An excerpt from the diary of Rictavio, aka Rudolph van Richten
Bones: acquired. Hags: dispatched, but not dead. My sanity: waning. Before all of this is over I’m going to have an all-out brawl with at least one of those disrespectful fools. They never have a kind word unless they want something from me. I’m a grown man and I deserve respect. I do not deserve to be playing babysitter to the children they rescued from those hags. If anyone, it should be Cruz. Even before we burned the Old Bonegrinder he was doting on them like some sort of overgrown nursemaid. He treats me like we’re peers or something. He had the nerve to call us friends!
“Give me some juice, Rikki.”
I feel like a teenager and not in any of the good ways.
Veryn is absolutely the ugliest of the bunch. Despite knowing that the meat pies baked by the coven of hags were almost definitely made from children, she did what? Ate a pie! Luckily for her, I was there to administer a quick and effective antidote to the hallucinogenic effects of the pastry. She then administered it right back. I suppose she gets points for being ballsy.
Alina, a barbarian in more ways than one, might be a close second to Veryn. She “saved” the frogs by tossing them straight out of the window. The children, Franklin, Myrtle, and the dirty child who wouldn’t speak, managed to catch a few, but there were still a handful that splattered against the ground. As if these children weren’t already traumatized.
I still hear phantom croaks even now as Maeve and I watch over the children. Maeve the wereraven is here because the burgomaster is an idiot. Vallaki is on high alert, so of course my compatriots are trying to sneak in. It won’t go well.
This entry is running long, so I leave with this: we found one of my saber-tooth tiger’s victims. Good riddance I’d say, but that naive girl Meihra wouldn’t let it go. Ah, to be young and unexposed to the evils of the world. I must stomach this company if I wish to give the children of Barovia the right to be soft like that one. I could be dealing with far worse things.
