The Truth at the Gate

Session 18, at the gates of Vallaki. The party came back for the entry they had been promised, and told the town what had become of its eight missing children.

The deal

In session 6 Vallaki's gates stayed shut. The guards gave the party a price: slay the witch who lives in the windmill. Eight children were gone, stolen by her hand, and until her heart stopped the party was not welcome.

That same day they learned what the windmill was. The Old Bonegrinder was no bakery: the flour was bone-dust, and the dream pastries it sold were ground from children. Vess and Corvin had each eaten one without knowing. In sessions 7 and 8 the windmill burned and the party fought the hag who lived in it.

At the gate

Several days of travel brought them back to the iron-barred gates. The guards, Dargos among them, recognized them. The witch was dead, and the gates opened.

Dargos asked about the witch first, and that part was answered. Then he asked about the children. Lucian Jarov's parents were in the crowd; they had been told someone was coming back, and had been waiting.

The party told the truth: the children had been consumed before the party ever reached the windmill, and the pastries sold through the village, some of them bought and eaten by people standing in that crowd, were made from them. The windmill was ash and the hag was dead, and none of that restored what had been taken.

The Jarov parents asked directly. "Did you find them? Were they alive?" "How many did you save?" "Did she suffer?" There was no clean answer to any of it. The deal was honoured, and the parents' grief got none.

What was not said

A child died in the fire during the fight at the windmill. That did not come out at the gate. Myra and Logi carry it, and in session 24 Strahd used exactly that grievance against Logi (Logi's Banishment).