Beginning Credits Play Over: Alan Silvestri - Transylvania 1887
FADE IN:
A storm‑torn valley.
Mist coils through dead trees like breath from unseen lungs.
The wind carries whispers — not words, but names.
Barovia stretches below, its rivers black and slow, its mountains crowned with ruin.
Ahead, three faint lights flicker in the fog — distant, spectral, calling.
The camera glides toward them:
one crimson, one silver, one emerald.
Each pulse like a heartbeat buried in the earth.
TITLE CARD:
THE THREE FANES — carved in runic script, glowing faintly as if written in blood and moonlight.
The glow trembles.
The wind falters.
Silence descends.
❄️ CHARACTER INTRODUCTIONS — THE LAND REMEMBERS
(Each name appears as the camera passes them)
Fleetwood (Richard Armitage) — on a ridge above the valley, cloak snapping in the wind. He watches lightning crawl across the horizon, tracing the shape of the first Fane. His hand rests on the pommel of his sword, eyes narrowed.
He whispers, “It’s waking.”
Clarion (Gwendoline Christie) — kneeling beside a half‑buried altar.
Her lantern burns with silver flame, bending toward the east.
She touches the stone, and frost melts beneath her fingers.
A prayer escapes her lips — half hope, half warning.
Greegan (Matt Ryan) — trudging through a ravine where the fog moves against the wind. His compass spins, then locks toward a fissure glowing faintly green. He mutters, “The earth’s bleeding again,” and presses on.
Felonious (Ben Whishaw) — beneath a shattered arch, studying runes carved in bone.
The parchment in his hands hums softly.
He looks up — the air ripples, and for a moment, the stars blink out.
He smiles, uneasy. “They’re listening.”
Silverleaf (Tatyana Maslany) — standing in a grove of petrified trees.
Her bow is drawn, arrow nocked, eyes fixed on a shadow that moves like smoke.
Amber motes drift from her breath.
She whispers, “The forest remembers.”
Ireena (Tomasin McKenzie) — at the edge of a frozen lake.
The lavender blade glows faintly at her side.
She gazes into the reflection — three lights shimmer beneath the ice.
Her voice is steady: “We find them. Or Barovia dies.”
Arabelle (Cailee Spaeny) — seated in the snow, eyes closed, hands pressed to the ground. Her voice is a whisper carried by the wind:
“The Fanes are dreaming. Don’t wake them angry.”
Ezmerelda (Morena Baccarin) — sharpening her blade beside a dying fire.
The flames flare crimson, then fade to ash.
She smirks. “Guess we’re heading into another nightmare.”
🏔️ FINAL SHOT — THE VALLEY BREATHES
The storm parts for a heartbeat.
Three distant peaks glow — red, silver, green — each pulsing like a wound.
The camera pushes forward, the wind rising again.
A whisper curls through the air — ancient, hungry, patient.
FADE OUT.
With:
Jim Broadbent as Father Lucian Petrovich
Cliff Curtis as Arturi Radanavich
Rory McCann as Izek Strazni
Richard Brake as Brother Thaddeus
Chiwetel Ejiofor as Kavan The Grim
And
Gary Oldman as Rudolf van Richten
COLD OPEN BEGINS:
Scene: Vallaki — St. Andral’s Church, Sanctuary
🕯️ INT. ST. ANDRAL’S CHURCH — SANCTUARY, NIGHT
Background Music: Fabomusic - Van Richten (Scholar)
The sanctuary breathes like a wounded heart.
Candlelight trembles upon the cracked stone floor, each flame a soul refusing to die.
The air tastes of incense and ash.
Felonious stands before the altar — the Tome of Strahd open, its pages crawling with ink that seems to move when the eye looks away.
His voice cuts through the hush like a blade drawn in prayer.
FELONIOUS: “Doctor Van Richten. What do you know of the Grand Conjunction?”
The silence that follows is not absence — it is listening.
Even the candles lean toward him.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “The Tome says it’s coming — soon. And we’ve seen signs already. Things that do not belong here.”
He glances toward Fleetwood, Clarion, Ezmerelda — their faces pale in the flickering light.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “The Slaadi we fought — planar creatures. They should not walk Barovia. Not unless the walls between worlds are bleeding.”
Van Richten steps forward, his shadow long and deliberate.
He closes his eyes as though listening to something far older than memory.
VAN RICHTEN: “The Grand Conjunction is prophecy. A thinning of the veil. When the Mists reach beyond Barovia — and what lies beyond reaches back.”
He opens his eyes, and the candlelight seems to dim.
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D): “Madam Eva foresaw it a century past. Strahd believed it his escape — a wound in the world through which he might crawl back into dominion.”
Ezmerelda snorts, arms crossed, defiance flickering like steel.
EZMERELDA: “Then we’re not fighting Barovia anymore. We’re fighting the multiverse.”
Felonious turns another page — the parchment sighs.
Symbols writhe like veins beneath the surface.
FELONIOUS: “The Tome names the Fanes. The Heart of Sorrow. A weapon forged from the land itself.”
He looks up, voice low, reverent, afraid.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “If the Conjunction comes… Strahd did not merely awaken. He prepares.”
The party stands in silence.
The Tome lies open — its words whispering in languages that dream of blood.
And outside, the Mists begin to stir — not with memory, but with possibility.
CUT TO:
🕯️ Vallaki — St. Andral’s Church, War Room
INT. ST. ANDRAL’S CHURCH — SIDE CHAMBER, NIGHT
Background Music: Fabomusic - The Tome of Strahd
The side chamber is a womb of shadows and weary breath.
A long, scarred wooden table dominates the room like a battlefield relic, its surface buried beneath maps of Barovia — inked in fading, unreliable lines, as though the land itself resists being known.
Candles gutter in iron sconces, their flames bending as if listening.
Felonious stands at the head of the table, one hand splayed over the curling parchment, the other resting lightly on his staff. His silhouette is long and spectral in the candlelight.
FELONIOUS: “We face two fronts.”
His finger taps the map — a soft sound, yet it echoes like a knell.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “The forest fane. Yester Hill. Arturi and Van Richten must place the gem there. A ley‑knot. A wound in the land. If we do not reclaim it, Strahd’s roots remain deep.”
His gaze drifts to Izek, seated apart from the others.
The amber shard at his throat pulses faintly — a heartbeat not his own.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “And then… there is that. Whatever grips him — vestige, fiend, or something older.”
He straightens, the weight of choice settling over the room.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D) : “Do we divide our strength… or strike one threat at a time?”
Fleetwood leans back, arms crossed, jaw tight.
FLEETWOOD: “Splitting up is how you get half a party buried”.
Clarion, fingers steepled, eyes shadowed with worry:
CLARION: “But delay risks everything. The fane may seal again. And Izek’s corruption quickens. We may not have the luxury of sequence.”
Ezmerelda sharpens her blade with slow, deliberate strokes — each rasp a warning.
EZMERELDA: “Strahd wants hesitation. Wants doubt. Wants us to fracture like glass in winter.”
Van Richten speaks softly, but his words land like stones.
VAN RICHTEN: “The fane is vital. But so is Izek. If he turns fully… we will face him and the thing whispering through him.”
He looks to Arturi, who nods with grim resolve.
ARTURI: “We place the gem. We reclaim the land. But we do not abandon him”.
At last, Silverleaf lifts her gaze — calm, measured, the voice of a forest that has seen centuries.
SILVERLEAF: “Then we do not split. We sequence. Strike Yester Hill swiftly, cleanly. Then return before the shard devours what remains of him.”
A hush falls.
The candles flicker.
The map waits — patient, hungry.
Felonious exhales, a decision settling into his bones.
FELONIOUS : “Dawn, then. Yester Hill first. And pray the amber stays silent until we return.”
The party rises.
The plan is set.
And time itself seems to hold its breath —
for the land,
for the shard,
and for the soul of a man still teetering between salvation and the abyss.
🕯️ INT. ST. ANDRAL’S CHURCH — CLOISTER HALL, NIGHT
Background Music: Fabomusic - Ezmerelda
The cloister hall sleeps uneasily.
Moonlight drips through the narrow windows like liquid silver, pooling across the stone floor and catching on the edges of unfurled bedrolls, half‑shed armor, and travel‑worn cloaks.
The maps of Yester Hill lie folded on the long table — patient, ominous, waiting for dawn to wake them.
Van Richten stands near the window, a lone figure carved from shadow and regret.
The moon paints his weathered face in pale absolution.
Ezmerelda leans against the opposite wall, arms crossed, one boot tapping a slow, restless rhythm — the heartbeat of a hunter who has forgotten how to sleep.
For a long moment, neither speaks.
Then, softly:
VAN RICHTEN: “You know… I taught you to keep your distance. To never get close. Because that is how I survived.”
His gaze drifts toward the others — Fleetwood and Clarion, sharing a quiet laugh over some half‑remembered moment from the battle, their closeness effortless, unscarred.
VAN RICHTEN: “The curse taught me that love was a weapon. That anyone who stood beside me would be marked for suffering. So I learned to walk alone. Not because I wished to… but because I believed it was the only mercy I had left to give.”
A pause. A breath.
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D): ““And now that it’s gone… I find I no longer know how to be anything else.”
Van Richten’s voice lowers, roughened by something older than age.
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D): “But I’m not sure that’s how everyone should live.”
Ezmerelda says nothing.
She watches him with the stillness of a blade waiting to be drawn.
He turns back to her, the moonlight catching in his eyes.
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D): “I’m sorry I couldn’t be the friend you needed. My curse wouldn’t allow it. It made me sharp. Made me useful. But it did not make me kind.”
Ezmerelda’s jaw tightens — a reflex, a shield — but her eyes soften, the steel within them warming.
Van Richten steps closer.
His hand, usually so steady in violence, rests gently on her shoulder.
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D) : “I want you to know… I’m proud of you. Of the hunter you’ve become. Of the woman you are.”
A breath.
A heartbeat.
A lifetime.
Then, with a faint, wry smile:
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D): “And if you should find someone special… that might not be a bad thing.”
His eyes flick — unmistakably — toward Felonious, hunched over his spellbook, muttering about ley lines and undead thresholds, quill scratching like a restless spirit.
VAN RICHTEN (CONT’D): “I didn’t become the greatest monster hunter in Barovia by being unobservant.”
Ezmerelda snorts — a laugh breaking through like sunlight through storm clouds.
EZMERELDA: “You’re still insufferable.”
Van Richten’s smile deepens, softened by something rare and fragile.
VAN RICHTEN: “And you’re still mine. My greatest success.
Moonlight glows.
The church breathes in quiet.
And for the first time in years,
Van Richten allows himself to believe
that the curse may not claim everything.
The whetstone stills in her hand.
For a heartbeat, the only sound in the cloister hall is the faint rasp of her breath and the distant groan of the old church settling into the night.
Then Ezmerelda lowers the blade — gently, reverently — as though setting down a memory.
She steps toward him, the candlelight catching in her dark eyes.
EZMERELDA (softly): “You were the friend I needed. You just didn’t know how to be one.”
Her voice is low, steady — the voice of someone who has learned to stitch her own wounds.
She moves closer, shadows folding around her like a cloak.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “You taught me how to survive. How to fight. How to see through monsters — especially the ones that wear human faces.”
A beat.
The silence between them is not empty; it is full of everything they never said.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “But you also taught me how to be alone. And I’m still trying to unlearn that.”
Her gaze flicks toward Felonious — hunched over his notes, muttering about sigils and thresholds — then returns to Van Richten.
There is something fragile in her eyes, something she would never name: hope, or fear, or both.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “If I ever find someone… I’ll try not to run. But I make no promises.”
A smirk ghosts across her lips — sharp, crooked, unmistakably hers.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “And for the record? You’re still the greatest monster hunter in Barovia. Even if you’re getting sentimental in your old age.”
It is not a reconciliation.
It is not a confession.
It is something rarer in Barovia —
two survivors
standing in the ruins of their shared past,
finally allowing themselves to be human.
The candlelight trembles.
The night holds its breath.
And for once, neither of them looks away.
CUT TO:
EXT. ST. ANDRAL’S CHURCH — COURTYARD, MORNING
Background Music: Fabomusic - The Town of Vallaki
Dawn drags itself over Vallaki like a wounded animal — pale, cold, and reluctant.
The sun is little more than a ghost behind the clouds, casting long, skeletal shadows across the cobblestones of the church courtyard.
Frost clings to the edges of the stones, glittering like the remnants of a broken spell.
The party gathers in the brittle morning air, tightening straps, checking buckles, murmuring last‑minute preparations for Yester Hill.
The tension is warm, humming beneath the cold — the quiet before a battle hymn, the breath before a storm.
Ezmerelda sits on the stone steps, one leg stretched out before her.
Her prosthetic, unlatched at the knee, reveals its inner workings — brass gears, etched plates, and runic joints catching the thin morning light.
She adjusts a tension screw with the calm precision of someone who has rebuilt herself more than once.
Felonious approaches, spellbook tucked under one arm, his breath fogging in the air.
He hesitates — a scholar on the edge of courage — then lifts a hand and murmurs an incantation.
A faint shimmer glides over the prosthetic’s joints like frost melting in reverse.
FELONIOUS (softly): “Grease. Just a little. Should move smoother now.”
Ezmerelda looks up, surprise flickering across her face before settling into a crooked smirk. She taps the metal with her knuckle.
EZMERELDA: “You trying to charm me, wizard? Because it’s working.”
Felonious flushes, but he doesn’t look away.
Nearby, Izek watches — silent, hulking, the morning light catching on the scaled ridges of his monstrous arm.
The amber shard at his throat pulses faintly, like a heartbeat that isn’t his.
He steps forward, voice low and rough.
IZEK : “Does it hurt? The leg.”
Ezmerelda pauses.
For the first time, she really looks at him — not the arm, not the shard, but him.
She shrugs.
EZMERELDA: “Sometimes. Mostly when the weather’s bad. Or when I forget it’s not the original.”
Izek nods slowly, eyes drifting to his own arm — the twisted flesh, the twitching talons, the curse made visible.
IZEK (CONT’D): “Mine hurts all the time.”
A beat.
The courtyard holds its breath.
IZEK (CONT’D): “I’d rather have something like yours. Something you chose. Something that doesn’t whisper.”
Ezmerelda locks the joint into place with a sharp click, then rises to her feet.
She meets his gaze — steady, unflinching.
EZMERELDA: “Then maybe it’s time you choose something else.”
The party gathers.
The road to Yester Hill waits — dark, ancient, hungry.
And behind them, in the quiet morning courtyard,
a moment of understanding lingers —
between the woman who rebuilt herself,
and the man still trying to remember who he is.
Dawn crawls over Vallaki like a reluctant confession — pale, cold, and thin as old parchment.
The courtyard stones glisten with dew, each bead catching the weak sunlight like a tear that refuses to fall.
The air is sharp, metallic, carrying the scent of wet earth and distant smoke.
The party gathers in the half‑light, their silhouettes long and wavering.
Gear is packed.
Weapons checked.
The road to Yester Hill stretches ahead like a wound carved into the land.
Fleetwood tightens the straps on his pack, then glances toward Izek, who stands apart — horns catching the sun like blackened crescents, monstrous arm twitching with a life not his own, the amber shard at his throat pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat stolen from another creature.
FLEETWOOD (dryly): “So… do we take him?”
He gestures with a tilt of his chin.
FLEETWOOD (CONT’D): “He’s rather distinctive. And I’m not sure how folks between here and Yester Hill feel about him.”
Ezmerelda snorts, adjusting the tension on her prosthetic, the gears clicking softly in the morning quiet.
EZMERELDA: “They feel nervous. Or dead. Or both.”
Clarion frowns, her holy symbol catching a shard of sunlight, casting a pale halo across her stern features.
CLARION: “He’s dangerous. But he’s also in pain. And if we leave him behind, that shard might finish what it started.”
Felonious steps forward, flipping through his notes, pages fluttering like restless spirits.
FELONIOUS: “If we’re right about the Temple’s influence… then Izek isn’t just a liability. He’s a symptom. And symptoms don’t wait politely for us to return.”
Van Richten watches Izek for a long, heavy moment — the kind of gaze that weighs a soul, not a man.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet, but it carries like a verdict.
VAN RICHTEN: “He’s part of this now. Whether we like it or not. And if Strahd is watching — he already knows exactly where Izek stands.”
Arturi nods, his voice firm, resolute.
ARTURI: “Then we keep him close. Not just to protect him — but to watch him.”
Fleetwood sighs, slinging his pack over one shoulder.
FLEETWOOD: “Fine. But if he starts glowing or chanting in a dead language, I’m stabbing first and asking questions later.”
Izek does not respond.
He simply watches them — silent, unreadable.
The shard at his throat pulses once, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat that does not belong to him.
The party turns toward the road.
The sun rises — thin, uncertain.
Behind them, Barovia stirs like something waking from a long, hungry dream.
They ride with weapons.
They ride with purpose.
And they ride with a man who may yet be the key
to whatever waits upon the hill.
CUT TO:
🕯️ EXT. BAROVIAN COUNTRYSIDE — MORNING TO AFTERNOON
Background Music: Fabomusic - Into the Mists
Boots crush frost‑laced leaves, each step releasing the cold sigh of the forest floor still damp with last night’s mist.
Fleetwood scouts ahead, blade drawn, eyes sharp as winter stars.
Beside him, Silverleaf moves like a whisper through the underbrush, bow in hand, gaze sweeping the canopy for omens only she can read.
Behind them, Felonious rides at the center of the column, spellbook open and fluttering in the wind like a restless spirit.
He mutters ley‑line calculations under his breath, occasionally flicking a finger to nudge the fog aside — not banishing it, merely persuading it to leave the road visible.
Arabelle rides behind him, asking questions about ley lines and the way magic hums beneath the soil.
Ezmerelda walks with her steady, iron‑rhythmed gait, her prosthetic clicking softly against the stones.
Clarion rides beside her, whispering prayers to the Morninglord; her holy symbol glows faintly with each invocation, a fragile lantern against the gloom.
Van Richten and Arturi ride together, their voices low, speaking of the forest fane, the gem, and the weight of legacies carved in blood.
Van Richten’s eyes never rest.
Arturi’s grip on the reins is white‑knuckled.
And trailing behind them all is Izek.
Silent.
Brooding.
His monstrous arm twitches like a creature dreaming in its sleep.
The amber shard at his throat pulses — slow, deliberate, hungry.
Birdsong dies when he passes.
🌫️ EXT. OLD SVALICH ROAD — MIDDAY
The party reaches a collapsed bridge, its stones scattered like broken teeth.
They detour through a shallow ravine slick with moss.
Fleetwood offers Ezmerelda a hand across the rocks, cracking a joke that earns a rare, crooked smirk.
Felonious levitates the gem cart with a grunt and a flick of his wrist, the air shimmering around it like heat over a grave.
Above them, a flock of ravens circles — cawing in a rhythm too deliberate to be natural.
Silverleaf watches them with narrowed eyes.
Clarion murmurs:
CLARION: “They’re watching.”
At a crossroads, Van Richten pauses beside a weathered signpost.
One arm points toward Yester Hill.
The other has been snapped clean off.
VAN RICHTEN: ““That’s never a good omen.
The wind seems to agree.
🕯️ EXT. SHRINE OF THE BROKEN PENITENT — LATE AFTERNOON
The forest parts like a curtain, revealing a clearing veiled in pale mist.
At its center stands a crumbling roadside shrine —
a statue of Saint Markovia, half‑buried in ivy and ash, her stone face cracked but still serene.
Kneeling before her is a grotesque figure.
Cloaked. Trembling.
Patchwork flesh stitched with devotion and despair.
Eyes full of sorrow deeper than the grave.
Brother Thaddius.
He turns as the party approaches.
The wind stills.
Even the ravens fall silent.
🕯️ EXT. SHRINE CLEARING — LATE AFTERNOON
Background Music: Fabomusic - Darkness Remains
The mist parts like a curtain reluctantly drawn, revealing a clearing where time itself seems to hesitate.
A crumbling roadside shrine leans beneath the weight of ivy and years, its stones mottled with lichen the color of old bruises.
At its center stands a weather‑worn statue of Saint Markovia — crooked, one arm broken away, the other raised in a benediction that feels more like a warning.
Kneeling before her is a figure stitched together from sorrow and stubbornness.
Patchwork flesh.
Uneven limbs.
A cloak pulled tight around shoulders that have carried too many burdens.
He turns as the party approaches.
Rises slowly, carefully — as though afraid a sudden movement might scatter him back into the pieces he was made from.
His face is a mosaic of mismatched features: one eye too large, one cheek hollowed, a jaw slightly askew.
And yet his smile is warm — cautious, but unmistakably human.
BROTHER THADDIUS (cheerfully) : “Well now — travelers with weapons and manners. That’s a rare combination.”
He bows with a theatrical flourish that nearly topples him, then rights himself with a soft chuckle.
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D): “I’m Brother Thaddius. Penitent, pilgrim, and occasional philosopher. Don’t let the stitching fool you — I’m quite good company.”
Fleetwood raises an eyebrow.
Ezmerelda crosses her arms.
Felonious tilts his head, curiosity already sparking behind his eyes.
Clarion steps forward, voice gentle as a prayer.
CLARION: “You’re from the Abbey?”
Thaddius nods.
The smile falters — not from shame, but from memory.
BROTHER THADDIUS: “Once. I was one of the Abbot’s early hopes. Made with prayer and purpose. But hope… doesn’t always hold.”
He gestures to his body with a sweeping, self‑mocking flourish.
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D): “I left when the whispers grew louder than the hymns. Been wandering ever since. Saint Markovia’s been kind enough to keep me company.”
Van Richten studies him with the sharp, measuring gaze of a man who has seen too many tragedies wearing too many faces.
VAN RICHTEN: “You’ve seen things. Heard things. What brings you here?”
Thaddius’s smile fades into something solemn — a candle guttering in a draft.
He glances at the statue, then back at the party.
BROTHER THADDIUS: “The land is stirring. The roots are bleeding. And the stones at Yester Hill are whispering again.”
His gaze drifts to Izek, lingering on the amber shard pulsing at his throat.
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D): “You’re carrying something that doesn’t belong. And it’s waking up.”
Felonious steps forward, voice cautious, almost reverent.
FELONIOUS: “Do you know what it is? Or what it wants?”
Thaddius shrugs — a stiff, uneven motion.
BROTHER THADDIUS: “I know it’s older than the Abbey. Older than Strahd.
And it doesn’t speak in words — it speaks in needs.”
He hesitates, then adds softly:
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D): “I’ve been hurt before. By travelers who saw only the monster. So forgive me if I don’t come closer. But if you’re here to stop what’s coming… I’ll help however I can.”
The mist curls around the shrine like a living thing.
The party stands at the threshold of something ancient, listening.
And Brother Thaddius — stitched, sorrowful, sincere — offers them a fragile thread of truth in a land that is slowly, inexorably unraveling.
The mist coils around the clearing like a living thing, drifting between the trees in slow, deliberate breaths.
The shrine of Saint Markovia rises from the earth like a half‑remembered prayer — crooked, ivy‑choked, its stone benediction raised toward a sky that no longer listens.
Brother Thaddius leans on a crooked staff, his stitched fingers twitching with small, involuntary tremors.
The seams along his jaw creak faintly as he turns his mismatched gaze toward the party.
Felonious steps forward, spectacles catching the dim light, eyes sharp with calculation and dread.
He gestures toward Izek, who stands apart — a silhouette of horns and trembling muscle, the amber shard at his throat pulsing like a buried ember.
FELONIOUS: “Do you know what his… passenger wants? Not just the pain. The purpose.”
Thaddius tilts his head.
The motion is stiff, the seam along his cheek pulling taut like old thread.
He considers the question as though weighing a riddle carved into bone.
BROTHER THADDIUS: “It wants to be remembered. That’s the first hunger.”
The mist stirs.
The statue behind him seems to lean closer.
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D): “But memory alone isn’t enough. His gaze drifts to Izek — not with fear, but with a sorrow that feels older than the shrine.”
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D): “It wants to be felt. In fire. In fear. In flesh.”
A beat.
The clearing holds its breath.
BROTHER THADDIUS (CONT’D: “It doesn’t care what he becomes. Only that he becomes loud.”
Clarion folds her arms, brow furrowed, her holy symbol dimming as though in mourning.
CLARION: “Ithuriel might know more. He’s grafted things together before — souls, limbs, memories. He understands what holds… and what breaks.”
She glances toward Van Richten, then Ezmerelda, her voice soft but steady.
CLARION (CONT’D): “If we make it back from Yester Hill… it might be worth asking him.”
Van Richten nods, thoughtful, the lines of his face deepening like cracks in old stone.
VAN RICHTEN: “Ithuriel sees the seams. And sometimes, the seams tell the truth.
Izek does not speak.
His monstrous arm twitches — a spasm, a warning, a plea.
The shard pulses once… twice…
a heartbeat searching for a name.
The party stands in the clearing,
caught between what they know,
what they fear,
and what they might yet learn —
if they survive the hill.
🕯️ EXT. THICK WOODS — LATE AFTERNOON
The trail narrows until it is little more than a scar through the forest.
Trees crowd close, their skeletal branches woven so tightly overhead that the sky is reduced to a gray bruise, pulsing faintly with distant thunder.
Hooves churn through felled leaves, each step echoing like a slow, deliberate heartbeat in the hush.
The party rides single‑file, swallowed by the gloom:
Fleetwood scouts ahead, posture taut, eyes cutting through the dim like twin blades.
Silverleaf glides behind him, bow in hand, every sense tuned to the forest’s uneasy breath.
Felonious mutters sigils and protections, his spellbook fluttering like a trapped bird.
Ezmerelda’s prosthetic clicks a steady rhythm, a metronome against the forest’s dread.
Clarion whispers prayers that glow faintly in the dark. Arabelle rides behind her, hands busy with her bone charm.
Van Richten and Arturi ride with grim purpose, shadows clinging to their cloaks.
Izek trails at the rear, the amber shard at his throat pulsing in time with the distant thunder.
The woods seem to lean inward, listening.
🌫️ EXT. EDGE OF THE FOREST — DUSK
Background Music: Fabomusic - Yester Hill
The trees end all at once, as though cleaved away by some ancient violence.
Before them rises Yester Hill —
a slope of dead, brittle grass, ringed by cairns of black, glassy stone that glint like obsidian teeth.
Above it, clouds churn in a furious spiral, an angry cauldron lit from within.
A single bolt of lightning splits the sky, striking the summit with a flash of white fire.
To the west, the world simply ends.
Land, trees, sky — all devoured by a towering wall of fog, opaque and humming with hidden motion.
It murmurs like something dreaming.
Silverleaf inhales sharply, nostrils flaring.
SILVERLEAF: “This place… smells familiar and wrong at the same time.”
Arabelle, perched warily in her saddle, scans the cairns.
ARABELLE: “It should feel sacred — old druidic power — but it’s tainted. Baba Lysaga’s shadow still clings to these stones.”
She nudges her mount forward, eyes narrowed.
ARABELLE (CONT’D): “She sowed her curses here. If we don’t move carefully, we’ll wake them all again.”
The party draws close, instinctively tightening formation:
Fleetwood grips his reins, gaze fixed on the fog line.
Clarion crosses herself, her holy symbol glowing like a dying star.
Felonious mutters arcane protections, fingers tracing invisible sigils.
Ezmerelda shifts her stance, prosthetic clicking, sword ready.
Van Richten rises slightly in his stirrups, every sense sharpened to a razor’s edge.
Izek lingers at the rear, the shard at his throat pulsing in rhythm with the storm.
They halt at the foot of Yester Hill.
Lightning scars the sky again, illuminating the path upward — a path carved by ancient rites and darker intentions.
To the west, the fog murmurs, calling them toward the unknown.
And above it all, the black cairns stand witness, waiting for the living to trespass upon the dead.
🕯️ EXT. YESTER HILL — INNER RING, DUSK
The wind sighs through the concentric rings of black cairns, each ten‑foot mound slick with an oily sheen that catches the dying light.
Shadows stretch long and thin across the dead grass as the sky bruises toward night, the air thick with the memory of old rites.
The party halts before a particular cairn — its stones arranged with a precision too ancient to be accidental, too reverent to be forgotten.
Silverleaf steps forward, her voice low, almost reverent.
SILVERLEAF: “This is it. The place Muriel showed us… where Kavan’s spirit spoke through the stones.”
She lifts a hand, hovering just above the cairn’s surface, as though afraid the memory might shatter if touched.
Clarion steps beside him, her holy symbol trembling faintly in the wind.
CLARION : “His bones lie within?”
Silverleaf nods — a small, solemn motion.
She inhales sharply, then speaks the name like a prayer carved from breath and grief.
SILVERLEAF (CONT’D): “Kavan.”
The cairn shivers.
A tremor ripples through the stones.
Mist coils upward, swirling into a shape — a presence — a memory given form.
KAVAN emerges, translucent and grave.
His armor is dented, his face weary but kind — a guardian bound to earth and oath.
KAVAN (low, resonant): “You walk paths I feared I would never see again. I am glad you survived Ludmilla’s wrath… and the druids’ rites.”
His gaze sweeps over them — sorrow and pride burning in his ghostly eyes.
KAVAN (CONT’D): “But I cannot walk with you further. The vows that bind me here forbid my interference in what lies ahead.”
The wind stills.
Even the fog wall to the west seems to hold its breath.
KAVAN (CONT’D: “Know this: the hill remembers every footstep, every offering, every soul that dares its summit. Tread with purpose… and may your hearts remain steadfast.”
His form unravels like smoke in a storm.
The mist sinks back into the stones, leaving only a faint glow in the cairn’s seams — a heartbeat of memory, fading.
The party stands in the inner ring, surrounded by cairns that watch like silent jurors.
The wind murmurs.
The fog hums.
And the echo of Kavan’s warning lingers —
a thread of truth in a land woven from dread.
FADE TO BLACK
End Credits Play Over: Fabomusic - Yester Hill