- GM’s note: Sorry, I stuffed up in the previous writeup. So much detail and I missed some important points.
The Lord of these Lands is the Mill Lady, Lady Marian. She has been absent since Grant and Ethan first arrived in Tyland Mills, visiting Lord Korab. As of 25th of Winterwane, Grant (now Sheriff of Tyland Mills) has learned that Lord Korab plans to marry Lady Marian.
There is also a group of bandits that are preying on travellers through the area. They are led by Red, and there is a bounty of 600 silvers if he can be captured alive. The old Sheriff (Gideon) believed that Red is Lady Marian’s half-brother and he has at least thirty men.
There is a bounty notice posted outside of the Sheriff’s Tower which includes rewards for bandits, goblins (!?!) and notables such as Red, two of Red’s lieutenants (Heads-or-Tails, Blacktoe the Smith), and then two Ogres called Zomp and Zamp who have been disturbing some of the local farmers (smashing things up, taking the occasional goat or sheep).
Here’s a map of the area that shows what Grant is currently aware of (this is screen captured from Roll20). It’s just the current map – I am currently redrawing this with Campaign Cartographer 3+ as there are some aspects that I don’t like. But it’ll do for now.
* This image is an edited version of that found in Tyrandor: Secrets of Tyland by Gramel Books
Day 9 – Wineday – 25th Day of Winterwane (Spring)
- The unclean fellow wearing Lord Korab’s colours has just informed the Mayor (Prigg) of Lord Korab’s plans to marry Lady Marian in a week’s time. Grant listens but is not introduced. The party of five rides east in the direction of the fortified Millhouse to inform the staff there of the news.
- It is raining. Prigg swallows, gathers his thoughts, and then invites Grant inside for a cup of tea. Prigg’s hands are shaking. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t think they have the five thousand silvers that Twistle (Korab’s speaker and his right-hand man) has demanded. He realises that he’ll need to talk with Ventur (the Mill Lady’s orderly who manages the Millhouse in her absence) and with Theod, the man who speaks on behalf of the nearby Steads. Grant suggests that they meet at the Sheriff’s tower so that they can have a private conversation.
- Grant heads back to the Tower. Gareth has observed the exchange and asks what is going on. Grant tells him. Gareth is disappointed – he notes that they don’t get paid until the Mill Lady approves their appointment, and if she is married, who knows if they will ever get paid.
- That afternoon, Prigg, Ventur, Theod and Grant meet on the third floor in the Sheriff’s Tower. None of them believe that Marian would willingly want to marry Lord Korab.
* Prigg (Left), Ventur (Middle), Theod (Right). Images sourced from Google Images
- Prigg has looked at the town’s finances and thinks that they could afford two thousand silvers but not five thousand. Ventur wants to raise the levy and march on Lord Korab’s castle to rescue the Mill Lady. This sounds very impractical as they have no siege equipment, this levy would consist of untrained farmers and Lord Korab has a mercenary force (the Steel Eagles) of at least a hundred trained soldiers working for him. Theod points out the flaws in this plan and says that the Steads won’t answer a call for a levy. He is sympathetic to the Mill Lady’s situation but doesn’t know what they can do. They argue.
- Grant listens for a while and then asks about what they know of Korab’s castle, the Weeping Castle. He wonders if it would be possible to go there and steal her back. This idea is entertained but they think it would be very risky. Grant gets up and walks over to a piece of furniture, uses his Everfull Purse to produce some gemstones, and then returns to the gathering, offering the additional funds to the village ‘as a loan’ so that they have the required tithe in a week’s time.
- Grant proposes that he head immediately to the Weeping Castle and try to break her out. He isn’t widely known as the Sheriff of Tyland Mills and hence it might be possible to break in, or even pretend to join the Steel Eagles to get closer to the Mill Lady and attempt a rescue. If he fails, they have more than five thousand silvers (with the addition of the gems) and can attend the wedding event. He simply asks that Ethan be one of the representatives sent with the emissaries. Ethan is currently away in Cutting Field but will likely return any day.
- The others have no other ideas and hence agree to Grant’s plan. Grant leaves the gemstones with them and gives instructions to Gareth and Tellurian that he’ll be gone for up to four days. He wants them to patrol the northern roads and take instruction from Ethan when he returns. Grant then quickly packs and heads off into the rain.
- Grant’s journey in the rain is wet but uneventful. He passes an outlying stead after twelve miles, and he camps for the night under a black oak tree which has a gash in it, about twelve feet up. Clearly others have slept here before – he resolves to return to this place and investigate further.
Day 10 – Thunderday – 26th Day of Winterwane (Spring)
- It is a long, wet night and the rain worsens the next day. The rain is now bucketing down. Grant doesn’t mind this. It gives him cover. He reaches the Weeping Castle early in the day. It is a stone keep castle, surrounded by water (a short bridge across the Faern River can be used to reach the front gates). The castle itself is in poor repair, and there is thick moss growing in large sheets on the walls which give the impression that the castle is truly ‘weeping’.
- Grant spends time studying the castle. He uses his shapeshifting to switch into bird-form to make this easier. He guesses that there are barracks for over a hundred Steel Eagles, but about forty of them are in the castle at the present time. He has heard that the Steel Eagles also have a garrison in Stone Bridge (to the west) so they are not all here. They appear well armed and well disciplined.
- Using shapeshifting without disturbing gossamer reality is very hard and quite draining. He can only manage up to about half an hour at a time. Nevertheless, this is more than enough time to scope out the castle – he can access the externally facing rooms via the arrow-slits in the stonework and peer inside.
- He successfully looks around Korab’s rooms, finds the treasure chamber (chests open) and exits without being detected. Little by little, he works his way through the fortress to confirm that the Mill Lady is not being held on the upper floors. He finds Lord Korab, his weedy lieutenant, a pale-faced woman and several Steel Eagles celebrating in the great hall. They seem to be in good spirits. He also notes that there are no dogs here – something that is quite unusual for a mediaeval lord.
* Lord Korab (Left), Acatarina (Middle), Twistle (Right). Images sourced from Google Images
- During his scouting runs, Grant feels a ‘disturbance’ in gossamer reality, far away to the east. He wonders if this is Ethan’s doing. It probably is but he isn’t willing to risk an Icon contact. Again, he is made aware that tampering with gossamer reality in this realm is highly noticeable for those who are sensitive to such things.
- At last, he narrows his search down to a single room where there are thick blankets over the arrow slits. He decides to rest for the evening and try to break in overnight when all is quiet.
Day 11 – Fireday – 27th Day of Winterwane (Spring)
- The rain continues into the evening. After midnight, Grant takes to the air again and makes his way to an opening into an old library on the upper floor. He arrives and shifts back into his normal form. This disturbs a rat that has been gnawing on one of the books, and it scuttles away.
- Grant decides to follow the rat and he almost runs into a ghostly figure that is gloomily repeating how she tripped and died here. When the ghost winks out, he shifts into rat-form and follows the other rat into the room with the heavy curtains.
- He finds himself in a bedroom which is heavily perfumed. There is a strange odour here which the perfume doesn’t completely mask and Grant spots many other rats in here. There are rats looking down at him from the ceiling. He can hear rats moving in the walls.
- The Mill Lady isn’t being held here but he is curious enough to start looking around. Unfortunately, he is interrupted when Acatarina, the pale lady who was in Lord Korab’s company, comes back into the room. She looks a little dishevelled, but she has a crooked smile on her face that suggests to Grant that she’s just returned from an evening’s tryst. She stretches her limbs and goes to look in the mirror as Grant backs away in rat-form. He notes a rat scuttle up onto her dresser and begin chattering away to her. Grant has no idea what the rat is saying but he doesn’t stick around to find out. Feeling that he might have been discovered, he flees under the door and makes his way out via a different way. He evades a guard, heads to the roof and flies away in bird form.
- No alarm is raised. He waits another hour and decides to try entering the ground floor kitchen. Again, he returns as a bird, then transforms into a rat when inside. He scuttles under a door, past a room where servants are sleeping (he notes that they keep their beds against the door to keep out the Steel Eagles) and then he heads into a storeroom. A staircase leads down, deep under the water level and he reaches a wine cellar. The wine cellar was clearly designed for lots of wine, but there are few barrels left here.
- Returning to his human form, Grant explores the dungeons. He finds some of the Steel Eagles on guard duty and decides that this is a good sign. Subduing all four of them, he explores further. He finds a torture chamber and an ogre checking over the equipment, musing audibly that ‘today might be the day’ that he will finally be allowed to torture someone. Grant slays the ogre and moves on. He finds cages that look like they’ve been designed to cook people and he finds the prison cells. He kills the Steel Eagle who is guarding the cell block without disturbing the prisoners, then he starts looking around to figure out a way out. There appear to be at least two prisoners so how will he do it?
- Luckily there is another way out of the dungeons, but it leads to a subterranean cavern which has been cursed. Grant has heard the legend of the Weeping Castle from Gimilkina. In that legend, one of Korab’s ancestors tricked the goblins into building it and enslaved them with an evil Black Whip. In this cavern lies the remains of hundreds of goblins who died to build the castle, and the Black Whip is lying on the surface of an evil-looking red pool. As Grant approaches, the red pool begins disgorging reanimated goblins. A few at first, then more and more.
- The goblins move slowly and are no real threat to Grant, but there are a lot of them, and the ichor seems to be corrosive. Grant is forced to withdraw, get a pair of the ogre’s tongs from his torture room and then fight his way back to the edge of the red pool to remove the Black Whip from the red pool. When the Black Whip is taken, it recognises a new master and the reanimated goblins collapse. Grant can feel that this Whip is a very evil thing – it wants to inflict pain and suffering.
- Venturing further, Grant confirms that there is a way out and he returns to free the prisoners. He frees Jack, a man who has been held by Lord Korab for poaching. He frees Salthia, a pretty servant girl who claims that she didn’t do anything wrong. Finally, he frees the Mill Lady herself. Marian is disoriented at first but quickly agrees to follow Grant.
* Marian (Left), Salthia (Middle) and Poacher Jack (Right). Images sourced from Google Images but I think the middle image (of Salthia) is by the same artist who painted Grant and Ethan for us. (Gordon Napier)
- They make their way out of the catacombs and back into the forest. They are on the other side of the Faern river. Grant spies a river boat moored nearby and decides to commandeer it. The haulflin owner, Alfrin is very surprised when Grant and the Mill Lady board his boat, but he recognises who she is and quickly agrees to take them downriver to Tyland Mills.
- GM’s note: As for what Ethan has been up to, I’ll provide more information on that shortly. I just didn’t want to spoil it for David – he’ll find out when Grant returns to Tyland Mills.
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