Day 72 1am - The Hill Fort At Roubank : Part 3

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**(Day 72: 1am 26th April)**

With the arrival of the Maratasen nomad cavalry the prospect of conflict has gone. For their part the Maratasen seem content to loiter in the area, after having sent a few scouts out to shadow the Goblins. The leader of the Maratasen contingent introduces himself as Jorn Threeclaw, a warrior of the Fastleap Clan, his command of the common tongue is somewhat limited though which makes conversation difficult.

Jorn: “You do good, but more vermin around.”

Jorn: “We stay, others will hunt vermin from here, wait for sun.”

…and with that he and his warriors make camp about 300 yards outside of the fort. One of his warriors has gone to pay homage to the reborn Blue Witch, but this doesn’t seem to cause Jorn any concern.

The party makes camp inside the walls and food is prepared for those who want it by the villagers. The night passes in desultory conversation and rest, around 3am Brokef rides in with another 15 Orcish warriors riding large Wolves. Brokef moves in to join the party, whilst the Orc contingent meets up with the Maratasen.

Brokef explains that there are about 5 clans to the South and Southwest, none of them major but they have mustered and will be looking to intercept the Goblins that passed through Roubank. Messengers have been sent out to try and find out where the Goblins came from, and what they are doing – other large groups have been spotted, but for the moment reports are sketchy. Then he settles down for a sleep.

Kheran picks up a plateful of food and comes over to chat with the party.

Kheran: “Thought I would let you folks know that me and the boys will be heading out come dawn. Things seem to be settled here, and I suspect the clans will be having a lot of fun hunting these Goblins down over the next few weeks.”

Francis: “So why did you attack us yesterday?”

Kheran: “Well that is kind of a long story…..”

Francis: “Do go on.”

Kheran: “Me, Timul and Secren are not what you would call welcome in Far Haven, over the years we have made a living out of relieving people of their goods shall we say. The road between Far Haven and White Beach makes a good place to operate, and we occasionally work with Clan outcasts if they are in the area. Of course, we make sure to stay on the right side of the Clans, and since as far as they are concerned City laws only apply inside the City, they do no shop us to Far Haven. From talking to Cilon”, he indicates the human bandit that was survived the combat, “it turns out there is now even a price on my head.”

Kheran pauses to take a few mouthfuls of food.

Kheran: “Anyhow, normally we spend early Spring having a bit of fun up in White Beach, and so were planning to get up there before the bridge goes. But we bumped into Cilon and his friends, turns out they are, or should that be were?, deserters from Far Haven. They told me that they had a hot lead on a small group of newbies that would be heading out of Far Haven for White Beach, and apparently this group was rich….. guess that would be you folks, though you don’t seem particularly rich to me.”

Kheran: “Now I must admit, I was sceptical, but money is money – and boy can I spend it fast at White Beach – so I offered to provide advice and possibly assistance.”

Kheran: “Timuls familiar spotted you, and although we had to change things around in a bit of a hurry when you turned off to Roubank we got ahead of you on the road. By now Timul was reporting lots of movement in the distance, off to the West and I was getting an itchy feeling in the back of my neck. Of course when Cilon’s friend, Tobian I believe he was called, decided to jump the gun and do the gentleman thief bit and try and talk to you – everything went to pot – he was supposed to be a few more minutes down the road but the smartarse got fed up, jumped the crossbow, and now feeds the crows.”

Kheran: “Given that Timul has now decided to follow the Blue Witch, I am somewhat pissed off to be honest, feels like someone has been yanking my strings and whilst it would be easy to blame the mad giant in Far Haven, this could just as easily be the Witch. So, from my point of view, time to hightail it out of here.”

Quercius: “What is the witch? We have heard her called the Guardian?”

Kheran: “Well, I ain’t a speaker, so I cannot recite the story chapter and verse, but the way I understand it is that a long long time ago two demigods had a bit of a disagreement. The resulting fight left one of them dead and the area where they fought blasted of all life. Turns out that this area kept growing, becoming a lifeless desert.”

Kheran: “The surviving demigod apparently had a fit of conscience and so bound his, or I guess more accurately her, spirit to this area with the goal of containing the deserts growth. Whatever the truth in this tale, the Blue Witch has been here for as long as people can remember and always seems to gather a group of supporters around her. There seems to be some sort of magical link formed, after all you saw what happened to Timul, but he wont say anything to me now – so I have no idea what the nature of the link is.”

As dawn breaks, Kheran makes good on his intent, and rides away South, accompanied by Secren and Cilon, just before he leaves he comes over to Umar.

Kheran: “Whilst the Greathorse would make a great mount for you lad, suggest you gift it to the Maratasen as spoils of war. Will go down really well with them and will insulate you lot from any misunderstandings with Far Haven.”

In the morning, and with some time to explore, the party has a look around.

The tower construction is strange, a hodge podge of construction.

The ground floor is very solid, but simplistic in construction, and Twoo believes it was originally a simple single storey construction. The next two floors, although somewhat decrepit now, Twoo believes were built by Elves, and the top floor looks to be standard human construction. Outside of the fort, the Orcs and Maratasen warriors are still milling around, although a small number of them are now working on repairing the damage to the village.

Inside the tower, you would guess the baby to be over a year old now, one of the villagers is acting as wet nurse, whilst the rest are involved in the village repair work as well, including Timul.

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