Here you go
Here's the link to Pathfinder's Fire Arrows from the Elves of Golarion book. I don't know if that's the same thing.
Everyone but Lash:
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A few hours after your initial entry into the keep the five of you (Less Armand and Lash) find yourselves back at the main gate, supplies loaded onto a pair of carts with mules attached. Standing in the shadow of the keep wall you start discussing with each other the various things you learned and experiences you had while going about the keep.
No more than an hour later, as dusk falls into the beginnings of night time (around 8:00 pm or so) two horses and a large number of soldiers start a parade from the keep to the front gate. At the lead is obviously Armand, and beside Armand rides a giant of a man. Obviously tall and strong, bald headed, with many tattoo's covering his face and neck (and it looks like probably the rest of his body as well), the man towers over Armand on the back of his horse, a pitch black stallion that itself looks larger than any horse you've ever seen.
Behind them stream what must be a hundred soldiers, many dressed in the Keep Colors and uniform of the Kiren's Keep Guards (some still with bandages from the recent battle with the orcs showing). The rest are conspicuous in their complete non-conformity with the keep colors or uniform. It's obvious that not only did the keep guard turn out for whatever is happening, but some of the mercenaries were turned out for it as well...and many of them look none to happy about it.
As you watch the procession moves up to the main gates and stops, the two horse riders dismounting as the body of soldiers starts forming into marching ranks...moments later the men are formed into two identical groups, the keep soldiers on the left and the mercenaries on the right in tight formation. The bald man blows a horn attached to his belt and the entire group shifts into parade ground rest.
Armand motions the five of you over as the bald man goes out to converse with one of the leaders of one of the mercenary troops.
Armand moves to you and says:
"Sorry about this, after I told the Sub-Commander of our exploits in Kavorquian's dungeons and our discovery of the force behind the attack on the keep, Garelson insisted upon a 'proper send off' this time to ensure that the locals know we're still involved in protecting the region. I couldn't talk him out of this."
Looking a bit sheepish Armand motions the 5 of you over to the keep gates with your equipment. Finishing his conversation with a few of the mercenary captains, the giant bald man steps up to your group as well.
"I'd like to introduce you to Christoph," says Armand, "the man Alalar hired to manage the mercenary arm of the keep's defenders till the keep can build its resources back to where they were before the orc attack. Christoph, I'd like to introduce you to my comrades." Armand proceeds to introduce each of you to Christoph as the man stares at each of you coldly.
After the somewhat awkward introduction, Christoph's gaze meets that of Armand. "Your dedication to this Keep is admirable Ex-Commander. The Sub-Commander tells me you feel you have the information necessary to bring the group that organized the attack on this keep down. That is good, I wish you all speed to the Duke's residence in Speclarium...be careful, the roads out there are dangerous...and if the information you carry is as important as I have heard, your loss on the road would be disastrous to the keep indeed."
With that, Christoph sharply salutes Armand and does a crisp about face, moving to the front of the assembled soldiers.
The next half hour is taken up with many of the soldiers from the keep saying their good-byes and thank yous to the ex-commander and to your party, as well as some of the local folks recounting stories (sometimes for the gathered crowd) about their memories of the various ways Kilenthar (Armand) has helped the keep in the past.
As the crowd subsides back into a mass, the soldiers take up position on either side of the gate in full salute as you are cheered through the gates of Kiren's Keep and out into the wilds.
Another half hour after that, the six of you move up to the old camp site atop a hill on the western side of the grass field. As you pass through the area of the battle, you notice that while the bodies are no longer strewn about the field, small items remain to remind you that only days ago the fields here were a killing ground.
As you make your way into the camp site, it's about 9:30 at night and darkness has fallen across the land. Announcing yourselves, Lash steps out from hiding and joins your group, the seven of you back together again.
Seeing Lash step out of the woods, Armand asks:
"Did you get my messages to Garelson and Alalar? Were you seen? Did you get rid of that damnable trinket?"
As Selena approaches the familiar campsite, she throws up her hand and four small golden orbs of fire light up the darkness.
She had been mostly silent during their travel, keeping her thoughts to her self (for a change), and not professing to see stars and planets in the middle of the day, nor the sun after darkness had fallen.
"I got the message to Garelson as planned, but it turns out Alalar's in the field and not keeping regular contact. The brooch is in the mattress of your bed in the keep. Turns out they were tracking me by it and almost cornered me once. Garelson thinks he may be in the north, it's the best he could do."
Lash speaks in a relaxed manner, a smile creasing her face as she sees, Lena, golden orbs lazily orbiting her.
"Lash! It is good to have a chance, albeit a momentary one, to sit and talk about the events that have transpired. Strange to think that prophecies and divinations are unfolding as we speak, but I believe that is the case."
As though to punctuate her sentence, a shooting star streaks across the sky. Selena is momentarily distracted by it.
"In any case, we are here now. On the eve of battle, so to speak, and I am still not entirely certain what all is to be placed on our platter."
Armand looks momentarily surprised at Lash's comment.
Raising an eyebrow he says "The keep commander has taken the field? Admittedly, I did so in our battle with the orcs, but only because I had an ulterior motive to figure out who the six of you were. And for what purpose? To hunt orcs that should be able to be slaughtered in small groups by any competent officer? That explains Sub-Commander Garelson's title then."
Thinking for a moment Armand shakes his head. "Looks like we may need to make a small side track to see if we can find Alalar's post, I have an idea where he might be camping."
Seeming to have his mind made up Armand then says "I assume, by the lack of uproar at dead bodies coming from the keep, that you weren't spotted even though you were being tracked when you were heading to my room? Did you inform Garelson about the mages being the likely suspects then?"
At the mention of the mages, Selena looks over at Thantos and speaks up.
"The mages had left the fortress. Thantos and I went to.... 'visit' them, and found their quarters empty. Also, broken into. Was that you, Lash? But nothing was stolen or missing that we could see."
"Hon if it was me, you'd never have known." Lash replies with a smile.
"Yes on both counts, I told him and he's set a watch on them tracking ther movements to see if they give up anything."
At Selena's information both of Armand's eyebrows raise.
"Selena...you said the Mages quarters were empty and broken into? Did that look recent? If not...who then would have been tracking you Lash?"
"Armand, what is your opinion of this Christoph?", Dirk asks. "I can tell you that the true soldiers of the Keep have very a unfavorable opinion of him - and the opinion seems warranted."
After a slight pause Dirk continues, "We may need to keep an eye on that one."
Armand snorts. "I don't trust him any farther than I could throw him. Frankly if it were my kingdom I think I'd have the man locked in the dungeons just for precaution. He seems to be the epitome of 'mercenary' and has none to high an opinion about the keep or it's soldiers. Anyone who can keep as tight a lid on the goings on of the mercenary contingent of the Keep while letting them run wild, destroy what they want to, practically rape it's inhabitants, is someone who shouldn't be in his position."
Looking frustrated Armand continues "What flummoxes me is why Alalar thought it necessary to bring mercenaries into the keep in the first place. The orcs are beaten, he's out with a mop up contingent...and that is strange in and of itself...yet he's spending what little money the keep has paying hundreds of mercenaries to what amounts to pillage and terrorize the keep's inhabitants? Why the hell are the mercenaries guarding the keep and the soldiers out tracking down orcs?"
"I just can't sort it out, I know Alalar's got brains, and I know he got spooked when the orc invasion was confirmed, but this just seems over the top for him."
Armand shrugs and emits a long sigh.
"We'll find out soon enough, as soon as we're all ready here, we're about three hour's march from where I expect his encampment is. It's as good a place as any to get some sleep, and I really want to talk with Alalar to find out what's wrong...or talk some sense back into the man. I know we're pushing late into the night, but the camp, whether Alalar's there or not, will be safer than just sleeping out in the woods...one last night of security."
With that Armand looks expectantly to see if anyone else has questions before you all head out into the darkness in the direction of the Black Hills.
"How well do you know Alalar? Is it possible that he has been compromised by your enemy?"
"Good point. If his actions are that out of character it sounds like he's either been bought or controlled into making poor decisions."
Selena smiles oddly.
"I'm just saying... there is an emerging pattern here. And if that pattern continues, wherever we are told or think we need to go next, there will be more dangerous activity than we are generally prepared for. Luckily, thus far, we seem to be on whatever side the gods are."
Selena holds up a hand and begin counting off the dangers on her fingers.
"One, based on information we receive from espionage, we strike out to destroy orc catapults with fire, only to discover the catapults are immune to fire, and a team of orcs teleports in at just the wrong moment. Their leader bears a scroll that leads us to..."
"Two, Kavorquian's basement. While it was dangerous enough with the undead running around and the traps, the true danger was the team of assassins who were there ahead of us, seemingly prepared for us, and definitely a deadly force to contend with."
"Three, we return to the fortress only to find a mercenary force there that is not really needed, or if it is needed, it is being used in the wrong way. Morale in the fortress seems to be lacking as a result. Enough for one to wonder if it is intentional. While danger is not imminent there, it certainly is a possibility. We also find the mages and Commander Alalar gone..... I don't know everything, though, but it all seems very suspicious... especially when you consider our track record."
Selena puts her hands down, and looks around for a place to sit down.
"Can we rest for a moment or two?"
Armand starts shaking his head.
"This gets worse. I've known Alalar since I came to the keep. The man saved my life at least twice against the assassins that came after me. I can't imagine the man is a traitor to the keep or to me...but putting my friendship with Alalar aside, what Selena says has merit. And the worse news is that Alalar knows who I am. I mean REALLY knows who I am. If he's working with the enemy and has been all along, not a one of us will make it alive to Kethlenica. The thought that thirty years of planning for this return, and all of it in the hands of the Brotherhood makes me ill."
Looking at Lash Armand says "Maybe Alalar being in the field was a good thing. At least we know he also doesn't know that we're heading into the hills. That might just be the largest saving grace we have, since my hopes of raising an army to go with us are now dashed."
"Without objections, I recommend we camp here for the night then. We will avoid Alalar's camp and proceed straight into the hills and setup our harassment campaign. My plans to get back into Kethlenica may be well known, but our plans to take down this self proclaimed "queen" aren't. We'll worry about the future when it comes, for now, let us concentrate on the task at hand...if we hit the Brotherhood hard enough here, maybe we can save ourselves in the long run.
The evening passes into night time and a cool but comfortable breeze kicks up. The seven of you spend some time chatting and reminiscing about your time in Kethlenica and spend what proves to be a rather relaxing night, in the wooded clearing camp overlooking the battlefield of several days before.
Sometime past midnight as most of you are asleep a soft horn call comes echoing down from the the mountains to the north west, but it is long distant and the echoes fade quickly.
Dawn breaks over the mountains in the east around 6:30 the next morning and lights up a brilliant blue sky like fire, the day today will prove to be clear, if a bit cool for early spring.
Shortly, the seven of you wrest yourselves from your bedrolls, cook a small breakfast over a small fire and break camp. Checking that the gear in the carts is secure and the mules are ok, you start to move into the hillier, wilder lands to the north west.
Several hours of travel across the grasslands to the west of Kiren's Keep brings you to the foot of the black hills and your first discovery. The smell of rotting bodies wafting down from a copse of trees several hundred yards away is your first indication of something out of the ordinary. Cautiously Mird and Lash move up to check for an ambush, and come back to the group looking somewhat green and pale. The little forest seems to occupy about 100 yards of area at the foot of the nearest large hill and within that forest are bodies, many human bodies...some 50 in all by Lash's estimation. Mird begins to explain that they are wearing the uniform of Kiren's Keep and they have obviously been dead for at least a day or two at this point. The scavengers of nature have started their work. No moans, groans or other sounds come from the forest, obviously any wounded were either killed or died long before.
Again, Lash explains that the men died of slashing and bludgeoning wounds, and that some still had black shafted arrows common to the orcs of the region burred in their chests. This was obviously the spot of an ambush no more than a couple days ago and it speaks to a larger than expected resistance by the orcs of the region. The worrisome thing about this is the shear number of dead. Any orc force that could take down around fifty of the keep's men is no scattered and demoralized orc band, and the obvious lack of Orc bodies among the human force speaks to a well planned and well executed ambush.
With nothing to do to help the situation and not enough time to bury so many dead, Armand says a prayer to Saenrae over the forest, commending the men's souls to rest while Fyird sings a soft dirge speaking of nature and the cycle of life. That done, and more aware of your surroundings, you move deeper into the hills.
Twice more you come upon much smaller battlefields as the day wears on, in both cases several orcs lay dead with a smaller number of humans...obviously the Keep force learned from their mistake. Still, it is obvious that the orcs are putting up a strong resistance.
The sky overhead remains clear as afternoon wears into evening. By this point the hills are high all around you, and while you have yet to be forced to navigate any real mountains, the terrain is obviously rougher and travel slows. By evening you've made significant progress into the mountains but find yourselves still at least several hours of travel off from where Ilyana's Keep is supposed to be. Finding one of may caves in the region you set up camp in a small cavern, not more than a hole dug into the side of a hill that has been hollowed out, likely by some animal.
The next morning you are all up at dawn, relying upon your rations for your morning meal and again moving farther into the mountains. Around midday Mird starts finding tracks which leads you what amounts to be a small animal trail, leading deeper into the hills. At this point you are only a mile or two off from where the keep is supposed to be and, based upon a set of obvious foot prints on the trail, this has been used by either humans or orcs or both recently.
Selena bends down for a moment to look at the footprints on the trail.
"It looks like this path is well used, here. But I'm not sure if by friend or foe. Do you suppose this leads anywhere significant?"
She looks up and pauses as she waits for her friends' advice.
Fyird is still here. Been traveling for work all week, and not much hotel time. Since the game has slowed down so much, I've got to find time to go back and catch up with where we are and what we're doing...Unless someone wants to do a quick recap???
Story Recap:
The seven of you set off from Kavorquian's mansion/laboratory with the intent of finding and squashing this uprising in the region by a woman calling herself "The Queen". There is strong evidence that this woman is in league with another organization called "The Brotherhood" which, as far as you can tell, is the same organization of assassins that overthrew Kethlenica and killed Armand's family. The same brotherhood has been searching for Armand in the area for months and had attempted to recruit Kavorquian's help in doing so...seemingly killing him after his refusal of assistance.
This self titled Queen is thought to be a bastard child of the previous ruler of the Estates of Penhaligon, the largest and most prosperous town in the region, and with his death, she may have a valid claim to the rulership of the area. She is known to be evil and manipulative and is obviously willing to take the land by force if necessary.
You have been asked to head into the Black Hills toward an area marked on your maps thought to be where her keep is. You have been asked to stop this uprising, scatter her forces, and calm the uprising of creatures in the region.
From Penhaligon you stopped by Kiren's Keep, a military base for the region for which you helped repel a recent siege, and Armand's former "home" for many years after he fled from Kethlenica. All doesn't seem to be right there either. Mercenaries of every shape and availability seem to have moved into the keep, by request of the keep's current leader: Alalar, a long time friend of Armand and the only other man in the region who knows Armand's real identity. Few of the keep's residents are happy with the mercenaries, and they are troublemakers to a man. Managed by another long time mercenary by the name of Christoph, the whole thing strikes you as somewhat odd and very bad for the keep as a whole. Armand's other long time friend, newly promoted Commander Garelson, seems to have his hands full keeping together what little is left of day to day life within Kiren's Keep.
While most of you headed into the keep to re-supply and gather what little information you found, Lash was given a special job: to silently infiltrate the keep, contact both Alalar and Garelson, and drop off a magical broach that was being used to track and spy on your party. While Lash did manage to drop off the broach and contact Garelson, she was almost caught in the process, and could not contact Alalar, who assumeably is out in the field hunting the remnants of the orc hoard that attacked the Keep a few days earlier.
To add to the mystery, the Keep's two mages, suspected of being traitors to the keep and working for the Brotherhood, have disappeared.
After re-equipping and resting overnight, you are all back together now in the wilderness and left early in the morning into the hills, in an attempt to find the keep. In your travels through the wilderness you have come across the corpses of several men from Kiren's Keep, soldiers that are supposed to be out hunting down the remnants of those who attacked the keep. These men were ambushed in what seems to have been a carefully orchestrated attack, and there seem to be no survivors. Having no way to help, the seven of you moved on and have run across a trail in the woods, a well used trail that you suspect leads toward your goal.
You are now faced with the logistics of living in the woods and hills of the area and setting up your counter attack against the Queen and her minions. Your ultimate goal, to find a way into the keep, find the Queen, and either make her submit or kill her.
Dirk looks around at his companions and guesses that they are all thinking the same as he, "How in the nine hells are we going to penetrate a Keep that is crawling with evil creatures." He blows out a sigh to clear his thoughts.
Taking a moment to allow all of his experience as a soldier filter into his thoughts he begins to speak aloud.
"Let's keep our distance at first. No need alerting them to our presence until we know more about them. Perhaps Mird, can help us find a suitable place to setup a camp some 5 miles distance from the Keep."
"Once we've established a base, we'll need to learn more about the Keep and it's inhabitants. Lash and Mird, if you two are up to it, you seem best suited to quietly move closer to the keep to learn what you can about their numbers, their weaknesses and of the general ebb and flow of activity that all Keeps seem to have. Obviously, the details of how and when you perform your searches is up to you, but I would think it would be best to be 'observers' initially. Once we learn more about our enemy, we can discuss our offensive tactics."
"Selena and Fyird, we'll need someone to tend to the camp and forage what they may so our food and water supplies last as long as possible. Also we'll need your talents to aid any of our group who need healing or other assistance."
"We should probably move our camp once a week or so to minimize our impact on our surroundings which may lead our enemies to our campsite."
Dirk pauses and makes eye contact with Armand before continuing, "I'd like to find out exactly what Alalar is up to. If he is manipulating events against us, we may need to consider eliminating that threat while we have him near at hand. If he's not an enemy, and I hope he is not, then we need to get word to him about what is transpiring. Thantos, Armand and myself can attempt to follow his trail and learn what we may."
Armand nods: "This sounds like as good a plan as any. I recommend we all move with Mird to setup the initial camp so we all know where to come back to. For now, lets make sure we're moving out by 8 in the morning and try to meet back by 8 at night (just before dark). Anywhere we go we continue moving in pairs or more, no one goes off alone. I think Dirk's suggestion for who's doing what is appropriate."
"The main rule we all need to follow, however, is to ensure we are all back at camp by a specific time. If, by 10 pm, someone or a group is not back at camp I recommend we pick up and move camp...immediately. If you return past 10 to an empty camp, STAY THERE. We will find you. If you are captured, feel free to give up the camp's location to save yourself, we won't be there by the time anything shows up."
"We do need a watch order. I recommend two people / watch and a mix of abilities. Thantos and I, Dirk and Selena, Lash and Fyird. Mird, being the most experienced woodsman of us all and thus the best prepared to detect someone hunting us, can take the last watch of the night coming into morning. Four watches, 8 hours, that's 2 hours each watch starting at 10:00 pm. Two hours for dinner and recap of the day's activities from 8 to 10, Thantos and I will take first watch till midnight. Dirk and Selena will take second watch till 2. Lash and Fyird will take from 2 to 4 and Mird will take from 4 to 6. Two hours for preparation in the morning and we should all be ready to go by 8."
"Anyone else have anything to add? We have Intelligence, Food and Water, and a hunt for Alalar on the agenda, anything else anyone wants to accomplish?"
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Mird heard the plan carefully and tell what his thoughts are:
"I think there is a good chance for us to ambushed, I don't want to have the same luck of our soldier friends here."
"I can go off the track, into the woods at the same pace you guys go on the road "
"I can start walking 2 hours ahead of you every day. The Idea is to
move out ahead scanning the area and leaving marks behind indicating my direction. If I found something wrong I can always go back and warn the party. "
"I really think the key for us to weak the Queen's keep is for us to poison their Food or water, but I am not sure how to do it. Thantos, Lash, do you know how we can do it?"
Selena speaks up at this point.
"By deception of course. If one or more of us can get into the castle by means of deception, it should be easy to poison the well supply, but I would not put it past this queen and her entourage to be able to resist this type of attack."
Selena thinks for a moment.
"Of course, we should assume that the members of the Brotherhood that escaped from our recent encounter fled to our enemy to warn her. But I am not entirely certain what the relationship between the Brotherhood and this dark queen is."
Armand shakes his head. "Before we worry about the how's, lets worry about the what's. I've got to say I'm a bit uncomfortable with using poison to indiscriminately kill everyone in the keep. Not to mention I have no idea how we'd come across enough poison to pollute an entire water supply for a keep that large. If they happen to be tapped into an underground stream or another underground water source, you would have to pollute the entire water source, which would kill far more than just what's in that keep."
"I won't, however, rule this out till we know more about what we're facing. I recommend we start by observing the keep to see what our best method of disruption might be."
Without further objections and with a basic plan firmly in hand the seven of you finish setting up camp, eat a warm dinner, and filter off to sleep.
The overnight watch goes off without a hitch. Sometime just after the first watch retires and second watch comes on (Dirk/Selena) you hear the faint sounds of creatures moving through the woods, but the sounds are extremely distant, very faint, and come no nearer to you as the watch progresses. The voices are faint and you cannot make out if they are human or not. No sounds of combat reach your ears. The remainder of the night passes with no other events.
The morning dawns bright and clear. There is a lingering chill in the air and the temperatures are mild and cool, bordering on cold (upper 40s in the morning), warming up by midday to the upper 50s. Obviously the spring thaw has only JUST happened in this part of the mountains and the higher altitude combined with the early spring season and the hills making sunrise late, push the warm season to later in the year. The seven of you bundle up in your warmest gear to protect from the cool weather and, after a warm breakfast taken out of your rations, you each prepare for your day.
At 8, the party is preped and ready to proceed. After a quick check of the area by Mird, he pronounces the area clear of hostiles and you each break into your teams: Mird and Lash heading off toward the keep, Selena and Fyird heading into the woods to hunt for game and gather food, and Armand, Dirk and Thantos moving off in the direction of Kiren's Keep, farther afield to search for more signs of a clash between Alalar's Keep forces and the Orcs of the region.
Selena/Fyird
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Your search of the surrounding area takes you maybe a mile out from your base of operations in search of food and water. Being new to the woods area, scaring up game and finding edible plants, berries, and other items is a bit difficult, but mostly you are learning the lay of the land, where the small and large game hide, and where the best bushes and plants are growing.
You do manage to find a cache of berries and scare up some smaller game which you are successful at capturing. After three to four hours of hunting, you manage to scrounge up enough food to replace the rations you consumed for that day.
Mird/Lash
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Around midday the two of you manage to make it back to the trail up into the hills. Following the trail (after about an hour) you indeed note that this hunting trail does, in fact, take you to the keep you are looking for.
Ilyana's Keep stands in a 200-yard-wide gorge between several tall hills. Branching off the trail, and following it up a large hill/mountain you find yourself up above the keep, overlooking it from a rocky outcropping about 300 yards back from the keep's walls. From this position you can see both the front gate and the left side wall of the keep, and down into the courtyard. The location doesn't seem to have been found by the orcs, or if it has, it's not regularly used. Mird's tracking and survival skills shows the trail you used to get here was mostly unused, at least for long enough that most signs of passage by anything larger than a small animal are gone.
The two of you proceed to scout around the keep, finally settling in at your observation post to watch the keep and it's inhabitants.
The keep itself is about 200 feet square. Four 30' tall, 20' square guard towers provide defenses and watch for the keep. Two of these towers are placed at the back corners of the keep (north west and north east corners of the keep) while the other two are centered in the south wall on either side of a 10' wide wooden gate. Crenelations along the top of the towers provide cover the lookouts on top.
The keep's outer wall is about 20' high and 10' wide with crenelations along it, again for cover from archers firing at the walls. Evenly spaced around the walls are large cauldrons, obviously built to boil and dump oil on those assaulting the keep from it's base. Within the walls of the keep look to be 5 large buildings, one along the west wall, one along the north wall, two along the east wall and one right in the center. Each building has many doorways, denoting that perhaps there are several rooms within each building.
A very small (10x20') building in the back center of the keep (just north of the large building along the back) is visited periodically by keep residents and is obviously the latrine.
Several stairwells, evenly placed along the east and west walls, lead up to the battlements from the ground below and each of the towers seems to have a door out onto the battlements as well.
The land around the keep for about 100 feet in any direction has been cleared providing a clean line of fire for anyone on the walls to anyone approaching the keep. Beyond about 100' from the keep walls, however, dense woods and forest obscure approach to the keep.
As you observe, each wall section is lined with Gnoll archers, one archer per section (one to the left of the towers, one to the right) on the south wall, and two each on the west, north and east walls. ().
On top of each of the two towers in the south (guarding the gates) are 2 human archers. On top of each of the northern toward are 2 gnoll archers.
Very little movement is seen within the keep grounds. Periodically, a small group of gnolls, humans, or orcs will move between buildings, each coming from a different building (Humans from the north west of the northern building, gnolls from the north east of the northern building, and orcs from the northern most of the eastern buildings) and heading toward what you expect to be the Latrines, otherwise not much goes on in the grounds. At Midday and in the evening a group of orcs carrying trays of what is likely food, heads around to each of the buildings and the walls, obviously carrying food to the rest of the keep occupants.
By the time you leave your post to return to the party camp just before dark, the keep watch has not changed.
Thantos/Dirk/Armand
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Moving out in the morning you follow a path down toward where you last encountered the ambushed party of humans. Winding your way through the woods, you eventually encounter some signs of skirmishes. Without tracking ability, you are hindered in finding what you are looking for, but you do find a general vicinity where the battle took place, it has, however, been several days and most of the remnants of the battle are gone by this point.
It occurs to you that it will likely take longer than a single day to either find Alalar's camp or any real details of battle.
If you would allow Selena to replace her sacred touch trait with Heirloom Weapon trait, I believe I could let her go over to final rules. Losing weapon proficiency on top of decreased healing power was just a little heartbreaking, but the Blessed Mage feat helped so thank you for that.
I forgot that Selena took Dirk's old longsword. It might not be possible to retrofit that item.
... Without tracking ability, you are hindered in finding what you are looking for, but you do find a general vicinity where the battle took place, it has, however, been several days and most of the remnants of the battle are gone by this point...
1) I'll let you take a weapon proficiency early (at the cost of your next proficiency) if you don't need the next proficiency slot and if it makes sense for you to have taken that proficiency.
2) Or you can simply stop using the longsword as proficient...I don't think this breaks any "pace of play" or "realism" since I can't remember ANY time you've gone into combat swinging that longsword...it's there as a "backup" for emergencies, that doesn't necessarily mean you need to be proficient with the weapon to feel comfortable carrying it just in case.
The longsword could have been your father's favorite weapon as a soldier...and while you never got around to training with it, you might have been carrying one since you were a kid/young adult at your father's insistence or in emulation of him. There are plenty of reasons (including just looking cool) why you'd choose to carry around a weapon you had no real intention of using and/or no real training in using.
Remember, not having proficiency in a weapon doesn't make it useless, just imposes penalties...you CAN use the weapon if you so choose, meaning it's not that unlikely for you to be carrying one.
** spoiler omitted **
Ok, so the family heirloom would be your father's old longsword from one of his military campaigns when you were a kid. It was a sword that your father treasured dearly, having been passed down through at least the last three generations of your families history, and assumedly having been made by your great great grandfather, a blacksmith of some renown back in his day.
Shortly before the attack on the King of Kethlenica, many years before you were born, when your father was still new in service to the Kethlenican military, the sword disappeared from his house. Your Grandfather was furious with your father for losing such a family heirloom, but your father always insisted it was stolen, a tale your Grandfather never came to believe.
As fate (a constant in your life) would have it, though, it has turned up in your hands. The very same sword carried by Dirk in his trip south to find Armand, a sword he took off the corpse of an assassin the night he and Armand fled from the castle, has ended up back in your hands. It's not till now, during the downtime one evening cleaning the blade, oiling it, and re-wrapping the leather of the hilt, that you realize both the quality, and the engraving just under the crosspiece, the engraving of your Great Great Grandfather and under it, your house crest, covered by the beaten up leather wrapping of the sword's hilt.
Tuesday Dawns clear and cool again. The chill remains and, if possible feels like it might be getting a little cooler. While there's no clouds in the distance and the sky is bright and a brilliant blue, Mird starts wondering if there might be a small storm system moving into the area.
Waving goodbye, Dirk, Thantos and Armand move off into the woods out toward the edge of the Black Peaks, toward where they expect Alalar's camp to be. They expect to be gone for three days.
Selena and Fyird head back out to gather more food to keep the supplies up and start setting some minor traps and trips around the party's current camp site.
Lash and Mird head back out to the caste to do more scouting. Watching for most of the day this time, the two of you see five different types of creatures moving around in the keep...while not many of them are out at once (other than the standard humans/gnolls patrolling the walls) you also recognize Goblins, Hobgoblins and Orcs moving around as they move to and from the Latrines.
At one point an altercation breaks out. An orc, delivering food to what you assume is the goblin barracks, is accosted by a group of goblins that just exited their barracks. In typical bullying fashion, the goblins taunt and pester the orc, causing him to drop some of the food, which in turn upsets the goblins, causing them to obviously humiliate the orc...the scene ends with the orc on his knees prostrating himself to the goblins with them laughing rauciously (the sound of the goblin's laughter and cheering carries even up to your location some 300 yards distant.
It strikes you as odd, now that you think about it, that goblins, usually the brunt of orc abuse due to their size and stature, would be the bullies in this situation.
Not much new is seen though the day other than this. The watch schedule remains consistent with your observations of the day before, and the rotation of men and gnolls on the walls continues on schedule throughout the day. The guards on the walls look bored and resigned to their duty.
As Lash describes the scenes they had witnessed at the Fortress, remarking about the unusual power of the goblins, Selena suddenly remembers something.
"The goblins are the ones in power here, except not truly. There is a force working through them. A malignant one. And it is this power which ultimately would rule this area, and beyond if it can."
Selena goes back to the campfire after this cryptic statement, doing her best to keep their dinner from charring into a dry husk.
The three of you take a couple days supplies with you and set off, out of camp early the second morning (Tuesday).
Around midday Dirk's tracking skills hit a jackpot. Blood, both human and inhuman, spatters the ground. Castoff chunks of armor, helm decorations, and even a partially cleaved in two helm liter the ground in a small clearing in the woods. Several orc and even a couple goblin corpses lay exposed to the elements. Given the state of decomposition, ravaging by wild animals, and of course the smell, you assume it's been at least a couple days since this party of orcs and goblins was killed.
Stopping to search the site you realize that while there are a few trails of blood moving back into the woods, obviously away from the battle site, not a single one of these lines is human, it seems that only orcs and goblins walked away from the battle, yet, there are no human bodies at all laying around. Continuing your searching, Dirk's tracking skills make him relatively certain that nothing human left this battle site, though several humans entered it.
Feeling more pressed than ever before to find Alalar and figure out what's going on, the three of you pick up the pace. Wednesday dawns to a cloudy sky with only a bit of blue in it and the temperature dipping even slightly farther, now down in the early forties to late thirties...the weather definitely looks like it's taking a turn for the worse.
By late morning you are standing in what has obviously recently been used as a camp site for a large number of people. Nestled between two hills with several small caves and a very think ring of trees, the site is practically hidden from view and would have been exceptionally hard to find if not for Dirk's tracking combined with Armand's knowledge of the general location of the base.
As you are searching the recently deserted camp site, Armand explains: "Alalar told me about this place a long time ago, even took me out there a time or two several years ago to show me. He told me that if ever he had to flee the keep, he'd hold up here as it was a perfect base of operations for the vicinity. I figured he might use this place as his base of operations for his field work."
Finding no evidence of battle within the camp, you continue following the tracking trail back out of the camp area, and further into the forest, now turning back toward the Black Peaks.
Within two more hours, just after your stop for a quick lunch, you hear the clamor of a group of men making camp. This time, down an animal trail deep in the woods. No more than five minutes down this trail, however and 5 men wielding crossbows, in the colors of Kiren's Keep, with swords at their belt step out from concealment in the surrounding forest and challenge you for your identities. Moments after that, Ex-Commander Kilenthar (Armand) identifies himself the two of you (Dirk as Kith obviously) and you are quickly escorted into the main camp.
The place is a shambles. The camp looks hastily setup, so much so that little precaution has been taken in regards to perimeter security or, for that matter, anything else. A few number of tents are scattered around haphazardly, some still not even setup yet. The carts with supplies are set off to one side, and, as far as you can tell, has no guard. The horse teams are tied randomly to trees, and seemingly mostly unwatched. There is absolutely no sign of a command tent or any other military strategy planning area visible at all. There are also no signs anywhere of wounded people.
As the three of you enter the area under escort a man detaches himself from setting up a tent with two others and comes practically running over.
"Commander! Thank the GODS!" The man is young, maybe in his early twenties, and is wearing a lieutenants insignia on his leather armor. "Lieutenant Frelnar turning over command to you sir!"
"At ease Lieutenant," says Armand in his most military and authoritative voice. "I'm afraid I cannot take command, I have a mission of my own to carry out. Where is Commander Alalar? I assumed he would be here, and why is this camp so shoddily setup?" pausing a second, as if just realizing what the young man said, Armand continues "and why are YOU turning over command to ME, where's your superior officer?"
Blanching at Armand, the young Lieutenant says "Regarding the Commander, Sir, I have no idea and regarding the camp, Sir, we simply don't have the personnel. And, sir, I'm it. I'm in charge."
A frown grows on Armand's face as he says "You'd best start from the beginning Lieutenant, this doesn't sound good."
For the next half an hour the young Lieutenant takes the three of you through the last week of battle and harassment. Shortly after the party left Kiren's keep, after the siege, things started going downhill. Orc presence in the region continued to be a problem and there was evidence being fed to the keep that the orcs were again massing for another assault. About a hundred of the keep militia was militarized and lead out of Kiren's Keep by commander Alalar. The first skirmish was fought the first night as a small band of orcs fired arrows into the well defended camp, killing only a few, and then fled into the night. Alalar ordered a small group of men off to chase them down...those men never returned.
Over the next 15 minutes of story this event is repeated over and over again. Alalar ordering multiple splinter groups off to chase down small orcish contingents in the area, and the splinter groups never returning.
"We sent men to search for them, or signs of them, and the few who did return found nothing more than a few discarded pieces of equipment or a broken weapon." says Frelnar in exasperation.
Continuing the story, Frelnar adds, "Finally Alalar took 20 men with him, half of the remaining strength we had, and headed off to find answers, that was two days ago and we haven't seen nor heard from him since. His final orders were to remain camped several miles in that direction at his base of operations and hold the fort, but after he failed to return the rest of us started feeling like we were too exposed camping in the same place all the time...I finally made the decision to pick up and move on. Unfortunately we lost several scouts to ambushes as we made our way here. I've got 10 men left under my command Sir, and there's no way we will survive another attack." the Lieutenant finishes, pale and shaking.
"Sir, I'm willing to fight and die for the Keep but men don't just up and disappear like this...almost nintey people are just...missing. The men are saying the forest is haunted, and it's ghosts that are taking the soldiers back to their graves, pulling them under for the dead to feast. Others are saying there's a giant beast in the woods, devouring the men, armor and all. Imagination, all of it, but there is something not right here."
"And that's why the camp is in such disarray, we don't have the manpower to do it properly sir. I'm sorry, there's just no one left...but we have our orders sir."
Dirk/Armand/Thantos
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Seeing no other questions forthcoming Armand shakes his head.
"This is a fools errand Lieutenant. Around 10 miles from here is a keep providing a strong base of operations for these orcs and other creatures. You're not hunting them, they're hunting you. Pack your men, your equipment and your supplies back up and get back to the keep. Report the loss of the force and tell Sub-Commander Garelson I told him NOT to go looking for stragglers again. Everything north of the keep is to hereby be deemed enemy held. Get the keep to send patrols along the roads ONLY, send a runner to the Duke for reinforcements for the Keep, and sound the general alarm, pull the outlaying farms back into the keep and prepare the area for another attack. If we fail, they'll be coming for you again."
A look of pure relief passes across the young soldier's face. "You're not going to order us to stay here Sir? Thank the Gods!" The young soldier starts shouting orders at the others to pack things up and several of the men cheer as they quickly start breaking the camp down and packing it into carts.
Armand again addresses the solder, pointing to a spot on a map laying unrolled on a nearby table. "It is of extreme importance that SOMEONE from your squad here make it back to the keep to relay the news. Avoid engagement, leave the supplies if you must, just get back to the keep whole and intact. If you do not hear from us inside of a month send a reinforced scouting group to this location."
The soldier salutes Armand then crisply salutes the other two of you and hurries away, starting to assist in the breakdown of the camp.
Armand looks at the two of you and says "This place is not safe for us, we need to get out of here."
Lash/Mird/Fyird/Selena
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Wednesday morning dawns with cloudy gray skies and a cold morning. A light coating of frost covers the foliage on the ground below your cave base. A storm is definitely brewing, and with the temperatures in the mountains area it's likely you'll be seeing snow within the next day or two...though this late in the year it's unlikely to be heavy.
Lash and Mird go back to their typical camping spot to spy on the keep. Three times this day, while watching, the two of you see a small group of monsters (goblins the first time, orcs the second, and hobgoblins the third) filter up to the doors of the keep. Over an hour's time these monsters are gradually brought into the keep, and obviously indoctrinated into the current structure, adding to the forces of the keep. It's obvious that this is not an uncommon event, so you can tell that there are periodic reinforcements that join in to add to the keep's forces.
Fyird/Selena
----------------
Going back to the hunting area you've used before you manage to again find another full day's worth of small game and gatherables to satisfy the need not to dig back into the rations.
When Dirk, Armand and Thantos return to the camp, and listen to the reports of the others, Dirk will suggest a night time observation of the Keep. "We may have more to learn in the night time hours."
"It sounds like we have several factions of evil creatures in the Keep. I wonder if we might be able to heighten the already bad relations with a bit of mischief?" Dirk instinctively looks at Lash as he speaks the word 'mischief'. "What might happen if an Orc patrol finds one of their members dead with a goblin knife in his throat?"
Dirk turns his gaze to Mird, "Follow that with a fire in the goblin quarters apparently started by an Orc torch..."
"Perhaps they will thin their own numbers for us."