[hr]The crone stopped dead in her tracks.

[color=ed145b]"It has been our tradition for centuries."[/color]

Morgantha now registered that the assembled cabal were mostly sojourners despite the palatable presence of their Vistani guide and the tattooed heiress from Sithicus. The paladin reeked, though slightly diluted, of another realm's virtue. Oaths were designed to be corrupted, boiled and baked, until the refined ingredients were eventually lost with heat and salt, as was with the von Zarovichian lineage. The warlock, warrior, and trickster were obviously too complex to savor, due to their tongueless expressions. The man and doll, however, both with irritant indigo spiraling about their pupils, intrigued the hag, as the most anachronistic of foreigners between them all.

[color=ed145b]"They offer blood, sweat and tears. Through their labor."[/color] She smiled oddly. [color=ed145b]"Tiny hands are needed for tiny pies. These very children will become adults to parent the next generation of pâtissiers."[/color]

[img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/442948252074246144/468141408826687498/unknown.png[/img]

Faint thunder, unfaltering and decisive, adopted a heartier stance after its flashier sister reminded all outdoors, including the hag, a tempest loomed, ever closer, within the mist. The previous gale, which offered the dripping dew from veiled heavens upon their wormy trek on Old Svalich Road, now threatened the troupe with a maddening squall, barking a boded torrent of downpour.

The nearby broker of queer quiches stomped her left foot onto the moist thoroughfare, at the atmospheric interruption riddling the encroaching sky. She scrutinized the still assembled bulk of pastries and cursed the horizon with an enclosed fist.

[color=ed145b]“Ceithlenn? You promised!”[/color]

With the wave of a gouty finger, the wagon’s panels scurried upon the fragrant wares, trapping them within a trundled coffin of spalted and splintered wood, a rectangular ark primed against the coming flood. The same rheumatoid hand revealed a wooden replica of the idle makeshift chest, miraculously duplicating as a facsimile of her interred wagon, but on a bite-size scale. She grazed the more grandiose model with her sleeve, mumbling uncouthly, interchanging between Abyssal and Infernal. Lunacy, which spilled, not from the mouth of Morgantha but from glacial clouds, wept a former fugue of a growling tiger, as the dray and its owner subsequently barely phased into nothingness, whilst the interfering shadow of her twitching pupil dove into the trickster’s soul.

[color=ed145b]“So little time. Fathom no small dreams, children.”[/color]

The meandering sleet promptly drenched the village of Barovia, thereafter, washing another evil from its streets. The whispering precipitation urged for souls to dance to its chaotic tempo, while the moans of a wailing mother competed against the roaring round-about rumble. Unwilling to listen, a knuckled index pointed to the smoldering panorama above several chimneys ahead. Markus bellowed over the pitter-patter.

[color=598527]"Grab Lucian!”[/color] 

Zaerith followed the order promptly, placing the juvenile on the dissolving steed. 

[color=598527]“We need to get inside. Quickly.” [/color]
[h2]BOOM!!![/h2] 
The gypsy’s shoulders quivered, as if quieted by a spiritual frostbite that shattered both confidence and competence, as a flaccid corpse and its belongings slid cursorily off a roof, in the intersecting distance, facedown, unmoving in the drowned, cobbled grounds.[hr]
>A motionless body lay ahead, as a corrosive shower lurks above.