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DIR Return to: The Curse of Strahd
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#Post#: 2891--------------------------------------------------
Epilogue
DIR By: Duncan Seastove
Date: January 23, 2018, 6:19 pm
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As Professor Arscene and Ivana sprinted down the slick, muddy
cobblestones that wind away from the spires of Ravenloft,
lightning streaked across the dark sky, and the land trembled
with great peals of thunder. Above the sounds of the raging
storm, the slow, twisted laughter of Count Strahd von Zarovich
pierces every corner of his domain. It was then that all of the
people of Barovia, cowering in their broken homes, knew that the
adventurers had failed, as had happened countless times before.
Madame Eva, sat in her trembling tent, breathed a heavy sigh.
She slowly shuffled the tarokka cards before her back into the
deck, and folded the deck back into its silk wrapping. She had
had high hopes for this group, she thought to herself, but it
mattered not. There would be others, in time.
After disposing of his foes, Strahd von Zarovich slowly made his
way up the spiraling steps of Ravenloft’s central tower. The
steps were slick with blood, blood which had rained from above
when the knight Darien had landed his vicious blow, bursting the
Heart of Sorrow which had always protected Strahd from harm.
Strahd grimaced. This had never happened before. But it mattered
not. He would construct it anew. And besides, he had what he
wanted. At last, Tatyana would be his.
That night, after changing himself into fineries not soaked with
the blood of adventurers, Strahd von Zarovich met Ireena— no,
she was Tatyana, he was sure— under the domed ceiling of
Ravenloft’s chapel. There, in the exact spot where she was wed
to Sergei so many years ago, Tatyana was finally married to her
rightful lord and master. That night, after bedding his new
bride, Strahd drained the life from her body. By dawn, she arose
a spawn of the great vampire, and was sealed in a crypt in the
heart of the pillar stone of Ravenloft, to be kept for all
eternity.
Dalmatia D’Avenir had already completed her mission before the
sounds of Strahd’s victory reached her. Her old friend and
mentor, Rudolf van Richten, lay lifeless at her feet, her rapier
stuck between his ribs, his blood pooling around her false leg.
She tongued her newly grown fangs at the sight of the blood. It
is finished, she thought. The ghosts of her past, van Richten
and Rasec, whom she had spent a lifetime chasing, are dead and
gone. It was time to make use of her Vistani blood once again
and leave this wretched place. There were many more places to
see in Faerun, after all, and now she had an eternity to see
them.
The next day, the soft blue eyes of Lucien Cadogan sprang open,
as he gasped his first breath since he had died. He arose a
vampire spawn, to join Strahd’s entourage for all eternity, or
at least until such time as his master tired of him and sealed
the former adventurer into a crypt. Though he was bound in
undeath to his new master, he had not forgotten what he had read
in the Tome of Strahd. Lucien was the rightful heir to the
throne of Ravenloft, and he soon set his newfound immortality to
plotting, planning and waiting— waiting for the next group of
adventurers that would seek to destroy Count Strahd von
Zarovich, and make room for Count Lucien Cadogan to take his
place.
The knight Darien Mazaev had proved a formidable opponent, more
formidable than any Strahd had faced in his four centuries of
undeath. Naturally, Strahd had destroyed him utterly. However,
he then had Darien’s body washed and embalmed, his thick black
plate repaired and polished, and the lifeless, armored knight
laid to rest in one of Ravenloft’s many crypts with his great
amber blade laid over his chest. Above the entrance to the
crypt, he had inscribed “Sir Darien Mazaev, Heartbreaker”
Cesar Rasec’s lifeless body lay in a heap, nestled amongst the
bones and stone coffins of the vault beneath the crypt of
Stahbal Indi-Bhak, where he and his party had made their final
stand. But not all was lifeless in that crypt. The shadows
stirred, and a shade of the man that once was seeped from his
corpse. Cesar’s Shadow now haunts the halls of Ravenloft and the
darker corners of Barovia, seeking with deadly determination a
way to be rid of his shadowy curse, or at least a suitable host
for his black soul.
The thief known as No One, realizing that his friends were not
going to be escaping from the castle with him, fled into the
wilds of Barovia. From there, he began his long-awaited campaign
of terror and hijinks, spreading the legend of the man who was
both bear and pig, stealing whatever he could get his hands on,
and leaving coins for good little girls and boys who ate their
beets. Strahd was content to permit him to live, for now, as he
found some small amusement in the distress this thief was
causing amongst his miserable subjects.
After fleeing Ravenloft, Ivana and Arscene arrived in the
Vistani camp just outside of Vallaki. Kasimir Velikov, father of
Ivana’s as yet unborn child, was glad to see her alive, but
painfully aware of with what wroth Strahd would now pursue her.
As a final favor for the return of his own daughter, Arabelle,
the Vistani chief, Luvash, was convinced to provide a Vistani
escort to ferry Ivana, and Ivana alone, from Barovia. Kasimir
followed the group to the very edges of the mist, and watched as
Ivana and the future of the Dusk Elf race slowly disappeared to
the land beyond, to which he would never be able to follow.
As for Professor Arscene Lupin IV, though he could not secure an
escape from Barovia along with Ivana, he remained unconcerned.
He had a hunch that there were other means of escape, and that
perhaps the Amber Temple, or that mad mage who had once dueled
Strahd himself would hold the answers. With his knack for
concealing himself from divination magic, Arscene quietly
disappeared. Though Strahd had his minions scour the land, no
trace of the good professor was ever found. Many Barovians
whisper that he yet lives, communing with the secret magical
places and beings of Barovia.
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