Tatyana meets Kasimir

Kasimir Velikov

Wait, Elara, where did you learn that song?

Ireena Kolyana

It’s just an old hunting tune, why?

Kasimir Velikov

It is not just a song. It is a fragment of something sacred, something lost.`

Ireena Kolyana

Kasimir, you know I am just a hunter...

Kasimir Velikov

Child, that melody... i've not heard it for .. centuries... so many lives ... passed, voices silenced, my sister, Patrina, she... she used to sing something like that when i was a child. Long ago, before Strahd ... she was always singing, everything had a melody to her, when she was an apprentice to the Mountain Fane …

Ireena Kolyana

Why didn't you ever tell me you had a sister. She was Patrina? ... I remember your stories of the Fanes .... But that song… it feels like it’s always been with me.”

Kasimir Velikov

You are more than a hunter, my young friend. I think you are the one Strahd seeks.

Ireena Kolyana

,... ‘Strahd Von Zarovich’ ... the monster of Ravenloft?

Ireena Kolyana

... how would he know about me?

Kasimir Velikov

about you, no. But the Vampire Lord is obsessed with a reflection from his past...

Ireena Kolyana

Does he think I am someone else, ...someone he once knew?

Kasimir Velikov

Yes,... he believes you are Tatyana, his lost love, reborn. You know this 'monster' is hibernating now, but he will wake to hunt you. He is the master of all the evils that prey upon us, He has trapped us all within his obsessive pursuit, in his 'Great Hunt.'

Ireena Kolyana

So, there is no escaping him?

Kasimir Velikov

Not in the ways others have tried. The foreigners that arrive, they are all part of his plan. He uses their crusades to test his defenses. If they defeat any of his minions, he transformed the attackers into slaves and uses them to replaces the ones they kill. He turns those who impress him into trophies. Those who insult him get used in endless games of punishment to distract him from his own suffering.

Ireena Kolyana

But, even if he wants us to attack Ravenloft, only his pet Vistani can escape through the mist, so what choice do we have?

Kasimir Velikov

...There may be another way.. .before Rahadin betrayed our people, he was an archivist, a keeper of knowledge. The elders refused to let him undo the spell that protected the Amber Temple, the place where Strahd was transformed. Rahadin killed them all to unlock the Temple and make Strahd what he is.

Ireena Kolyana

But,... how do we fight that?

Kasimir Velikov

Maybe, if Strahd was cut off from the Amber Temple, if it could be frozen in time again, then Strahd would lose his connection to the dead god that empowers him. The Vampire would no longer regenerate, he would become mortal.

Ireena Kolyana

But would that banish the mists? I remember your stories of what the Fanes used to be, do you think there are songs that could help them?

Kasimir Velikov

My sister, Patrina, she was taught the sacred songs of the valley. Now she is imprisoned in Ravenloft for her connection to the Fanes and to you. But hearing you sing, brings her voice back to me. Dear child, if you could reach her, maybe you could recover the harmonies she once sung, then with the songs of the Fanes, we can shatter this cycle of despair and return our valley to the world from which it was stolen....

Ireena Kolyana

Then that is what we must do. Whatever the cost.

Ireena Kolyana

The Fanes... their songs bound the valley, didn’t they? You’ve mentioned the prayers of your people were sung before—but this music, this... bond—it wasn’t just an empty tradition, was it?

Kasimir Velikov

No. It was... what would you call it? A thread. A thread tethering our valley to what was real, to what truly belonged—balance. The Fanes ensured our connection to the land endured. Without their song? We sank into this... this shadow.

Ireena Kolyana

And it’s Strahd’s doing, right? That shadow. He broke into the Temple and drained the Fanes, all for—

Kasimir Velikov

For love, he tells himself it was to restore his brother and build a bridge of eternal youth to Tatyana....

Ireena Kolyana

...Me. Yet, I—I don’t know him beyond what the stories tell. The obsession they describe feels... It’s foreign, like it belongs to someone else. But —Kasimir, tell me—was draining the Fanes, trapping them in their broken forms, the only way Strahd could control the valley?

Kasimir Velikov

Not control, no. The vampire had already claimed rulership. He thought harvesting the Fanes would bring him what he most desired, the power to overcome your resistance. But all he achieved was deeper bondage to death and a prison for us all, himself included.

Ireena Kolyana

But now... He truly... believes repeating this cycle will set him free?

Kasimir Velikov

He is defined by this belief. For Strahd, you are the key —your anchor to him is built on centuries of repetition. The undead heart inside this monster can never learn or grow ... So he turns his tears into poems. Sagas that start with the Amber Temple being unlocked and follow Strahd's footsteps, as the hero who carries the Temple's burden, a hero who becomes trapped in this cycle worn smooth by grief. Bound to you in frozen longing.

Ireena Kolyana

But... we have to stop it. This. Him. All of this! If I—

Kasimir Velikov

You must listen carefully, child. You stand not at the heart of his despair, but near it. Our salvation is difficult to track when hope flickers so dimly. You yearn for a better world, that pure hope within you is your strongest guide but also a vulnerability to Strahd's whispers, that has so often been fatal. The valley needs to rediscover its voices—not just the silence overcome.

Ireena Kolyana

You're talking in circles—those voices, they’re the Fanes, right? We—we can bring them back.

Kasimir Velikov

If we could recover their songs, yes. But Strahd must first be defeated. Then, if balance is restored to what has been drained, perhaps Barovia might rise again. The choice lies with more than you, Strahd turns the most powerful of those who crusade against him into consorts. To defeat the Vampire Lord, each layer of his defense must be dismantled, those who aim straight for Strahd are auditioning for the very role he wants them to play. Many hands and voices must unite to undo centuries of the curse's accumulation.

Ireena Kolyana

And yet your sister is one of those voices... those keys. is she?

Kasimir Velikov

Yes. Patrina was entrusted with the Fanes’ harmony before... everything. Her ongoing imprisonment ensures her knowledge remain, but she is being tortured, and her memory may be fractured. Even as—

Ireena Kolyana

She’s trapped because of Strahd. Like me. That’s... I—what if I can reach her?

Kasimir Velikov

Bravery, Elara, is not the issue. The Vampire's consorts, undead guards and traps will overwhelm most who would be heroes, while raising an army to assault Ravenloft would just give Strahd a field of corpses to command. You must gather allies who are free of corruption and proceed with caution... build a union of knowledge and purpose among souls willing to risk everything.

Ireena Kolyana

... I will be one of those souls ...I have to be. If breaking this curse means reclaiming those songs… if it means stepping into Barovia’s shadow for something brighter—even if it breaks me, Kasimir—I have to try.

Kasimir Velikov

Then you’ve accepted your destiny. The one Barovia waits for. We’ll speak of this again... I promise, child.