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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CanadienneBacon" data-source="post: 3406827" data-attributes="member: 11146">At Gamad's suggestion, the companions quit the Sniffing Pig and begin their trek north through the city.  Brakkus, atop Chop Liver, leads the way toward Citadel Teglund's nearly 50-foot-high old stone curtain wall. A relic of the city that harkens back to ancient times and has long stood abandoned and unused, the Citadel's upper bailey can be seen from nearly any location inside Teggest's outer city walls. The party first treks north through the Guild District, an area of the city notoriously well-guarded by the River Lord's Guard, even at night. As is by now well known to the party members, days in the southern reaches of the Guild District closer to the Rivermark are a jumble of wagons, crates, and all manner of folk busy with commerce.  Walking along Overtegyrn Byway north, to the west of the Citadel's curtain wall, the companions attract little attention even with Maelicent swelling their ranks.  The Guild District houses all manner of Teggest's guild houses, both grand and insubstantial. Located twixt the Plaza of Gold where the city's wealthiest members parade in a perpetual day and night showcase of their finery, and the Old Wall of Citadel Teglund, the Guild District is nearly the heart of the city, full of bustle at all hours.From Nickleby Bar at the southernmost section of the city's outer protective wall, Overtegyrn Byway leads directly to and past both the Guild District and the western border of the Plaza of Gold. An open space diamond in shape, the Plaza is bordered on all four sides by grass (a rarity in cramped Teggest), small fruit-bearing trees, benches, and minute suites of table and chairs. The square itself is inlaid with red brick paving stone imported from Daroln. A font in the center of the Plaza sprays water from a statue of Michel Edain, the founder of ancient Edaesmyd. The stomping ground of Teggest's nobility and of those associated with the finer pursuits of life (music, art, epicurean delights, theatre, shopping, and the like), the Plaza of Gold is the place in Teggest to see and to be seen.The ancient throne of Michel Edaesmyd now long since abandoned, Citadel Teglund is a massive stone castle, only its upper bailey visible from the streets of Teggest. While the lower bailey is below eyesight, at least to the layperson, rumor has it that a forest has overgrown the grounds twixt the castle's curtain wall and the old palisade surrounding the lower bailey. The Citadel rests upon a natural motte and has resisted sinking into the earth due to the striated rock beneath the structure's foundation; the rock of the motte is visible from the castle's front gatekeep and barbicans on the east side of the city. The curtain wall itself is a masterpiece of fortified defense. Easily as tall as the nearby rafters of the Temple of Stone, the citadel's outer wall is made of granite blocks, each the size of a small wagon. A series of watch towers connects each segment of the outer bailey wall, with room atop for armed soldiers to defend the keep not only through arrow slits, but also an overhanging merlon which itself is latticed with murder holes and machiolations. Additional curtain wall defenses include a series of brattices and hoardings, all meant to keep invading armies from sapping the wall or otherwise undermine the wall's integrity.Odd that the folk of the city so little discuss that which looms so large through nearly every window of every residence and shop. The few who now speak of the citadel do so under their breath and mutter of haunted things that waft and wander at night through not only the empty halls of the keep, but also the forest beyond.  The Old City Forest, as Maelicent has heard rumor, is home to any number of interesting creatures, natural and unnatural.The party walks all the way around the western and northern perimeter of the curtain wall.  The walk is a long one and the sun mounts high in the sky ere the group reaches the old keep's main gate on the curtain wall's far eastern side.  Rings of thick chain lay in a jumbled tumult of a heap to the side of the the keep's broken iron portcullis.  A large crowd has gathered in front of the gate, and a series of pikemen garbed in the official yellow, blue, and white of the Admiralty ring the broken gate in ranks two deep.  A wagon painted black with a team of two draft horses is parked to the side of the gate, opposite the mounds of chain.  Despite the heat of the day and the angry cries of the thick crowd of onlookers, four black-cassocked priests steadily work to load bodies onto the back of the wagon.  From the look of things, there are three bodies already on the wagon, and eleven more lying littering the street.  The pikemen face the broken gate and watch nervously over their shoulder, as if worried that the crowd behind them will grow unruly.  The guards seem more interested in keeping something inside the keep than in preventing anyone from entering.  The bodies being loaded onto the black wagon have all been mutilated and, from their dress, are city folk.  Merchants lie dead next to fishwives, with the occasional child tossed as a lifeless rag into the mix.  Of the fourteen dead, but two are guardsmen, and both of them are missing heads.Time:  11 am.</blockquote>

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