Drezdrelda Volyakova

[gesseritt]

At last I've found the courage to commit my story to ink, a decision that comes at great personal risk. If one of my zealous countrymen discover these writings, I may be chased out of Barovia by a mob or taken to the gallows. It is surprising the pitchforks and the noose haven't found me yet. After all, I'm a witch born of these lands—a rare sight that outlanders and natives alike constantly remind me of.

To explain how I became a student of the arcane mysteries, we must begin with my childhood. My upbringing was miserable even among the suffering of my people. In Wachter lands, I was born the eldest child of the Volyakova peasant family. We were a desperate lot with too many mouths to feed, and many of my siblings wouldn't survive infancy. I blame my father for much of our despair. He was a drunk by noon, if not by morning, and rarely made it to the fields. Before I reached the age of ten, he was found dead in a ditch.

My mother was nothing like him. She was caring and hard working—and she had something even greater: Her mind. Before her was my grandmother, who had the fortune of serving on the Wachter Estate as a scullery maid. On the estate, she met a foreign tutor who took pity on her and taught her how to read and write, skills which she would pass on onto my mother. My grandmother succumbed to plague years before my birth, but somehow—likely stolen from this tutor—she acquired a codex on Draconic and arcane notation. Hoping to turn around her fortunes, my grandmother planned to sell the text to an outlander. Yet a bout of plague killed her before she could find a buyer, leaving my mother with other ambitions.

For countless sleepless nights, my mother pored over the text and studied the few scrolls on cantrips tucked within. In time, she mastered the most basic spells on calling forth light and creating minor wards. When I turned seven, she began to teach me these spells and her crude understanding of magical ciphers and Draconic. She never shook the belief that magic was evil. Even so, she hoped the arcane would free us from our pitiful state. Her hope would only lead to more suffering.

[gesseritt]

People often ask me why I despise Ezrites. From a scholarly standpoint, I view Ezra like all of the so-called gods. Divine magic—for lack of a better term—and the ability by some to channel it clearly exists, but it is far from evidence of deities. My theory is divine magic is simply a part of the magical forces people can tap into via a myriad of ways, such as my own study of ciphers, activation words and gestures. Illogically, Ezrites believe their cult leaders' divine magic is pure and good, but condemn all other magic as demonic.

Academics aside, I hate the Ezrites for what they did to my mother. I wasn't there the evening a traveling anchorite spied her practicing those pitiful cantrips. Part of me wishes I was, although I know it would've meant my own death. By dawn, a mob was outside our ramshackle home. We cried and begged when they dragged my mother to the gallows. Our cries only made the mob force me and my siblings to watch as our mother pleaded for her life. The anchorite stood among the crowd and showed none of Ezra's mercy. I was fourteen.

My siblings and I hastily fled, fearing our countrymen would hang us next. Most of us scattered outside Barovia. Yet I decided to stay. I believed, and still do to this day, that staying in Barovia was how I could fight back against this injustice. Rumors had long reached me of outlanders who frequented Vallaki. I knew these people would be my hope to continuing the studies my mother had given her life for.