Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd

1

Fielle

“Ten more minutes,” Fielle murmured, squeezing her eyes shut. “Ten more minutes, Father, please. Zerina kept me up past two making more vibrato potions, as well you know.” And in a softer voice, “Because who cares what Fielle needs if the Golden Zerina wants to warble like a sparrow until dawn . . .”

But still the loud voice called to her, and she finally sat up, scrubbing a hand through her cropped platinum hair.

“Honestly, it can barely be dawn—­”

Oh.

She was not in her crooked room in the attic gables of the Dancing Dragon, the tavern her family ran in Baldur’s Gate. This was not her cramped, child-­sized bed. She was not sweating beside the sturdy bricks of the kitchen chimney that made up one wall, and she was not being barked awake to use her artificer’s magic to turn yesterday’s sugar cakes into today’s tavern special.

And the voice that had awakened her?

Not her father.

These people around her were not her family members, which was both a gift and a problem. They were strangers, and none of them human like her. Even for strangers, they were stranger than usual. And the place around them was strangest of all.

Fielle was on the cold, hard ground, surrounded by imposing trees and hemmed in by swirling white mist. Shadows reached long, greedy fingers from the forest, and the sky seemed caught between night and day, the breeze as cold and tremulous as a dead man’s dying breath. She felt as if all good things had withered and died, the air stolen from her lungs. This place was hung with foreboding, as grim and still as a funeral. And she was not the only mourner. The people around her seemed just as confused as she was. Luckily, if there was one thing she was good at, it was making people feel at home while taking charge of the situation.

“I’m Fielle,” she said cheerily, turning to the blue-­skinned female tiefling next to her. “What’s your name?”

The tiefling had an otherworldly beauty, with twisting indigo horns and flowing hair of shimmering turquoise. But the moment her red eyes landed on Fielle, her wild, lovely face contorted with hatred. She scrambled to her feet in her clattering armor, a magnificent silver glaive in her hands. The metal flashed in what little light there was, showing crescent moon designs etched into the blade.

“Why should I tell you? What do you want? Where are we? Is this some dark plot of Shar, to bring me to this twilight hell?”

Fielle held out her hands in a calming gesture, giving her a warming smile. “Whoa there, friend. All I want is a road home and to stay far away from that glaive. I’m as lost as you are.”

“This is not the academy,” a deep and learned voice remarked, and Fielle glanced to her other side and saw a character who would’ve made her do a double take back home: an unusually scrawny male orc gazing up at the chalky sky like a confused baby bird. “Possibly not even Silverymoon.” Despite his gray skin and the two sharp white tusks jutting from his lower jaw, he had an elegant, thoughtful cast to his features. His voice was cultured and erudite, and his auburn hair was shaved on the sides and unruly on top.

When she noted the burgundy wizard’s robe, crystal-­topped staff, and general lack of weapons, she offered the orc the same welcoming smile the tiefling had rejected. “It doesn’t seem like home, does it? We’re certainly not near Baldur’s Gate. It’s summer there, and I’ve never seen trees like this before.”

“Nor the Silver Marches. Perhaps another continent? Or another realm? If only it were night, and the constellations were visible, we would know more. I must consult the—­” He fidgeted with a heavy iron ring on one gray finger. “Ah, but the archives are out of reach. I am Rotrog of Argitau Academy. Is anyone familiar with this place?” He looked to the next figure. “You, kenku!”

The kenku blinked at the orc, her thin shoulders hunched up and her iridescent black-­violet feathers ruffling around her neck. She was just a little smaller than Fielle and shaped almost like a human or a tiefling, but up close, her birdlike features dominated. When she noted everyone looking at her, her lemon-­yellow eyes dilated in terror, and she pulled the hood of her sky-­blue cloak up with talon-­like hands so that only her sharp black beak was visible. “Me? Yes? What?” she chirped.

“Do you know where we are?” the orc asked, although it sounded more like a demand. “It was a corvid’s cry that woke us. Was it you?”

“Woke me, too,” she said, hopping back and forth as if on the verge of taking to the skies. Not that she could, of course; her kind had lost their wings long ago. “A raven, that was. Don’t know where we are. I’m Kah. From Waterdeep. This is not Waterdeep. Not Water­deep at all.” Her beak clicked with worry, and she bowed her head, her fingers wrapping around an amulet on a leather thong around her neck. “Akadi, Lady of the Winds, forgive your humble servant, and deliver me where I belong!” She waited, eyes squinched shut, but nothing happened. Disappointed, the cleric tucked her amulet back under her cloak and looked up at the sky. “The gods—­their reach is infinite, yes?”

“Just because a god’s reach is infinite does not mean they are listening,” the orc said flatly. “Or that they care in the least.”

“Selûne may tolerate blasphemy, but I do not,” the tiefling spat, her tail twitching like a snake about to strike.

The orc looked at the sky. “Should the moon ever show her face in this strange place, I’ll apologize.”

Fielle next looked to the last figure in the group and the only one not standing: a male drow who was either in a trance or unconscious. He was large and muscular, his skin purplish gray under his many tattoos, and his long, lustrous hair was snowy white and neatly braided on the sides. He lay on his back, his hands on the sheaths of his weapons, a smile playing at his sculpted lips. Upon his chest sat what appeared to be a raw turkey, but as they stared at it, two leathery wings unfurled to reveal the yawning, golden-­eyed face of a hairless tressym.

“Aren’t tressym supposed to look like cats with long hair and feathery wings?” Fielle whispered. “And be . . . pretty?”

“Supposed to,” the orc mused. “I do believe those words no longer apply.” He cleared his throat, a fussy sound indeed from an orc. “You, drow! Wake up!”

The tressym blinked at him as if rolling its eyes and stood to arch its back, opening its fleshy wings wide. Tossing a disdainful look toward the four strangers, the beast put its face very close to the drow’s ear and yowled.

“Yes, what?” the drow barked, sitting up suddenly as the tressym leaped off him and sauntered a bit away to slurp at its pebbled wings.

“Some warrior you are,” the tiefling mused. “Surrounded by danger and still you slept!”

The drow stretched, his shoulders creaking, and stood, looking about himself with amused curiosity. His weapons were held easily in his hands, as if they were part of his body. “If I’d been surrounded by danger, I would’ve woken up.”

The tiefling held up her glaive. “And what does this look like?”

The drow looked critically around the circle. “A bunch of odd folk standing around a clearing, bickering over stupid things?”

The tiefling’s mouth opened in retort, but then she cocked her head. “Can’t argue with that, I suppose.” She looked at each person in turn as if marking them for later execution. “My name is Ali­shai Moonshadow, and I am not to be trifled with.”

“I am Chivarion Dyrr, and I would very much like to be trifled with,” the handsome drow said. “I had trifle once at a Midsummer festival. It was delicious. Very fluffy. Quite sweet.” He pointed at the tressym. “And that is Murder. She does not eat trifle. But she would try.”

With an uncanny intelligence, the tressym bobbed her head and resumed licking herself in a personal area, one bony leg flung behind her neck.

“Well, then, so much for introductions,” Rotrog said; Fielle got the idea that he was fond of the sound of his own voice. “From what I now gather, we have been drawn here from all over Faerûn for reasons we cannot yet fathom. No one is familiar with this place, and no one knows how they came to be here?”

He was met with shaking heads and looks of confusion.

“I shall assume, then, that we have been victims of fortune’s folly, and I will bid you farewell as I seek a way back to my home.”

“We’re not going to stick together?” Fielle asked, stepping closer to the group.