One of Us Will Die
Curse of Strahd Adventure Report 16:
Return to Vallaki

Ireena bolts upright, the scream ripping through her throat before she can stop it. Her chest heaves, every breath sharp and ragged, as though she has been drowning in her own memories. Her eyes are wide, unfocused, darting around the carriage like she doesn’t recognize where she is. Tears spill down her cheeks unchecked.

“I remember,” she gasps, clutching at her temples as if she could push the visions back inside. “I remember everything—Sergei. His touch. His smile. And his brother… that monster. What he did. What he tried to do to me…”

Her voice cracks, strangled by grief and horror. The words tumble out as if speaking them aloud will banish them, but instead they cut her deeper.

Marjorie is there in an instant, pulling her into her arms before she can fall apart. For Ireena, it is the first time since her father’s death that she has felt the weight of someone holding her as though she matters. For Marjorie, it is like clutching at a ghost—her own daughter’s memory still heavy on her heart, her arms aching with the habit of comforting a child who is gone.

“There now,” Marjorie whispers, stroking her hair. Her voice is steady, low, a mother’s tone. The same gentle cadence Strahd once used to manipulate Tatyana, but here it carries no lies. “That must have been terrible, my dear. You are safe now.”

But Ireena shakes, clinging tighter, her sobs spilling into the fabric of Marjorie’s dress. “I loved him. I still feel it. Sergei’s face—his laugh—it’s all still inside me. But I’m not Tatyana anymore. I’m Ireena. I’m engaged to another. How can I love a ghost? How can this not be wrong?”

Marjorie holds her tighter. “You loved a man who died. Many widows carry love like that, even when they marry again. It is not wrong to grieve, nor is it wrong to remember. That was another life. And in this one, you are not her. You are Ireena.”

But Ireena only presses her face deeper into Marjorie’s shoulder, muffling her voice with despair. “If I can feel her love, her pain… if I can still feel him—then who am I?”

Her words hang in the air, heavy and trembling, the question itself more terrifying than the memories.

Addy, who has been watching with wide eyes, shifts uncomfortably. His voice, still speaking through Hope’s mouth, comes out small. “Hope… did I hurt that lady? Was that me? The bad man in the storybook—is it supposed to be me?”

“No,” Hope answers at once, her voice warm and calm. “That was someone else. An older, broken version of you. But not you.”

Addy clutches at her. “I don’t want to be broken.” He whispers.

“Think of it like this,” Hope continues, stroking his hair. “You and he were on the same road. But where he turned one way, you can always go the other.” She hugs him tightly. “He let himself be twisted and stayed that way. You won’t. Because you have us.”

“The big me had friends too…” Addy adds. “But… he didn’t love them, not the way I love you guys.” He sniffles.

“And,” Sabrione cuts in dryly, “you’re far too small to be him anyway.”

The joke lands. Addy bursts into laughter, the fear easing from his face. To him, Sabrione’s quips are proof she cares.

Ireena, however, stares in shock. “What in the Morninglord’s name are you doing?”

It looked like they were putting on some grotesque puppet show with a child version of her own abuser.

Rowan hides a smile. “We’ll explain. It’s a long story.”

The carriage rattles down the Old Svalich Road, and as the others recount their journey to Ireena, her expression shifts. What began as horror gives way to a tentative fascination, as though she were hearing one of her father’s old adventure stories by the fire.

At the back of the coach, Esmerelda sits hunched, the rhythm of the wheels rattling through her bones. She’s silent for so long that when her voice finally comes, it cuts through the night like steel.

“You’ve crossed paths with many in Barovia. Perhaps you’ve already met him—Rudolph.”

Marjorie tilts her head. “Perhaps.”

Hope frowns. “If he wears a ring of non-detection, I’d never sense him. Maybe I felt blocked once, but I can’t remember.”

Rowan leans forward, eyes sharp. “What else can you tell us?”

Esmerelda’s lips press tight. “He hates my kind. The Vistani. And yours too,” she says, glancing at Hope and Sabrione. Her voice trembles, a crack running through the armor of her tone.

Sabrione leans back, her jaw hard. “Could be anyone in this cursed land. Where would he hide?”

“Somewhere he can watch. Somewhere he can collect secrets.” Esmerelda swallows. “A tavern. Always a tavern.”

“The Blue Water,” Marjorie murmurs. “That’s where Rictavio stays. And he hates Vistani.”

“And vampires,” Sabrione mutters. “I remember the way he looked at me. Like touching my hand was poison. His son was turned by Baron Metus.”

The name drops into the carriage like a stone into water.

Esmerelda’s shoulders slump. Her voice is quieter now, but deeper, laden with years of silence breaking open. “Erasmus. His boy.” She draws a breath. “I knew him. When my parents took him… they told me he was nothing, just a prize. But he wasn’t nothing. He was kind. Frightened. He told me about his father, about medicine, about the world beyond our wagons. I used to sneak him food, whisper stories so he wouldn’t feel alone. I cared for him. And then one morning… he was gone. Sold like cattle.”

Her hands clench against her knees. “Van Richten came days later. Stormed our camp. He questioned my parents, and when they tried to fight, he killed them. I still hear my mother’s scream when I close my eyes. He spared me because I was a child. That’s all. Just a child he couldn’t bring himself to cut down.”

She looks up, eyes shining with tears that refuse to fall. “And so he raised me. He taught me how to fight, how to kill monsters. He made me strong. But every lesson was a reminder that I wasn’t his daughter. Not really. I was a duty. A debt he couldn’t repay. I was the child of the people who ruined his life, and he never forgot it. He never forgave it. He gave me everything I needed to survive, but he never gave me trust.”

Her breath shudders, breaking. “And I loved him. God help me, I loved him. He was my father in every way that mattered, and I wanted—so desperately—for him to love me back. To see me as more than a shadow of what he lost. But he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.”

Her voice catches now, words spilling faster, like if she stops she’ll never start again. “We fought. Again and again. Every time I tried to prove myself, every time I begged him to see me as his, he pushed me away. Until finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I left. And still… after all of it… I miss him.”

The silence in the carriage is absolute.

Sabrione’s voice, low and cutting, slices through it. “So he’s Rictavio now. That’s why he fainted when he saw you at the festival. It wasn’t even surprise. It was shame.”

Perhaps Van Richten hated himself for what he did to her, for pushing her away, just like Ivan hated himself for what he did to her. Ivan and Van Richten… It was almost the same story. Vengeful vampire hunters who lived lives so violent that they bolted the moment they felt any bit of personal connection.

Esmerelda closes her eyes, her whole body trembling under the weight of the confession she’s carried alone for too many years. “Shame,” she whispers. “And maybe… maybe hatred too. But never love. Not for me.”

Esmerelda looks away, her shoulders trembling as though she is holding the weight of two lives at once—the child who lost her parents, and the woman who lost her place in the only home she had left.

The coach falls into silence. Only the creak of wheels and the rhythm of hooves fills the night—until Marjorie suddenly sits forward.

“Soa,” she commands, “stop the carriage.”

The coach halts. The horses stamp and snort in the cold air.

“What is it?” Rowan asks, hand already drifting toward her sword.

“My scout says there are seven wolves ahead, waiting in ambush.”

“Scout?” Sabrione arches a brow.

Marjorie points upward. A raven wheels in the moonlight above, cawing sharp and insistent. The sound paints a perfect map in her mind—every paw in the dirt, every waiting fang.

The party moves like parts of a single machine, clumsy at times, but undeniably effective.

The raven’s warning echoes in Marjorie’s mind: seven wolves, waiting in ambush. She presses a hand to Maisie’s flank as the horse snorts steam into the cold night air.

“Easy now,” she whispers, her voice calm but firm. “Wolves in the trees. They’ll try to circle us. Don’t spook.”

Maisie stamps her hoof, eyes blazing. “Spook? I stared down a dead horse carrying a corpse with a crown of fire while carrying Ser Rowan on my back. Wolves are breakfast!” Her ears flatten, muscles coiling like a bowstring.

The forest grows unnaturally still. Then, glowing eyes gleam between the trees. Shapes stalk forward, silent and sure.

Rowan mounts, her hand gripping her longsword tight. Hope mutters an incantation, and Sabrione’s form distorts, rippling into a winged deer with dagger-like teeth.

Sabrione flicks her tail, prancing into the gloom. “It’s fine. I once played a deer in an opera.”

Her attempt at a deer call—an ungodly braying somewhere between a dying goose and a coughing horse—makes several wolves pause, ears cocked in bewilderment.

From the treeline, a massive wolf growls in the common tongue. “Our cover is broken. The prey has stopped. The Devil commands—they must die.”

Marjorie steps forward, crook in hand, her eyes gleaming. “Turn back,” she warns, her tone a shepherd’s growl. “This won’t end well for you.”

The alpha snarls back. “It ends worse if we disobey. We know what happened to Arrigal.”

The wolves fan out, muscles bunching. And then Hope drops the spell.

Sabrione snaps back into her vampiric form as Hope lifts her hand, crimson light swelling between her fingers. The fireball detonates in the center of the pack, blasting the ground into a crater. Three wolves are torn apart instantly, the others hurled into trees. The forest howls with smoke and fire.

Hope stands panting, eyes alight with power. For once, her visions are not chains—they are weapons.

The alpha recovers with a snarl and charges. Rowan drives Maisie forward with a sharp kick. The horse thunders across the clearing, colliding with the beast in a bone-crunching slam that sends it tumbling across the ground into another wolf.

“RAAAAGHH! I’M MAIIIISSSSEYYYY!” the horse bellows in triumph. Only Marjorie understands, but Rowan grins anyway, swinging her longsword in a wide arc that opens a bloody gash across another wolf’s flank.

Behind them, two wolves pounce for the carriage. Marjorie plants herself in the earth, pivoting on her heel. The crook cracks against a wolf’s muzzle, breaking teeth. Kellam rushes past her shield-first, slamming into its ribs and pinning it long enough for Soa’s axe to cleave its throat. She’s had to fight off wolves before. It’s just a normal morning for Marjorie.

“Four more, behind us!” Hope’s voice cuts through the chaos as she senses the ambush closing.

The flesh golem, Vasilka and Ireena enter the fray before sharing awkward glances at each other, wondering why they look alike in a strange uncanny way.

One wolf leaps onto Ireena. She ducks beneath its jaws, parrying with her blade. Sparks fly as steel clashes with fang. “I’m fine!” she cries, sweat streaking her brow. “I just imagine it’s HIM!” Her sword thrusts forward, piercing the wolf’s shoulder.

Another charges, but a shrieking blur tackles it mid-leap—Vasilka. She grabs the wolf by its neck, lifts it overhead, and bolts into the woods, howling with glee. “AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Rowan blinks. “Just—bring it back when you’re done, Vasilka!”

Marjorie pivots to face another attacker. Her crook snaps across its face, then she spins low, sweeping its legs out. The wolf crashes down, and Kellam finishes it with a brutal strike to the throat.

Sabrione emerges from the fog, blade drawn, eyes glowing. The wolves freeze in hesitation—moments ago there was a deer, now there is a vampire wielding steel.

Her sword screams with voices only she can hear:

“Yes! Wolves! We shall feast on their entrails!” Ivan roars.

“To battle! Strike in the name of the Morninglord!” another voice intones pompously.

“Who the hell are you?!” Ivan barks.

“It is I, Sergei von Zarovich, priest of—”

“Oh my GOD, WHEN DID YOU GET IN HERE?!” Ivan shrieks.

Sabrione snarls and shoves the blade back into its scabbard before it can argue further but not before dispatching another enemy with it. Instead, she charges bare-handed at the next, grappling a wolf’s jaws and forcing them apart until bones snap.

The fight becomes a storm of blood and motion: Maisie trampling, Rowan cutting, Marjorie striking with shepherd’s precision, Hope casting bolts of searing light, Ireena fighting with desperate rage, Sabrione tearing through with vampiric speed. Together, they move like a true pack.

At last, silence falls. The clearing is a mess of blood, fur, and ash. Smoke rises from the crater where Hope’s fireball scorched the earth. Vasilka returns covered in blood!

“I found more of them hiding in the forest! They are no longer moving!” She declares gleefully. They will never know how many wolves she killed. Her skin is covered in bite marks.

Sabrione’s jaw drops when she sees the woman casually walking in, covered in blood. “I’m sorry, what are you!?”

“And why does she look like me!?” Ireena adds.

Rowan waves her off. She will explain later.

Hope stretches her mind outward, scanning. “It’s clear. No more.” Her chest heaves as she steadies her breath.

Slowly, one by one, they climb back into the carriage. The air is thick with exhaustion—but also with triumph. For once, they had met the darkness on its own ground, and won.

A word seldom spoken in Barovia hovers unspoken between them, fragile as glass.

Victory.

The carriage rode into Vallaki some time after. In the air, the smell of celebration spreads as a giant sun is prepared in the town square. Tonight, they light the giant effigy for the Blazing Sun Festival. All will be well!

The golden bell over the door jingled as Sabrione pushed it open. Endless Delight Clothiers smelled of lavender sachets, mothballs, and a hint of wine someone had definitely spilled and pretended not to notice.

“It’s Sabrione!” the Yustov twins shrieked in unison, leaping out from behind a rack of velvet coats like a pair of synchronized jack-in-the-boxes. Their bowties flapped wildly as if even their clothing couldn’t keep up with their enthusiasm.

“Do you have a limitless budget again?” Harwin’s eyes glittered with predatory delight.

“Or perhaps,” Hewin chimed, wagging his eyebrows, “a wealthy admirer footing the bill this time? A secret noble patron, perhaps? A mysterious stranger swept away by your smoldering heroism?”

Sabrione smirked, brushing past them as if they were nothing more than decorative mannequins. “Nope. Just me this time.” She stalked toward the barber’s chair in the back, her boots clacking on the polished wood floor. “I’m in the mood for a haircut.”

The brothers froze, then gasped in perfect harmony, clutching their chests as though struck by Cupid’s arrow.

“A haircut?” Hewin croaked.

“Here? From us?” Harwin squeaked.

“We will do this free of charge!” Hewin declared, slapping a hand over his heart like a knight swearing fealty.

“It is an honor!” Harwin echoed, seizing a comb like it was Excalibur. “My brother is the greatest hairdresser in all of Barovia!”

Sabrione raised a brow. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly—” she began, even as she was already sliding into the chair with a sly grin.

“Oh, but you must!” Harwin cried, flourishing a pair of golden scissors with the panache of a duelist unsheathing a rapier. “Let the world know Endless Delight tamed the mane of a hero!”

“Think of the posters!” Hewin added, twirling a brush like a conductor’s baton. “Your face. Your hair. Our logo in tasteful font beneath it!”

As they bustled around her, fussing with combs and drapes and arguing in rapid-fire whispers about whether they should “go daring” or “go devastating,” Sabrione leaned back and let her eyes slip shut.

For the first time in months, she let someone else fuss over her. No sword to grip, no enemies to cut down, no obsession gnawing at her chest—just the tug of a comb through her hair, the steady snip of shears. For a heartbeat, she almost felt… human again.

Her revenge was gone, consumed by the blade that still whispered at her hip. The man she hated most was ash, yet the emptiness inside remained.

Snip. Snip.

Her hair drifted to the floor in soft locks, shorter now. Lighter. A little freer.

When she opened her eyes, Harwin and Hewin stood back dramatically, gesturing toward her reflection like stage magicians unveiling their grand trick.

“It suits you!” Harwin proclaimed, as if unveiling a priceless painting.

“Stronger lines! Bolder angles!” Hewin cried, hopping up and down. “You are free, you are dangerous, you are chic! We call this cut ‘The Widowmaker’!”

Sabrione tilted her head at her reflection, running a hand through her cropped hair. For the first time in a long while, a genuine smile tugged at her lips.

She laughed, shaking her head. “You two are ridiculous.”

“Yes!” the brothers chorused proudly, fists pumping the air.

“But,” she admitted, the smile refusing to fade, “you’re not wrong.”

And for the first time in forever, she stepped out of Endless Delight feeling just a little lighter.

The door to Stephanovich & Sons Apothecary creaked open, the little brass bell jingling overhead like it was mocking the silence of the shop. The air smelled faintly of dried herbs and something suspiciously like pickle brine.

Behind the counter stood a squat, balding man with spectacles perched precariously on his nose. He straightened immediately, hands slapping the countertop as if she had just caught him in the act of napping.

“Welcome, welcome, most welcome!” he cried with theatrical gusto. “You have found Stephanovich and Sons! Finest apothecary in all Vallaki!”

Hope tilted her head. She did not even need her psychic gift to know he was lying—his thoughts slithered like a half-rotted eel. This man had no sons. There were no Stephanovich heirs, no eager apprentices stocking shelves in the back. He had slapped “and Sons” on the sign to sound more trustworthy, and she could already hear the brittle edges of that lie creak in his mind.

“My sons are, ah, out at the moment,” he added quickly, dabbing sweat from his brow.

“Mmhm,” Hope murmured, her expression flat as she drifted further inside. Her eyes skimmed the shelves of bottles and jars, each one with a gaudy label: Cure-All Elixir, Love Draught Supreme, Potion of Infallible Luck (Limited Edition!). It was snake oil wearing a masquerade mask.

She folded her arms. “Do you have any demon’s blood? Or any other… rare reagents?”

Gregor Stephanovich blinked. “Well, no, but!” He flourished a dusty vial as if it were a crown jewel. “We do have potions for all your alchemical needs! Potions to make you well, potions to make your enemies ill, potions to make your hair shine in the moonlight like polished raven feathers!” His grin widened. “Love potions too!”

“Love potions,” Hope repeated, her voice dry as old parchment.

“Yes, yes! One sip, and the beloved of your heart will fall head over heels! True magic of romance, yes?” He waggled his eyebrows like a bard at a tavern.

Hope blinked slowly. “That’s not how magic works.”

He hesitated, his grin twitching. “But perhaps… it is how love works?”

Her gaze flicked to the ledger open on the counter. Names scrawled in a desperate, childish hand: Arabelle. Every day, she had come here. Every day, the girl bought so-called “cure-alls” for her comatose friend Yeska. And this man.. no, this charlatan had sold them to her. Hope knew a rotten piece of work when she saw one.

She smiled. It was not a kind smile. “Oh? And how much for one of these love potions?”

“Seventy silver pieces!” he said proudly, puffing out his chest. “But for you, my lady, such a bargain! Such a small price for eternal devotion!”

“Are you the only apothecary in this town?” Hope asks.

“Yes! The only and therefore the best!” He proudly remarks. It is true, at least when Asha isn’t in town.

Hope could feel it inside of her, this new hunger for power. The need to consume began to grow inside of her heart, a side effect of vampirism. Just like Strahd, they all developed certain cravings, not just for blood or psychic energy, but for things that could never be enough for them.

As the shopkeep rattled on, a skeletal mage hand curled unseen behind the counter, fingers prying open the latch of his coinbox. Silver siphoned silently into Hope’s satchel, coin by coin, while Stephanovich kept flapping his gums like a pigeon trying to sell real estate.

“You are… useless,” Hope sighed, rolling her eyes as she turned toward the door.

“Useless?!” he sputtered, slamming his hands against the counter. “No, no! Young lady! Young beautiful lady! My potions heal heartbreak! They banish boils! They bring vigor to a man’s—”

The bell over the door jingled again as Hope swept out, the mage hand snapping the coinbox shut behind her. She had fifty more silver pieces in her pouch now—stolen from a thief, and therefore fair trade.

Gregor Stephanovich stood in his empty shop, blinking at the silence. He smoothed his apron and sniffed.

“…Can’t scam them all,” he muttered to himself. Then, louder, to the empty room: “Have a nice day!”

The Vallaki orphanage is too quiet. Its halls carry the smell of damp wood and old candle wax, its windows dimmed by grime as though even the sun fears to look inside. In the infirmary, Yeska lies pale and twitching, sweat soaking the sheets. Beside him, Arabelle grips his hand desperately while Walter sits watchful, his posture taut as a drawn bowstring. Nightmares and ghosts are no strangers to the boy.

Rowan steps forward, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind gleaming in her hands. The relic hums faintly, alive with a power only she can call upon. Her jaw clenches as she raises it high.

“Children,” Marjorie says softly, crouching beside the bed. Her voice is gentle, but firm, like a mother soothing frightened lambs. “We are here to help him. Stay close—but when I tell you to run, you must do so.”

Arabelle looks up, eyes shining. “Please—save him.”

Rowan begins, her voice strong as a battle hymn:

Morninglord, Watcher of the Dawn, Lord of Life,
Grant me your beacon of holy Sun
And turn these wretched abominations from your light!
Demon of darkness! In the name of the Morninglord,
I command you to leave this place!

The relic flares, sunlight bursting into a room that has not known it for years. Yeska convulses, lifted bodily from the mattress, his back arching. Books tumble from shelves, glass shatters. Arabelle and Walter cling to him, trying to pin him to the bed.

Marjorie uncorks a vial and flings holy water across the boy’s chest. It hisses and sizzles, smoke curling upward. “Steady, Rowan,” she calls. “I’m with you!” And she presses her voice into the chant, weaving prayer into Rowan’s incantation like a harmony.

The demon roars from Yeska’s throat, a guttural voice that shakes the walls. “The child is mine!”

Arabelle sobs, clutching Yeska tighter. “Come back! You weren’t there when I lost my father—make it up to me now!”

Yeska’s body snaps and twists, joints bending wrong. “FUCK YOU!” the demon shrieks, spittle flying.

Rowan drives the relic closer, its glow searing—but in a sudden convulsion Yeska collapses, limp. Black smoke pours from his mouth and into Arabelle’s.

Her body jerks violently, then scuttles backward up the wall on hands and feet, contorted like some monstrous insect. She clings to the ceiling, shrieking, eyes white and frothing.

Before anyone can react, Arabelle seizes a broken shard of glass from the nightstand. Her small hand clenches tight around the razor edge, blood welling down her wrist as she slashes wildly, the jagged point flashing toward Marjorie.

Marjorie’s heart nearly stops. This is a child—a child she has cradled, soothed, sworn to protect—and yet here she is, lunging like a rabid beast. Marjorie snaps her crook up just in time, the shard screeching against wood, inches from her throat.

“Arabelle, no!” she cries, voice cracking with both command and grief. The girl’s eyes roll white, her mouth frothing, her strength uncanny for her small frame. Each strike drives Marjorie back, her arms aching as she deflects the blows. She feels the weight of the demon behind each thrust, cruelly twisting a child’s body into a weapon.

She wants to drop her crook, to stop fighting, to wrap the girl in her arms and whisper comfort—but another slash nearly catches her cheek, reminding her that hesitation means death.

“Forgive me, Arabelle,” Marjorie whispers through clenched teeth, holding her staff to shield Rowan and the other children. “I won’t hurt you, but I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

The girl shrieks, body spasming as though mocking her words, before scrambling backward up the wall, spiderlike, and clinging to the ceiling with a guttural howl.

Rowan raises the relic again, but her stance falters. The light flickers.

Marjorie steps forward, crook lifted, her other hand scattering holy water into the air like rain. Her voice does not waver: “Morninglord, Watcher of the Dawn, hear us! Shield these children, shield this house!” Her words steady Rowan’s failing chant.

The relic flares again, striking Arabelle with blazing light. She shrieks, loses her grip, and falls. Rowan drops the symbol just long enough to catch her—instinct overriding all else.

That is the demon’s chance.

Darkness pours from the girl and into Rowan’s body. She convulses, eyes blazing scarlet, lips flecked with blood. Her sword leaps into her hand as though pulled by invisible strings.

“Kill me!” Rowan screams through clenched teeth, her own voice breaking through for one desperate second. “Kill me before I—”

The demon overtakes her. Her blade swings down toward Marjorie.

But Marjorie doesn’t retreat. She lifts her crook and catches the steel, the old wood sparking under the strike. Her knees buckle, but she holds. “Children!” she bellows. “Out—now!” Her tone brooks no argument. Arabelle and Walter scramble from the room, dragging Yeska with them.

Rowan’s possessed body strains against her, stronger than Marjorie could ever be. Still, she holds the crook firm, her voice never breaking from prayer. “Morninglord, guide my hand! Protect her soul, protect us all!”

Outside the orphanage, the streets of Vallaki bend into nightmare. Hope doubles over, gasping for breath as the psychic scream from the demon rattles through her skull. Her vision blurs red, walls melting into dripping shadows. Then it comes—the vision: blood on the walls, Marjorie screaming, Rowan bound in chains of shadow. Her eyes snap wide.

“The orphanage,” she rasps. “It’s happening now.”

She sprints for the church, wings unfurling in a violent tear of shadow and light. She pounds on the heavy doors, unable to enter unless invited.

“Father Petrovich!” she cries. “There’s a demon in the orphanage!”

The priest barely steps from his rectory when Hope seizes him in her talons and launches skyward.

“Demon! There’s a demon in the orphanage!” she shouts between ragged breaths, the wind screaming past them.

“By the Morninglord’s mercy!” the priest wails, dangling helplessly as they fly. “Child, what have they done to you?!”

“Not me,” Hope growls. “Them. Hurry!”

Meanwhile, Sabrione has just returned from the clothiers, freshly shorn hair still carrying the faint lavender of the Yustov twins’ oils. She spots two children bolting toward her.

“Help! The demon’s got Miss Rowan!” Arabelle cries, clutching her skirts.

“He’s going to hurt everybody!” Walter shouts, tugging at her sleeves.

Sabrione freezes for only a heartbeat before steel hisses free of her scabbard. But when she storms up the orphanage steps, she slams against an invisible barrier—the cursed truth of her condition. Her fangs bare, frustrated, as she hisses. “I cannot enter.”

“Then I’ll invite you!” Arabelle pipes up, her voice trembling but clear. “Come in, Lady Sabrione! Please, save them!”

The barrier dissolves.

The door bursts open. Sabrione storms in, blades flashing, intercepting Rowan’s next strike. Sparks shower the floor as steel meets steel.

“This is.. the KNIGHT!?” Ivan yelps “What is going o-“

“By the Morninglord!” Sergei gasps.

“WILL YOU GET OUT OF HERE!?” Ivan’s voice is high pitched and shrieking.

Moments later, Hope smashes through the window, glass exploding inward, Father Petrovich clutched in her talons. She drops him to his knees, scripture already in his shaking hands. His eyes widen at the sight of Rowan writhing, scarlet-eyed, sword raised in demonic possession.

“Good heavens—” he whispers.

“Chant!” Marjorie barks, sweat streaking her face, crook still braced against Rowan’s sword. “Now!”

And he obeys. The irony is not lost on him.

The room fills with voices—Rowan’s relic blazing on the floor, Petrovich shouting psalms, Marjorie’s voice weaving through them like the steady thread holding the ritual together.

Rowan lets out a strangled shriek before Hope’s voice cuts through the chaos like a blade.

“Sleep!”

The longsword trembles in Rowan’s hand, then clatters to the floor as her eyes roll back. She collapses, unconscious, her body twitching in jerks and spasms. The demon fights to move her limbs, to twist her into a puppet, but without her will to drive it, the control falters—clumsy, halting, incomplete.

Sabrione is on her in a flash, knees braced against the floor, blades shoved aside so she can use the weight of her body to pin the knight down. “Stay with me, Rowan,” she mutters, though she knows her friend cannot hear her.

Rowan’s chest convulses, a terrible pressure building in her throat. Then it erupts.

A fountain of thick, black sludge vomits from her mouth with explosive force, splattering across Sabrione’s chest, hair, and face. The stench is unbearable—rot, sulfur, and something far fouler, something that clings to her tongue and burns her throat as it seeps between her lips. Her hair is completely entangled in it.

Sabrione gags, choking back bile, but she doesn’t move. She refuses to move. Her hands clamp down harder on Rowan’s shoulders, her weight anchoring her writhing friend even as the foulness drips from her chin and seeps into the seams of her armor.

“Hold fast!” Marjorie commands, voice iron even through her fear. “Do not let her go!”

Sabrione spits, gasping, her voice muffled by sludge. “I’m not—going—anywhere!” Her voice, though gagged, is loud and resolute, but the voice inside her head is louder. MY HAAIRRCUUUUUTTTT!!!

Hope steps forward, her boots whispering against the orphanage’s warped floorboards. The holy glow of the relic bathes her in light, but the fire in her eyes is something else entirely—burning, restless, like embers threatening to ignite.

She feels it before she sees it. The demon isn’t flesh or shadow—it is thought, memory, hunger itself. Pure psychic essence, tangled like barbed wire around Rowan’s soul. It writhes and pulses, invisible to the others, but Hope sees it as clearly as a spider’s web. And her curse howls for it.

The hunger has been growing inside her ever since Asha’s fangs pierced her throat, ever since her sister forced immortality into her veins. At first it was a whisper, a fleeting ache for more—more power, more strength, more control over the visions that always slipped beyond her reach. But now, standing before the writhing demon, it is a roar. A craving that gnaws at the core of her being.

Her lips part, her voice low, deliberate. “Not Rowan. Only the darkness.”

She reaches with her mind. The air vibrates, a terrible tension as if the world itself holds its breath. The demon shrieks, its voice splitting across the minds of everyone present—deep, guttural, ancient. The windows rattle. The walls groan. Rowan convulses beneath Sabrione, her unconscious body jerking in spasms that crack bone and strain muscle.

Hope’s hands tremble, but she forces them forward, fingers curling as though she is dragging the thing out of Rowan by sheer will. The hunger inside her sharpens, begging her to take everything—not just the demon, but Rowan’s soul as well. She feels the knife’s edge of that temptation and teeters on it, teeth clenched, breath ragged.

“Mine,” the demon roars, thrashing.

“No,” Hope snarls, her voice shaking the rafters, “you’re mine.”

And she rips.

The demon screams inside all their minds, a sound like ten thousand nails scraping across glass. For a moment, Rowan’s body arches so violently that Sabrione thinks her spine might break—but then the darkness tears free, a writhing, smoke-like form of jagged psychic energy.

Hope seizes it. No prayer, no ritual—just raw hunger and instinct. She devours it. The psychic essence thrashes as it’s pulled into her, its howls turning into gurgles, then silence.

For a heartbeat, the room is still. Hope sways, breathless, her eyes glowing faintly with the aftertaste of power. Her chest rises and falls, but her lips curl—not in disgust, but in something dangerously close to satisfaction.

Rowan gasps, freed at last. Sabrione’s grip loosens, and she pulls her friend into her arms, filthy with sludge but alive.

Hope lingers, trembling with the power she’s just consumed. The hunger inside her no longer whispers. It purrs.

Rowan collapses, her body limp. She lives. She should not have survived that. Something kept her soul from collapsing from the devastation wreaked upon her by the psychic vampire attack. Her eyes flutter open just long enough to see Arabelle at the door, hand outstretched, courage in her gaze.

“My lady…” she whispers faintly, smiling through exhaustion, before falling into unconsciousness.

Silence follows, heavy as stone. Only Marjorie’s ragged breath fills the room. She has not stopped chanting for a single heartbeat. Her hands tremble, her dress is soaked in sweat, but her eyes burn steady.

The children creep back in, Yeska leaning on Walter. “Hello, Yeska. We’re friends of Arabelle” Rowan says.

Marjorie brushes a damp curl from his forehead. “We are friends of all children who suffer.”

Yeska whispers, still weak. “I wasn’t aware Arabelle had any other friends.”

The young girl hears this and pouts, storming out of the room. All that and that’s the first thing he said. Boys really were stupid.

“Yeska,” Marjorie says firmly, her voice calm but commanding. “What do you know of the Bones of St. Andral?”

The boy shifts nervously, his hands twisting in the sheets. Then it bursts out of him like water from a cracked dam. “They’re under the church! Father Petrovich told me not to tell anyone—”

“And here you are telling everyone,” the priest mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose in weary exasperation.

“I only told Henrik the coffin maker!” Yeska blurts quickly, his words tumbling over themselves. “He was worried too! He said he didn’t trust the town’s defenses, so I told him… I thought if he knew, he could help protect us.”

Marjorie narrows her eyes, her shepherd’s instinct prickling. The pieces fall together in her mind—bones missing, a boy too eager to share secrets, a coffin maker with reason to pry. She rises slowly, her crook in hand. “The coffin maker,” she says grimly, turning to the others.

But the weight of the moment is broken by a strangled sound.

Sabrione stands off to the side, shoulders trembling. The battle had left her hair and finery in ruins, black sludge clinging stubbornly to every strand, dripping down her neck and staining the lavender perfume that once lingered there. Her fresh-cut locks—so proudly shaped by the Yustov twins only hours before—now hang plastered and foul. She tries to wipe it away with the back of her hand, but it only smears darker.

Her composure cracks. Tears well in her eyes, silent at first, then spilling over. She drops to her knees, her sword clattering to the floor as she buries her face in her palms. “I… I wanted to feel beautiful again,” she whispers, voice breaking. “For one hour. Just one hour where I wasn’t… this.”

For a long, aching moment, no one speaks.

Hope steps forward, her expression softening. Without a word, she lifts her hand and lets her magic flow. A gentle spark, a shimmer of prestidigitation. Slowly, the black sludge vanishes, each foul streak dissolving into nothing. Her hair shines again, trimmed and smooth, just as the twins had styled it. The ruined fabric of her blouse is cleansed, restored to its lavender sheen.

“There,” Hope murmurs, her mind still combating what it had just absorbed, her body struggling to comprehend the power. “No demon filth can take this from you.”

Sabrione looks up, blinking through tears. She presses a trembling hand to her hair, then lets out a shaky laugh. “I look ridiculous, crying over something so small…”

“No,” Marjorie says quietly. “It matters. Even the smallest light matters, especially here.”

The party exchanges a glance. Their next step is clear.

“The coffin maker,” Marjorie repeats, her voice hard as iron.

The party nods. Their work is not yet done. And together, they prepare to leave the orphanage behind.

Behind them, the room still reeks of smoke and holy water. But it is not silence that lingers—it is the echo of Marjorie’s voice, steady and unwavering, the voice that held them all together.

The streets of Vallaki are noisier than usual, but not with laughter or cheer. The Festival of the Blazing Sun, its wicker sun already set up in the square for the next big party. People keep their heads low, speaking in hushed tones, their forced smiles already brittle in the morning light. Behind shuttered windows, voices murmur—complaints, doubts, the quiet rebellion of a people stretched too thin.

The Baron’s philosophy of “All will be well!” echoes everywhere, stamped on banners, painted onto walls, and parroted by guards who look more tired than convinced. Yet even the slogan is starting to feel hollow. The people are exhausted from endless parades and coerced merriment. A joke told too many times.

And into that crack, Fiona Wachter’s voice seeps.

Her promises spread like smoke. A Vallaki free of constant festivals, free of forced smiles. A Vallaki that would survive Strahd not through denial, but through fear—and through proper respect for the vampire’s power. She whispers that the Baron is a fool, a narcissist who risks their lives with his pageantry. That there are better, quieter ways to keep Strahd’s wrath from falling on the town. That she, not Vargas, is the one willing to use them.

Someone has pasted one of her posters to the side of the party’s wagon. The words Fiona Wachter for Burgomaster are scrawled beneath a rough caricature of her face. Some joker has drawn horns on her head, but the message is still clear enough.

Sabrione notices first. She stares at it for a long moment, jaw tightening. “Elections…” she mutters, her voice steeped in disdain. With one sharp motion, she rips the poster away and crumples it in her fist before the rest of the group steps out to see.

“Trouble?” Rowan asks, adjusting her sword belt as she scans the street.

“Politics,” Sab says flatly, tossing the paper to the mud. “The worst kind of trouble. You’ll find more honesty in a vampire’s grin than in these things.”

Father Petrovich frowns at the trampled poster. “I heard whispers before… the Wachters. Some say she has Strahd’s ear. That she believes the Baron’s festivals are a provocation.”

The group falls into uneasy silence. Around them, villagers hurry past with baskets and bundles, their eyes carefully avoiding the wagon and the torn scrap in the mud. No one wants to be seen looking too long at such things. In Vallaki, even silence can be dangerous.

Marjorie finally speaks, her voice low. “Whichever lie they choose—joy or fear—the truth is the same. Strahd rules here. And unless we end him, they’ll only trade one master for another.”

Hope lies half-awake, half-dreaming, her arms wrapped tightly around Addy. The doll’s stitched face is still and silent, but she whispers to him anyway, her words tumbling out between shallow breaths.

“We did it, Addy… we stopped a vision.”

The moment feels unreal even as she says it. All her life, every glimpse of the future she’s seen has been a curse carved in stone. People never listened. They dismissed her warnings, called her strange, cursed, broken. And always—always—the visions came to pass. She was forced to stand helpless in the wreckage she had seen long before it arrived.

But now… now it is different.

Her voice trembles as she repeats it, trying to believe it fully. “We changed it. The future… isn’t fixed.”

A shiver runs through her, though not of fear. Of awe. Of hunger. The realization sears itself into her mind: she can alter destiny. Not just see it. Shape it.

Maybe it means Asha and I can go home. Maybe we can take you back to the farm. Maybe we can see our family again. The dream of it glows in her chest, a fragile flame.

For the first time, Hope imagines herself not as a helpless prophetess, but as an author of fate. If visions are chains, then power is the key. Perhaps the key has been in her hands all along—she simply lacked the strength to turn it.

But strength comes at a price.

Her thoughts twist. If it takes consuming the essence of more demons, more monsters, then so be it. If the choice is between watching her family suffer again or feeding that growing hunger inside her, then she already knows the answer. “If the key to mastering fate is power,” she murmurs to Addy, her words low and fevered. “…then I’ll have it.”

Her fingers tremble as they trace the doll’s patched arm. Asha. Her other half. The reason she still breathes. And yet… things have changed. Forever changed. Asha turned her, saved her with that forbidden gift—and in doing so, bound her.

My sister… my master. The words taste bitter and sweet all at once. Asha is still her beloved sister, her heart, her anchor. But now she is also the chain around her neck, the one with the power to command her, to end her if she wished. Hope can feel that bond in her very bones even if Asha had no intention of commanding her, only keeping her alive.

She imagines the farm again. The sunlight, the laughter, the smell of bread and earth. Asha beside her. Isaac waiting with open arms. It’s so close she can almost feel it. But beneath the warmth lurks that other voice, that whispering hunger.

Would she have to do all of Asha’s chores now? Was she the older sister for real now, not just by a few minutes.

What if fate tries to take it away again? What if she isn’t strong enough when the next vision comes?

Her arms tighten around Addy. No. Not again. Never again. I won’t let fate win. I’ll break it. I’ll tear it apart if I have to.

Her eyelids flutter. Exhaustion drags at her. Still, the last thought she clings to before sleep swallows her is not of fear but resolve.

She has seen the future her whole life. But from now on, she will decide it.

Somewhere in the Nine Hells, a hotel for sinners, a lobotomized demon falls through the ceiling after being flushed out of the Shadowfell by Hope. Charlie, drowned in paperwork lights up. She immediately jerks up and shouts. “WELCOME!”

A knock rattles the coffin maker’s door. Inside, Henrik Van der Voort stiffens. His shop has long been quiet, his customers few, and the very idea of visitors now is enough to raise the hairs at the back of his neck.

“Go away!” he barks, voice cracking like brittle wood. “Leave me alone! This is a coffin maker’s shop! You don’t look dead!”

Outside, Marjorie stands with Rowan, Sabrione, and Soa at her back. Her hand rests on her crook, steady though her heart thrums with unease.

“How many dead men actually handle their own funerals?” she calls back evenly.

Henrik hesitates. Silence stretches. Then, with the weight of someone forcing words past his own fear, he snaps, “Well—is anybody dead?”

Marjorie’s throat tightens, but her voice comes smooth as honey. “My daughter died the other day. I require assistance.”

It is not a lie. Not entirely. He hears the truth in it—raw, unpolished grief that no charlatan could conjure. The coffin maker pauses. His hand shakes on the latch. Finally, he unlatches the door with a slow scrape.

“I am sorry for your loss, madam,” he says, voice quieter now, though still taut with unease. “Please… come inside.”

The shop looms before them, two stories tall, its sign shaped like a coffin creaking above the entrance. All the shutters are drawn tight, keeping out the pallid daylight, and the air inside tastes of sawdust, varnish, and something stale—like earth packed too long in a box.

Henrik gestures stiffly to rows of coffins. “Here are the coffins. What size does your daughter need?” His tone is almost routine, but his eyes flick nervously to the shadows.

Rowan’s gaze lingers on the coffins. They are all closed, lids sealed tight. No sign of recent burials. Her body aches from the battle at the orphanage, the strain of exorcism still pulling at her muscles. She excuses herself in a low voice. “I’ll return to the carriage with Hope. That last encounter drained us both. I think she had the right idea.” She slips away, leaving Marjorie and Sabrione behind with Henrik.

Henrik clears his throat, repeating in a practiced cadence, “All these coffins are to be buried at least six feet deep, lest the dead come back by… unseen forces.” He says it like a man reciting instructions he’s learned by rote, not conviction.

Marjorie narrows her eyes. “What do you know about the Bones of St. Andral?”

Henrik’s answer comes too quickly. “They’re under the church, of course they are. Where else would they be?”

But Sabrione can see right through him, his lie transparent as glass. She signs quickly to Marjorie, but as she gestures, she forgets the emerald ring glinting on her finger—the gift from the Midwinter Festival. As she signs, the ring shimmers, and her voice rings out in pure soprano:

“HE LIIIIIIIES!”

The words echo through the dim shop, piercing the silence.

The three freeze. Slowly, Sabrione tucks the ring away, cheeks stiff with embarrassment.

Henrik flinches at the sound, his composure cracking like thin ice. “Very well,” he mutters. “If you must know… I can only speak of it in privacy.” He turns, motioning them toward the stairs. “This way, please. Quickly, before anyone sees.”

They climb the narrow staircase, each step groaning under their boots. The air grows colder the higher they go, as though warmth itself refuses to rise into this place.

The second-floor storage room is vast and hollow, the rafters swallowed by cobwebs that sway faintly as if stirred by breath. Wooden planks are stacked like crude walls, and heavy crates line the edges of the room, marked in smudged paint: JUNK. The word itself feels wrong here, like a disguise too thin to trust.

The shutters are bolted tight, sealing them in darkness broken only by the guttering flame of Henrik’s lantern. It throws long, quivering shadows across the room, distorting every shape until each crate seems to crouch like a figure waiting to move.

Henrik’s steps falter as he shuffles into the farthest corner, away from the light. His eyes are wide, the whites jaundiced, his lips pale. Sweat beads on his brow despite the chill.

“They are here,” he breathes, his voice low and cracked. His eyes flick nervously across the crates, like a man terrified to even name what he sees. His shoulders shake. “Do you understand? They are here.”

The words hang heavy in the air, devouring the silence around them.

Sabrione tilts her head, suspicion tightening her grip on her sword. Her voice comes cold, sharp as glass. “Who?”

The coffin maker stares at her, then over her shoulder, then past her into the shadows. His jaw works soundlessly for a moment. The lantern’s light catches in his eyes, and for the first time, they seem utterly empty—like a man who has already given himself to something he cannot escape.

Then, suddenly, he convulses with a terrible cry, his body jerking upright as if pulled on strings. His voice bursts out in a ragged scream that rattles the rafters:

“THEY ARE HERE!”

The word detonates like a hammer-blow.

The lantern wobbles, light swinging wildly across the room— —cobwebs ripple— —shadows lurch like living things— —and then the silence shatters.

The crates explode open with a deafening crack, planks snapping outward as pale hands claw free. The hissing begins, low at first, then rising to a chorus of guttural hunger.

Several glowing eyes pierce the gloom.

The air fills with the sound of nails on wood, teeth gnashing, voices whispering in a chorus not meant for human ears.

They are surrounded.

Marjorie’s crook is already in her hand, her voice breaking into a shout. “It’s a trap!”

But her words are lost under the chorus of snarls. The undead pour forth like a tide.

And then—silver flashes. A dagger, sudden and cruel, plunges into Sabrione’s back. She gasps as the silver burns her veins like poison. Behind her, Volenta steps into view, lips curled in a delighted smile as she twists the blade.

“Shhh,” Volenta whispers in her ear. “This is where the game ends.”

Welcome to Barovia (Welcome to the Internet Parody) plays over the credits.

The tavern is quiet, a rare lull in the endless gloom of Barovia. Only a handful of weary patrons remain—faces half-hidden in mugs, their attention drifting lazily toward the stage.

Rictavio sits on his stool, his lute resting against his chest, fingers plucking at the strings with a trembling precision. His voice, usually so boisterous and theatrical, softens now into something raw—aching, almost fragile.

He sings of a man who has lost everything, of a father who would give his last breath if only he could turn back time, if only he could protect what he failed to protect.

"All that I'm hoping, now that my eyes are open…
Is that we can start again— not be pulled apart again… '
Cause in the end, you are part of who I am… More than anything."

The words hang heavy in the smoke-stained air.

At the back of the room, Esmerelda sits in shadow. She has heard this song before. Not here. Not in this tavern. Not in this cursed land. Long ago, by the firelight of another camp, when she was still just a girl. When she was still his.

Were those words coming from his heart or just his mouth? Another part of his cover to convince everyone he’s a bard come to entertain people… or are his true feelings speaking.

If he is, is he singing for me or the child he lost?... His real child.

Her heart clenches painfully in her chest. She knows the second verse—the one that was always meant to be sung back. A voice of a child answering her father, promising to love him, promising to walk beside him.

Her throat burns. And then, before she can stop herself, she is singing.

Her voice rises through the tavern, clear and aching, weaving into his. She sings as the daughter she always wanted to be. The daughter he never truly allowed her to be.

It is no longer a song for the crowd. It is no longer even a song for Barovia. It is just them—just Esme and Van Richten—two broken voices stitched together in grief.

When the last chord fades, the silence is deafening. She is already standing, already at the foot of the stage, tears running down her cheeks. Her hands shake.

“…Sir,” she whispers, her voice breaking like glass.

Rictavio freezes. His fingers slip from the lute. The instrument clatters to the ground, strings jangling out of tune. His face drains of color.

For the first time in his long masquerade in Barovia, his mask cracks. His cover is blown.

He looks at her—and in his eyes is everything she has ever feared and longed for all at once. Panic. Guilt. Shame. Love.

Esme’s chest heaves. Memories flood in unbidden: the nights on the road, his endless lessons, his stories, his stern corrections, the way he kept her alive—taught her to hunt, taught her to fight. The way he gave her purpose.

But never family. Never warmth. Always at arm’s length. Always reminding her of what she was, of where she came from.

She wants to scream. She wants to run.

You raised me. You made me who I am. But you never saw me. Not as a daughter. Not as anything but a shadow of what you lost. Was it because I’m Vistana? Was it because of who my parents were? Because they destroyed your life—and so you could never let me give you mine?

The words never come. Her tears spill harder now, though she doesn’t blink them away.

You should have hated me. You should have left me. But instead you carried me with you… all those years. And I thought—I thought maybe you loved me. Just a little.

The tavern is silent. Even the drunks know better than to speak.

Rictavio—Rudolph—opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. His hands tremble at his sides.

All Esme can think in this moment is: I wish he’d hated me instead. That would make things so much simpler.

Reflections from the Director:

There’s a lot to unpack here. This was probably one of the sessions where the story is mostly told in the themes.

First there is the encounter with the wolves in the forest. It is a far cry from several previous encounters such as the Wizard of Wines or the scuffle with Strahd at Argynvostholt where they were uncoordinated and mostly acted on their own.

In this fight, the party, including their NPC companions act as a single unit with each member taking an effort to give even other members of the party a chance to shine. This is a good thing because it prepares them for the harder fights to come next and their eventual ultimate fight with Strahd.

There are two rather comedic parallel scenes that are played for laughs but I think are very important. I’m not even sure if Nyx and Mary intended for it to be so, but the scenes at the beautician’s parlor and the apothecary’s shop seem to remind the proverbial audience of their curse. Vampires always develop obsessions based on what they wanted in life. Because Strahd was always obsessive and entitled in life, that aspect of him is multiplied by a hundred in his undeath. While we don’t know what Sabrione was like in her past life, it’s very clear that her image is extremely important to her. She seeks adoration and praise and nearly lost her mind when she lost it. Hope on the other hand has developed a hunger for power in her undeath. This (and this is just my personal interpretation based on what I’m seeing) may because she is a seer that nobody listens to whose visions of disaster always come true. Perhaps because of how powerless and invisible she felt in life sometimes, her growing hunger for power in her unlife is driving her forward.

And still in the end, this arc closes with Sabrione getting covered in black goo (something that makes her cry… and almost nothing has been able to make her cry in this story) all to save a friend, and Hope having to resist devouring the same friend’s mind during the exorcism. In the end, despite their heightened desires because of their curse, humanity wins. They are both walking this fine line between human and monster, and unlike their enemy, Strahd, know when to say no to their desires. Both resist their desires for Rowan’s well-being.

On the other hand, we have the exorcism scene where Rowan and Marjorie finally save Yeska, something they’ve been trying to do since sessions ago, and while Rowan’s character as the righteous paladin has been fleshed out in the Argynvostholt story arc, Marjorie really shines in this sequence.

She’s the one who keeps the exorcism spell going when Rowan must handle the physical aspect of it. She protects the children over any other thing in the room and makes sure none of them come to any danger. When Rowan is possessed, she sends everyone away to tackle the threat all on her own. It’s a mirror of her letting Rowan fall down the stairs at the winery. This time, she stays and holds back someone who is stronger than her both spiritually and physically through sheer strength of faith all the way til her partymates can arrive to help. Even when Arabelle gets possessed, her focus isn’t just that they don’t hurt her, but that Arabelle is not allowed to hurt anyone else.

Now that the party is reaching its peak, the trap is sprung at the coffin maker’s shop. This trap, just like the exploding carriage, is a staple in CoS and I love that it got to signify the villains retaliating against their heroism.