Putting Jezra to rest--Barovia

General Summary

Between Descending the peak--Barovia and here, you fought a bunch of ice zombies and got avalanched into a cave. Eventful session, but not really one worth writing a session report about. Rose did notice before going into the cave that its contours seemed to change.
You cast light and saw that the cave was big enough that a fire wouldn't bring the icy stalactites down on your heads or fill the air with so much smoke that you wouldn't be able to breathe, so you built a fire and decided to wait it out until Rose could get new spells in the morning and hopefully burrow you out of there. You noticed that Julien was staring at nothing, eyes glassy, and when Vanya tried to shake him out of it, he said "There's only one cave to her; they're all the same cave."
The air shimmered, and the cave was suddenly much smaller, and a group of men huddled around a second fire (your fire came with you). Rose had cast lay of the land and could sense that the cave's dimensions actually had changed--it wasn't just an illusion. The men told Vanya that they'd been on their way to Markovia, and that they couldn't wait to get back to Dorvinia where things were civilized; Vanya knew that the Grand Conjunction had merged Dorvinia into Borca and thrown Markovia from the Balinoks to the Sea of Sorrows, so these men must be from decades ago at least. You separated yourselves from them to discuss what was happening, and as you did, one of the men screamed. Jezra had appeared and sank her arms in him to the elbows. Her ecstatic face was flushed with warmth, and cold was radiating from her hands and freezing the man's body to a solid statue of ice.
Rose tried to talk down Jezra, who didn't recognize her (something about her face seemed younger and less tired). She told Jezra that you were trying to get her out and that she just needed to hold on a little longer. As she did, a skeleton appeared in the corner, dressed in Jezra's clothes, and Vanya noticed that Julien was starting to mouth along with what Jezra was saying.
The cave shifted again, and you were in an even smaller cave. A teenage goatherd and most of his flock were frozen solid in a corner, leaving only three pregnant female goats. Rose fed and talked to the goats, who said that they'd been snowed in by a freak storm and that Jezra had killed the others. You weren't sure why she'd left them alive--sentiment, maybe, since she'd wanted to kill aurochs Rose to spare human life as long as possible, but that didn't explain why she'd spared the goats over the human. Vanya stumbled over a skeleton in what had been an empty corner a moment ago and recognized its clothing as Jezra's. He brought it back to Rose, and as you discussed what to do about it, Jezra appeared. This time, she recognized Rose.
Vanya held out one of Jezra's bones over the fire and gave Rose a questioning look, but Rose shook her head. She started telling Jezra about all the beautiful places you'd seen on your journeys and how you could take her somewhere where she could see spring and summer and never be cold again. Jezra looked skeptical, but Vanya started playing a song about spring for her, and that worked (and made Jezra remember he'd played for her before). Jezra admitted that she'd left the goats alive because she wanted to see a little newborn goat kid again, just once, but she remembered now that she'd killed them before they'd given birth.
The cave shifted again, this time to a tiny one where the air had gone stale, and Jezra's newly dead corpse was lying on the ground. You pointed it out to her, and she panicked; she wasn't dead, just cursed somehow, all this had happened because she'd begged for it not to end here, it couldn't have ended here. Vanya asked if she would have been happier if it had, and she agreed that she would. You promised to bury her bones somewhere warm and gave her one of the heat stones to hold her over while you left.
The cave shifted back to the one you'd originally been trapped in, and Jezra parted the ice like the Red Sea so you could get out. Rose Wild Shaped into an aurochs and Jezra asked if she could look at her; Rose allowed it, and Jezra said she was beautiful. You took off, and as soon as you left the cave, Julien came back around (although he was freezing).
You made it off the Balinoks uneventfully--there were a few times when the wind started to pick up but abruptly stopped, and then began blowing in the opposite direction so it was at your back. You entered a mistbank just as you were passing from the Barovian foothills to the Hazlani ones.
When you emerged in Hazlan, the sky was purple.

Rewards Granted

...Jezra's bones? Are those a reward? You leveled up! That's definitely a reward!

Related Reports

Previous report: Descending the peak--Barovia Next report: Arrival at Ramulai--Hazlan

Report Date

20 Sep 2022

Primary Location

The Balinoks

Secondary Location

Barovia

Related Characters

• Jezra Wagner