Mark Chance
Boingy! Boingy!
Norim, Gordon, Xenon, and, bringing up the rear, Dacen follow the undead beggar deeper into the woods. After several minutes of trudging through the ancient trees, the forest grows noticeably louder. The deep thrumming of frogs croaking fills the warm air, only these croaks are too loud, too throaty to come from normal-sized amphibians.
The beggar stops leading and points ahead. Down a gentle slope stands a ruined building. A scrub of thorns, thistles, weeds, and shrubs grow thickly along the edge of a faint track which leads to the ruins, and even the track is mostly overgrown and cluttered with fallen branches and trees. Here and there the trail is washed out. In other places, it is a mire.
The party looks down toward a rotting drawbridge that rests across the brackish moat. The gates on the other side of the drawbridge were long ago broken down. One door is hanging open. The other is splintered and holed, but still in position. About halfway up the westernmost wall north of the tower, the wall has been reduced to a pile of rubble. The southeastern corner of the moathouse is in similar condition.
The beggar bends over and snatches up a stick. He squats and draws a crescent shape in the dirt at the base of a tree. He then points at the sky, faintly visible through the canopy. The sun breaks through here and there. Dropping the stick, he cradles his arms as if holding a child, and then points back to the drawing and toward the ruined moathouse.
The beggar stops leading and points ahead. Down a gentle slope stands a ruined building. A scrub of thorns, thistles, weeds, and shrubs grow thickly along the edge of a faint track which leads to the ruins, and even the track is mostly overgrown and cluttered with fallen branches and trees. Here and there the trail is washed out. In other places, it is a mire.
The party looks down toward a rotting drawbridge that rests across the brackish moat. The gates on the other side of the drawbridge were long ago broken down. One door is hanging open. The other is splintered and holed, but still in position. About halfway up the westernmost wall north of the tower, the wall has been reduced to a pile of rubble. The southeastern corner of the moathouse is in similar condition.
The beggar bends over and snatches up a stick. He squats and draws a crescent shape in the dirt at the base of a tree. He then points at the sky, faintly visible through the canopy. The sun breaks through here and there. Dropping the stick, he cradles his arms as if holding a child, and then points back to the drawing and toward the ruined moathouse.
