Arvien was hungry. "Let's go find the kitchen, we need some food," she exclaimed. Drovic recalled that the kitchen was on the first floor of the keep. So down the stairs the party tromped only to find the kitchen was closed, maybe for good.
The kitchen tables were piled in a corner, and the hearth was cold. No ashes were present to indicate that it had been used in years, centuries? Seglun recalled seeing a kitchen and panty on the far side of the dining hall extension to the party's north. She led the way through the doors into a mighty dining hall. A long table was set north-south, the south end was dusty but the north end was set with pewter plates and cups that contain the leavings of a recent meal. Broken glass goblets lay underfoot and the hardwood floor was badly scuffed and littered. Four candelabras suspended from the ceiling cast eerie shadows. Paired stairways led up from the east wall, but Seglun was intent on moving toward a door in the north.
Inside was a kitchen area, haunches of meat, surrounded by buzzing flies, hung from the ceiling. A large red-brick oven dominated one wall with large wooden table holding cast-iron pots and utensils. The tables were sticky with a liquid and flour and the floor was littered with vegetable peelings. A startled cook looked up from a large cauldron and asked the party their business. "We would like some food," replied Arvien.
"Did Marc agree to your eating?" asked the cook. When Arvien replied in the positive the cook went up the stairs and returned with some fruits and vegetables. Arvien asked for some biscuits, so the cook lightly brushed a table top clean(?) and started preparing a batch of biscuits. She indicated that the party could wait in the dining hall.
The group moved back into the dining hall and continued to discuss their dilemma. Arvien insisted that they should try and return to the druids in the original time period and ask about the holy days and saplings. Ralom suggested sitting around waiting for the time period to adjust but Baru pointed out the the shifts seemed to only occur when the party was actually moving around. Drovic suggested more exploration of the northern keep, where they had only touched a couple of areas. After the cook returned with the fresh biscuits, Arvien stored them in her pack and the group headed for a barred door leading west to the entryway. Out into the pouring rain and toward the doorway of the north keep, which Seglun found locked but she opened it someway. In this main level the group ignored the doorways since these were servants quarters they had looked into previously. Up the stairway to a hall littered with empty bottles and six doors. Seglun first opened the door to the west and found a room simply furnished with two cots, a wardrobe, and wooden chairs. Rumpled blankets and dirty clothes on the cot, and empty bottles on the floor indicated that the room was in use.
The next door on the west led to a store room with a few bolts of cloth on shelves and many more toppled to the floor. Several bolts had been torn into strips and bloody pieces of cloth were scattered on the floor. To the north the group found a room filled with looms, spinning wheels, cutting table, shoe molds, and leather crafting tools. Bolts of cloth stood against one wall. Everything was covered with a layer of dust, tartans of green and white stripes hung half-woven on the looms, and most equipment had been pushed to the side. Three rough cots with rumpled bedding were placed near the fireplace. The other north door opened onto a room filled with large barrels, casks, presses, gallon jugs and empty bottles. The sweet smell of fermenting grain, apples and grapes hung in the air, and coals glowed in the fireplace. Several barrels were broken open and spilled on the floor, flies buzzing lazily over the mess. Now Seglun moved to a door on the east which held shelves with a few bottles stored on them. The floor was covered with spillage and a multitude of footprints indicated that several bottles had been carried away.
Drovic noticing that the thunder had stopped moved into the first room searched by Seglun. The furniture had all been smashed and moldy feathers from slashed pillow covered everything. He moved to the window and looked out on the courtyard with a light rain falling. "We have shifted time again, " he exclaimed. "I think we are back to the original time frame." With that the party headed quickly down the stairs and out into the courtyard heading for the gateway. As the entered the courtyard a group of Goblyns, who were crossing to a haphazard structure, immediately moved to attack.
Arvien let off a fireball catching all the Goblyns in its wake, but they all emerged from the smoke. Grunyar and Varrid tried moving around to get an advantage, Grunyar moving to the rear of the Goblyns to attack with arrows while Varrid was trying to flank the enemy as they approached. Baru waded in to attack as did Seglun, Drovic threw his flaming sphere into the midst of the enemy while Ralom attacked with his long reach spear. Arvien followed up the fireball with a stinking cloud and just as Grunyar thought he had it made four additional Goblyns and five wolves moved toward him from the south. The stinking cloud left several Goblyns retching and gasping as they emerged from the miasma. The wolves and additional Goblyns almost surrounded Grunyar as he felt the claws and fangs sink deeply into his Dwarvish flesh.
From the tombs a incorporeal figure emerged, just a boy holding a dog, and ran toward the battle crying "Leave him alone!" He ran right at a wolf in the stinking cloud and began to clobber the wolf with his small fists. Grunyar fled back to the covered entryway, tried to enter the keep but found the door barred, so he continued north to where Drovic waited with curing spells. Varrid finally found flanking and reduced a Goblyn to rubble. Seglun and Baru continued their attack on Goblyns and wolves. The Goblyns fell easily, not so the wolves. Arvien belatedly cast Haste upon the party while Ralom channeled maximum healing for Grunyar. The young boy screamed as he fell among the wolves and faded away.
The battle turned to the heroes favor as all the enemy left standing were retching Goblyns. The group finished them off and then headed toward gateway tower. Along the way Ralom noticed a statue facing the tombs. It depicted a young man, Minstrel, Marc, Tristen?? in a kilt leaning on a sword. The base was inscribed "Lord Marc ApBlanc." As Drovic approached the tower, which was hidden by a ramshackle building, he saw that the former portcullis gateway was bricked up. With a quick change of direction he headed to the main keep doorway saying "Follow me, we have to go out the Barbican, the gateway is closed." The wooden entry door had fallen from its hinges and lay on top of a skeletal corpse. The door's carved panel was studded with arrows -- the shafts broken off, but the points were still in the wood, which was stained red with rust from the arrowheads.
Into the keep and down the ramp the heroes fled. They made it to the Barbican and looked out below the portcullis seeing merely the roadway toward Birnam.
DM's Notes: The party earned 3,314 XP for the evening and now have 56,814 XP.
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