Saving Arden 28 August 2007

## Saving Arden - Chapter 1

The heroes are racing towards the gates of Castlevale, with a swarm of Archaeronian soldiery in hot pursuit. The guards are moving to close the gates and trap the heroes inside, when suddenly the guard at the inner edge of the door (whose hand was on the edge of the massive gate) screams and draws his arm back, sans hand. Despite the chaos, Oribrand manages to push through the opening. He is attacked by a couple of low-end guards, and with luck (and Dwarven strength) holds them off while the rest of the party to catch up. Unfortunately, the gates are sufficiently closed so that only one person can get through at a time, which means the heroes will have to figure out how to order themselves. Once they get out, they plunge into the marketplace outside of the castle walls, and hide from the searchers, who turn the marketplace inside out and upside down looking for them.

Meanwhile, a troop of soldiers report to Lady Ma’alia, who is white with rage. A darkly clad, dark-skinned figure (Ma’al) stands apart, apparently at rest. He turns and picks up a piece of fruit that’s fallen on the ground. He sniffs it, smiles, and purposefully turns south, eating the piece of fruit as he goes.

Eventually the heroes get away and head south again. They figure out that the fastest way would be to head due east towards St. Leo’s Castle, and then catch the road going south towards Tal’Merkad. The downside is that the road passes through a pretty nasty swamp. How they pass through Tal’Merkad is up to them. It is a huge black fortress of standard Gothic Archaeronian design. Anyone not accompanied by an Archaeronian soldier wil be searched and questioned closely. Those who pass go through a sort of tunnel that goes through the fortress (with LOTS of murder holes) and emerge into Archaeron. On the other hand, they may also choose to try to cross the river, which should be pretty challenging.

After a brief discussion, they decide to take the risk and avoid Archaeronian entanglements by crossing the river. The Imperial College at Set’Sermo is three days due south of Tal’Merkad. The roads are full of troops of various nationalities, marching north, many of them pulling large siege machines.

On the second afternoon of their journey, the heroes reach a small village called Creekside, because that's where it's located. Everyone is talking about a strange group of soldiers, accompanying an enclosed wagon, who marched through the village from the north three times, each time seemingly unaware that they had been there before, and then marched off to the west towards a huge estate, surrounded by a stone wall.

The heroes reach the estate after dark. The large gates stand open, and two guards are lying dead nearby. As the party heads up the winding drive towards the Gothic manor, a swarm of servants and slaves come running towards them, reporting screams, wails and worse coming from the house. In the drive in front of the house are two bodies that appear to have fallen from the roof. Other dead servants are in various other poses of horror: two appear to have choked each other to death, while others have clawed their eyes out or slashed their wrists.  No one is alive.

As the heroes enter one wing of the manor, they find more dead soldiers who appear to have killed each other and then themselves in particularly gruesome ways. They hear a distant whimpering, which when tracked down, turns out to be the captain, who is hiding in the corner of his bedroom, whimpering with a blank stare, only able to whisper *sha’aness*--the serpent--over and over again. It would be a kindness to kill the poor man and put him out of his horrified misery.

At this point they hear a childish, ghostly giggle echoing through coming the house. A search reveals young Master Lufkin, age 5, playing wherever he find it interesting. When they try to corral the little tyke, who thinks that “Tag” is a GREAT game, they hear a furious high-pitched “DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM!!!” and they get hit by hideous images of snakes and bats and sharp teeth and rats and falling, etc. They somehow manage to convince Lufkin's older sister that they mean no harm, and the threatening images vanish.