2024/10/10 - You Can’t Take it With You, So We’ll Take it From You

Mogget and Bert help get the rescued merchant family settled, and secure the goblin shaman for questioning
Anthony and Calgor go for some poorfolk carousing, hoping to get by on tales of their heroism.
- Anthony ends up making friends with a local priest, Kvena, even donating a portion of his meager funds.
- Calgor gets carried away re-enacting the tale of burning down the Fortress of Dib, and actually sets fire to a local building. He wakes up in the stocks as he’s being released after a rough night.
At breakfast, Calgor and Anthony are approached by a young man, “Rat” McDiggers, who offers information about an abandoned fort in the woods that almost certainly has unrecovered treasure. Word is though, the dead walk there - but that shouldn’t be a problem for brave adventurers such as Calgor and Anthony, right?

Calgor and Anthony consult with Kvena quickly - could this be true, a fort in the woods? She confirms that this land is riddled with the ruins and remnants of past empires which have risen and fallen over the centuries.

an abandoned castle fort in the woods, with a bridge leading to it over a river, in a painterly style.png

Calgor and Anthony cross the crumbling bridge with absolutely no trouble at all. None. You weren’t there, so you can’t say otherwise.
Calgor and Anthony encounter a number of skeletons, which they bash and magic missile into submission. Calgor seems to be saving his energy by using his mace instead of his Turn Undead magic. A journal is found in one watchtower, in elven - seems this was an elven fort that fell to some calamity hundreds of years ago.
In the other watchtower, a pit is discovered with a chain leading down under the fort. Observations include weird noises only Anthony hears, and “squelchy” walls - that’s the technical term.

A single skeleton, suitable for a fantasy game, in painterly style. The skeleton is made up of a combination of human bones and horse bones, with a horse skull for a head, holding a horse femur as a weapon. It is o.png

They encounter a horse-human skeleton amalgam in the stables, towering over 7 feet tall!
Finally, Calgor unleashes his holy might and rebukes the skeletal being, reducing it to dust. Calgor, take it away!
Investigations into the well in the courtyard reveal more weird noises and more “squelchy” terrain below the fort. Calgor and Anthony feel….uneasy about this.

Calgor finds a longsword wedged in a burnt out timber, and removes it. Anthony reads the inscription, elven - “Rathgard, Lord of Ember”.
Entering a break room of sorts, Calgor and Anthony find some more bones, some fresher corpses, a message written in blood on the wall (in elven) and a mummified hand
- The words on the wall read, “The well keeps whispering! It won’t stop! Please make it stop!”
- On a bed they see a headless corpse, but the ears are here with spikes in them.
- Under the floorboards a small box is discovered. Inside, an earless head with a note in it’s mouth that reads, “Sorry”
- They gather 50 gp from the fresher corpses….perhaps other adventurers looking for treasure that met grim ends.

In an attached room, a throne room is discovered. Sitting upon the throne is a skeletal form that slowly awakens as Calgor and Anthony approach. It’s hands are nailed to the throne.
- It is the Lord of Caer Ferros, and he asks the adventurers to free him from this throne and this accursed place. He mentions two others cursed to dwell here - The Priest and The Lady in the garden above.
- The chapel is in the room next to the throne room, but the door from the courtyard has been blocked by a makeshift barrier, made from fallen blocks from the fort.
- The Lord says the fort was infiltrated by some dark force from underneath, cursing them and slowly driving the inhabitants mad.
- Calgor and Anthony agree to let the Lord leave, unspiking his hands. The Lord, true to his word, stands up and slowly walks out of the fortress, free at last.

An undead elven king, skeletal, sitting on a normal throne without a helmet.png

Calgor and Anthony pause here, debating whether to explore Caer Ferros further, or head back to Redtower for reinforcements. Are they in over their head? Or are they about to hit the jackpot!? Tune in next time.