Being a Baron and owning a castle unfortunately comes with a bit of paperwork and admin, so we realised that we needed to pay a visit to Sheriff Ratcliff who had been in charge of collecting taxes on behalf of the previous incumbent. Before we set off, Bastonn fashioned himself some regalia with a medallion of office featuring a skull/helmet motif and a nice tiger skin cloak that only smelled slightly mouldy.
Our first port of call was the nearby Brocksholme - a farming village and home to Southstone inn. Krisanna immediately jumped onto a table and invited everyone to the grand party with drinks on the new Baron! While she was getting over excited, Bastonn made some inquiries at the bar and found out that the landlord was called Simmon and he had a cousin called Brand who is a master builder. Could come in handy.
The next morning we set off to see the Sheriff in Ufris, a much larger village some distance away. The people there even had bunting out in anticipation with urchins waving flags as we made our way to the Troll's Head Inn to be greeted by a fat inn keeper rolling his sleeves up - Argon Lardbelly and wife Jorna, who kept us well supplied with food and drink. It wasn’t long before we heard that the Sheriff had been extorting punitive taxes from the people!
We headed for the Sheriff’s residence to find nobody at home - the sneaky sod had done a moonlight flit! The cellar was still full of food that was too heavy to move and chests of spare coppers. Krisanna donated all the food in the cellar to the inn keeper to cook a feast for the town plus the spare coppers for local widows and orphans
The Sheriff was heading to Marston and we quickly caught up with his slow moving and overloaded cart. Bastonn rode alongside to confront the Sheriff and, sword in hand, jumped aboard the cart.
Meanwhile, there were four mounted riders against the rest of the party. Orla immediately skewered one with an arrow and did some damage to a second. Krisanna was hanging onto her pony for grim death and was nearly hit until Makander intervened to deflect the attack, giving the halfling a chance to throw a dagger, nearly killing one guard who promptly surrendered.
Krisanna on her pony
Aodhan clobbered one of the guards with his staff and Makander decapitated the last one with a single blow. Meanwhile on board the cart, Bastonn gave the Sheriff one final chance to surrender and then skewered him through the throat. We finally had the ill gotten taxes and much paperwork to untangle to rectify years of corruption.
In a magnanimous gesture befitting of a Baron, Bastonn appointed Jan Welsh, the local lad who had had the sense to surrender as the new Sheriff! We also paid a visit to Sybian the priest who mysteriously looked like Aodhan and told us about Zevvos the harvest god. In a final bit of business, Bastonn contracted Brand the builder and his team of lads to fix the roof of the castle and make it habitable.
We were ready for our beds, but we were woken up by disturbance in the night. We saw a heavily pregnant woman in the bar looking tired, who told us that her husband Tibbald and eldest son Mulder were missing. They went hunting and should have returned a week ago, but there had been no sign of them. Even more upsettingly, their dog Swift was missing too! All we had to do was head for the hunting cabin, follow the trail and turn left at Stone Troll. Oh, and watch out for sky bears!
The bar was awash with rumours - somewhere in the forest, there’s hermit in a tree - a wizard called Anoo Melar who knows all the secrets of the forest. Also, there's a troll turned to stone, and if you wake it up it shows you where its treasure is buried - Krisanna’s ears pricked up at this point! Someone mentioned that the forest folk worship a white wyrm and they leave offerings of gold! Krisanna was all for setting off immediately at this news.
In a more relevant line of enquiry, we found out that Tibbald apparently had no enemies, except for a dispute with the blacksmith. We also heard that the builders working on the windmill let a gnome in - and that the miller plays it as chess.
The next morning we set off into the woods, into the shadow of the pine trees and it felt like the woods are watching us with a gathering of crows eyeing us with beady black eyes. Suddenly a large boulder came crashing through the trees. Krisanna climbed up the nearest trunk and spotted something big smashing trees down in the distance.
We followed trail of giant footprints that looked like bear prints except that they were two and half feet across! Yikes! Could this be a sky bear?
We finally reached a crossroads, where we could go north, east or roughly west. The western path had 5 stones in a balanced pile.
To be continued!
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