Curing Emyr--Barovia
General Summary
(Like with Nightmares--Borca, I'm transcribing a bit more dialog verbatim than usual because I am so thoroughly chuffed with how it went. I think of a few of the moments and I get all sniffly.)
You healed up from the encounter with Madadh-Ruadh, then Vanya got the attention of one of the birds (all of whom appeared to be snickering and commenting on the quality of the fight they'd just watched). He asked if any of them could take them directly to Emyr . One of the birds flew down, shifting into what looked like an extremely tall, pale elf (I swear this is what the sluagh actually look like in Ravenloft and it's not just Kiasyd thirst), and asked with a sneer why they should help you. Vanya replied, "Because that way he'll stop preying on the forest, and because we just gave you a show."
The sluagh thought for a moment and conceded that, while Emyr was suffering his rightful punishment at the hands of the Unseelie Court and his bloodlust would eventually lead to his becoming an excellent hound in the Wild Hunt, you'd won Madadh-Ruadh's game fairly and with spectacular panache. He changed into bird form and led you back through the forest. As you followed him, you heard the faint sound of crying ahead, and eventually came upon Emyr, sitting amid the scarred corpses of two fawns as he held their mother's body and sobbed his apologies.
Rose ran up to him and started excitedly telling him that they'd defeated Madadh-Ruadh, but Emyr just reacted with a disgusted "oh, it's you again." He said that she might be a figment of his imagination or an illusion of Madadh-Ruadh's, but he knew she couldn't really be Rose, because he'd signed Rose's death warrant the moment he told her not to come back. "She was always going to come back; that was who she was." Rose tried to convince him that she was real, but even though she was speaking to him in druidic to make it extra convincing, he remained skeptical and asked her to prove who she was by telling him the first spell he'd ever taught her. Rose replied, "Know Direction. It was Know Direction, because when you found me I was lost and I was so afraid, and you taught me that if I could orient myself then I would never be lost again."
(All the feels, part one.)
Emyr's face softened, and he ate one of the berries. He started convulsing and collapsed to the ground, looking dead. You were worried that he might revive as his evil self during the day and started discussing the best way to make sure he didn't rise again, but Rose noticed that his scars were fading (although they didn't completely disappear) and color was starting to come back into his face. He woke up with a gasp, and Rose took advantage of the opportunity to give him an enormous hug when he couldn't fight back. Vanya gave him a waterskin, which he drained--he hadn't had anything to drink in months. He asked Rose how she had managed to defeat Madadh-Ruadh, adn she smiled and said, "I made a lot of mistakes. I wasted time that I didn't have in order to help a stranger, and I made a deal that I shouldn't have made, and I talked to faeries even though you told me not to."
Emyr laughed a little. "That sounds like the way you would do it. And yet you've done what I never could. I've called you 'child' for so long, but that's no longer accurate, is it?"
Rose gave him a wistful smile. "No."
(ALL THE FEELS!!!!!! part two. Just...so much in that one syllable.)
Emyr took a closer look at the berries and asked, alarmed, if they had come from Thornroot. Rose said that they had, and Emyr told her that Thornroot was an incredibly dangerous creature that had been driven mad by the taint in the land. Rose, a bit skeptical of Emyrish dogmatism, said that she'd said that she would heal the tree of its infection. Emyr granted that if she'd given her word that she would heal it, she needed to follow through, but warned her that as far as he was concerned, the world would be a far better place without Thornroot in it; he wanted to see all humanoid life destroyed, and would have been happy to see the taint and madness that infected him filling everything else in the natural world to boot. Rose, of course, was unconvinced that Thornroot was as irredeemable as all that and said that she was still going to go heal him.
You spent the rest of the night either catching up with Emyr (in Rose's case) or making sure that he got something to eat and wasn't acting like a ravenous monster (in Vanya's). Emyr apologized to Vanya for feeding off him, and Vanya told him that Rose would want him to forgive Emyr, so he would. (More feels.) Rose told Emyr about Julien, carefully cherry-picking the information to present him in the best possible light and focusing on his hunger for knowledge. Emyr was pleased, and remarked that it wasn't surprising that Rose would pick up strays; they reminisced for a bit about Rose taking in all the little animals she could find when they were in the forest together.
Eventually the sun rose, and although you were all nervous about it, it didn't turn Emyr back into a monster (which actually got him to give Rose an unprecedented not-crazy hug). Rose got her spells for the day, and Emyr didn't react as though he wasn't getting his (because being neutral evil and embracing the role of a predator is still maintaining druid rules!). When they were done, though, he gave Rose his White Oak Scepter, saying that he no longer deserved to have it because he'd used it to charm or dominate animals into holding still while he fed from them. He didn't believe that he could use the excuse that he hadn't been himself, either; the night when he'd spoken to Rose, he'd been almost cogent and had considered giving her the scepter, but had held back because he'd worried that she wouldn't come back and he wouldn't be able to use it to feed. Rose withheld judgment but accepted the scepter.
There was more she wanted to discuss with him, but first, you had business to settle with Thornroot, so you crossed the river once again . . .
Rewards Granted
White Oak Scepter
Related Reports
Report Date
09 Mar 2022
Primary Location
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