Meeting Jezra Wagner--Barovia

General Summary

You decided that you didn't want to tangle with the strange woman on the mountain, so Rose used the rest of Air Walk to waltz right over the ridge between Mt. Ghakis and the summit of its neighboring mountain. The woman laughed with delight, sounding as though this were the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. Despite the blinding snow and the cold, a combination of Air Walk and Know Direction got you to the neighboring mountain safely.
You settled down for the night, Rose needling Vanya a bit because the Balinoks weren't so tough after all. While Vanya was keeping watch, the woman appeared across the fire. She asked if she could share the fire; when Vanya, being genre savvy, didn't say anything, she sat down and thrust her hands right into it, the warmth bringing color back into her frozen face. She nodded toward Vanya's lute and asked if he played, and when he said that he did, she asked him to play her a song about autumn, because she could see the colors of the leaves in the valley but couldn't smell them, or watch the bears and squirrels trundling around all fat and ready for winter, or taste the ripe apples. Vanya played, and she wept frozen tears and thanked him, saying she hadn't heard music in a long time. She asked about the flying aurochs, saying it was an amazing animal and she wanted to touch it and expressing dismay at the thought that Vanya might have had to butcher and eat it already. Vanya said that she would see it again tomorrow. The woman asked if Julien was useful or just a mouth, and when Vanya said children are both (truer words, Vanya), she promised that she would make sure the cold took Vanya before he began to see Julien as nothing but meat.
The woman promised that the zombies wouldn't bother you so long as you didn't attempt to leave the mountain--she couldn't let you leave, but she wanted Vanya to live as long as possible so he could play for her. This prompted Vanya to say "that's a shame, we were having such a lovely conversation," which is always one of my favorite "antagonists having a nice chat" lines. The woman said that she couldn't help it, she was so cold, and you were all going to die in the mountains anyway so you might as well die helping her to feel better, and dammit, where was that aurochs because it would be better for her to claim its warmth than a human's? Vanya asked if she wouldn't rather just end than continue like this, and she said she'd tried--she was so cold, and she hadn't seen anything green in so long--but she always came back. She asked if Piotr Wagner was still mining silver in the mountains and said her name was Jezra Wagner, which made Vanya remember a song he'd heard about her (details on her page). Vanya asked what message she'd want him to take to her family if you got off the mountain, and she said that you wouldn't, but if you did, please tell her father she wasn't dead. The fire went out under her hands and she started trembling with cold again; when she kept reaching toward Vanya, she pulled away and vanished in a swirl of snowflakes.

Related Reports

Previous session: Scaling the North Face--Barovia Next session: @des

Report Date

24 Aug 2022

Primary Location

The Balinoks

Secondary Location

Barovia

Related Characters

• Jezra Wagner