//A meeting of pairs, two sets of shadows- one light and one swathed in crimson blood//A miniature castle sinking into thick dark mud as if the gods themselves wished it gone from their sight//A high pale moon rises over an apparently bottomless pit, gaping maw crowned by a ring of once beautiful roses//
7th of April
I awoke this morning with the word 'Barovia' forming on my lips, the mental image of that most cursed of villages emblazoned into my mind's eye. I knew I would be needed there, and soon... so against my better judgement I turned away from my planned trek towards my family home in Vallaki to take the more dangerous path.
The trip took most of the hours in the day, though I was blessedly unmolested in my travels- a rare boon in this land. Perhaps even the foul creatures that stalk the roads are unwilling to travel close to the Count's personal Fief. Whatever the case, I arrived just as the sun set. Unsure of my goal, I wondered the streets, following the flitting spirits until they led me to the foot of some great mansion. That was when things escalated... fairly quickly.
Just as my dream foretold, two pairs came to me on that street. One pair stepped out of the mists, clad in the raiment of a foreign land with their bodies malformed in such a way to imply a distinct lack of humanity. The other pair arrived in the form of frightened children, fleeing down the steps of the Mansion to plead for our help. Despite my fears, I could not merely leave the brother and sister to their on devices. Ah, the plight of a Hunter in Barovia eh? To have every instinct screaming at you to run, and yet having an obligation to stay. Old Master Yorik would have been proud.
So I joined with this pair, an 'elf' named Stryker and a 'dwarf' referring to himself as 'Gil'. Despite their unorthodox appearances, the pair seemed surprisingly dependable as we navigated through the house. The mansion had an ill feeling to it, from the hidden horrors hiding in every carved wall to the sheer... emptiness. I could feel a teeming mass of spirtual energy yearning for release, and yet the souls of the dead seemed quiet. Unable or unwilling to come out of hiding... that is, until we reached the nursery. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We searched the library on the second floor, a grand room with many more books than I have ever seen in one place before in my life. That would have been a wondrous enough find... but Stryker found a secret room. Inside there were more books, darker books. Tomes of demon summoning and binding. Black Magic and foul knowledge not worthy of any reasonable Barovian. Here we found that the Durst's (the owners of the mansion) were foul servants of the Dark Powers who had been torturing and murdering regular folk for what must have been decades- and that this bloodthirsty pastime did nothing to ingratiate them with the Count. The correspondence we found clutched in a dead man's hand, some poor thief no doubt, proved of the Count's knowledge of the atrocities and his own tacit disgust at their pathetic cruelty. Damn the Dursts- though how does this relate to the children?
Trying to discover the secrets of this house almost led to our instant deaths. Disturbing the nursery just a floor above led to the rousing of some murdered and bloodthirsty soul. Her touch was as cold as death, and my life almost was ended by her embrace- only the swift intervention of my new companions saved me from joining the host of the damned swirling about this nexus of horror.
I write this barricaded in an upstairs washroom where we must rest. Leaving is impossible as the fog outdoors has swallowed the street up seemingly in its entirety. We must regain strength and solve the mystery of this house soon- or risk becoming its next victims.
Morninglord Preserve Us~
[Just for a little OOC clarification, this is the journal of Christoff Vonovich- and his journal happens to be a gothic trinket that writes down his dreams every night.]
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