Father Anton's secret--Barovia
General Summary
You made your way to the village proper and got directions to the hospice. When you knocked, an older man opened the door and introduced himself as Father Anton. Rose told him everything without hesitation--you'd traveled there to see Madam Eva, she'd given you the ring and sent you to the hospice. When she showed Father Anton the ring, his face lit up.
"Are you--you aren't Nicolae's girl, by any chance?"
Rose confirmed that she was, and Father Anton laughed with delight and hugged her. Nicolae had been left on the doorstep of the hospice as a baby with nothing but the ring. Father Anton had raised him and considered him a son; he'd expected Nicolae to stay on at the hospice and become a witch himself, but he fell in love with a village girl and those who work in the hospices are to have no lover but Hala until their service is done, so that was that. He insisted that Rose and Vanya stay in the hospice; they had plenty of beds to spare, since the superstitious villagers didn't come to the hospice for help except as a last resort.
Rose and Vanya went inside and found that, in addition to a handful of other witches, there was a crotchety old man with a broken hip who kept berating the witches for not having the beds warm enough, not having good food, being a bunch of filthy witches, etc, etc, etc. Rose asked if any of the witches had healing magic, and one of them said that Father Anton did, but the rest of them were just lay believers, not full-fledged witches; Sister Lucia had been planning to take her vows and become a witch, but she had died a month ago. The crotchety old man refused to let Anton heal him with his filthy, filthy witchcraft, though, so his hip was healing the old fashioned way.
Rose was able to convince the old man that her healing magic wasn't filthy, filthy witchcraft, so he let her heal him (to the great relief of the witches, who desperately wanted to get rid of him). In thanks, he warned her that she might not want to stay in the hospice, because Sister Lucia, the dead witch, wasn't resting easy. Everyone heard strange footsteps and voices at night. Those other witches probably killed her for some black magic ritual. You know how witches are...
When you asked one of the other witches about Sister Lucia, she explained that Lucia had come to them as a patient sick with fever. Father Anton had been able to heal her, and she had converted and stayed on as a lay acolyte, but had eventually fallen so in love with the faith that she had decided to take her vows. Not long after that, though, she inexplicably went out at night and was killed by wolves. It was a senseless tragedy... and yes, she hadn't been resting easy. The witch had seen her a few times out of the corner of her eye. She'd heard footsteps when everyone was in bed. And once, she'd heard Lucia's voice:
"Isn't it time you did something for yourself?"
You decided that if there was a ghost about, you should probably take watches. Vanya and the lay witches went to bed, Father Anton locked himself in his study, and Rose stayed in the main room on first watch. After an hour or two, she heard clattering in the kitchen, and saw the witch she'd spoken to earlier sitting next to an empty bottle of wine and working on a second one.
"I haven't touched a drop in twenty years," she slurred cheerfully. "I don't know why I stopped! Do you want some?"
Rose tried to figure out what had precipitated this (nothing-- it just seemed like a great idea!) and eventually convinced the witch that she'd have a glass with her if the witch then promised to go to bed. The witch agreed, they shared a glass, and Rose led her to bed as she continued to babble drunkenly. All she did was work, work, work, all day, for a bunch of provincial, ungrateful hypocrites like that old man. It wasn't right. She was tired of it. She deserved to let go every now and then, didn't she?
"After all," she said as Rose helped her stagger into bed, "isn't it time I did something for myself?"
Shortly after, Vanya showed up to take over on watch. He was surprised to hear about the witch, and also that Father Anton apparently hadn't come out of his study all night--had he fallen asleep in there, or was something else going on? After Rose went to bed, he knocked on the study door. Father Anton opened it, all smiles, saying that he was enjoying some quiet time to pray and indulge in his hobby of woodworking--but he was very deliberately positioning himself and the door so that Vanya couldn't see inside. He brought out a wooden candlestick he'd been carving and went on at great length about all the symbolism in the images he'd chosen for it. It was about as boring as hearing someone rabbit on about their project for which you have no context always is, but as he talked, Vanya felt an instant of blinding, disproportionate rage--
shut up shut up shut up DO YOU EVER SHUT UP
--but it passed as quickly as it came, and eventually Father Anton mercifully went to bed.
The next morning, the witch who had gotten drunk wasn't at morning prayers. Rose went to her room and found her huddled in bed with her vomit-stained blanket over her head. As Rose helped her clean up, she bemoaned that she didn't know what had come over her--she knew that once she started drinking, she couldn't stop, and that was why she hadn't done it in twenty years, and what had possessed her to start last night? Remembering the words Sister Lucia's voice had asked that the witch had repeated, Rose asked if maybe Lucia had been harboring some kind of resentment against the order or their patients; maybe her ghost was infecting others with that same resentment. The witch said that if she had been, she'd hid it extremely well.
You decided to go out to the cemetery where Lucia was buried to investigate her grave--maybe she was a ghost, but maybe she was something more corporeal and had dug herself up. As you left the hospice, you noticed that there were footprints outside, leading from the window of Father Anton's study to the window of the witch's room. They looked large and heavy, and the shape wasn't quite right--the person who left them must have been wearing oddly squarish boots.
When you arrived at the cemetery, they saw that the ground had clearly been dug up within the last two weeks or so, even though Lucia had died a month ago. You flagged down the gravedigger and asked if he could help you check on the body. He refused to help--Barovian gravediggers know better than to poke around graves where something might poke back--but said that you were welcome to take a few shovels and dig her up yourselves while he watched from a distance.
It took most of the day to dig up the coffin--and when you got there, the nails had been pried loose. Nervously, you opened the lid.
The body of a young woman lay inside, partly decomposed but not a month dead. It was torn and savaged in a way that looked like a wolf attack . . . but it was also missing its head. And someone had cut an enormous, jagged hole in the chest.
Rose had Seamus smell the body and follow the scent. To no one's surprise, he started leading you back toward the hospice. On your way, you passed the only inn in town, and heard the sound of shouting and fighting from inside. You looked in and saw one of the witches pummeling the crotchety old man and screaming at him. You pulled the witch away, and he immediately blinked and looked around in confusion, then horror as he realized what he'd been doing.
"I just . . . I don't know what came over me. I'm so sorry," he said, as the lawmen came to arrest him. "I just--he'd been so rude to us yesterday, and we did so much for him, and I . . . I just thought it was time I did something for myself . . ."
Rose Rose-ishly encouraged the old man to rethink how he lived his life, since this clearly wasn't the first time he'd spat his own teeth into a tankard of ale, and then you returned to the hospice. She had the feeling that this was going to be her last chance for an amiable conversation with Father Anton, so she spent as much of the afternoon as possible asking him questions about her father.
Eventually, the sun set, and it was time for evening prayers. The witches went to the chapel to pray after letting you know that you were welcome to join them; once they were gone, Vanya picked the lock to Father Anton's study. Standing near the doorway was a young blonde woman, who smiled at the sight of you.
"Hello, Rose. I'm so happy to meet you! I'm your Aunt Lucia."
Rose was understandably perplexed, and the woman immediately clarified, "Well, Father saw your father as a son. That makes him a brother to me, and that makes me your aunt, doesn't it?" She leaned closer, grinning. "He hates when I call him Father. Fathers and daughters doing the things we do--and him a priest, no less? It's like something out of a Borcan opera. But he made me, so what else would I call him?"
You asked if she was the one who was making everyone act out their darkest impulses, and it was Lucia's turn to look perplexed. Yes, she was the one doing that, but it was because it was what they wanted, wasn't it? It's what everyone wants. Father always wanted to do something for himself, just once. That's why he made her. And she could always hear him, always, always, just behind her eyes, all of his thoughts, how he wanted something for himself, but how he'd made her wrong, how she was defective, how The Dark Man had told him how to bring her back and make her his but it hadn't been enough . . .
She was getting agitated as she spoke, so you both tried to calm her down. Vanya was having trouble hiding his horror and disgust, and Lucia seemed like she was about to lash out at him--Father had warned her that anyone who saw her would want to destroy her. Rose, being Lucia's beloved niece, had an easier time calming her down and holding her attention. Rose asked if she was the same as the Sister Lucia who had died, and Lucia explained that she could also hear that voice inside her, just behind her eyes, but that she was someone new.
Vanya wasn't going to say anything that might set Lucia off, but was holding himself in a way that made it clear he thought the whole "destroying her" thing wasn't the worst idea in the world. Rose, though, had nothing but pity for Lucia--and she was absolutely furious with Anton, who had come into her life as the grandfather she'd never known only to do something like this. She said she wanted to confront him right then and there. Vanya told her that if she confronted him in front of the other witches, his back would be against the wall and he might do something rash, but Rose was adamant--the witches deserved to know what their leader had done.
She took Lucia's hand to lead her to the chapel and found that it felt hard and cold under her touch. As she did, Lucia shimmered, and the form of the blonde woman fell away, revealing a carefully carved wooden mannequin. There were seams across the forehead and chest where she'd been cut open and rejoined to encase Lucia's brain and heart, and a wig of blonde human hair had been glued to her skull.
"This happens when he touches me, too," she explained. "He hates it. It's part of why I'm defective."
Rose shook her head. "You're beautiful."
You burst into the chapel, with Lucia trailing behind, and Rose demanded to know what Anton had done. Anton saw Lucia behind them and got a look of panic, but quickly recovered--it was a miracle, he'd learned how to restore Lucia from the dead! He'd known that no one would understand, though, so he was trying to find the right time to--
Rose cut him off with some variant of "pull the other one, it plays Jingle Bells," and Lucia chimed in that she could make Anton tell the truth if they wanted her to. You assured her that it wouldn't be necessary--yet--and kept pushing Anton to tell them what he'd done and how Lucia had really died. Anton kept trying to paint himself as the good guy here--yes, he'd brought her back, and yes, it was because he'd been in love with her, but she was so young and so beautiful and it was so unfair that she had died. This was another chance for her, for them, and--
At this point, Lucia piped up, "Tell the truth, Father."
Like a switch had been flipped, Anton's face contorted in anger, and he started snarling. "Hala tells us to relieve suffering--but what about my suffering? What about everything I've suffered, helping these ingrates for my entire life? And then Lucia came, and I saved her life, and she was so beautiful, and I knew that Hala was finally rewarding me for all my years of service, that I could leave the order and live out my days with Lucia in peace. But Hala is a whore. She forces me to remain faithful to her, but she seduced my Lucia, she made my Lucia fall in love with her and swear an oath to belong to her alone, she stole her from me. I thought all was lost . . . until the Dark Man came and told me to make her mine."
Rose asked again how Lucia had really died, and Anton actually seemed offended by that. He hadn't killed her--she really had been killed by wolves. He had woken her in the middle of the night and asked her to run away with him; she had refused, and when he . . . attempted to press his suit, she fled into the night. She was lost! But the Dark Man had an answer for that, too . . .
At this point, the other witches were backing away from him in horror. Rose started appealing to his better nature, saying that there had to be something of the man who raised her father with such love inside him, and that if the witches approved, they were going to give him the chance to leave the hospice and rethink his ways. Anton clearly wanted to fight his way out, but you both kept hitting on the twin points of "look, it's over now" and "you aren't going to hurt Nicolae's daughter, are you?"
Finally, Anton deflated and started to leave, but Vanya cornered him on his way out, telling him that he knew a little more about the Dark Man. He told Anton everything--how the Dark Man had cajoled him into selling his soul at the crossroads for musical talent, how he was coming back in a year to collect, how his hellhound cropped up from time just to remind Vanya that he no longer belonged to himself and never would again.
"He lies."
Anton backed away, shaking his head, and fled.
You asked the witches if they would be willing to help take care of Lucia and teach her how to be human, as long as she didn't try to force them to "do something for themselves" again. Lucia was still perplexed by the idea that anyone wouldn't want to do something for themselves, seeing as how Anton had wanted it so badly, but Rose pointed out that it hadn't made Anton happy, and Vanya asked the one witch if getting drunk had made her happy (she responded with an emphatic negative). Lucia shimmered back into her human form and asked if that would be better than the mannequin one; the witches immediately assured her that no, it was so, SO much worse. You apologized for how painful it must have been for them to learn about Anton and thanked them for agreeing to help her learn to be human.
As Rose left for the inn--having the strong feeling that the witches didn't want them around just now--Vanya leaned closer to them and lowered his voice.
"And if it seems as though she cannot learn . . . find us."
(And I sure am happy that she did! This really set the pattern for the entire campaign and I am chuffed by it.)
Related Reports
Previous session--First Meeting With Madam Eva--Barovia
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments