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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3572488" data-attributes="member: 11760">Bufer tumbles out of his rented bed at the Shady Dragon Inn, landing on the floor with a thud. Still half-dreaming, he looks around, wild-eyed, for Pick and Khenemet-Apep and the magical mirror they had come through for him. The thump-thump-thump sound of his dream turns out to be real, though: Someone's at the door.Muttering to himself about kobolds and Fibber's Cairn, Bufer opens the door. On the other side of the doorway, Emus and Hazel stare at him blankly."Uh, good morning to you, too," Emus says with a frown. "Tucker sent us to come get you. It's just about time for us to head to the castle.""Oh," Bufer says, reaching up to rub his eyes in an attempt to dislodge the cobwebs. He suddenly feels guilty for what little sleep he managed to get. Judging from the looks of his friends, they weren't afforded the same luxury. "OK, let's go.""Throw on a robe on first, maybe?" Hazel suggests. "I dunno how your folk do things, but we tend to frown on witnesses testifying in their underwear.""Underwear?" Emus asks with a cocked eyebrow. "What's that?""Ah, right," Bufer mutters, glancing over his shoulder and trying to locate robe and boots. "Just give me a second."Hazel grimaces as she watches Bufer wander away from the door and begin to pull his sackcloth robe over his head."I wonder if they'll lemme open with a joke?" Bufer throws back his hood, then settles his holy symbol around his neck. "All right, then. Let's take this show on the road!"The constable meets everyone outside the Shady Dragon Inn. He's gotten a change of clothes from somewhere, and his face has been washed. But he still has a drawn look that seems to be a combination of stress and lack of sleep. He looks over the group with a critical eye."Is this everyone? We're wanted at Midwood Hall."He leads them through the streets of Middleborough, which is bustling at this time of day. The chimes of the glockenspiel at the church echo across the cobblestones as the clockwork figures act out scenes from life in the barony.Bridger's back is straight, his muscles taut as though he is preparing for combat. As the group enters the Hartwood and leaves the town behind, he stops on the road, out of earshot of the guards at the curtain wall surrounding Midwood Hall."Resist the temptation to speak out of turn. The baron is a good man for what he is, but he is noble-born, and those speaking out of place in the presence of Imperial officials or nobility are beyond what most of that sort will tolerate. Speak plainly in response to his questions."His eyes move to each adventurer's in turn."The sheriff will argue for prosecution to the letter of the law. He's a hard one, and a bad one to cross." Ward's guarded expression suggests that he has felt the lash of the sheriff's tongue in the past. "The baron has supplies of mercy in him and, I suspect, may have been lenient on Katadid if he had appeared before him."He begins walking up the road toward the main gate."Khenemet-Apep has been brought ahead of us, in chains, by cart, but he is being held in private and will not be questioned until we are present and the bishop has brought Lothian's light to the proceedings."He's silent a moment."There are things going on here that are beyond the understanding of folks like us, so do not be surprised if things do not go the way we expect." He glances back at Tucker. "That goes for all of us."Bufer sighs as he follows the constable, and looks up at Hazel beside him."Sounds like things are going to go exactly how I expected 'em," he mutters. Hazel looks down at her cloak, frowning, and attempts to casually brush road dust and mud spatter from the fabric as she walks."Do you even know how to resist the temptation to speak?" she whispers back at him with a grin. "Because I'm pretty sure I've never seen you do it."The guards nod at the constable as he leads the group through the curtain wall. For the first time, everyone can see the ivy-covered halls of Midwood Hall from here.Unlike the hyper-militant dwarf fortress of Glangirn or the baroque, even whimsical gnome hall of Wit's End, the human castle of Midwood Hall splits the difference between practicality and beauty, achieving neither in the eyes of the non-humans in the group. Early barons created a small but serious little fortress in the first days of the barony, when Gax still lived in her mountain and kobolds and goblins regularly assaulted Middleborough and laid siege to the Hartwood.But over time, as the barons' power grew, and the threat receded from the Tulgey Wood, the need for vigilance here at Midwood Hall receded as well, and Midwood Farm was built inside its walls and then luxuries like a brewery and beehives and a dovecote were constructed. Newest of these buildings is a wooden house with a domed roof, from which the end of a telescope extends.Likewise, in the hall itself, potted plants grow in some arrow slits, while windchimes tinkle in others. One story for the most part, with only a central keep portion rising to a second story, the hall has started to take on the appearance of the palaces in the safer lands like Ren Tehoth or Palastan.A pair of topiary lions guard the great wooden doors of the hall, and Skeeter whines and presses himself against his master as they pass between them."Let the dog come with us," Constable Bridger says to one of the two guards inside the doors, as they open their mouth to object. They shrug and one points to an open door on one side of the room. The group pads its way across a threadbare rug, observed by portraits of previous barons.A guard closes the door behind them as the group waits inside a room that apparently exists for just such a purpose: Wooden benches line the walls, and the stone floor here is shiny and smooth, worn smooth by hundreds of years of petitioners pacing here, waiting on the baron's justice. Tapestries on the wall depict life in the Tulgey Wood.Emus sits on a bench and scratches Skeeter behind the ear as he waits for things to happen.Hazel studies the tapestries, smiling at the familiar scenes and peering more closely at the less familiar. Feast days in Maidensbridge, sheep shearing on the Foxton green, marriages on the Day of Joining: all equal on the baron's walls. She spies woodcutters at work in a lower corner of a larger woodsy scene, and marvels at the weavers' skill in capturing the play of light on leaf and axe. The threads fall short of the real beauty of the forest, of course, but they also leave out the summer heat, the sweat trickling down the neck, the insects eager to nip at exposed skin.Hazel lightly scratches her neck, remaining politely silent, but wishing the baron held his audiences out under the lovely old trees dotting the grounds.</blockquote>

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