Brides Of Boscobelous

17 OKTOBER 3460

The routine is exactly the same as the other days as the priests are up early to make their devotions. Then, after a light breakfast cooked up by Robert, it's off back to the Tower yet again.

Upon arrival, they start out, as always, with a quick search of the lower levels, but all is still the same. They arrive back up on the fifth level and prepare themselves for the day's activities.

'Perhaps you could check all of the doors again to see if anything has changed, Jihan' Winnacer suggests.

Jihan goes to each of the three doors in turn, checking the state of the locks, seeing whether the doors have been opened recently, and listening in order to find out whether there is anything behind the doors:

'Everything seems the same' he reports. 'The magickal locks are still in place. I can't hear anything behind the door to the left and straight ahead, but I can hear some chains and moans coming from behind the door to our right.'

'So which door is it to be?' asks Winnacer.

"Clockwise has worked well for us so far," Jihan chimes in, drawing Makanuru and Todtaenzer from their sheaths. Grimly, he moves towards the left door, awaiting the firetrap to be set off. He takes his usual place near the back ranks as flank guard, and whispers a strange elven devotion none of you have heard uttered from his lips, though it seems to be in three distinct parts.

Winnacer, thinking back to the group's origins, turns to Faewen'il:

"Hey Fae, can you summon up that invisible servant that you used a while back? It would be the best suited for opening these doors and setting off these traps, even more than my previous sundry ideas."

'I'm sorry' the lass replies, 'but I nae be readin up on that spell this mornin. I've heard of a spell that would get past tha magickal locks, but I nae be havin it in none o ma spellbooks, I'm afraid.'

All look towards Yaz in order to get them past the doors:

"Problem: the damn wizard's locked all the doors" he realizes, quite accurately.

He then starts to point at Hrust and then to his mouth. Hrust, realizing that Yaz wants to speak with him starts to cast:

'What is it that you would like to ask?' the bugbear inquires.

'Do you have any spells that can Dispel the lock on these?" asks Yaz. "Either that or, if your storm god grants the power, a stone morphing channel, so we don't have to touch the doors at all? That is what I plan to do."

The bugbear shakes his head:

'I'm sorry, but I thought that you were planning on taking care of the doors. I haven't prayed for anything that will get through them, although I could do if we get stuck."

"I could warp the wood of the doors themselves, but I fear the magical locks would prevent that" responds Yaz.

The bugbear shakes his head once more:

"It should be possible, I think, to get past the door using a spell that warps wood, providing that you target the side with the hinges and not the one with the magickal lock. Perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway, let's see how far we get with your spell that shapes stone. We can always try again tomorrow if we cannot get past just the one room."

"How many spells to open the doors do we have?" interjects Bennett. "Do we have enough to open all three or just one or two or what? Regardless, I think the evil we know is better than one or two we don't, so I propose going into the right door and facing that ghost first. Then if we survive that in good shape, we should move to the center, in a reverse clockwise fashion."

"To answer your question, Bennett, I can get us past just one door" Yaz replies. "We'd better hope that there are more doors off whichever room we go into, or else it will be a short day of exploring today."

"The moaning and rattling door, I presume, boys? The known in preference to the unknown?"

All nod in favor of trying the room with the moaning and chains. Jihan gives a little shrug:

'I guess it doesn't really make a lot of difference to the order in which we take them' he says. 'I guess that we'll need to try them all sooner or later.'

With that, he moves over to the opposite door from the one that he was waiting before.

Yaz gives a little grin before pulling a small ball of clay from his pouch. He then begins to utter an incantation that they have not heard him use before as he molds the clay into the form of a thin tree. After a minute or so, he takes the clay shape and pushes it into the stone wall next to the hinges of the door.

He then makes a show of peeling back the stone, as if he's some burly muscle man. The final shape of the edge of the stone wall resembles a tree, with branches coming out of the trunk near the ceiling, and a big hole in the middle. The final tree shaped hole in the wall is only a few inches wide in the main, but it has achieved its desired effect of separating the door from the wall.

'Well that's the magickal lock gotten around' says Yaz. 'Now we just need to trigger the firetrap without getting blasted with it.'

Winnacer takes one of the borrowed spears from the armory and holds the point of it against the door. Then, holding it by the very end of it, he pushes at the door hard.

'BBBOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!' explodes the door, as it falls into the room.

None were in the trap's area of effect, and so all survived without getting another singeing. The spear, however, is now nothing more than a smoldering charred piece of wood. Winnacer tosses it to one side, glad that it was the weapon that took the brunt of the explosion and not him (again).

As the smoke in the doorway starts to clear, they start to form their battle-lines ready to enter the room. However, before they have a chance to do so, two huge, grotesque figures dash through the door into their ranks.

The figures are terrible to behold. Standing a head and a half taller than all of them save for Hrust, the two figures are feminine in form, although they weigh almost 350 pounds. Their skin is sickly green in color, made from partially decayed flesh. The party members can see that the pair of monstrosities have been stitched together from a variety of different human body parts. They are dressed in nothing more than a collection of strategically placed leather straps held together with thick shining chains. As they stumble towards the party, they moan in pain and anger, intent upon revenge for the sin of their creation.

Before the party has a chance to react, the monstrosities are amongst them, flailing out at them with their huge fists.

The first one smashes Winnacer in the gut, inflicting some terrible damage to him before he has a chance to deflect the mighty blow with his shield. Its second fist smashes into Xavier, inflicting an even worse blow upon the Saxon.

The second monstrosity smashes a fist into Will, although he gets off relatively lightly compared to the others. Hrust is not so lucky, and he takes a tremendous bruising as a giant fist smashes into his bear-like face.

The party reacts quickly, having never seen so much damage being inflicted so quickly.

Winnacer's revenge is swift. The huge lumbering form of the golem means that it is almost impossible for the young lord to miss, and 'The Educator' hacks into the flank of the creature twice, causing even worse damage than the creature inflicted upon him. Xavier is about to finish off the same creature, but he misses the creature totally. However, much to his delight, he sees Sorrow hack into the other creature next to it, inflicting some rather nasty damage upon it indeed.

Yaz tries to finish off the first of the golems, but swordplay has never been his forte and he still manages to somehow miss the barn door sized target in front of him.

Bennett is right in front of the other golem. His tiredness is showing as he lifts 'Retribution' and cleaves it into the fleshy mound before him. His weakness shows through with his second swing, however, and it fails to connect. Jihan manages to hit it with 'Makanaru', but is unable to find room to swing Todtaenzer in order to double the damage. Will is unable to find a way to the target with either of his blades. Hrust is busy casting his flameblade spell.

Before the lumbering creatures have a chance to strike back, the party is ready to strike back at them.

Winnacer hits the first of the golems again with 'The Educator', while Xavier is again unable to hit the huge form in front of him. Yaz, however, finally manages to connect with the creature with his scimitar and the golem begins to stagger a little, obviously close to falling.

Before it does, however, it lashes out with its huge fists once more. Furious at Winnacer's terrible injuries upon it, the golem smashes into Winnacer with both hands and then grabs him and hurls him against the back wall. There is a metallic clang as the young lord bounces off the wall and slumps to the ground, his face bleeding badly.

Bennett strikes low upon the other golem and hacks through its ankle with a good strike from 'Retribution'. As the creature starts to lurch towards the ground, Jihan finishes it off with a mighty blow from 'Makanuru'.

Will leaps out of the way of the falling golem in order to finish off the other that gave Winnacer such a bad bruising. With one almighty blow from his longsword, he lops off the golem's head, sending it spinning across the floor. The golem collapses on the floor with an almighty crash.

The combat over, they rush over to see how Winnacer is. Amazingly he survived the terrible force of being hurled against the wall, although he is bleeding badly. Grimacing, he picks himself up off the floor and picks up 'The Educator' and his shield. He winces as he staggers onto his feet again.

After ensuring that the young lord is OK, Jihan cautiously walks into the room and gasps as he sees what the room contains. It is a fairly large room, 40' long by 20' wide that appears to be some kind of a torture chamber. The entire room is covered in black leather upon the floor, walls and ceiling. Inside the room are a number of racks, frames, whipping posts, crosses and an iron maiden as well. Several sets of chains and manacles swing eerily from the ceiling. Along one section of the wall is a large collection of implements. There is a wide assortment of whips of various different sizes and thicknesses plus an assortment of other devices, the use of which they would rather not know. There is also a large collection of chains and leather straps.

As she enters the room, Faewen'il's eyes go wide in horror. She comes to her senses after a short while and rubs the rune of the Witchfinder rod to scan the area for anything that may be magickal. All of the implements within are mundane in nature, however.

As Jihan wanders around the room, he sees that there are two exits to the room in addition to the doorway through which they entered. One of them is on the wall to their left in the center of the wall. On the opposite side, in the far right hand corner, Jihan sees that there is a ladder, also clad in the same black leather, that rises up to a trapdoor in the ceiling.

Yaz sees the two exits also:

'Neither of them should be trapped' the druid says, 'or else I would have picked up on them with my trapfinding spell.'

Jihan cautiously moves to the doorway on the left in order to check it in more detail. He investigates the lock and then brings up his listening cone in order to try and hear whether there is anything behind the door.

'The door seems to be open' he reports after checking the lock once more. 'I couldn't hear anything behind the door, but that's not really surprising considering the fact that it's heavily padded.'

Nervously, he then walks towards the trapdoor.

'Be very careful, Jihan' says Winnacer, trying to stop the blood running from his nose. 'This floor seems pretty dangerous. I hate to think what might be up there.'

Jihan nods in agreement as he reaches the foot of the ladder. With all the grace of a cat, he starts to ascend the ladder, not making a sound as he reaches the top. Trying to stop his hands shaking, he investigates the lock and then presses his ear to the trapdoor.

The rest of them look on as Jihan listens at the trapdoor. Suddenly, they see his face go the color of a sheet and a look of terror written large upon his face. Immediately, he slides down the leather-clad ladder and rushes to the safety provided by the rest of them:

'He..he's there' the elf says, quaking with fear. 'I..I..heard him speak. He said "c-come on my little elven friend, c-come and give your Uncle Boscobelous a little sport", and then he started l..laughing…a terrible cackling laugh…a laugh of pure evil."

Winnacer grimaces:

"That figures. We finally have the chance to cleanse the evil of this place and I can barely stand. We should not take on Boscobelous until we are fully prepared, healthwise and spellwise."

Winnacer thinks about it for a second:

"That ladder is a bad way to approach him anyway. Only one of us at a time can make it up anyway, letting whatever evil form he possesses inflict his horrors without fear of retribution. Perhaps there is another way upstairs. If not, perhaps Yaz could I guess 'shape the rock' of the ceiling to allow greater access upwards or forcing him to come to us."

Jihan nods in agreement, the color slowly returning to his cheeks after his close encounter with Boscobelous:

'I agree. I think that trying to approach him that way is suicide. We know that there are stairs going up to the final level, and so I think that we should definitely investigate other ways in from that level.'

Winnacer then shakes his head and wipes the blood flowing out of his nose. He turns around and removes his poor metal cap that has been embedded in the wall of the tower and places the dented bit back on his head:

"Whoa...I don't think I was ever hit so hard. I think I need to sit down for a minute. Do you think you can make the hurting stop Yaz? Or at least the ringing in my ears?"

Yaz comes over to the damaged form of Winnacer and casts one of his healing spells upon him. Its effects are weak, however, and it makes very little difference to the state of Winnacer's injuries. Shaman Hrust comes over and casts another couple upon the young lord, but the effect of them is little better and Winnacer is still looking to be in a fairly bad shape. Desperately trying to get the young lord back into shape, the bugbear casts his remaining two healing spells upon him, which have greater effect, but Winnacer is still some way from being completely healed.

Seeing that Will, Xavier and Hrust also need some healing, Yaz casts one spell upon each. The effects are better than the majority of the spells upon Winnacer and brings Will back to full health and lessens the injuries of Xavier and the Shaman.

'I've just got one more healing spell for the day left' says Yaz. 'I think that I'd better keep that back in case someone REALLY needs it after we run into more trouble.'

Winnacer is feeling somewhat better after receiving the priests' blessings:

'I feel well enough to continue, I think. As we cannot get through either of the doors from the corridor and have no desire to face Boscobelous yet, it looks as if our only choice is the door from this room.'

Nervously, they advance towards the door to their left and form their standard position for door-opening, with Bennett, Hrust and Winnacer in the front rank, Jihan and Will behind them, Faewen'il and Yaz behind them in turn, with Xavier guarding the rear in case of any surprise attack.

Bennett begins the countdown and then flings open the door.

Less than a second after the door is opened, Hrust has his holy rod in front of him and is chanting frantically. As the light from Faewen'il's lamp illuminates the room for the humans who have not the benefit of infravision to see in, they immediately realize why Hrust is so frantic in his attempts to summon Blesk's aid.

The room is a large one. Although it is only 20' wide, it runs the whole length of the tower in that it is 65' long. It is set out in a dormitory style, with six beds upon one side and seven on the other. However, compared to the dormitories on the lower levels, this one was obviously quite luxurious before the decay of ages overtook it. Rather than the cold stone floor of elsewhere in the tower, the floor of the room is made of what was obviously highly polished wood, upon which are rugs made from white furs, now gray through centuries of dust. The walls are hung with more tapestries, although they are unable to make out any details from where they are standing. The beds are covered in what must obviously have been fine red silk bed-linen, although much of it is now rotted.

However, they have little time to admire their surroundings, as, once more, it is the room's occupants that are of immediate concern. Lying on the beds, or rather raising from their beds as they surge towards them, is a terrifying menagerie of undead. They spot two zombies, two ghouls, two ghasts, two more zombies that are different from the others that you have encountered in that their skin is hard, gray and leathery and finally two more figures swathed totally in strips of supple black leather. They notice that all of the abominations here are female as they lurch towards them.

As Hrust finishes his incantation to Blesk, his holy rod starts to crackle with sparks of purple electricity before the air is once more split with the loud crack of thunder.

Hrust gives a mighty bellow of disappointment as he sees only the two zombies and two ghouls fall to the ground where they start to disintegrate. The other six abominations take no heed of the fallen and carry on towards the party.

As the undead carry on lurching towards the intruders and they see the horrific form of the mummies advancing towards them, all but for Winnacer and Yaz are locked with fear. As the ghasts accompany them, both Winnacer and Yaz start retching as the carrion stench of the ghasts' rotting flesh fills their lungs.

With all but he and Yaz incapacitated, Winnacer hacks into the undead before him in an attempt to try and stop them inflicting too much damage upon his defenseless colleagues. Seeing the mummies as the biggest threat, he launches into the first of them with 'The Educator'. He hits with his first strike, cutting through the soft leather wrapped around the mummy and cutting into it deeply. His second swing misses, however.

Yaz frantically starts to cast a flameblade spell, knowing that it should be the ideal weapon against the mummies.

All too soon, the undead strike back.

Yaz is too engrossed in casting his spell to see the first of the mummies about to strike him. The mummy lashes out with a terrific blow that smashes into Yaz's arm. Yaz hears a horrific crunch as the power of the mummy's blow breaks his arm, while the might of the blow almost takes him down with one stroke.

The second of the mummies hits the paralyzed form of Will, although mercifully the blow is nothing like as damaging as the one that was inflicted upon Yaz.

Xavier is the target for the first of the zombies, but it cannot penetrate the Saxon's mail. The second of the zombies smashes the paralyzed form of Bennett in the face, inflicting a bad wound upon him.

The first of the ghasts flails out wildly amongst them all. It scratches Faewen'il with one of its filthy claws and then hits Winnacer with another. As it rakes Winnacer's cheek with its claw, the young lord goes as rigid as the rest of them. The ghast tries to bite into him with its teeth, but cannot bite through Winnacer's mail. Winnacer is the target for the other ghast's attacks as well, although only one clawing attack manages to find a way through his mail.

Yaz realizes that, of all the terrible situations that he has been in during the past, this has got to be the most terrible of all. All of his colleagues are paralyzed, his left arm is broken, he's feeling terribly beat up, he's retching his guts out and he's already started to break out in a nasty rash. Yet he does not run. As the flameblade bursts into life in his hand, he lashes out wildly at the abominations before him, hoping to save as many of his colleagues as he can. However, in his wild panic, his swings are not accurate and he does not manage to hit the mummy before him.

Luckily, Jihan comes out of his fear-induced paralysis at this stage, and immediately starts to hack into the mummy with the spinning steel in both hands. Makanuru bites into the mummy that is facing Winnacer, but Todtaenzer fails to finds its mark.

Then the undead strike back. One of the mummies smashes a fist into Bennett once again, inflicting still more damage upon him. Hrust is the target for the other mummy and the paralyzed bugbear is hit with a terrible blow to the ribs.

Hrust is also the target for one of the zombies, who smashes into the unfortunate bugbear once more, leaving him horrifically injured. Jihan is the target for the other, who hits him badly in the side.

Bennett is the target for the first of the ghasts, but his chain protects him from any damage caused by the abomination.

The other ghast lashes out wildly. He hits Faewen'il once again with one of his deadly clawed hands, and then hits Yaz with the other. As he hits the druid. Yaz too goes rigid as he is paralyzed by the filth of the ghast's touch. The ghast tries to finish off with a bite to Hrust, but he fails to connect with the bugbear.

Now it is Jihan's turn to find himself alone against the undead horde. Seeing the effect that the ghasts' paralyzation in having upon them all, he changes targets to try and do away with one as quickly as possible. Yet it is not to be, as neither of the elf's blades manage to connect with the abomination.

As it looks as if they are all truly doomed, the effects of the mummies' paralyzation starts to wane and Will, Xavier, Faewen'il and Hrust all come to their senses.

'Get the ghasts first' shouts Jihan as he sees his colleagues come round. 'Their paralyzation will finish us all otherwise.'

Will immediately launches himself at the first of the ghasts, but only manages to hit one of them with his magickal dagger. Xavier is quickly at Will's side, trying to rid them of at least one of the terrible creatures. He sinks Sorrow into the abomination, but the damage is not too strong.

Faewen'il realizes that she is losing blood fast from the ghast's blow. She quickly gets herself out of the combat and then starts to cast. As the incantation finishes, she shoots two bolts at magickal energy at the ghast. Both bolts impact upon the ghast, and it stumbles from the impact, but it is not down yet.

Hrust also retreats from the combat, conscious of his terrible wounds. He too starts casting.

The undead strike once more.

The first of the mummies smashes into the paralyzed form of Yaz once more. As its fist hits him, the druid falls to the ground. The second mummy smashes into Jihan, sending him reeling from the blow. One of the zombies lashes out at Jihan and another at Bennett. Luckily, neither of their blows can find their way through their armor.

Both of the ghasts lash out at Jihan too. However, Prirodna must surely be looking over him, as neither of the ghasts' claws nor jaws find a way through his armor.

At that point, Hrust finishes casting and both Winnacer and Bennett are both released from their paralyzed states. They immediately strike back, flailing out with their weapons in an attempt to bring the odds more in the party's favor.

'The Educator' slashes back and forth as Winnacer wields it furiously. The ghast weakened by Xavier and Will falls instantly beneath it and then Winnacer hacks into the second ghast, inflicting a terrific wound upon it. Bennett follows up immediately with two mighty blows from 'Retribution' that make up for lost time, as he hacks the ghast to pieces. Immediately, he wheels and plants the head of the axe into the gut of one of the mummies.

Emboldened by the success of the warriors, the rest of them strike back in earnest - well try to at least. Will almost lets go of his longsword as he aims to strike the mummy before him, but somehow just manages to hang on to it.

Jihan has similar bad luck and fails to hit the mummy with either Makanuru or Todtaenzer. Xavier manages to finish off the first of the mummies with a strong blow from Sorrow, however, and the mummy falls to the ground.

Faewen'il casts and unleashes two more bolts of magickal energy upon the second of the mummies. Both bolts impact upon it and the mummy staggers a little. To add to the mummy's woes, Winnacer strikes out at it with 'The Educator' inflicting more serious damage. Bennett, however, is slowed by his tiredness and 'Retribution' fails to connect.

The mummy strikes back at Will, knocking the wind out of him a little.

The first of the zombies lashes out at Jihan from the side. Already suffering after some horrific blows, the elf crumples to the floor next to Yaz. The second zombie lays into Bennett and smashes into him again with a devastating blow that nearly knocks him to the ground.

The party responds with a hail of fury, trying to rid themselves of the undead before the abominations get another chance to strike back at them.

Winnacer swings 'The Educator' to and fro and easily manages to fell the second of the two mummies. Bennett lashes out at the zombie that caused him so much pain and hits him with 'Retribution', although his tiredness is definitely beginning to show. Xavier is less lucky and neither of his swings with Sorrow find their mark. Will joins in with the combat, but is only able to hit the zombie with his dagger and so the damage is weak.

Faewen'il is out of magickal missiles and so can only watch in horror as the warriors slug it out with the zombies. The heavily injured Hrust, who was hoping that his combat skills would not be needed in the melee, sees that they are and so casts another flameblade.

The two zombies strike back. Xavier, who has so far survived the battle unscathed, is the target of the wrath of both of the zombies. One of them punches him in the thigh, although the damage is relatively mild. The Saxon manages to dodge the swing of the other, however.

Once again, the party strikes back. Winnacer launches into the injured zombie with a mighty blow from 'The Educator', weakening it to a state where one blow from Bennett's axe is sufficient to send it to the ground.

Will and Xavier start upon the last remaining zombie. Will, once more, misses it with his longsword, but hits with the dagger, wounding it slightly. Xavier is on target with Sorrow, but the wound is not so deep. Hrust rushes to join them with his fireblade burning in his hand. He gives the zombie a mighty blow with the burning blade that inflicts a fairly horrific wound upon the creature. The zombie lashes out at Xavier in retaliation, but the Saxon manages to dodge its blow.

The five of them crowd round the last damaged zombie, trying to finish it before it has a chance to strike back. Winnacer hacks into it with 'The Educator', inflicting a terrible blow and, as the zombie struggles back from it, Bennett swings his mighty axe once more and the zombie topples to the ground.

There is no time for celebrations at finally conquering the terrible foes, however. Hrust and Faewen'il drop to the knees at the sides of the fallen Yaz and Jihan in an attempt to bandage them up before they slip into a final sleep. As the bandaging is complete, both of them start to come round, coughing and spluttering. Yaz is in agony from his broken arm.

While the administrations are being given to the two who are fallen, Will cautiously checks out the room. He investigates the wallhangings covering the walls of the room. He sees that they show scenes from a vast orgy, with a naked, grinning Boscobelous in the midst of a mass of writhing female undead bodies. Disgusted at the sight, Will turns away. Apart from the wallhangings, there is very little of interest in the room. There is just one door out of the room part from the one that they came in by and, from its position, it is obvious that this is the door that was at the end of the corridor.

Not one of them survived the encounter unscathed and they are all in pain from their wounds. Were that not bad enough, Will, Jihan, Yaz, Bennett and Hrust have all started to come down with rashes in the places where they were hit by the mummies' blows:

Winnacer shakes his head as he beholds the terrible state that they are all in:

'I expected that we would face more severe opposition as we rose towards the top of the tower, but never did I expect this. Continuing now would seem to be totally out of the question, as most of us can barely stand, let alone fight. Let us just hope that we can get back to camp without encountering anything else that would cause us harm.'

"Damn you are one fine weapon! Truly you live up to your name" Bennett says to 'Retribution' as he stumbles with his weariness and injuries, then sighs:

"Well, I guess you guys are too beat up to continue again, huh? Gotta slink back to camp again?"

Bennett's eyes are starting to glaze over and he is rambling:

"All right, one more day of rest for you all and then we take this guy out, right? Right."

Bennett starts meandering unsteadily down through the rooms and down the stairs, taking no notice if anyone follows him or not.

Jihan lies on the floor, an occasional moan escaping through his clenched teeth. Slightly delirious from the pain and feeling a dull nauseous ache from the mummy's touch, the elf can only mutter gnomish curses at Boscobelous and his minions until he is revived. Knowing that healing spells are out of the question until the morning at least, he collapses on his face, dry retching weakly and curling himself up in agony.

His eyes, however, still burn intensely, with rage and pity at the obscenities of the room investigated. The elf clenches his jaw resolutely, and keeps the whimpers of pain inside, though he cannot stop the tears from flowing out of his eyes and dripping on his bloodstained armor, leaving tiny runnels that streak it.

'Will, help me to torch these bodies' says Winnacer. 'They have already caused us enough pain. I would hate it if Boscobelous reanimated them again while we were gone and we had to fight them over again.'

Will pulls the perverse wallcoverings from the wall and takes the silk bed linen from the beds and puts it over the bodies of the undead lying where they fell. He then brings down a torch and sets the coverings aflame, and the bodies beneath them with it.

As Will is doing so, Winnacer walks back to the first room, limping slightly from his wounds. Breathing heavily, he starts to climb the ladder to the trapdoor, quite a difficult task for him in his mail and in his wounded state. Between his teeth he holds an iron spike and a hammer is tucked into his belt.

As he reaches the top of the ladder and is about to start hammering in the spike, a shiver runs down his spine as he hears the same chilling voice as Jihan heard just a short while ago:

'So you've killed all of my mistresses have you, my would be murderers? Ha! Ha! Ha! It is of no concern to me. I see that you have a young girl with you, a sweet innocent child, she looks. She will do well as a replacement for the mistresses that you have deprived me of. Bring her up to me. The fun I shall have with her! Ha! Ha! Ha!'

Winnacer tries to shut out the mocking voice that rings in his ears. Frantically, he hammers the spike into the trapdoor as fast as he can. As soon as he sees that the trapdoor is secured, he bolts down the ladder as fast as his bulk and injuries will allow.

Ashen-faced, he returns to the rest of them, shaking a little. He throws a glance in the direction of Faewen'il, not wanting to petrify her by telling the lass what Boscobelous told to him:

'Come, we must leave straight away' is all that the young lord says.

Winnacer puts an arm around Jihan and helps him to descend the stairs. Xavier provides the same service for Yaz, the pain shooting through the druid's shattered arm as he moves, making him groan with every step. Will leads the way down, while all the rest of them struggle simply to get themselves down the stairs and out of the accursed tower.

They meet Bennett outside. He is screaming at the Tower from the outside, hurling abuse at Boscobelous and all his minions. They manage to calm him and Will drags him away from the tower, cursing as he makes his way back.

The journey back to camp is a long and painful one for them all. However, after more than two hours, they finally stagger back to the familiar place.

Bennett staggers into camp, waving and mumbling to Robert and the dog, who he addresses as a person. Min simply stares at the crazed warrior, cocking an ear as he holds his head to one side, before running off to hide between Will's feet. Then Bennett insists that Yaz and Hrust go and get some "healin' power" while he takes watch.

Hrust doesn't understand a word of what Bennett is saying, and Yaz has lapsed back into unconsciousness and so his words go unheeded. With regards to his demands to take watch, Xavier responds to him with anger in his voice:

'Do nicht be a dumkopf, Bennett. Sie ist in nicht fit stadt to take der vatch. Sie will get yourself und all of us killt if you persist viv such foolishness. Sleep, Bennett. The young lord unt meinself will keep der vatch.'

Bennett is not listening, however. He wanders towards the spot near Zsolt's grave where he has taken to holding his guard duty, he trips over one of the rocks that Jihan dug up and falls to the ground.

Moments later, loud and abrasive snoring can be heard.

'Das ist gut' says Xavier as he sees the sleeping form of Bennett on the ground. 'Let us leave him there so zat he gets his sleep.'

Xavier then goes to Bennett's tent and brings out a blanket that he puts over the sleeping form. Little peace can be seen in his sleep as he rustles around, cursing orcs and plague and shouting apparent incantations to bring family back to life in a chilling voice.

The rest of them get back to their regular camp routines. Faewen'il has her work cut out throughout the rest of the day as she nurses all of the injured, changing bandages and applying fresh herbs to the wounds and rashes. Hrust, Yaz and Jihan all fall asleep soon after and do not wake for the rest of the day.

Will takes care of the food situation. He and Min go out hunting again and come back with the standard brace of rabbits. He has also brought a large quantity of roots and berries for Jihan and Yaz, as there will be no scavenging from them for a while. Robert takes the provisions from Will and starts to rustle up another of his rabbit stews.

Winnacer, Will, Xavier, Faewen'il and Robert eat the stew in silence while the others sleep.

Winnacer, seeing that Robert has well satisfied the basics of Squireship, takes the lad aside during lunch.

"Robert, I have been waiting to see how you would handle the duties of squireship. You have been doing a knock-up job, by the way."

"Thank you very much, Sir" says Robert, with a large grin on his face. "I'm just trying to do my best,"

"It is time now for me to fulfill my obligation to you" Winnacer continues. "If you wish, I will begin to train you in the ways of the knight. You will be responsible of learning the skills of horsemanship, the different styles of knightly weapons, and a basic understanding of knightly tactics, codes, and tales. This is my offer to you for your continued service, and it will be my obligation to equip you sufficiently for the role of Squire."

'Blimey, Mr. Stradheim, Sir!" says Robert, somewhat overwhelmed by Winnacer's offer. "Are you sure? I never thought that I'd end up as nothing like a Spire!"

"…errm…yes a SQUire. I think that you'll be excellent in the role" Winnacer replies, not really sure as to whether he is speaking the truth.

"Sounds great!" Robert responds. "When do we start?"

Winnacer then spends some time teaching him the basic codes of chivalry for several hours as they sit by the fire, supping on the rabbit stew.

As the moon rises and those not on watch take to their tents, Robert can be heard speaking to Min:

"How about that then, Min, hey? Robert Cherny the Squire? Who'd have thought it, hey? Squire Robert Cherny, your majesty. Robert Cherny, Squire to the Great Lord Winnacer Duene Stradheim. Sounds right grand, don't it Min?"