He dreamt he was alone.

The forest around him was dark and crisp, the air tinged with the sharp scent of pine and cold. A snow had fallen recently, it was fresh and untouched and reflected the glow of the silvery moon softly. He stood shin deep in it, the chill seeping through his leather and fur lined boots and his breath misted in the still air. Trees loomed all around him, sentinels and soldier pines his only companions and their black branches clawed up at a pale night sky.

He was alone and the world was so quiet and still that he believed he was the only creature left upon it. There was no breeze, just a pause that had gone beyond the realm of serene and into intimidating. He stuck his gloved hands under his armpits, trying to preserve some warmth, but this cold was unlike anything he had ever experienced; it permeated through all his layers and set in deep at his bones. His teeth started to chatter and the skin across his cheeks and nose prickled with the beginnings of frostbite.

I must find cover. He began to walk forwards, knees protesting stiffly as he waded through the white and deeper into the treeline. Much to his concern he could see no stars when he looked up through the network of foliage to help turn his path northward, nothing but a blank expanse yawned out above him save for the waning crescent of the moon. He pushed onwards regardless, the movement would keep him warm and that was preferable to freezing to death.

Moving his hands as he walked he bundled his cloak around him, the dark emerald cloth a washed out grey under the milky moonlight. The fabric was slightly stiffened, small thin patches of frost having already settled amongst the threads. His breaths were coming in larger puffs, legs tiring from working hard to push through the snow. It was thigh deep now, soaking through his rough spun trousers and falling into his boots. His throat was sore from the freezing air and his lungs felt heavy with ice.

An eerie feeling had started to creep up his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. A sense of fear had started to ebb in his stomach and his blood jolted in his veins. Something within him somewhere was telling him not to look behind him.

He was no longer alone.

A set of footfalls echoed behind his, crunching into the snow with an awkwardly large gait that was not similar to human at all. They were still fairly distant but to his trained ears he could make them out. Whatever it was that was lolling after him was large and heavy with rasping breaths. Adrenaline coursed through him and his heart leapt into his mouth, lodging at the back of his throat as he struggled through the snow gasping for air.

He had to keep moving forward. His foot snagged on a gnarled root buried beneath the dense whiteness and he stumbled, chest tightening in terror at the prospect of falling down now. He threw out an arm to steady himself against a tree trunk, scrabbling at it until he was no longer tripping and the ragged bark had cut through his glove and into his palm. His cloak had fallen back, no longer wrapped snugly around him, and the cold pierced through him like a blade but he pushed on, driven by the sound of the creature behind him.

He did not know how long he carried on like that, the snow trying to swallow him whole and the hot wetness of blood gathering in his torn glove, but not long after he was sure his body was finally going to give out, the trees thinned out into a clearing. He staggered into it, the snow finally releasing him as it levelled out to only reach his ankles. Shivers rattled his exhausted frame and his limbs were painful to move but he put that all to the back of his mind when he caught sight of the wagon and the large draft mare harnessed and bridled to it.

The horse was a black stocky creature with a thick mane and tail and when she caught sight of him she pawed at the ground with a colossal hoof as though urging him to hurry. The wagon was a bright creation of painted wood with four yellow spoked wheels and the designs upon it were strangely familiar until it dawned upon him that this was the exact wagon they had all travelled out of Barovia in. The mare whinnied impatiently and he remembered that he had to run, whatever was behind him would surely catch up if he stood there any longer.

Spurred into action, he ran as fast and as hard as he could toward the wagon and vaulted into the wooden bench carved into the front for the driver. He moved frantically to snatch up the reins, fumbling with the cords of worked leather in his numb fingers, and wrapped them thrice around his right hand firmly.

“Diath?!”

He froze.

The thudding footfalls of the monster that was tailing him were growing ever closer but he couldn’t move, couldn’t flee, because there she was. He didn’t have time to think on how she had got there, her blue tinged skin flushed in the cold and her sandaled feet beginning to blacken from frostbite. Her ragged robes were as soaked through as his trousers and her face was contorted with fear.

“Strix!” He found himself calling out to her, his mind immediately racing with concern that was centred only on her wellbeing and not his own. The reins slipped from around his hand as he reached out for her but she was too far from him, stood by the treeline he had emerged from over twenty feet away. The footfalls were so close now, the creature almost practically on top of them but he had yet to see it. Desperation clawed at his voice, “Run! You have to run!”

The draft mare screamed and reared, buckles and clasps jangling, nostrils flaring and eyes rolling in fear. She plunged forward with a loud clatter, the wagon jostling and throwing him about in the driver’s seat. Diath cried out, scrambling to grasp the reins and pulling as hard as he physically could but the mare would not submit, dragging the wagon and him away from his friend at high speed, throwing up a spray of snow and dirt. He turned around helplessly in the seat, clutching instead at the side of the bench to see Strix stumbling after him, her mouth open in a desperate cry but it was drowned out under the rattling of the wheels.

Suddenly he could see what had pursued him through the trees and snow: a bleak shadow of immense size. It loomed over the sorcerer as she grew ever smaller and farther away before consuming her completely. Diath screamed incoherently, ears ringing with the sound of his voice, the horse’s hooves, and the clattering of the wagon.

The creature vanished.

Strix was gone.

She was gone.

Diath wailed and the horse galloped on.

He woke with a start and for a moment he thought he was still there, disoriented and confused. A slight chill had settled into his skin despite the warmth of the fire and the furs pulled up around him. His breath misted and drifted away from him as he fought to regulate his breathing, watching the amber glow of the flames dance across the ceiling, causing the shadows to shift every few seconds. Diath recalled where he was; a small cave they had found to shelter in once they had abandoned the wagon.

Barovia seemed like a bad dream and though Diath desperately wanted it to have been one the ragged scars around his neck reminded him of the truth. His cold fingers ghosted against the marred skin, feeling out the newest and neatest scar amongst the mess from Strahd’s clean cut. He still had yet to process that it had been fifty years: that not a fortnight ago his skin had been rotted away and his bones were decaying into dust. Sometimes the nightmares were of the place he had drifted in for that half a century, godless and without a body, and he would wake up crying. Other times they were of losing his friends but the worst ones were where he would lose Strix.

He rolled onto his side and looked at her from where she slept about ten feet away from him on the other side of the fire. She had changed a lot since he’d last seen her and he wondered often what it was like for her to have been the only one to have aged, to have been without them all for so long. Her horns were longer now and had grown at a crooked angle and there were dark rings under her eyes that he wasn’t sure were from fatigue or age. In the light of the fire she seemed younger, less burdened somehow and Diath preferred that to the screaming fearful face he had seen in his dream.

Evelyn was huddled up next to her, the two of them sharing a particularly large fur pelt, the lids of her glassy eyes closed. She’d explained to Diath that though she technically didn’t need to sleep she still liked to out of habit more than anything. He’d noticed that she hummed and whirred softly when she slept and the sound was surprisingly soothing to him. He couldn’t hear that far away from them with the fire crackling but he didn’t doubt she was doing it now.

Diath sat up, mind too awake to catch any more sleep, and he got to his feet, gathering up the fur pelt over his shoulders as a makeshift shawl. He pulled an uncomfortable face as he realised that he really needed the toilet and left the mouth of the cave to a pine tree close by. He shot back in as quick as he could once done, eager to get back to the warmth of the fire, when the gentle lilt of a mandolin being strummed carried over.

“The raven offers sweet relief

Far from this lonesome way

But some may still have need of me

And so for these I choose to stay

Far unseen, I know

Daylight is waiting

Each night has an end

Sunset promises sunrise will come.”

Paultin cast a haunting figure from where he was sat upon a small ledge that jutted up from the base of the cave and something within his voice resonated deeply within him. Diath had never heard the bard sound so sad before in all the time that he’d known him. Paultin’s voice was lulling but something within it was forlorn, turning the hymn into a song of mourning but what it was he was grieving for Diath did not know. His fingers danced over the frets with ease and Diath could see from his hooded eyes that he had been drinking; Paultin raising the wineskin to his lips confirmed it. He took a few large mouthfuls before resuming his soft playing, seemingly blind to Diath’s presence as the rogue approached and sat down near him.

“I sold my heart to a maiden fair

To dance with me one night.

But a bard to marry she would not dare

So I was her secret delight.



For her I sang every song I knew

And told her tales of love.

She kept her promise strong and true

And danced with the stars above.”

Diath knew this one, a common song frequently sung around Waterdeep and up to the northern towns and villages. Paultin must have learned it at some point in his life before he met and joined their party. As he listened to his friend sing he felt an urge to do the same. There was something in the bard’s voice that was begging not to be left alone and Diath knew that feeling all too well. He wasn’t the best of singers, he hadn’t had any fancy training or talent like Paultin, but he certainly wasn’t the worst and when he joined in it made for a fairly pleasant harmony.

“But when the sun came o’er the hill

She left and took my heart.

And yet she wanders round with it still

As though we shall ne’er part.



Oh, I sold my heart to a maiden fair

To dance with me one night.

But she took my love and left me there

And I lost her to the light, the light.

Oh, I lost her to the light.”

Diath followed Paultin’s distracted gaze to where it fell on Evelyn for a moment until he uncorked the wineskin once more and drank deeply from it. He set the mandolin aside with a soft clunk and finally appeared to acknowledge Diath sitting beside him as he offered out the drink, “Want some?”

Diath accepted and took a small gulp, the wine strong and warming him through the minute it hit his stomach. Paultin looked at him with an encouraging expression to drink more but he handed the alcohol back, not wanting to be dulled to anything going on around him. The bard sighed, a long stream of mist escaping his mouth in the chilled air, “You ever think about it?” He asked suddenly.

“About what?” Diath said, pulling the fur tighter around him.

“We were dead – dead – for fifty years,” Paultin mumbled, “I can still feel what it was like…” A calloused hand came up to touch the thin scar that circled his throat; the same scar that matched Diath’s, “I remember dying. I don’t want to, but I can’t stop it no matter how much I drink.”

Diath stared at him a moment. He’d never trusted anyone but Strix with stuff like this, he didn’t think he could be so vulnerable with anyone else. Suddenly Paultin grasped his knee, looking at him with in a desperate plea, “Do you ever think about it, Diath? I don’t – I can’t be the only one.”

The rogue made his decision. Hopefully Paultin would be too hungover to remember it in the morning.

“You aren’t,” He said, voice low so as not to wake Strix or Evelyn, “I can’t forget it either.”

Paultin’s grip on his knee tightened a small bit as he latched onto the confession, “Diath, I can’t shake the feeling something awful is going to happen. It’s stupid but… I have nightmares. I dream that I lose you all and I’m alone. At the end I’m always alone.”

Alone.

Diath’s mind wandered to snow and trees and the shadow that consumed Strix. Alone, alone, alone. Suddenly the small cave was all the colder and he shuddered despite himself, his voice was hoarse when he spoke, “I am too. I dreamt that Strix- that she was taken. I don’t know what by but she was gone and I couldn’t get her. I know it sounds ridiculous to take dreams seriously but I feel the same way.” He touched Paultin’s arm and held the other’s gaze firmly, “Something bad is going to happen, Paultin.”

The bard nodded, satisfied with that affirmation, and released his hold on Diath’s knee to lean back heavily against the cave wall behind him, “I knew it…” He slurred softly, “I knew it.”

Diath breathed shakily and turned his gaze to the fire, watching the flames twist and destroy the wood that fed it. Soon enough Paultin was snoring next to him but Diath had never felt more awake in his life. His mind was restless and his stomach knotted in worry, a deep frown settling on his brow as he thought over his nightmare and Paultin’s words. Something was going to go wrong. His eyes flitted over to where Strix was sleeping and he remembered her terrified face as the shadowy monster devoured her.

He couldn’t let that happen.

“I’m telling you I didn’t do anything!” Xandala insisted, her expression taken aback and afraid as Diath held the lapels of her shirt fiercely in one fist and Gutter in the other. Anger didn’t begin to describe how he felt.

He was furious.

Her denial only served to infuriate him more and he roughly shoved her away from him, sending her stumbling back. She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s GONE, his mind screamed at him, clawing it into every fibre of his being.

“Diath, I can’t shake the feeling that something awful is going to happen.”

Paultin’s words turned his blood to ice and his palm became slick with sweat inside his gloves. Strix was gone. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let anything bad happen and she was gone. He’d let her down again. His fingers curled tightly in panic and stress and he remembered Gutter sitting in his hand. He looked down at the enchanted blade, fixing on the keyhole crafted into the hilt. He had one key left, hanging solitary on the ring at his hip. Briefly the warning of this being the last time he could use it flashed through his head but he stamped it down. This was his only chance for help.

He knew Strix would do the same for him. She would never abandon him.

And he would never abandon her.

Never.

His hands were shaking as he snatched the key up and forced it into the hole, missing a few times in his haste much to his annoyance. When it finally slotted in he gave it no second thought, turning it with a soft click. The portal opened before him and he stared into it, taking a deep breath before stepping through. He would find her and save her.

He would.