Oth. Two.

Adae. Two.

Once outside you are instantly aware that something is different. With no notion of where the sound originated, you set to looking about the area. Eventually climbing a small rise on the way back to your place, you come to a small knot of trees. From here you can see another dale, and a stream turning south toward the sea.

The stars above twinkle sullenly through the edge of the Oth's dark nimbus.

Joachim motions for you to stop and listen.

At first you hear nothing. Then beneath you, hidden by a small root covered outcropping on the hillock's far side, you hear deep and angry voices. You try to listen closer only to find that you don't recognize the tongue.

A moment passes when nothing is said. occasionally something is thrown into the grasses
farther downslope.

Finally, there are a couple satisfied "Ahhh... "Is and another of the voices belches contentedly. You can bear them rustling about and soon a pale young de-limbed body rolls into view, in the grasses below.

Kaithah. Two.

You fall, landing on some pile of detritus that has accumulated under the opening over the years. You look around but see nothing past a few feet. Perhaps you'll see more when your eyes adjust to the inky blackness closing in around you. Above the sounds of pursuit, though
distant, turn the last corner to find an empty alley.

Sword drawn and moving from beneath the hole you can hear their curses as they examine the more conspicuous possibilities. Finally, there is laughter. Someone says, "He does our work for us." There is more laughter and gradually you hear them no more.

Looking around, your eyes have adjusted considerably.

You are standing on a ledge. There are broken metal fingers lining the shelf's edge. Beyond this you see only emptiness. It has been a long time since the light of day touched this place.

Moving further from the ruined stone entrance, you see doors emerging from the dark. Blank and boarded windows stare blindly past you into the blackness. An abandoned city street, entombed and forgotten beneath the new.

On one splintered door you find a spiral symbol carved into the wood, but without light, it is impossible to tell how old (or new) the carving might be.

Walking carefully past the old and crumbled facades you become aware of something more, a sound in this otherwise silent subterranean realm. It is the sound of rowing. Listening closer, you are sure that it is coming from the emptiness behind you, and growing nearer.

Dammon. Two.

You don't remember what hurt more, your head. or when you were lifted bodily from your bed and thrown into the wall. You recall laying in a broken mess on the floor, probably bleeding, while someone kept shaking you, and asking you questions. You were far too gone to answer. But try as you might to hear, through the fog, what they were saying, all you make out was "the amulet, where is the amulet?"

The thought crossed your mind to try and say "What amulet?" but even in your state you could see the futility of any response, and the effort to speak seemed much to great.

It is morning. At least you think it's morning. The sun splays through the city from the east, throwing long shadows through the streets. Soon it will raise above the dark shroud of this place, and the city will be encased in night once again.

You move to stand, but various pains shoot through your body, reminding you of injures you had forgotten, or hoped you had dreamed. It is easier to close your eyes than keep them open, and touching your right cheek you wince feeling the large swelling that wasn't there when you went to sleep.

Some strength returns while you lay there, and soon you are able to take in your surroundings. The bed you had been sleeping on stands on one corner against the far wall. Its matress is shredded and the blankets are laying in ribbons throughout the room. A small table bows toward you an armstretch away, the crack in its surface showing that it had been crushed from a blow to the top. For a moment you empathize with the small ruined table.

You try hard to remember where you are, and remember the woman Leva that you had met the night before. She had given you a meal and room for the night.

Climbing to your feet, you stumble to the door, and by the next watch make it down to the ground floor. The rooms are filled with hot moisture and a strange smell. Moving toward the back of the small house (you remember the kitchen) to have been there, you find Leva bent toward the fireplace, while gouts of steam still rise from the large black pot before her. Moving closer, you see her charred hands have been bound to the cauldron's handles, and her head immersed in boiling waters, now boiled nearly to the bottom of the pot.

Mishara. Two.

"Goblins," Aren explains, leading you beneath an odd archway and down a staircase that winds beneath the north courtyard. The keystone was carved into a man stabbing himself with a long curved blade, in the back. Considering this strange image you miss some of Aren's explanation.

You enter into a low, dark, and damp expanse of lamplit corridors and glowing rooms half?hidden behind doors and long crumbled walls. The stones here are old, many seem crushed and misshapen beneath the weight of all the stones above. As dark and forbidding as the place is you find people busy with the evenings preparations.

They've proven craftier in recent years," Aren continues. "Their attacks are longer sustained and not so disorganized. on a breezy day our dogs, and sometimes our men, can smell them from the walls even before they break from the forest. Now they never come until the wind dies." Aren chuckles. "Either way we are warned. The wind rarely dies on the headland."

A glow from a remote chamber draws your attention. Several men pull on heavy chains, lifting a cauldron of tar into the shaft above. Another chamber, longer and lower, has men preparing cots, bedrolls, orderly piles of blankets, bowels, ewers, and tabletops of bandages.

With each room passed, a few eyes turn from their chores to watch you pass. There is no need to return their gaze, for you can feel those same eyes burning into you as you continue deeper. Aren turns right into a shadow, one of many. "Be careful there's a step here," he warns. Stepping into the blackness you descend further into the Keep's depths. One turn on the invisible stairs quenches all sound from the level above. Not an echo whispers from the ancient stones. "I only found this place myself a few months ago. Its small, but it's safe. No one will bother you here."

A moment later Aren lights a torch and sits in back in the wall. You are standing in a small brick?layed hallway. The torchlight can do nothing to erase the grey and the black from this place. only its flame, alive in swirling orange and gold, claims color in this dark recess. Aren drops a roll of blankets against the far wall. "Here you are. I am needed in a few watches, so I'll be going to get some rest before I'm needed. I'll come again after my shift." His eyes turn to the two heavy doors leading away from the hallway. "Don't worry about them. They're locked. There's nothing in them expect some old boxes anyway. And don't worry about rats. Rats wouldn't live here." Aren turns to smile, and then is gone.

Malyn. Two.

The man's jaw nearly drops from his skull. Frantically, he looks about for Tavon, but the bartender is nowhere to be seen. "But, but." He pulls the bag closer to his chest. "Retired? Oh, gods. I'm dead. I'm a dead man." He stands half?way and sits down again. A new thought finding some meaning in his head. "I get it. You're bargaining. Yeah, that's it. You just want more money. Fine. That's fine." The sweat continues to pour from his forehead like a squeezed sponge. "That's fine. I'll give you 40 gold. That's ten more than I was going to." The man sits still a moment, figgeting nervously. "It's an easy job. I could pay someone much less, but I want it done quickly, professionally." The man stops again and reconsiders.

"What am I saying? She said she's not interested. Oh gods!"

The man desperately looks about the bar.

"Half now... " He pats the bag once, and thinks. "Well, almost half now, I'll get you the
rest later."

end