Year 4716, a size able earth quake has just rocked Absolam. Reports have flooded in that one of the ancient siege Castles outside the city resting in the Cairn Lands has opened.
You all receive a summons to report to the Eagle Garrison, a day after the earth quake. You are to meet Garrison Commander Lydia; she has need of some fresh eyes to inspect a recently opened Siege Castle in the eastern Cairn Lands. This Siege castle was magically sealed and has recently had one of its curtain walls crumble.
Upon arriving at the garrison, you pass two guard posted at the doors, upon entering the building you find a large desk with a young man sitting behind it. He looks up at you a little bit nervous.
”I guess you’re here to see the Commander? She is just in another meeting, I will have someone escort you to the upper meeting room.”
With that he flags a passing guard down.
The Guard escorts you through the building and up a flight of stairs. The guard opens the door, inside is a moderate sized room, a hard wood table in the centre with chairs all around. ”The commander will be with you shortly, please take a seat. I will remain outside if you need anything.”
Taking a seat furthest from the door, Taqan simply said, "A man needs nothing at this moment, thank you."
"I thought she was the one who wanted to see us, why make us wait?", Oskar mumbles, while carving a small wolf figurine.
Tiresias sits by Taqan's side. He whistles a small ditty and plays with a triangular amulet tied to his neck, looking around the room. For some time he focusses on a dent on the table, until he snaps, looks smiling at his companions and asks: "So, friends, what brought you here? Promises of fame? Riches?"
"A man is here because all men must serve," Taqan replied.
"You could say i have a history with the commander.", he answers, not taking his eyes away from the wood.
Seldlron enters the room. He manages to make eye contact with everyone as he makes his way to a chair at the table. "Good day, gentlemen." he says once he is seated.
A black-robed young man looks up from where he sits, far from everyone else. He silently leers at the others from under his hood for a moment before answering. "I seek gold, and a chance to test my power."
Shortly after everyone arrives, the door opens again. The young guard who led you all here enters first and steps off to the side of the door, next through is a woman of average height, dark brown hair, draped over one shoulder is tied off at the end. She nods politely at everyone,
” Oskar, I see that you have answered my summons. As to the rest of you, I am Garrison Commander Lydia, I have summoned you all here to help with a problem.”
She hands out a piece of paper to everyone, the paper details the Siege castle you all heard has recently opened.
” We are not sure who was the previous owner of the Siege castle or what is inside of it. I am tasking you with doing some scouting for me. You will be paid upon your return, any relics or other items that you find would be valuable to many different people with in the city.”
She fumbles around in her coat and produces a wand, handing it over to Oskar, ” I see that you are lacking in healing magics and not knowing what dangers you will face this is an item that recently recovered in a raid that we took part in. The garrison priest said it had little power left but I assume you could use it. I want you to scout out the Siege Castle, evict any one in there and return once you are done, any questions?”
Oskar nods back. "Barkley said hello, your guards wouldn't let him in."
He then takes the wand. "I'll keep the kids alive, you can count on it. No questions here."
"A man wishes to know what a Commander means by evict?"
Lydia turns to Taqan, "I mean if someone is living in there and they are hostile, you are to clear the castle."
"Then a man shall offer up new names to the One God," Taqan replied in an even tone.
Tiresias stops playing with his amulet and opens his mouth, eager to follow up on his question, but closes it immediately afterwards as the commander enters the room. He listens to the briefing and, once Taqan has received his answer, raises an eyebrow: "Do we have any reason to expect someone living there? And what if they are living there and are not hostile?"
Lydia turns to Tiresias, "The Siege castles by right belong to the city since they are within our borders, if someone is living there and peaceful please have them come report to myself and I will begin discussion with them."
She looks around the room, "Anything else?"
Seldlron leans back in his chair. "This sounds like a pretty straight forward task to me. Thank you for the wand, Lydia. I am ready to go at any time. He takes a moment to look at the figurine Oskar is carving and smiles.
"I am ready as well." the eerie sorcerer proclaims. "Time is precious. Someone may beat us to it if we dither about here any longer."
“If there are no further questions, then you are all dismissed.”
Lydia leaves a map on the table, it shows the whole of the Eastern Cairnlands and the siege castle you are to take is marked on it. It will take you about 2 hours to walk there from the Garrison.
As you close in on the crumbled wall, you hear a howling off in the distance. The Cairnlands are known for their predators that stalk would be adventures.
A group of wild mangy looking dogs comes around the North Western portion of the curtain wall, the dogs growl at the group and move to attack.
Oskar waves at Lydia and exits the garrison; waiting at the at the entrance is a big brown wolf who stands and walks towards the dwarf as soon as the group leaves the gates.
"This is Barkley, kids; don't worry, he is quite friendly, unless you're between him and his food...Or if you happen to be his food. Name is Oskar, by the way, lets get to work."
He keeps quiet during the rest of the trip, up untill they see the tower and a group of dogs advance on the group.
"Guess someone is claiming the fortress already.", Oskar draws his bow and shoots at one of the dogs, Barkley charges at the same dog soon after.
With one fluid motion, Taqan pulled a dart from seemingly no where and launched it at one of the dogs.
"It seems we have company, my new friends! I didn't even have the time to put up my wards!", Tiresias says in a weirdly joyful mood. He takes a piece of leather from his spell component pouch and chants until it disappears; a faint bright light seems to envelop him shortly after. "Much better! Now we can started with this lot!"
He cracks his hands, a bit of cold magic energy coming out of his hands.
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Seldlron says "Sorry guys, pretty women and dogs are my weak spots. I hope to not kill the poor creatures." He yells at the dogs in an attempt to intimidate them, draws his greataxe and moves 5 ft due south between Oskar and Taqan.
Lukas draws a dagger and stands ready, waiting for the dogs to come close.
The dogs give a careful approach after Seldlron has yelled at them, Taqans dart strikes the far right dog, dropping it to the ground bleeding
, the dog picks its self up and runs away.
The other dogs move into attack,
Seldlron swings his greataxe at the circledog. Just before the blade would hit his prey, it is rotated so that it will deal nonlethal damage. "Bad dog!"
Cursing under his breathe for losing a dart, Taqan grabbed a dagger from his belt and slashed the dog in front of him.
Seldlron manages to knock one of the wild dogs unconscious, the other seeing one of its pack flee already and the other unconscious, decides to flee the area.
"Not common for dogs to just charge on bypassers like that, my guess is they're very hungry...Or have been trained to do it", Oskar aproaches the unconscious dog, trying to see if its sick or drugged in some way.
Seldlron is visibly upset with himself. He raises his voice to address the group. "I apologize for that display of weakness. You shall see no more of that unless we are attacked by a pack of wild beautiful women. What do you think Oskar, just hunger or something worse?"
"Don't worry, kid; thats not weakness you had there, its compassion... They're wild dogs alright, hungry wild dogs...", he stands up. "Lets go."
"Well, that ended quickly!" Tiresias says, closing his hand and fading out the energy that glowed from it. He moves towards the siege castle entrance, a frown marking his face whilst speaking to the warrior "I second Oskar's words, SeldIron: it was only compassion you showed there. Let's hope this dog's is the only blood we will be spilling today."
The diviner looks inside the hole, trying to see what lies in wait before entering.
"Careful moving that direction. The third floor overhang looks very precarious. I know nothing of construction. There could even be aftershocks. This looks dangerous to me."
"Any of you structural engineers?"
As the group discussed the desparate habits of hungry hounds, Taqan cleaned and re-sheathed his dagger.
"A man has no knowledge of such things," Taqan replied to Seldlron's inquiry.
Pulling his short sword, he approached the hole in the fortress. Getting close, he looked and listened very carefully.
"Maybie my old dwarven eyes can catch something...No promises."
Oskar looks at the tower.
While the others study the structure, Seldlron looks over at Barkley. Well, he is not a dog but close enough. Seldlron has no special abilities or skills dealing with animals, just a love for dogs. But, he does know the basics. He moves over towards Barkley and when he gets close, looks away and stands with Barkley to his side so as not to provoke the animal. "Good boy Barkley, you are good boy!" he says with enthusiasm.
The tower looks down upon you in disrepair, you can see into the grounds of the tower and there is nothing left but dried earth.
You can probably climb the tower walls to about the 3rd maybe 4th floor
The opening is cluttered with the ruins of the wall that kept so many out, the ground is broken and will take some time to cross to prevent any injury. As you enter you note that the ceiling collapsed blocking all access to the southern wing, the northern wing is shaded with darkness, the first floor roof is about 15 feet high.
A large ball of web comes shooting down at Seldlron, the webbing only hitting his shoulder before enveloping the ground to his side.
Unable to locate the threat, Seldlron takes a totally defensive position . "I have one flask of alchemist's fire if anyone thinks we need it."
There he is! exclaims Seldron. He sends an arrow flying at the arachnid.
Lukas looks up from the dead dog he has been examining, just now noticing that a fight is going on. He hurries over to Seldlron's side, asking "What's going on, what is it?" He looks up into the webs in the darkness of the ruin, trying to spot what the warrior is shooting at. "Oh, that big thing there?" He points, sending a bolt of energy into the spider.
The spider recoils as the arrow then bolts of force slam into it, it tenses up then shoots another blob of webbing.
The blob of webbing misses Lukas, landing just at his feet. The spider attempts to hide in its webbing.
"Well, you started it.", sighs Oskar, drawing another arrow and shooting at the spider.
Barkley snarls at the creature but stays put after a hand gesture from Oskar.
"A man suggests fire in the webbing," Taqan said as he launched a dart.