conscience recommend the church as safe harbor for someone Strahd was actively pursuing.

Merich asked if there were any leads. Father Lucian knew only that his altar boy Yeska — a recently orphaned boy who came to the church frightened and couldn't sleep — had been told about the bones. Not as a breach of confidence; more a pastoral decision, at the time. He had asked Yeska directly whether he'd told anyone else. Yeska said no. Children say no. Father Lucian was not certain.

He brought Yeska in.

Yeska is small, pale, swimming in vestments, and currently behaving like a child who has been marched into a room to speak with five adults and has correctly understood that he is in trouble. Merich got down to his level, conjured a ball of light, and let the kid hold it. 21 on Persuasion with advantage.

Yeska cried, in the silent manner of children who know they cannot make it worse by being loud. He hadn't taken the bones. But Milovaj — another boy at the church, older, described as "temperamental," had been picking on him. Telling him he was useless, that no one wanted him. Yeska told Milovaj about the bones to make himself seem important. To make the cruelty stop. He immediately understood this had not worked.

Sophie — Merich's direwolf — was summoned at this point. Yeska was on the floor getting lovingly mauled within moments, which resolved the crying.

Father Lucian confirmed that Milovaj is a brawny teenager who has been with the church for some time and has apparently not accepted his situation gracefully. He's not a bad person, Father Lucian said, in the way adults say this about teenagers who have just stolen religious artifacts. The priest went to get him. Milovaj was not in the church anymore. He had left.

A search of Milovaj's room turned up an extra set of clothes and a small bag of coins — coin of the realm, bearing Strahd's face, more than a church boy should have.

The Plan. The party reunited at the inn when Sable finally descended the stairs. Merich gave her the summary. Sable asked why this mattered, received the explanation about the bones and Strahd's influence, and accepted it as sufficient reason to be involved.

Merich pulled Danica aside with a 17 on Stealth — bar full, not overheard — and asked the Keepers of the Feather to deploy their ravens to look for Milovaj. Danica and Irwin conferred in the back. Irwin dipped. Ravens went out. The system: if they spot Milovaj, a raven returns to Danica and the party would need to come check in, since the birds can communicate with the wereravens but not directly with the party.

The party split. Merich and Celeste headed for the Vistani camp on the western edge of town — Merich is thinking about Milovaj, possibly about the coins, possibly about the question of who would pay a church boy to steal bones. Brother Moro and Sable Burrowbane aimed for the toymaker's shop. The toymaker, per Danica's original prompt, will explain something about Ireena's face.

No one leveled up. It's Christmas. The DM said no.

Key Decisions

NPCs Met

Locations Visited

Items Found

Loose Threads