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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wolfheart" data-source="post: 6267198" data-attributes="member: 15874">Upon reaching the bottom of the stair, the company find themselves in what appears to be an average root cellar. Hung about are various herbs, set to dry. Salted meats, sausages, and smoked fish are arranged on racks in careful rows. Bags of potatoes, carrots and leeks are neatly stacked against the cool stone walls. They start to think that Alton has lost all sense.Alton moves through the group, gathered in the entrance to the cellar. He moves to a rack containing hundreds of wine bottles and holds his hand out as if counting. He suddenly reaches out and grabs at one bottle, pulling it part way from the rack. A mechanical clank as of a large latch can be heard and the rack swings inward. Beyond is revealed a vault roughly fifteen feet wide and some forty feet long. The walls are lined with shelves containing all manner of chests, boxes and displays. It appears to be a treasure trove.As the company move toward this newly discovered room, Beric grabs some smoked fish, and Grimnir a sausage. Beric munches on the fish, while Grimnir stows the sausage. “What,” he says as some of the others look at him quizzically. “Who knows how long it will be until we can find provisions again.”Aton waves them on, into the vault. “There will be plenty of stock on the other end of the tunnel. Father had arranged for full provisions to be laid for you so you could start your mission as soon as possible.”Once everyone is in the vault, Alton activates another lever and the wine rack swings closed, sealing them in the long room. “I don’t mean to quibble, but I don’t see any tunnel,” Errol quips.“Have patience,” Alton replies. He moves through the vault to a section of wall about ten feet from the far end. It consists of a large display case, reaching from floor to ceiling, containing what are apparently many tokens of past adventurers. A long serpentine tail, a golden cup, a shadowbox containing mounted claws of various creatures all look to be hung in there with care. Alton slides his fingers under the edges of the frame of the case and a clicking sound preceded the case sliding back and into a notch in the wall. Beyond is revealed a tunnel of worked stone, running off at an angle into the darkness. Lucan is about to step over the threshold when Alton stops him with an extended arm. “You don’t want to go in there yet,” warns Alton. He then goes back across the vault room and opens a small box, removing a key. He comes back to the tunnel entrance and slips the key in a well hidden slot in a joint in the worked stone of the arch leading into the tunnel and turns it. Gears can be heard to be turning in the wall.“Now it is safe,” he says, walking across the threshold into the tunnel.“What was that all about,” asks Jeyne. “The key deactivates the pressure plate in the floor,” Alton replies. “Had we stepped on it while active, a ten by ten foot chunk of the ceiling would have dropped on us. That would have severely hurt our chances of escape.”Once through the doorway revealed by the disappearing trophy case, Alton motions that all should move down the tunnel a short distance. He then presses a stone in the wall, pushing hard. It moves into the wall a bit and then springs back. Gears can be heard to be turning again and the trophy case moves back into place.“We should make haste,” he says. “We have well over a mile to go until we reach the other end.”The company heads down the tunnel, moving in the glow of Merilwen’s staff. As the walk, many of the company note the grooves worn in the stone of the floor as of the passage of decades of wheeled traffic. Eventually the come to a larger chamber where some crates and boxes are stacked against the walls. They move on through an arch at the opposite end of the chamber and continue on for several hundred more feet.Eventually the come to a stone wall, what appears to be a dead end. Alton goes to the left side of the tunnel and pushes hard on the wall. What appeared to be a dead end swings out on a balanced hinge, revealing what appears to be a stable carved out of the rock. Several of the stalls contain horses and a couple ponies, which look to the swinging chunk of wall and the newcomers without distress. Alton leads them across the stable to the doors. The company can feel the bite of the midwinter night air as the doors are slid aside. They see that they are down by the river, at the mill owned by the Dunwall’s. The rushing of ice cold water can be heard foaming through the cataracts the power the mill. There is a modest cottage next to the mill and a light can be seen coming from curtained windows. As they walk out into the yard of the mill, they can see the flickering glow of what must be the burning estate over the hill in the distance. Alton and Jeyne stop at the sight and share a dark look. Hey all move to the cottage and Alton calls at the door. “Hobb, open up… All has gone wrong, we must get away with all due haste.”-----The door to the cottage swings open, and what looks to be a child stands silhouetted in the frame, backlit by the lamps and fire in the hearth. He motions for the company to come in, and looks around the yard before moving back into the cottage.Once all are inside the cramped quarters, the company can see that the child is actually a Halfling, a rare sight this far away from their holds in the lands between Mercia and the Sunne League far to the southwest. There are two other men in the cottage also, both having the look of simple laborers.“The packs your father ordered are in the back room,” the Halfling says, motioning to a doorway at the back of the cottage’s main room. He then makes a slight bow to the company and introduces himself. “Well met, I am Hobb Longshadow a steward of Baron Dunwall. I usually take care of special requests for the Baron, much like this one.”“Now Alton, what is this talk about everything going wrong, you are all here sooner than I expected but that is not cause for alarm.”“You do not understand, all is lost at the estate. The Queen has sent some vile necromancer who raised our dead ancestors and sent them against us. They have put the whole of the grounds to the torch. Father stayed to give some resistance in the hopes that we might get away…” Alton speech drifts off as the gravity of the last hours events begin to sink in.Hobb can be seen to become shaken, too. He reaches for a chair to steady himself. “This is grave news. We knew the queen was consolidating her rule, but would have never guessed she would openly move against our houses. Well then, it is truly prescient that we had planned for the flight of our new companions through the secret ways.”Mastering himself, Hobb begins to give orders to the laborers. He tells them to get a couple of ponies loaded with the packs. The laborers disappear into the back room and come back out loaded down with gear. They squeeze past the companions and out the door of the cottage, headed for the stables.Once the laborers are gone, Alton introduces the companions to Hobb. Hobb is especially glad to meet Jeyne, as she has Dunwall blood flowing through her veins. He also seems quite pleased to meet Merilwen, expressing great admiration for her grandfather and mother. He seems to be sizing up the others as though he knows of them and is trying to make his knowledge comport with the men present. Everyone in the company gets the impression that he may have had a hand in their selection for this enterprise.Then the discussion turns to the task at hand, namely the investigation into the amulet. Brother Weyland produces the item from his belt pouch and lays it on the table. Unease settles over the room as the object is exposed to their sight. “I had mentioned to the Baron that the Priory of Movan contains vaults that hold some manuscripts about The Enemy, we might learn something about this vile talisman by studying them,” offers Weyland.“Aye, that would seem to be the place to start,” agrees Grimnir.“That is two days travel to the north of here,” says Beric. “Surely the queen’s forces would catch up to us before we could get there.”“That assumes they are going to be looking for us,” Lucan says. “I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but the necromancer may not have known of the tunnel. If he had, he surely would have sent a contingent here to bottle us in. It will take some time for the flames to die down and for them to search the rubble. It could be a day or more before they figure out that anyone escaped the flames.”“Additionally, the necromancer may not know that your father had engaged us in any kind of mission, or about the amulet,” Jeyne adds. “We may have a small window to get away without them suspecting.”“I agree,” Merilwen says. “For this purge, for it is not just here that the queen has struck, was foreseen by my grandfather. Many of the families with the strongest ties to the old king will be similarly decimated. That is part of the reason I was sent, to forewarn the Baron and to insure that we escaped the flames.”This revelation brings the conversation to a halt, and the room becomes as silent and somber as a funeral.“You knew this was coming?” asks Errol, breaking the silence. “Why did you not warn us, or the Baron?”“I did warn the Baron, he was quite aware of the danger at his doorstep. But through lengthy counsel with my grandfather, this course was chosen. Our eventual victory could only be preserved by making the queen believe she has been successful, and by using agents to further the Baron’s designs. Great and terrible things have been set in motion, and we have our small part to play in making sure that the forces of good prevail.”“Well, you could have let the rest of us in on this before the necromancer appeared, this is not what I had signed on for,” Errol retorts. “This is exactly what you signed on for, Errol. You have longed to escape the dull existence of the college and your tomes, to find the missing pieces to the puzzle of what happened after the sealing. How could all the knowledge of those first centuries been lost. You knew that kind of secret was not going to be found in some comfortable parlor, spelled out for you by some courtly sage. Those kinds of secrets are found in dank ruins, protected by dangerous traps and vile curses, and you cannot wait to find them. This is exactly where you long to be.”  This strikes close to the truth, and Errol is cowed into silence.It is then that one of the laborers comes back through the door of the cottage, startling some of the company at his sudden appearance. He goes to the back room and comes back out with more supplies and heads back for the stable, closing the door behind him.The urgency of the laborers movements serves to focus the conversation back on their current plight.“So, we need to head for the Priory. Hoping that the Baron’s sacrifice has bought us time to get away,” says Lucan.“Yes, the Priory seems a fine place to start. But we are not all following that road,” replies Alton. “Hobb and I are going to meet our contacts in the Sunne League, to share the news of what has transpired here tonight and to make sure my father’s plans continue unabated.”“Hobb, you and I you mean,” says Jeyne. “Father said I should go with you, which is what he whispered to me back in the manor at our parting. He wishes for me to travel with you, he seems to think I will be of use working with our allies.”“If that was Father’s wish,” Alton replies coolly, stressing the word father. “Then I guess you are traveling with us.”“Yes, I can see the wisdom in this choice,” adds Hobb, hoping to break the tension. “She will undoubtedly be of use, as she has seen much of the west and will help us avoid some of the pitfalls of traveling abroad. I will tell the laborer’s we will be one more in our party.”With that, Hobb bounds out the door for the stables.“The rest of you, then, should make for the Priory. Provisions and traveling gear can be found outside in the stable. You will also be given a couple ponies to aid in carrying your supplies. To make things clear, as father did not get to finish, you are to find out what you can about this amulet. He thinks it is a key of sorts; remember ‘Turn the Key that buried the Scrolls’. You are to find out what that phrase means, and if you can procure the ‘scrolls’ mentioned by the mad cultist. We should not be back in country for some time, but we will have an agent in the frontier town of Fairhill. I do not know the agent’s identity, but they will know you. You are to report to the agent once your mission is complete, or alternately you can flee to that town should you find yourselves in danger. Whatever you do, do not let the amulet fall into the hands of these cultists. The consequences of that would be dire indeed.”So it was that six of the companion’s; Beric, Errol, Grimnir, Lucan, Weyland and Merilwen struck north for the Priory of Movan. Draped in heavy woolen cloaks and furs and with two ponies in tow, somewhat laden with trade goods. They looked to an untrained eye like a desperate merchant striking out into the winter on a small trade mission.The other members of the company; Alton, Jeyne and Hobb headed to the south along the road to Northbridge. Alton and Jeyne were stowed in a wagon, under a pile of furs. Hobb and one of the laborers rode on the board of the wagon and the other laborer rode on a pony behind them. As the figures left the mill, heading in opposite directions, a light snow began to fall and the wind began to pick up. Another fortunate coincidence, as soon the trails they left in the snow was erased leaving no clues for their eventual pursuers.-----The last night of the Yuletide in the year 1309 became known as The Burning Yule in Mercia. Several houses of prominent families burned in what the crown at the time described as ‘the immolation of their treacherous lines in the fires of their abyssal masters’. The lines of the Cromin’s, the Haight’s and the Lormund’s were ended that night in the flames of their estates. Other families were captured, some of them were killed, some imprisoned, and some sentenced to fates far worse.News was spread about those targeted throughout the cities and towns of the realm. The families were accused of being in league with The Enemy and they were in part responsible for the old king’s death the previous summer. Having such news come from the queen’s own heralds had a strong effect on the commoner’s at the time. All assumed the news was true, as they had no cause to doubt the word of the queen. This was a master stroke of propaganda on the queen’s part, and did much to shade the opinions of the populace for some time thereafter. Allowing her reign to take root and providing the needed shadow of a menace at play in their midst to justify the draconian measures her rule would take in the following years.-Lars Sigferend</blockquote>

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