The Keep On the Borderlands

New Horizons

Returning from an arduous expedition into the depths of mountainous borderlands you find yourselves passing the keep where you spent much of your youth adventuring against the denizens of the caves of Chaos. The afternoon is drawing on and scudding showers have left you soaked to the bone and shuddering with the cold so you have decided to forego the rigours of another night on the road and indulge yourselves in a nostalgic visit to the warmth and cheer of the keeps tavern.

Reaching the keep, you are greeted by the grinning the Sergeant of the guard, who ushers you through the gate and you find yourselves walking down well-remembered streets to the tavern.

Inside you see many familiar faces, and soon the evening settles down to a comfortable black-slapping bonhomie as your former friends and acquaintances congratulate you on your exploits.

Gradually as the evening wears on, cheered by the warmth, and the food and the renewed friendships you begin to relax for the first time in weeks. The only untoward occurrence happens shortly after tea, when a man, evidently a regular, announces as he enters that the gates to the inner bailey have closed and that the inner keep seems to be a hive of activity. Immediately a hubbub of speculation ensures, but quickly dies down to steady din as interest subsides, and normal conversations begin again.

Just as beginning to feel to first tendrils of sleep creep into your tired minds there is a sudden blaring of trumpets, conversations cease and men exchange uneasy glances as the trumpets continue.

Then the door is flung open, everyone in the tavern jumping as one, the captain of the guard strides in

“To arms” he shouts, “Orcs! On the march, theres an army of them is coming down the east road”

Cursing you hurriedly don the cold, wet armour that you so recently gratefully put off, and hurry through the scudding rain to the wall. As streams of rain cascade down the battlements and flashes of lightning illuminate the countryside you see moving down the road towards the keep, columns of orcs with the loathsome shapes of trolls loping in between.

Silently the columns divide in two and quickly they surround the keep. They stand around the base of the keep’s hill, many thousands of pale ovals of faces staring up you. Ominously they stand there in perfect silence as though waiting.

A young soldier moves towards you, winding his way across the crowded battlements.

Reaching you he murmurs in a low confidential whisper “The castellan requires your presence, this way if you will”

The castellan sits ashen faced, he seems much older and frailer than the vigorous man you knew just a few years ago.

“Hello my friends, its good to see you again. I’m afraid you have timed your visit at a very inauspicious occasion or mayhap, it is divine providence which has guided you here tonight”

“I haven’t time to explain, I must join my men before the attack” he continues “But we believe that the priest – you remember him don’t you – has betrayed us. We have long suspected him to be an agent of the Cults of Chaos, but we have never had proof. For months we have monitored his every move, but early this evening he disappeared, along with my Elvan advisor who was watching him. By means of a scroll we cast a spell to determine the location of a medallion he always wore – only to find it was beneath the keep.”

He waves towards to a pile of flagstones, pulled up from the floor.

“This was once the entrance to an ancient shrine, over which the keep was built. The entrance was walled over, to entomb the evil that dwelt within, in perpetual darkness. As you can see you the entrance is still sealed, which means that the priest somehow gained admission via some other way. Legend has it, that this doggerel”

He points to a script chiselled into the stone of the tower, written in archaic common.

“provides a cryptic clue to a secret back way into the caverns below. I know not if the legend is true or not, but go and find a way of stopping this priest, as our lives and all those within the keep tonight, may hinge upon stopping whatever devilry he may be planning. The curate here will answer any questions you may have, but I must go now, good luck”