Bianca's Menagerie--Borca
General Summary
Before you left the de Carlo estate, Silvia de Carlo gave you a purse with 250 gold in it and asked you to come to her with whatever you found beforse you went to anyone else; Vincente Travatello, being "a very sweet man," might not be able to interpret the facts correctly. You agreed to go to her first with the understanding that you would report to Vincente afterwards, then went to the stables by the warehouse.
Rose cast speak with animals, and between the horses and Seamus, she was able to piece together that there had been three people in the cart, two men and a woman. The drover had taken them to a farm on the outskirts of town, and hadn't acted like himself afterwards--he didn't give the horses any treats at all! The three people also smelled wrong; they were surrounded by the smell of blood.
This was the last bit of evidence Vanya needed. He didn't know of any spells that could make someone kill themselves, but the vampyres (yes, sigh, someone at TSR thought it was a good idea to give the living vamps a name that's a homophone for undead vamps; thanks, TSR, that's not at all confusing) had been able to force their slaves to do all kinds of horrible things. You speculated for a while on what sort of relationship the Scarlatti might have with the vampyres, which I'm not going to summarize here because you were about to find out.
You traveled to Bianca's menagerie, most of which was contained in a building that was heated through the same hot springs that Borcans use for their mineral baths, and she showed off her animals and her methods of milking them with obvious pride. Animals included a giant spider, a glass sea urchin with hallucinogenic venom, a massive outdoor apiary full of a bunch of bees and wasps, and a whole slew of snakes, spiders, scorpions, and jellyfish. She clearly had access to a massive amount of venom if she wanted it, but you also didn't see much in the way of staff, so she was limited in how much she could milk.
After showing off the menagerie, Bianca took Vanya out into the garden and brought him to Maria, who was looking underfed, sitting next to an untouched plate of food, and wearing a nightdress; when she saw them, she immediately knelt and offered her wrists. Bianca got her up and asked her if she recognized Vanya, and Maria said he'd sung a song she liked. Vanya played countersong for her, and she brightened a little and ate some of the food, causing Bianca to look at him like he was Ezra come again.
Bianca said Maria and some unnamed "other sources" had told her that an agent of the Falkfuhrer--a Barovian bard--had liberated the feeding houses, so her family appeared to owe Vanya a great debt. She hastened to add that her grandfather Rodrigo Scarlatti wouldn't see it that way, because he assumed that Drakov's men were responsible for Maria's current state and that she'd spun some fanciful story about vampires to protect her mind from whatever had truly happened to her. Vanya pressed Bianca about how she'd been able to control Alessandro de Carlo, and she told him that she didn't want that information in Drakov's hands because she knew how he'd use it. She said that Maria had stopped eating as a way of passively killing herself and that she hoped Drakov would treat the vampyres with the hospitality Falkovnia was known for. Vanya said that while he wasn't sure, he knew Drakov wouldn't be too warmly inclined to them because they'd been allied with some of his rivals. He also recommended that Bianca hire a bard to countersong Maria regularly, since that got her eating.
Meanwhile, back in the menagerie, Seamus made a beeline for the supply closet. Rose, correctly assuming he'd picked up the scent the horses had described, followed him and found bloody scuff marks in front of one of the shelves. The shelf mostly had books about the care and feeding of venomous animals, but also had a few books about psychology by Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth (Kris, this was an Easter egg--Heinfroth is the darklord of the evil insane asylum domain). One of them, a book on lobotomy, was dog-eared. Rose removed it and found a pressure plate on the wall. When she touched the pressure plate, the entire wall swung open, revealing a staircase leading into a sweltering basement chamber. Someone down there was calling for help.
Rose, being Rose, ran down to see who needed help without a second thought and found a room where two men and a woman, all bearing Falkovnian brands, were strapped to tables. The woman and one of the men had bruises around their eye sockets and were staring vacantly; their lips had been cut away, revealing fangs. The other man hadn't been lobotomized and hadn't had his mouth mutilated, but his arms and legs had been shattered. They were surrounded by the same kinds of venom-collecting tools that were in the main menagerie. Cue a failed horror save (effect TBD)!
The non-lobotomized vampyre identified himself as Klaus and begged Rose to let him go, playing the innocent victim. When Rose made it clear that she knew what he was, he dropped the act and started screaming insults at her while demanding that she let them go. He said they'd fled from Falkovnia because Drakov was closing in, but Bianca had caught them; she was keeping him lucid in order to pump him for information. Rose asked if he knew anything that could help them stop Bianca, and Klaus said that she wasn't human; her blood was made of poison and had nearly killed the female vampyre when she'd tried to feed on her. Rose, fearing it was only a matter of time before Klaus dominated her, fled up the stairs with his screams and pleas for help following her.
Studying the menagerie with this new information about Bianca in mind, Rose could see that there was no antitoxin in the supply closet, which seemed like a no-brainer for an operation like this. She didn't see any evidence of bizarre alchemical experiments happening on site, though.
Vanya and Bianca came back to the menagerie, and Rose was unable to hide her contempt for Bianca. Vanya tried to smooth things over, and you left.
Rewards Granted
250 gp from Silvia. Hooray for bribes!
Bianca has officially stated that her entire family owes Vanya a debt, although she's the only one of them who sees it that way.
Character(s) interacted with
Related Reports
Previous session: A wild Ivan Dilisnya appears!--Borca
Next session: Menagerie aftermath and trippiness!--Borca
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