Menagerie aftermath and trippiness!--Borca
General Summary
You left Bianca Scarlatti's menagerie, and Rose told everything to a suitably appalled Vanya. You were stymied about how to proceed at first, because telling the truth would open up the possibility of someone else exploiting the vampyres' venom in the same way, but blaming it on magic would implicate Maria Scarlatti, who's been through enough. Eventually, you hashed out a plan:
1) Tell Silvia de Carlo and Vincente Travatello that it was definitely Bianca and that it was definitely magic, but you need a little more evidence.
2) Find out when Bianca is likely to be out partying again. Sneak back onto her estate, do something about the captured vampyres (exactly what is a matter of debate--see below), and steal some kind of distinctive bag or satchel.
3) Put spell components for charm person in the bag and leave it with Silvia or Vincente as evidence.
4) Confront Bianca and pressure her into confessing, since otherwise the blame will fall on her sister. If possible, find some kind of help to offer her so you have a carrot as well as a stick.
Rose was so disgusted with Bianca that she wasn't sure whether love for her sister would be sufficient leverage, but Vanya assured her that it would. He said he wanted to kill the vampyres, which Rose balked at; they'd claimed to be refugees, and they were probably lying, but what if they weren't? And what if they weren't involved in the feeding houses in any way? Vanya was adamant--he couldn't imagine innocent vampyres--and suggested that he could use disguise self to look like Ludzig and see if the lucid vampyre recognized him. Rose agreed to go along with killing them if they'd been involved, and Vanya was going to kill them whether they'd been involved or not.
(GM side note: Tom, roll around how much of this is mercy killing, how much is a legitimate desire to stop them from hurting anyone else, and how much is revenge. That's going to determine whether or not you'll need to make a powers check.)
You both made knowledge arcana checks to figure out if any kind of magic could cure Maria. Vanya did well enough to know that powerful magic could restore the minds of the mad and that it would probably be clerical, but not enough to know any specific spells. Rose didn't do well on her knowledge arcana, but she made a heal check and remembered that a decent and compassionate psychologist, sanitarium, or hypnotist could speed the process of healing.
You told Silvia and Vincente what you'd planned to tell them. Silvia was pleased. Vanya asked her if she knew of any powerful clerics in Levkarest, and she confirmed that the Praesidius (the pope of The Church of Ezra resided in the Cathedral of the Home Faith; he was a very busy man, but wasn't averse to favors and donations. Rose talked Vincente down from challenging Bianca to pistols at dawn and asked what would happen if Bianca were found guilty. He said that the company would go back to Silvia and the Scarlatti would have to pay a significant blood-price. He didn't know if Silvia would be satisfied with that outcome, but he would want more, nudge nudge. He also completely shut down when Vanya asked him about the Praesidius, since the Church of Ezra oversaw the Casa de Travatelli (the godawful Vistani orphanage/boarding school where he'd been raised).
Rose checked in on Julien. He seemed happy and said that he liked Vincente's house, especially the garden and the birds, and didn't need any new books. She also failed a sense motive check on him, which probably doesn't mean anything.
And then you went to bed, and things got weird.
Rose woke up to an odd chemical/alcohol smell and the sound of Seamus barking. In the doorway, she saw the silhouette of Rinaldo, Vincente's servant. Then Rinaldo and the smell vanished, and Seamus' barking turned into Julien screaming. Rose ran to Julien and assured him that she knew something strange was going on and she'd seen it, too, but they would figure it out. Julien told her that he'd had a nightmare that his father had made him hurt her, culminating in cutting off her ring finger so that she willingly went away with him. Rose, jumping on the chance to have Julien actually talk to her about the things that were bothering him, asked him to tell her more, and he went into excruciating detail about exactly how he'd tortured her and how much he'd enjoyed it despite himself. Rose was disturbed, but assured him that she didn't think his father would use magic to force him to hurt her.
Julien nodded, then looked her in the eye and said, "When I hurt you, it'll be because I chose to" before driving one of the branding irons her father had planned to use on her into her side.
Rose cast dispel magic but didn't do well on her caster check. Julien laughed and asked, once again, if she thought she could teach a wolf to eat grass, before his features morphed into her father's and he started berating her about how useless she was. Rose ran out of the room, and as she did, the space around her morphed into the stairs to Bianca's hidden basement chamber. This time, instead of just the vampyre's voice calling for help, she could hear her father, Julien, and Vanya, all begging her to help them.
Speaking of Vanya, he also smelled that odd chemical/alcohol smell, but when he woke up all the way, he was lying in his bed back in Barovia and the smell was of his wife's porridge. This seemed completely normal to him. He went into the kitchen, where his very pregnant wife was getting breakfast ready. He kissed her good morning, and suddenly she was Rose, still very pregnant. She told him Julien was outside playing and asked Vanya to call him in. Julien, who was about five and didn't have vestigial wings, came inside with Eleanor following him as a dog. Everything so far had seemed normal to Vanya, but he knew immediately that Eleanor was bad.
When they went inside, Rose was Sofia, still pregnant. She knelt on the floor and let Eleanor lick her face, laughing, before apologizing to Vanya. "I know you don't like her, but it's not safe around here for a woman alone." She pulled a bloody hand out of the pantry and tossed it to Eleanor, then scattered some birdseed at Vanya's seat, before becoming Rose again and asking Vanya to get something out of the wine cellar. "I can't go down there dressed like this," she explained, showing him her ring.
Vanya, with some trepidation, agreed. He opened the basement door, calling for Eleanor to follow him, and the blood-and-sex smell of Ludzig's wine cellar hit him. Errol and Helene were crouched at the foot of the stairs, dressed for a Borcan dinner party and eating Helene's husband Marcel with exactly the right silverware. Vanya said hello to Errol on the way down. When he entered the main body of the wine cellar, he saw that it looked more like a menagerie or kennel, filled with various sorts of animal cages. Different people were tending the cages: Natalia, Father Anton, Vigo Drakov, Amelia, Ivana's colorfully-dressed Vistani bodyguard, and many others. One of them was Julien, now ten years old and with his vestigial wings. He greeted Vanya with a smile, saying they'd been waiting for him.
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Report Date
18 Nov 2021
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