As we search the room more thoroughly, we find small scraps of cloth, some bloody, some not, and decide to burn them lest they are feters for some spirit trapped here.  Moving on to the next room, we overcome a trap on the door but still have trouble opening it.  We see that a pile of bones is blocking the movement, and as we continue to push through, the bones form into a skeleton.

            Ulric charges, and I tumble in, both of us striking the pile of bones.  He attempts to hit us back but misses.  Briggette charges in and slams into it, and it crumbles to the ground.  When it falls, letters flash across the walls in a modified ancient Cuthbertine script, “Cowards die a thousand times!”  As the letters fade, the skeleton reforms and begins to fight anew.  He strikes in our direction, but Briggette raises her symbol and cries, “Be at peace!”  Light fills the room, and the skeleton crumbles to dust.

            I search the room and find several nicely folded sets of men’s clothes, but as with the scraps before, we burn the garments.  Briggette hears a small voice in her left hear, “But I deserved it.  In the end, I was a coward.”

            She replies, “It’s been 300 years.  You’ve done your time.”

            We move to the next rom down the hallway, ad find a simple bedroom with nothing of value inside.  As we approach the following room, we hear crying coming from inside.  When we fling open the door, we see a young woman leaning down in front of a small child.  The child is hysterical, and the woman is telling him, “It’ll be okay.  Calm down.  We’ll go upstairs and the knights will protect us.”  She picks up the little boy and walks out the door, right through us.  As the spirit passes through, we are left feeling cold and shaken.  The room itself is quite chilly, but we soon light a fire in the fireplace and burn every scrap of fabric in the room, including the mattress.  When we lift it, it occurs to us that this level of comfort is long since gone for a servant class—which is what these quarters appear to have been for.

Underneath the woolen mattress, lying on the slats, I find a leather-bound book.  I open it and find that it is a journal.  The third to the last entry says, “We are surrounded.  I cannot see the end of them.  I’m afraid what will happen.  The Mistress will not listen to the castellan.”  Here there is a large dot where the ink sat as the writer thought of what to add.  It continues, “I’m afraid that we will die.  I will try to be brave.”  The next reads, “My Lady was wounded on the battlements today.  The gnome died well, but we are surely lost.  They have breached the gate.  The billet assures me that the hordes will hold, but he did not see what I saw.”  The final entry is quite short, “May the gods protect us.  May we meet our end with honor.  They have breached the . . . .”  The entry stops short.

At the next door, when I bend to pick the lock, I see an eye looking back at me.  I unlock it and Ulric throws the door open.  A well-dressed man is standing there, and looks surprised, “You must be the reinforcements!”

Ulric replies, “I’m afraid we’ve come too late.”

“How can you be too late?  We’re still here,” he replies.  Ulric asks the man if he is a knight and he says he is a sergeant.  He talks with Ulric for some time, and tells of what he remembers, which most recently was drawing his sword to face an undead enemy.  Ulric explains that these events were 300 years ago.  He seems taken aback, and assures us he could not have lived for 300 years.  Still unbelieving after we reiterate our story, the man finally takes Ulric’s hand when he offers it, only to find that his hand passes through.

He offers his services to us, but Ulric tells him, “I think your watch has ended.”  After a bit more conversation, he finally accepts his fate and seems to dissipate.  We take the bits of his armor that remain and place them in the bag of holding for proper burial later.  Once again, all the possessions in the room are thrown into the fireplace and lit.

We continue to the next room, where we see what appears to be a woman pinned to the wall with a spear driven into the stone.  Fresh blood drips down the wall behind her.  Briggette attempts to pull the spear from her, and her hands go right through the handle, but her gauntlets come away caked in blood.  Again, we burn anything we find, and as the flames catch, the image flickers and fades away.

At the next room, as I am unlocking the door, Ulric hears in his right ear, “Sergeant, make sure everybody has a mace and a sword.  Bone—mace, flesh—sword.  Kill everything!”  He looks around, then opens the door.  The room appears to have been a bedroom, but has places for weapons and racks for projectiles, as well as an armor dummy.  This room feels less oppressive than the other rooms around us.  I check out the wardrobe and when I open it, we all hear a jovial laughter.  Inside, there are some nice clothes and a very well-made box.  It is locked, but when I get it open, I find a nice felt lining that looks like it contained an amulet.  We decide that there is no reason to burn this room’s contents.

As we come to the end of the hallway, we see a step which allows you to step up to the arrow slit there.  It is above the front entry of the castle.  We move to the next room and see it is obviously the bedroom of a lady in waiting.  As we move in, we see a woman materialize and move around the room packing belongings away and muttering under her breath, “My family doesn’t retreat.  My family stays and fights.  That gnome was going to take us away from here on his dragon, but no!”  She takes a deep breath and composes herself, “I should put on my best jewelry, I suppose.”  She starts to put it on, stops and shakes her head, “Why did I have to accept service with a Zurwald?  They’re so damn stubborn.  She walks out abruptly and heads up the stairs.  Everyone except Briggette moves out of her way as if she’s real.  As we begin to burn the room, we knock over a table and some jewelry spills out across the floor.  There is some debate about whether or not to burn the jewelry, as Briggette advocates for saving it to melt down and sell and donate the proceeds to the orphans.  Finally, we agree to let Silas put the jewels in a special pocket where, if they are a feter, they cannot contact their spirit.

The next room appears to have been a billet’s room, with a large wooden symbol of St. Cuthbert mounted on the wall.  A book sits on a stand, and is handwritten in Cuthbertine.  It appears to be a history of this castle, with the last entry reading, “The Vera’shan have sent an army of necromancers against us.  ‘My Lady’ says, ‘Zurwalds do not give away their husband’s castles.’  She will not listen to the Castilian; she will not listen to me; she will not listen to the gnome.  I thought Mirthwine could convince her.  However, the grey elf is no help.  Damn wizards!  I have discussed it with the paladin.  If this is a servant of the king or a follower of the Saint reading this, know that my Lord’s greatest treasure is in the chapel.  If this is one of those foul necromancers, I hope you burn in the Abyss, and I will do my best to send you there.”

The next door opens to a stairwell leading up to the next level.  As I open the door, I see torrents of blood flooding down the stairwell.  “Does anyone else see that?” I ask.  They do not, so I begin to trudge up the stairs through the deluge.  I see a large black mass come up from the floor in front of me, and dodge as it reaches for me.  However, at the same moment, I feel something reach into me from behind and grasp my heart.  Two more smaller black shapes descend on me from the ceiling.  I jump into the shadows behind Ulric, who steps forward and slices with his Ghost Touch sword.  Briggette again channels Cuthbert’s power and screams, “Go to Hell, you wispy bastards!”  Light fires forth from the symbol and two of them are briefly set ablaze before flashing out of existence.  Finn reaches over those in front of him and manages to make contact, but then one of the wraiths drives through the floor while the other passes through the wall to fight with us in the hallway. 

A moment later, the first rises halfway from the floor to attack Ulric, but Korvinean manages to land two good shots in it, and it goes down.  Brianna wails on the other, and a halo of light appears behind her head, emanating light all around us for nearly twenty feet.  Her hand drives into its chest, and we can see a light inside it before it is destroyed.

We continue up the stairs, and as Ulric opens the door at the top, the walls appear to melt away, and we find ourselves on the battlements of the castle.  Ulric looks down the wall and realizes there are not nearly enough to hold the castle against the sea of 15,000 undead coming toward us.  There is a dragon that shimmers in the sky, as if he is covered in sapphires, scintillating and breathtakingly beautiful.  As we look, we realize that he is in aerial combat with a dragon that looks like Old Fang.  Every time they come near the walls, a volley of arrows and ballista bolts fires at the grey dragon.  On one pass, I am able to see a gnome riding the sapphire beast.  The dragon turns and rips into the grey dragon’s wing, and the two tumble to the ground and roll around for a moment amidst the undead army.  Zombies and skeletons crowd onto the creatures, and several knights ride out from the castle to bury their lances in the grey. 

About that time, the tower next to us falls, and a large black wormlike creature rises from the ground.  The last few rays of the sun seem to burn it, but still it comes to attack the blue dragon.  A shrill keening is heard as the blue arcs his head around, exploding as his breath weapon touches them.  The black worm creature attacks the blue dragon with a stinger on its rear, and the blow goes all the way through the dragon.  The gnome jumps off of the dragon, and in some acrobatic leaps, attacks several of the undead.  Every one he touches seems to die as if it were a living foe.

Another knight rides out from the walls, wearing a bright white cloak with a rainbow on it.  He slices into the black worm in a blazing arc, and a bright burst of light follows the strike.  The worm manages to sting the paladin’s horse just as the gnome jumps on with him.  They wheel around and charge toward the gates as a lightning bolt issues from behind our heads.  We turn to see a wizard in robes made of cloth of silver standing there.  Below, we hear the gates slam shut, and there is a clanking from inside the courtyard.  The paladin’s horse falls, and he kneels next to it to pray.  As we turn back toward the undead horde, we see a twenty-foot tall shadow creature making its way through the army.

Suddenly, the walls reappear around us, and we realize the floor is covered in detritus all around us.  There are strips of cloth and small pieces of chainmail.  As we begin to walk through the room, we hear children crying out for their mothers or to their mothers, asking why they are doing this to them.

As Ulric approaches the door on the other side of the room, a man appears and says in a cheerful voice, “Greetings, good sir!  Are you here to purchase our wares?  We haven’t had anyone come through this entrance in many years.”

“What are you selling?” Ulric asks.

“Oh,” he says with distaste, “you must be a servant.”  He begins to look around, then spots me, “Your servant doesn’t know why he’s here.”

I start to say something, but Ulric interrupts, “What are you selling?”

“Why, liquid Agony, of course,” he replies simply.  Ulric wastes no time and slams his sword into its head, revealing its true nature, a skeleton with one red and one black eye.  The red eye shoots forth a tiny ball of fire and Ulric jumps in front of it to take the brunt of the hit.  I fire at it, as does Korvinean.  Both of us manage to make contact, and he staggers a bit, but remains on his feet.  Brianna runs across the room and slams her fist into his skull, bringing a piece with her when she pulls away.  It crumbles to the ground, and she picks up two gems that were the animus behind its eyes.  One is a ruby, one a black sapphire.  Silas assures us that they are not holding trapped souls, so we add them to our party treasure.

I disable the magical trap guarding the door behind them, and set to work picking the lock.  I realize this is a new lock, and it is extremely well made.  Ulric throws the door open, and we see that the room is hung with blood red tapestries, and the floor contains a giant pentagram in the floor poured in sliver.  This room, unlike the rest of the castle, is not dusty and disused. 

“Silas, is this a teleportation circle or a summoning circle?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies.  “It looks like a link to the Abyss.  I’m sure I could activate it if you’d like.”

“No, I want to destroy it.”

“That will be significantly more difficult,” he says.

“Well,” I reply, “I didn’t ask you if it was easy.”  A bit of smack talk ensues, and Ulric and Finn begin to work on chiseling out the circle to destroy the symbol. 

After a few moments, we hear a voice say, “We’ll have no more of that,” and a creature steps out of the wall.  It is a large, green scaly thing with pincers instead of hands.  He is a glabrezu, a demon we’ve seen once or twice before.  Briggette charges and drives Helga into him with force.  Finn and I each surround him from other sides and land solid blows, followed by Boian tumbling into the group to attack as well.  Silas sends Magic Missiles into the beast.  Suddenly, those of us right around him seem to fall, except that we fall up into the ceiling.  I manage to tumble out of it, but my friends don’t fare quite so well; however, we are all on the ceiling, standing as if we were on the floor.  Finn slams into it with his gruisarme, and the creature falls—as do we.  Again, I tumble out of it, but my friends are slammed into the floor.  We chop off its head, and a few minutes later, it simply dissipates from existence.

Finn goes back to chiseling at the circle and finally breaks through it.  We move to the other door in the room, and I realize it carries a trap designed to simply kill good people.  When I disable it and begin to look for a lock, I instead find a needle protruding from the wall.  I take off my glove and push my hand onto the spike, and my demon blood reacts to unlock the door.  It swings open, and we hear a voice very pleasantly say, “Welcome!”

Around the room, we see several different torture devices with children being abused.  Some women appear to be overseeing the operation, and Ulric charges the closest one.  I charge into her and eviscerate her while Korvinean fires at a man walking on the opposite side of the room.  Finn charges in and slices through two of the women with a single swing of his gruisarme.  Ulric turns and charges the man, sending him to meet his maker as well.

Ulric runs to the nearest machine to free the child there, but finds instead that there is no child, but only a spirit.  The souls of these kids have been being tortured here for over 300 years!  We all begin to smash the machines, which we notice are extracting a red liquid from the children.  Several of us notice a gem in the ceiling pulsing with an eerie light.  Silas closes his eye and chants, and his staff emits a beam of light that shatters the gem. 

We hear the creaking of a door opening above us and see a man begin to descend the stairs at the back of the room.  I immediately fire at him, and land two good shots, but hear hm yell, “Wait!”

Everyone holds for a moment, and he says, “Why have you come?”

“Why are you here?” Briggette replies.

“This is my place of residence.”

“Aren’t there other planes you’re more suited to?”

“I have lived here for a very long time, though I’m not sure ‘lived’ is correct,” he pauses for a moment, then continues, “I see no reason for violence.”

“Oh, then you’ll leave peacefully?”

“But this is my home.”

“We are purging this castle.”

“I am sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

“I doubt it,” Briggette manages not to laugh.
“You work for that fellow upstairs?”

“Probably,” Briggette replies.

He begins to tell us a tale, “For 270 years, I’ve been trying to get through that door.  Do you know how long 270 years is?” He pauses, then goes on, “What is your purpose here?  You did not come to purge this place.  Why have you come here?”

“It’s not your concern.  That is why I’m here now, and that’s all you need to know.”

“So my choice is to fight you who have bested all comers or leave in peace” he observes.

“So it would seem.”

“I know when I’ve been bested,” he pauses.  “Well then, Cuthbertine.”  He looks toward Ulric, “I don’t know your crest, Sonny.  Is there some name I should remember?”

“I am Count Ulric von Zurwald Heltragen, and I bring the King’s Justice,” he says and charges up the stairs.  Korvinean slams into him with some arrows before he gets there.  Ulric arrives moments later as the man claps his hands together and becomes a black mist, but manages to hit something as it begins to head up to the ceiling.  We hear the door slam at the top of the stairs.

Ulric reaches the door and realizes it opens toward him.  I get to the door, find and disable the trap, unlock it, and step back to let Ulric open it.  When we open it, we find a wall of bright swirling colors behind it.  Silas screams from below, “Don’t touch it!”

About that time, Briggette feels a tug at her surcoat, and turns down to see a small girl there.  “Are you here to save us?”

“I’m going to try,” she replies.

“Daddy said reinforcements would come.”

“We did,” Briggette answers her.

“Is daddy here?”

“I don’t think so, sweetheart,” the sadness in Briggette’s voice hits us all.

The girl pauses a moment, tilts her head, and asks, “Are you a girl?”

“I am.”

“You serve the Mistress’s god?”

“I do.”

“Will he take us?”

“He will,” Briggette answers.  The girl nods knowingly, then dissipates.

Silas explains that the wall will not go away for at least two hours and possibly several more, and suggests we get the horses safely inside before nightfall.  Shortly aftert we’ve gotten the horses squared away and the room to wait, we see a black mist start to coalesce in the center of the room.  It has the shape of a man but remains black and featureless.  The shape says, “Who is Lord here?”

Ulric answers, “That would be me.”

“What is your house?”

“Heltragen.”

The shape shakes its head, and Briggette says, “Zurwald Heltragen.”

“The blood of the Zurwalds runs through you?” the form asks.

“Yes, my father is Count Zurwald.”

“Very good, then.  Look for your seal.”  He pauses.  “May I place my hands on you, my Lord?”

“Who are you?” Ulric asks him.

“The fallen.”  Ulric removes his helm and leans toward the man.  Once the shadowy hand makes contact with his head, he is flooded with a burst of memories, from various points of view, which details the entire siege to the last stand in front of the chapel doors with the children wailing behind.  About a minute after the initial contact is made, Ulric stands and staggers back a bit.

“Someone should remember,” the form says.

“I will not forget,” Ulric replies.  “Kneel.”  The form does so, and Ulric lays his sword on his shoulder.  “You died honorably.  Find rest.”

The form stands and motions out toward the room.  Several shadows of children and ghosts gather around him.  “Thank you,” he says.

“Don’t thank me,” Ulric replies simply, “thank Cuthbert.”

“Perhaps we will have earned a place with him,” he says. 

“If I have anything to say about it,” Ulric replies.  Briggette begins to pray, and moments later, Silas pulls out a scroll and begins to chant from it.  The words disappear from the scroll and a line of light appears on the wall.  It opens up and we see a beautiful city with rows of apple trees and streets paved with gold.  A creature that looks like a large human with white feathered wings walks by, cocks his head at us and steps through.

He looks down at us from his ten-foot height, and Briggette says, “We have souls for Cuthbert.”

“Knight Paladin,” he says.  He looks incredibly sad as he looks around at our surroundings.  “This is a terrible place.”

“There is a terrible man upstairs who is responsible for all of this,” Ulric tells him.

“Oh, really?” he asks in an annoyed voice.  He takes Briggette’s hand and holds it for a moment, and she tells us later that it felt as if he were accessing her memories.

“But our main concern is the deliverance of these souls,” Briggette says quietly.

The angel looks at the souls, and says, “Please, go through.  I will be with you in a moment.”  As they pass through, the ghost of the little girl who just spoke with Briggette stops and hugs her leg.

“I don’t know what to call you,” Ulric says to the angel.

“Right now, you can call me vengeance,” he replies and becomes a pillar of flame which disappears into the ceiling as Ulric is trying to continue to talk.  We hear and explosion above us, and then see the angel melt through the floor and reforms next to us.

“As the only representative of the law of man here, you should know these people died in service to their king.  You may inspect me and know this to be true.”  The angel tells us that there is a vault in the room above which contains 564 phials of this Agony which must be destroyed.  He also tells us that the “man” we saw is a lich and will reform somewhere.

He turns to me and his eyes turn to flame.  When he looks at me, he pauses and smiles, “Not many choose to go the other way.”  He turns to Briggette and looks at her as well with his flaming eyes, “I have no doubt that your courage will not falter, but the walking night still walks.  When you see him, do not hesitate.  Hit him hard and hit him fast or he will destroy everything.”

“Who is the walking night?” Briggette asks.

“You will know him when you see him,” he replies.  He takes a deep breath and exhales around the room, leaving a mist which completely heals all of us.  “May the Lawgiver bless you and keep you and protect you in your upcoming trials.”

“May I ask you one more question?” Ulric asks.

“Of course.”

“Are we searching for the king in vain?  He’s not sitting in the Basilica of Law where we can’t find him?”

“The king is not dead,” he replies.  “The king was taken against his will, and he is held.  He is not dead.”  He steps up the stairs and places his hand in the wall of light, and it fades away.  He returns to the gate, and stops to ask, “Is there anything else you might need?”  Ulric asks about the capital, and he tells us that “those such as these” have taken the capital, but that the keep itself has not fallen.  “Delrith’s magic is quite strong.” 

Briggette asks where her brother is, and he says, “Your brother is in the Secret College.  I cannot see within the walls.”  She asks where it is, and he replies that we are going there.

I ask about the troubles I face with my family, and he tells me that I am storing up merits for the afterlife.  The only ways to guard against them bothering me is to remove the demonic element from my body or to join him through the gate now.  I agree to remain as I am, and he turns to Silas.

“Wizard, give me a vial.”  Silas reaches in a pocket and begrudgingly hands one over.  A single golden tear falls from the angel’s eye, and he captures it in the vial.  He hands it to Briggette, “When you don’t know which way is up, this will help you find it.”

He turns to Korvinean and says, “You need to improve.”  Korvinean stammers a moment, but then just nods.  He looks around at us, “I should be going.  I have purged this building; you will not be attacked here.”  He looks at Ulric, “Find the king, purge the Spine, destroy the empire, save your people.”  Ulric nods.  He smiles a big glorious smile, and we all feel comforted and at peace.  “Little things for the Chosen of Cuthbert.”  He waves his hand in the air in front of all of us, and says, “Good luck to you.  Step mightily on her head.”  He takes a step backward through the gate and closes it.

We go up the stairs and begin to explore the area.  It is burned from the earlier explosion, but we are in what was apparently a well-appointed bedroom.  There is a vault door on one side.  It has a combination lock, and I manage after some time to get it open.  The phials of red liquid are there as promised, and we all begin to smash the containers. 

We move on to the next door, and find it both untrapped and unlocked.  It opens onto a hallway filled with runes.  We recognize them as runes of warding.  We step in, but nothing happens to us.  We find two doors a few feet down the hallway, and as I’m about to check them for traps, Ulric simply walks through.  “Who’s gonna trap these doors?”  I shrug and follow him in. 

This is the chapel of St. Cuthbert.  Ahead is a gold starburst of Cuthbert, and off to the left is a skeletal horse with full plate barding.  The altar at the front of the room has a scroll sitting on it.  There is a small pedestal to the side with something covered by a black cloth.  On the altar itself, there is another starburst of Cuthbert, with a piece of glass in the center which contains a finger bone.  Off to the right side is a sarcophagus.

I inspect the sarcophagus, and along one edge, I find a tiny inscribed symbol of a rainbow, the seal of Delrith, a symbol of Zurwald, and finally a symbol of Montjoy.  As the only person who is representative of any of those symbols, Ulric claims right of inspection and begins to open the sarcophagus.  Uttering an apology to Cuthbert, he and Finn begin to push on the lid. 

Inside, we find a little girl holding a baby.  The little girl has long blonde hair, and, when Ulric looks by lifting an eyelid, she has green eyes.  “Take your gauntlet off,” Silas says to Ulric.

“Are you going to cut me?”

“Of course,” Silas replies.

“No,” Ulric says as he removes the glove, “I’ll cut myself.  You’re a butcher.”  He chuckles, and slices his hand.  Silas rubs the blood into the strangely carved symbol of Zurwald, and the two children wake up.

The girl looks up at Ulric, “My lord?”

“What is your name?” Ulric asks her.

“Sarina.”

“And your family name?”

“Montjoy.”

“Has the keep been relieved?” she asks.

“No,” Ulric answers simply.

“You don’t look like the enemy.”

Briggette answers, “We’re not.  He’s a Zurwald.”

“Uncle?” she asks.

Both Briggette and Ulric answer in unison, “Nephew.”

She looks confused.  Ulric looks at her again, “Sarina Montjoy.  What was your mother’s name?”

“Sarina Zurwald.”

“My mother’s name was Sarina, too,” Ulric tells her.  “Are you from here?”

“Yes,” she replies, “Is my father coming?”

Ulric looks sad, “I have to tell you something.”  He kneels and puts his helmet and shield down on the floor.  “It has been 300 years since you were put to sleep there.”  She smiles as if he’s fooling her.  “I don’t know who put you in there—“

“The Castilian put us there so we would be safe,” she says.

Briggette reassures her, “And you were.”

“But it has been 300 years,” Ulric repeats.

The girl falls into a sitting position, but holds tight to her baby brother.  Ulric goes on to explain what has happened in short practical terms.  He continues, “I don’t know what else to do.  I um,” he pauses, “you are the last of the Montjoys.  He’s the heir to . . . .”  Ulric is processing.

Sarina leans into her baby brother’s face, “Look, Guillermo, a little early.”

“I won’t take you from this room.  Did you know what was coming?”

“My mother made me look upon the walls.”

“I have no idea what to do.  You are my blood, but this is a matter for the Duke—and I am a count—but this is for the Duke.”  They discuss what she might expect next, and she stands up.

She looks like she’s struggling with what to say, “Are you sure I should not be walking the halls of the keep?”  We assure her that she is not dead, and Ulric explains how terrible are the things that happened here.

Briggette urges her not to explore the gruesome remains, and the girl really looks at her for the first time, “You are a Paladin of the Saint?”

“Yes, and the Countess.”

“She is my wife,” Ulric interjects.

“I will defer to your wisdom,” she nods toward Briggette, then turns back to Ulric, “She is your wife?”

“Yes.”

“She reminds me of Mother.”

Ulric looks over at the sarcophagus.  “Who is laid to rest here?”

“My grandfather,” Sarina replies.

When we inspect it, we find several bars of silver and a very nice ancestral sword.  These were obviously placed here to compensate whomever should find the children in exchange for caring for her.  Brianna sits down with her and begins to talk as we check into the rest of the room.

Under the black cloth, we find a small light flanged mace, a small slashing shortsword, and a cap.  We immediately attribute them to Mirthwine.  Ulric reaches out to pick up the sword, and we hear, “Who are you?”

“I am Ulric von Zurwald Heltragen.  Who are you?”

“You’re big,” the sword says.  Ulric hands it to Briggette.  “You’re not a gnome.  I belong to a gnome.”

“I’m a gnome,” I say.

“Was that a demon talking?”

“No,” Briggette replies, “she has demon blood, but she serves Cuthbert.”

“Hmm.  If you’re a gnome, tell a joke,” the sword says.  Briggette passes it to me, and I begin to tell a short gnomish joke my mother used to tell when I was young.  In my native tongue, this short joke lasts over fifteen minutes, but in the end, the sword laughs.

Silas asks for the sword, and I pass it to him.  “Who was your master?”  There is a pause and Silas says, “You can speak aloud.”  There is another pause, then, “That explains things.”  He hands the sword back to me, and I attempt to speak to it in my head.

We go on to have a short mental conversation, before he begins to speak aloud again, wondering if it would injure his reputation to be seen with me.  He tells me his name is Decesecampion, which is Elvish for Death’s Champion.  He says the mace is his friend, but he doesn’t talk much.  His name is Porfenntartva which translates to Return to Dust.  I spend some more time getting to know the sword a bit.  He apparently has met Finn’s gruisarme before, and he says that her voice is beautiful when she sings in battle.

After a while, we cross the hall and open the other door which leads to a chapel of Heimdahl.  It doesn’t feel holy, but it doesn’t feel corrupted like the other rooms in the castle.  There is nothing of value in here, and we decide to make camp for the night in the Chapel of St. Cuthbert.  Sarina regales us with stories of her life and times, and we let her speak as much as she wants; it appears to make her feel better.

The next morning, Silas and Ulric walk down to the front entry and burn a symbol of Cuthbert into the stone as Silas chants.  They, Briggette, the children, and I teleport to Brasov, right into the square.  The temperature is much warmer here, and Ulric stops a guard to ask him to send a wetnurse to the castle quickly and quietly.  He passes Guillermo to Briggette and places Sarina on his head, gently placing his helm on her head and lifting the visor.  We begin to head to the castle, and the guard returns with a horse.  He puts Sarina on the horse, and leads the horse toward the castle.

When we get there, the chief steward seems surprised, but quickly covers it and greets us all by name.  Briggette says, “My Lord Steward, allow me to introduce the Lady Sarina Montjoy and His Excellency, Count Guillermo Montjoy.”  He opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again.  “Oh, you don’t want to miss this,” Briggette tells him, “come with us inside.  And if there’s a bard, you might want to send for him.”

As we enter the main hall, Sir Stefan is having breakfast.  “Son, I’m always happy to see you . . . .”

Ulric merely reaches for the baby and hands him to his father.  “May I present to you His Excellency, Count Guillermo Montjoy.”

Stefan looks confused, and says, “The Montjoys have been dead for 300 years.”

Ulric ignores his father’s logic, and continues, motioning toward the girl, “And the Lady Sarina . . . Zurwald . . . Montjoy.”  Stefan’s jaw drops, and he sits in awe as Ulric tells the story of how this all occurred.  We sit for some time and discuss the various implications of having the children installed and a regent appointed.  It is decided that the children will stay with Sir Stefan, and that he will present them to the Duke.  However, Ulric will be named as Guillermo’s champion should any challenge arise.

When breakfast is ended, four warhorses have been brought out and saddled for us.  We ride to the chapter house to find Laurana.  When we arrive, she is hearing confessions, and we have to wait for around twenty minutes before she comes out.  She looks around and says with surprise, “Ulric!”

Ulric gets a big grin on his face, “Mother!”  She takes a moment as that sinks in, then looks around to greet everyone.  “Briggette, Gizli, Husband.”

It seems to sink in that if we are all there, something very bad may have happened.  “Where is everyone else?”

In unison, Briggette and I both say, “The Spine.”  After that, we sit down at an outdoor table, and Briggette shows her the relic of the Venerable Aethelred.  As it is almost time for dinner, we head inside to eat, and we regale the troops with the story of our victories thus far in the Spine.  Ulric makes an extremely thrilling storyteller, rivaling the skill of the best bards.  We ride back to Brasov that evening and arrive in time to get about four hours of sleep before Silas arrives to transport us back.  We take a nice hot breakfast back for all of our friends back on the cold Spine.

After we are done eating, Laurana begins the process of blessing everything and consecrating the grounds.  She says it will take about two days to get through the entire place.