Milivoj took the coins from Yari, his dark eyes squinting at her admonishment. It was difficult to seen how far her morality was sinking in, but he didn't give any answer back. At the mention of Vita's offer to mend their clothes, Yettel appeared behind her brother once more. She was adorned in a very tattered dress, and she smiled prettily with soot covered cheeks as the tiefling let her inner light flow and knit together the simple garment. To this act, Milivoj seemed the most appreciative, and the flicker of a smile did appear at the corners of his lips. He took the medicine from Esvele with a nod.
"I... will make her a bath. Hot water is a bit of an ask... we haven't much firewood. But I'll make do. And yes...soap. With the coin, I'll be able to pick some up. Thank you. Tanya thanks you as well."
"Thanks!" Yettel said, teetering around a bit in her newly mended dress. It was still a simple garment, but now it was a clean and whole one.
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Shortly after that encounter, the group of four were making their way eastward through Vallaki's major thoroughfare - the continuation of the Old Svalich Road. On their trek through the town, which would take them perhaps 15 minutes, each of the women had a private moment where something out of place occurred.
The first event happened to Esvele. Just as they had rejoined the main road, a diminutive figure hunched near the ground and wearing a grey, hooded cloak made themselves apparent to Esvele, but managing to flag her attention when the others weren't looking. Pulling back the edge of their cowl just enough allowed Esvele to identify the figure. It was Zygfrek Belview, one of the deformed inhabitants of the Abbey of St. Markovia who would be shunned by the outside world if they could see her face. There were many Belviews at the Abbey who shared a curse of deformity, both in mind and body. Zygfrek could be tempermental, but she was one of the few who the Abbot could, at a stretch, send into the outside world if Esvele was not present.
Zygfrek motioned further down the road, and then disappeared between a narrow opening between two townhouses. Following the movements at the edge of her vision, Esvele was able to quietly lag behind Yari, Ireena and Vita for a moment, and meet Zygfrek at the indicated meeting point.
"The Abbot is concerned," Zygfrek said, hurriedly, still hiding her face, though a portion of her left arm shifted and became visible through her rags, revealing scales, as if that of a lizard, on the arm. "His work is nearing a critical point. The item you were to fetch. Do you have it? Is it... fresh?"
The Belview woman turned her head upwards, and in the shadow of the cloak, a scaled face with a yellow cat's eye spied up at the nun. After Esvele's answer, Zygfrek nodded, then glanced this way and that before whispering loudly. "At the dinner bell tonight, I will come for the item, and take it to the Abbot for you. Tell me where you will leave it. There must not be any more delay! Then you can do whatever it is needs be done here... and stop looking at me! I don't need your judgement."
Esvele knew that the last bit was only a quirk of Zygfrek's personality, for the deformed one hated to be looked at directly, so self conscious was she about her appearance. It frequently got the better of her, and manifested as paranoia.
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The next odd encounter would be Yari's. The samurai girl had been in the middle of some conversation with Ireena and Vita, doing most of the talking, which had absorbed them so much that they had none of them seen Esvele catch up and rejoin them. Now, there came a moment in the middle of the walk, not long after they had moved past the street that turned south towards the stockade, when the air around Yari seemed to smell different, much like the smell after a lightning strike, and there was a momentary distortion in her vision, as though the world seemed to shift for only a split second, and things moved in a slowed motion around her.
Instinctively, Yari's hand would rest on the handle of her blade, yet not drawing it, as was her custom, until the moment to strike was right. The blade was cold to the touch, beyond what it normally should be. Her eyes scanned the slowed down world. Vita was caught in a moment of confusion, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes in their usual state of searching for meaning. Ireena's face was holding a smirk, her glance directed at Vita, a softness there in her eyes, but also a longing. Then there came a sudden flash of movement and Yari's neck swiveled to regard the rooftops, where something had skittered across and out of sight. Then the sound of scraping and skittering, and spiders become visible.... but not wholly spiders, for in a flash they were not spiders, but women, with their joints crudely out of place, long black hair hiding their visages, and long red nails clicking and clacking, as their bodies crawled rapidly along the roofs. Once seen there came a croaking noise, as though from some sort of river frog, and then the figures disappeared. A faint laughter came from up ahead, drawing Yari's attention now to ground level. A woman in noble finery of the style of Yari's homeland. She held a brightly colored umbrella, and scandalously bore her open neck and part of her shoulder, which she looked over to teasingly smile at the samurai.
"Soon, princess. You'll be mine~"
It wasn't possible that the woman's voice could be heard from this distance, yet it was clear to Yari, as if it had been spoke from only a pace away. In the next moment, the air distortion changed back, and the smell in the air was gone. So too was the strange woman, and all sign of unusual apparitions. Yari would look around and see that Ireena was still gazing at Vita, but time had taken up its normal pace again, and no one but Yari seemed to have seen the odd changes.
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At some point midway through their walk, Vita would notice Yari growing suddenly quieter, but it was a small thing, and the silence was filled by a mere giggle of the noble Ireena, who was looking at Vita with soft eyes - the sort that made the Light within Vita flutter appreciatively, and yet at the same time, the Lust that had become stronger and stronger within her each time she had indulged in pleasures of the flesh with Ireena was bubbling to the surface once more. Thoughts vyed for attention within the tiefling warlock's simple mind:
"She loves me." One thought appeared.
"She desires me." Another thought quickly followed.
"She would sacrifice herself for me."
"I would make her mine. My plaything. My servant. My lovedoll. And she would adore me for it."
Unbidden, these thoughts were Vita's and yet they were also external from her. Arriving from places unknown. The next thought was the inner voice of the fiend that she kept within her. His soothing, masculine voice rich and oozing with sinful delight. It seemed... more powerful than before.
"It is no surprise that she likes you. All mortals lust after the majesty of the fiends. The temptation, the feeling of giving in, of being drawn down and sinking into a dark, forbidden ecstasy. That is what she desires, and as you are fiend blooded, that is what you can give her. And you *can* make this possible. But not by yourself. You are too untrained, and the creature that hunts her, this Strahd. He desires her as much as you do. More than you, perhaps. The Light alone is not enough to stop him, and soon, very soon, you will lose her to him. Only with both the Light and the Dark can you hope to best the lord of this domain and save Ireena for yourself. Without the Dark Power that I can give you, she can never be truly yours."
It was as though her spirit was being caressed somehow, as though the fiend were wrapping a comfortable arm around the shoulder of her soul.
"There are times when I would lie, to manipulate, to seek advantage. But even moreso, I would use the Truth to this same purpose. Search your feelings, Vita. You may not be book smart, but in your heart, you know that I am not lying. I can sense the darkness that is coming for her... for I am such a darkness. I know how he thinks, how he will pick his opportunity.... I can help you. If you let me. I have helped the two of you find comfort in one another. That look she gives you now... it is because of me... of the hunger she has for what you and I both can provide her. You must be prepared to unleash me... when the time is right, to save her. It will be the only way..."
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The party finally drew near the coffin maker's workshop, set up as it was in a large cul-de-sac area that included the many stockyards and stables and tradepost storefronts that provided the town its basic economy. The uninviting shop was two stories tall, with a sign in the shape of a coffin hanging above its front door. All of the window shutters were closed tightly, and a deathly silence surrounded the establishment.
