"Please!" Sergei cried. Around him was darkness. He lay at the bottom of a deep pit, the hole showing the sky as small as a pinprick.

Voices slithered around him. "Use him."

"Use him."

"Yes…"

"What do you want?" Sergei shouted. He lay on his back, on a hard surface, but couldn't seem to move.

Out of the darkness, a white flash, and then a dagger had cut his hand, and blood was trickling down his fingers, down his palm.
"He will be suitable," growled a voice.

"For what?" Sergei's voice echoed, as though he were in a massive space. "What do you mean? Who are you?"

The voices vanished. He suddenly felt very alone, and the hole to the world above was closing.
"What do you want?" he screamed.

After tying his horse to a nearby tree so it could graze, Ulmed sat on the grass. He'd wanted to feel sunlight on his face to banish the cold the mist-cave had left him with, but unfortunately, it was a cloudy, dark day.

Things seemed to be worse than ever. Whatever was happening in Barovia, it went far beyond the Priests of Osybus. Ulmed could only hope Strahd would find him soon while he tried to piece things together.

Closing his eyes, Ulmed tried to connect his thoughts. He needed to process all the information he'd learned from the mist. He thought it out slowly, piece by piece.

The Priests of Osybus were serving something called the Dark Powers, who were trying to accomplish… something.

The Dark Powers could consume souls… That made him think for a moment, but he wasn't sure why.

They had designs for some sort of creature that was like a human, but most definitely wasn't. They'd called it a vessel… A vessel for their plans, certainly.

He could have sworn he'd recognized one of the Dark Power's many voices… but he didn't know from where.

There was a lot of information he had to sort through. Sighing, he pulled out his tome of information to help him search for answers.

"We have to go back for him!" Tatyana insisted.

"We're not going anywhere," Strahd replied firmly. "We have to get to safety."

They had reached Ravenloft, and the castle's massive stone gates opened for their beaten carriage.

"Sergei could be in danger! He's your brother, how can you abandon him?"

Strahd looked her straight in the eyes.

"I am not abandoning him," he snarled. "I will send knights out to find him. But we aren't going anywhere. We're injured and weak. Until we're healthier or he's back, I forbid you from leaving Castle Ravenloft, or from making anyone else leave it without my permission. You!" the von Zarovich called to a servant. "Bring her to her room."

Grudgingly, Tatyana followed the servant to her room. But before she could make a plan to get away, she'd been locked in.

She ran over to her balcony and took out her periscope, then began to search the forests. She was stuck, but she had to do something.

Strahd marched into his chambers, where he sat down in a chair. Finally, in Castle Ravenloft, he was safe.

A soldier burst through the door and fell to one knee.

"Lord Zarovich," said the kneeling guard. "We've received word that a dangerous rebellion is-"

"I did not give you permission to enter," Strahd declared. "Leave at once."

"But, Lord Strahd-"

"Leave!"

Bowing hastily, the soldier departed. Strahd tried to resume his thoughts, but he couldn't. Standing, he began to pace around his room.

After a few minutes, he realized his mind was only on Tatyana. He hadn't thought about anything but her since they'd gotten back from the voyage.

He couldn't take this anymore! He knew he loved her, but what did he do about that?

He had to tell her, the von Zarovich realized. Only then would he know that she loved him too.

But Sergei…

And then Strahd knew there wasn't a better time. Sergei was gone; Tatyana was separated from him. This was when she was most likely to hear him out and accept him.

Mustering his courage, Strahd strode out of his chambers.

Castle Ravenloft's great hall, where Strahd's throne sat, was empty except for one person. After checking to make sure he was alone, Jaco wiggled a loose stone out of the floor to reveal a space underneath. From below his armour he drew a bundle of daggers, sickles, and blowguns. He placed them in the crevice, then put the stone back in place.

After another glance around, Jaco brought a sending stone up to his mouth.

"The tools are in place," he whispered into it.

"Perfect." Avon said from the Blood of the Vine tavern, far away. "Good work."

Sergei lay unconscious at the bottom of the pit. He'd been trying to move for hours, but couldn't get a single one of his limbs to work. The sunlight shined, tantalizing, so far up. A tiny dot of brightness.

He was pulled out of his stupor by a shout. Suddenly, a rope was thrown down to him, and he realized the sun wasn't as far away as he'd thought. As well, he found he could move again. Immediately, he grabbed the rope and held on as tightly as he could while he was dragged back to the surface.

He gasped in relief at the fresh air and light.

"Are you alright?" someone asked. Sergei realized it was Madam Eva, with the Vistani all around her.

"I'm fine," he stammered, "But there's someone- something- many people- down that hole."

"Really?" another Vistani asked doubtfully. Sergei turned to show them the pit, but when he did, he discovered it was nothing more than a roughly dug pit in the ground, only a few meters deep.

"Something clearly happened," Madam Eva commented. "You're covered in scratches." Sergei looked down and saw it wasn't just his hand that was cut. His whole body was lined with scrapes and gashes.

Sergei opened his mouth to thank them for saving him, but just then, Madam Eva's head turned north, and all the blood drained out of her face.

"You have to get back to the castle," the old woman ordered. "Now."

The Vistani gave him a horse, and Sergei rode towards Ravenloft.

Ulmed had poured his memories out into his magic tome, and had been searching through them, trying to find from where he recognized the voice.

When he turned to the next page, he found the answer.

Osybus.

He hadn't died after all.

He had achieved immortality.

As one of the Dark Powers.

But the Priests of Osybus had helped destroy him. Ulmed still remembered Exethanter's speech during the battle against the lich-god. The white-robes wanted immortality, but clearly they wanted to achieve it on their own, without their terrifying old master. And it seemed as though they believed the Dark Powers were a route to that goal.

But Osybus was one of them. He must have been tricking the cultists, playing them to further his goal.

One question remained: what was the lich's goal?

"Tatyana?" Strahd knocked on her door. "May I speak to you?"

Tatyana hurried over from her balcony periscope and said, "Come in, Strahd."

Strahd unlocked her door and stepped in. "There's something I need to tell you,' he began hesitantly.

Tatyana nodded, wondering what it was.

The von Zarovich took a deep breath and said, "I love you."

Tatyana stepped backwards in shock. A memory of her dream's misty cliff flashed through her mind.

"I only realized it recently," Strahd went on, "But I know it's true."

The growling thing in the dark was getting closer…

"I think about you every day- and I only want what's best for you- and-"

It loomed over her, dark as the blackest night, separated by its veil of mist…

"And… if you love me too… we could be great together."

He had to stop talking.

There was darkness in him.

"No!" she cried. "I'm sorry, Strahd, but I don't love you."

Strahd took a step back and nodded, his face cold. Then, he whirled around and strode out, knocking some papers off her desk as he slammed the door behind him.

Tatyana sat down shakily on her bed, feeling scared.

Where was Sergei?

In the hallway outside her room, Strahd stood, breathing heavily, filled with anger. As he turned to head back to his rooms, he noticed some papers on the ground. They must have floated out of the room while he was slamming the door.

Bending over, he picked them up. They were drawings she had done of Sergei. He flipped through them. His brother looked kind, gentle, and happy. He was smiling, and seemed to look straight into Strahd's eyes. It was incredible how Tatyana had managed to capture Sergei's essence with a few strokes on the page.

When Strahd flipped to the next drawing, he saw it was one of him. But Tatyana had drawn that one very differently. Rather than the smooth, light lines she'd drawn Sergei's face with, Strahd's face was composed of harsh, jagged lines that gave him a dark, intimidating look. The drawing of his face was cold and frowning, his lip curled up slightly. The drawing made him look like someone to avoid. Someone quick to anger, who didn't care much for others.

Was that really how she saw him?

Snarling with anger, he crumpled the drawings up in his hand and stalked away.

Avon sat hunched at a table in a corner of the Blood of the Vine tavern, poring over the map of Castle Ravenloft the rebel soldiers had brought him.

"Avon," said Corv, approaching him. "Some of us are going out. Do you want to come?"

Avon shook his head without looking up. "I have to plan."

"You haven't moved from that spot for hours," Corv told him. "Avon, it's not healthy to dwell on this so much. You have to keep your mind off the murder, to keep yourself from going insane."

"Remember Bogdan?" Avon whispered. "Remember the man who died on the hill? Do you want me to forget them too?"

"That's not what I-"

"I'm sitting here until there's absolutely no way our plan can fail," Avon insisted. "I'll lose my DAMNED MIND if I have to!"

He carved an X on Strahd's rooms in the castle with a knife.

"Zarovich must die."

No matter how much he thought about it, or searched his tomes of information, Ulmed couldn't piece together Osybus's motive. Feeling like he was wasting time, he switched to trying to think who or what the vessel for their monstrous designs could be. He considered everyone from Exethanter to Sergei, sorting them by how likely they were to be it.

Then he had a thought.

What if he was the vessel? It might make sense; he'd been fighting Osybus and his priests for years, and was still investigating them now. If he was getting too close to discovering something, they might want to get him out of the way by having him serve them.

He brought one hand to his chest, and touched the spot where the Priest of Osybus had caused him pain. The spot had been pulsing like a heartbeat when he'd been in the mist cave. He couldn't shake the feeling that white-robe had put something in him. What if that thing was whatever would turn him into the vessel?

Leaping to his feet, Ulmed sent another metal message bird to Cosima, Ansel and Tristian to update them on what he'd discovered. Then, he leapt on his horse and rode east.

He had to warn Strahd. Then, he had to get as far away from everyone as possible.

The metal message bird flew through the air, Ulmed's voice bouncing around inside it, contained. Suddenly, it was snatched out of the air by a skeletal hand. Exethanter crushed it with disgust.

"Take this to the Powers," she ordered a cultist. "It might be time we start ridding ourselves of the obstacles in our path."

"Tatyana?" Sergei knocked on her door, breathing hard from running all the way there. It was a few moments before she opened the door.

"Sergei," she breathed a sigh of relief. Sergei stepped in.

Tatyana looked him over and noticed all his cuts. "What happened to you?"

"I'm fine," Sergei shook his head. Tatyana seemed distracted, and nervous.

"Are you alright?"
"Yes," she answered, too quickly. But Sergei didn't want to pry.

"Tatyana," he said softly, getting on one knee, "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," Tatyana nodded. Then she seemed to collapse into him, and he held her, murmuring gentle things into her ear.

They sat together, holding each other, feeling safe once more.

From his balcony, Strahd watched them through their open window. He growled in anger and turned away.