Adventures in Arajara
Adventure Journal
Session 1
April 2, 188 CE - Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Calm
Rumors of an attack on Baenton castle have reached the court of King Theidus at Ristonn. Sergeant Gilldor was given orders to send some scouts north to the castle to see if Baron Baen was all right. Gilldor picked Valennor, Lyttillian Narwick, and Joel Bartley to travel to the castle. They were given provisions and horses, but because of a problem with Joel and his horse, he was given a mule. They traveled all day and reached the village of Blackwood at sunset. They stopped at Frusean's Tavern and Bed, to eat and rest.
April 3, 188 CE - Weather: Partly Cloudy and Calm
The party left early in the morning after a quick breakfast. It took a little over two hours to reach the castle. Their first view of the castle was of the destroyed towers on either side of the drawbridge.
The party began by investigating the towers. In one they found a dead soldier and a decapitated Orc head wearing a helmet. The went over to the other tower and found the walls blackened and falling down. The proceeded across the drawbridge and peered in through the broken gates. Seeing no movement the investigated further. Narwick walked close to the wall to the party's left and went into a room attached to the wall. Inside he found a dog munching on another dead soldier. Offering a bone from around his neck he made friends with the dog who began following him around everywhere.
The party then went to look at the first building, one looked in one of the windows and saw a pair of glowing eyes peering back at him. The jumped through the window and tried to catch the creature but it had fled down a broken stairway into the darkness. Joel cast a fire spell on a piece of wood to make a torch and the other two lit their torches from his. Then Joel and Valennor started down the stairs. Narwick was going to follow but his dog friend refused to come along. So he told the other two to go ahead and he would check out another building.
Joel and Valen' found themselves in a small room with the door blocked by rubble with about a two foot space between the top of the pile and the door frame - enough room for the creature to escape through, but not enough for Joel or Valen' to be comfortable following. So Joel stuck his torch through the hole to light up the next room and again saw the two eyes reflecting back at him for a moment and then they disappeared again. The decided to move away some rubble and follow. They entered another room with shelves lining the walls, holding bottles of wine and other beverages. They noticed a door on the right that was open. Rushing into that room they found themselves at a dead-end -- it was only a pantry filled with foodstuffs.
Meanwhile Narwick crossed the courtyard toward another building and looked in the window. Seeing nothing, he crawled through, his dog following, and made his way through to a bedroom. He looked around and spied two legs sticking out from under the bed. He grabbed the legs pulled out a dead soldier -- one of the defenders of the castle. Without any remorse, he searched the man for any items of use and ended up taking his armor. Going out into the hall he had the option of going into another room or up some stairs. Listening at the door, he heard footsteps. So he decided to go up the stairs. At the top he found a small study -- bookshelves lined two of the walls and in the center was a table with an open book on top. He walked over to the table and looked at the book and then without meaning to started reading a paragraph from the book out loud. He couldn't understand anything it said but had a gut feeling that it was a magic book. He picked it up and put it in his pack. Looking along the bookshelves he found nothing interesting but two scrolls that look like spell scrolls -- he put them in his pack too.
Narwick then walked over to the door across the room and looked into a hallway. The outer wall had taken damage and so had the door across the room. He checked out the other door and found another bedroom. There was a figure on the bed, struggling to get up. Narwick was a bit confused, from all appearances the figure should be a corpse, but it was moving. He rushed out the door and to the other room.
He looked with horror at the stairway. There, ascending, was the dead soldier he had pulled out from under the bed. He fled into the last available room. It was another bedroom and the only thing of interest was the large hole in the wall and a staff leaning against a bed. It was glowing with a light green aura. He picked it up and felt a slight tingle from whatever magic it possesed.
Suddenly he heard footsteps outside the door. He ran over and pushed it shut as much as he could, but a decaying arm still reached through the crack, grasping for him. He swung his sword, chopping off the hand. Unfazed, the undead zombie pushed open the door and started entering, reaching out for Narwick. Out of desperation he whacked it with the staff. A burst of flame engulfed and destroyed the zombie.
He went out into the hallway and jumpped back as he saw the second zombie coming towards him. He whacked it with his staff and was rewared with a satisfying burst of flame. He noticed with some dismay that the staff had stopped glowing.
Calling his dog, he rushed down the stairs, trough the hallway, bedroom, dining room, and out into the courtyard.