Back at Sanctuary, Shelaugh and Maeve instructed two of their followers to bring certain magic items to the Oak factions meeting hall. The heroes were taken there and were given the choice of one item apiece, out of a random collection of ten items. After claiming there reward, the party spent the night with the druids. In the morning Shelaugh and Maeve were insistent that the heroes could find out how to open the borders at the Castle Tristenoira. The druids felt that the party was well armed and powerful enough to fight the Goblyns in the the Castle.
So it was north again to the Castle. The party spent all of the morning to arrive again at the road way at the Lake of Red Tears. The road was overgrown but constructed of half-logs placed side by side. It provided the only solid footing climbing through the forest toward the Castle perched on the lip of a red-granite precipice. At first glance the Castle appeared abandoned. Its stone wall crumbling. Arvien sent Summergale to scout around the area from the air. She returned with the description of tiles sloughed off roofs, a seemingly collapsed tower to match the one they could see. Some wooden structures had been built in the courtyard that was choked with weeds. A few paths led through those weeds. There was a wooden drawbridge, lowered at the top of a sloping ramp, with crenelated walls, that led from the two towered Barbican. The road led directly to a portcullis in the middle of the Barbican.
Seeing no one in the entryway, Seglun and Baru entered under the portcullis into a room with a door to the west and another portcullis to the east. This portcullis was also raised around four feet above the ground. Beyond the portcullis was room filled with makeshift barriers, made out of old barrels, planks, and broken bits of stone, piled in a haphazard fashion. There was an opening to the east from that chamber. Seglun moved west, opened the door which led into hallway, door to the west and in the northwest a stairway heading up. The steps were uneven - each a different height and width. The door led into a square room whose walls were lined with racks of unusual and ineffective-looking weapons. Most appear to be poorly constructed and certain to break or inflict minimal damage. Most of the rest of the party now entered the first chamber, except Arvien who still waited outside the first portcullis. The floors of all the chambers were covered in filth, rags, metal, and wood laying strewn over the areas.
Seglun and Baru lumbered up the stairs to room which featured a number of arrow slits, all different sizes and shapes, most not particularly practical. A metal ladder in the middle of the room led to a trap door in the ceiling and door led to the east. Seglun opened the door to a courtyard between the two Barbican towers with doors in the east and north. Back out into the rain Seglun found the north door leading to a room with the crudest and most poorly designed mechanism for raising two portcullis that she could ever recall. The door to the east led to another poorly constructed archery post, with a ladder in the middle leading up, the trap door lay on the floor having fallen off its hinges. Finding no other entry to the Castle, Seglun and Baru came back downstairs. Drovic had transformed into an owl and was flying around also looking along the curtain wall for another entry. Only slightly distracted by the mice and voles scurrying around the courtyard he returned to the party with no further information. Seglun strode into the barrier room headed for the open doorway, straight into a Goblyn. He saw three other Goblyns hiding behind the makeshift barriers. A very constrained battle started as Seglun struck the Goblyn in front of her. Baru charged in and attacked while Grunyar found an area to fire arrows. Varrid stepped in trying to flank and Drovic the owl flew into the fray on top of a barrier. The Goblyns returned the attacks, some even threw spears ineffectively. The heroes quickly overwhelmed the Goblyns and took off up the ramp, which had crenelated walls at the top end. Seglun stopped at the wooden drawbridge, which had rusted chains attached to the main keep. The wood looked rotten in many spots. Seglun used a rope to move across the bridge and opened the door into a room, in which she found no other creature. The rest of the party followed, only Ralom had an issue on the drawbridge, with part of the wood collapsing below him.
The chamber's floor was filthy with mud, a staircase rose into the southwest corner. There was a closed door to the west next to an apparently bricked up former doorway. A door to the east was smashed open and hung from one hinge. The north wall appeared to have smashed out, a pile of rubble lined the area along with half a door frame, a few shards of stained glass hanging from it. There was dust, mud and filth on all areas, the fireplace having not been used in ages. Ralom headed north into a slightly larger chamber. Seglun looked beyond the door to the east, which led into a cross shaped room lined with rotted racks, probably once used to hold weapons. A few broken weapons were scattered across the floor. In the center of the cross was a spiral staircase leading up and down.
Grunyar opened the door to the west which led into a narrow, 4 foot wide, 8 foot tall tunnel, apparently leading into the curtain wall of the Castle. The tunnel was choked with cobwebs, cracks in the walls allowed a view of the courtyard. At some places the ceiling had partially collapsed leaving rubble and dust underfoot. Varrid found that small tracks, non human, in the mud went back and forth between the smashed northern wall and the spiral staircase going down. Ralom found the next room to have a door to the east and north. Part of the northern west wall had been smashed out and reduced to rubble. There was a large fireplace in the northwest corner. The mantle, depicting wolves whose heads had been hacked out of the wood, had almost fallen off the wall, one end lying on the floor. Varrid followed the tracks to the smashed out western wall which led to a mud encrusted room with an open doorway. The door had fallen off its hinges and lay on the ground outside in the courtyard. A large oak tree was visible in the courtyard from the door. As the party gathered in the sitting room, Ralom opened the door to the north seeing another muddy room with tables piled on the western wall. The rest of the party saw, instead of mud covered floors, there were rugs and dusty, worn furniture. The mantle on the fireplace was attached to the, though the wolves heads were still removed, with the remains of a table partially burned in the fireplace. Before the fireplace a few smashed wooden chairs lay on the floor. The west wall was not smashed out, nor was the south wall. The door in the south wall had a stained glass panel of a man clenching a white feather in a mailed fist; his other mad held bagpipes, and beneath the window were the words "The Young Minstrel." The face of the character had been smashed out. Varrid donned her Helm and looked through the east wall. It was dark outside, and then a huge flash of sheet lightning split the sky. She could see that there were two towers rising from the side of the keep. Rain fell in Gobs from the sky. Ralom closed the north door and then opened it again, Drovic opened the west door and found what was probably a cloak room. Long coat racks with pegs lined the walls, the marble floor cracked and muddy. Varrid turned her gaze to the west wall, in the next room she could only see the back of a wooden door and a black slate, dusty and muddy floor.
Ralom headed back to the first room the party had entered through. As he opened the door he found the mud and filth gone and there were no doors on the south that the party had entered through. The door to the east was now whole and closed. "We are in a different time," Varrid inferred as she contemplated what she had seen.
DM's Notes: The party earned 686 XP for the Goblyns and now have 48,157 XP.
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