Subtlety and Steel

"It all started the night after an unusually heavy drinking escapade. I woke to the stale taste of the air in the stable I had slept. I somehow managed to stumble my way down the road a ways to encounter a annoyingly clean and cheerful elf by the name of Erhivor, and a plain ugly young girl in armor who called herself Penelope. They started yelling at me, and somewhere in the pain I made out they were heading the same direction I was, and since the elf offered to pack my gear onto his donkey/mule, I figured it was worth the unpleasant company. I generally dislike the company of others, much preferring to travel alone, but something felt different about these two, that I might need them later in my travels.

We made good time on the road, and soon arrived in Ashden's Point, ironically the same town I had been the night before...I think. Nothing about the town spoke of anything special, but I was soon to find out that this was anything but the case. We decided to find the Watch official we were supposed to report to. We met him inside the inn and after a short exchange of words, he tasked us with the task of escorting a convicted criminal to the Wall as a sort of rite of passage into cadetry with the Watch. Now neither of my two companions were too pleased with this, which I didn't understand. Its an honor to carry out tasks and missions for the Watch, and they should have accepted this with much more enthusiasm and respect for whom they were now working for.

After a short discussion they agreed to this task, and we walked over to the jail house to take our charge into custody. We met with what can only be described as a none too bright individual who identified himself as Knute. We presented our orders, which the man looked at upside down and for just but a second. We followed him inside the jail ad were presented with a rude and annoying, yet oddly clean convict by the name of Gideon. I could tell right away that I was not going to like this man, everything about his demeanor disagreed with me. But as it was my duty to escort him to the Wall, I decided to tolerate his company, who knows, maybe he might be useful at some point in our travels.

After Gideon joined out small group, we went back to the inn to see if we couldn't get better acquainted. Midway through our meal, which unfortunately was sparse on conversation, we were startled by a woman's scream from outside. After rushing outside to investigate, we saw a figure which seemed to resemble Knute fleeing from the jailhouse. Laying in the doorway was a body which seemed to be missing a crucial part, its head. I walked over to investigate, and while leaning over the mangled corpse, to my horror it reached up and grabbed me! Now I have never encountered something like this before, the dead moving about, so I was frozen with shock, which unfortunately left me vulnerable to a punishing blow to the face. Well my companions soon rushed to my aid, and after a terrifying battle with a headless corpse and two walking skeletons, we emerged battered but victorious.

To my surprise, the convict, Gideon actually participated in the battle. I viewed him as much more of a potential coward. Penelope also surprised me, not so much for being a woman, as women warriors as somewhat common among my people, but for her skill and expertise in the fight. Erhivor on the other hand was somewhat useless in the fight, but seeing his frail frame, I wasn't expecting much anyway.

After investigating the jailhouse, we discovered some coins that seemed very out of place, with a strange star symbol imprinted upon them. Gideon also came across what appeared to be a disguise kit and forging materials with the coins. He said something about prisoners being sold off as slaves, but before we could look much more, the head priest of the local temple interrupted us. When presented with the coins, he became very quite and almost seemed to be scared. He asked us to meet him at the temple the following morning to explain more.

The next morning, upon arrival at the temple, nobody answered the locked door. Suspecting something was wrong, I put my ear to the door and head the faint whispers of a dying man coming from inside. Well after bashing the door in we were greeted by the scene of a slaughter. Finding the head priest hardly alive, I tended to his wounds. He told us that Knute had snuck in during the night and attacked him, leaving him for dead no doubt. He also told us the coins were easterner, which was very odd because they don't trade this far out. Something seemed very wrong, and I had a feeling that this was not just about slaves, the coins also seemed to be a very important clue as to what was truly going on. We asked which way Knute had left and quickly followed out a window and tracked his passage through the forest. We followed his travel up a river and after a short travel we came upon a canoe which seemed to have been hastily hidden. Spotting a small trail of smoke in the sky, we decided to investigate, assuming our prey had assumed he was safe and was now setting up camp.

While sneaking up on the camp, we unfortunately gave our positions away with some noise and had to charge into the camp to avoid losing him again. Knute was now with a small and disgusting looking Orgosh warrior, who quickly ran away and sounded a horn, no doubt calling more of his kind to us. After a short fight with Knute, who was quite a skilled fighter and wounding Penelope, we took him prisoner, and would have questioned him there but were forced to run for our lives due to more Orgoshi charging our position. Again surprising me with bravery and selfless action, Gideon provided a rear guard to try and slow our pursuers down, allowing us to reach the boat unhindered. But unfortunately we were ambushed at the boat by more of those damn pesky Orgoshi and their accursed javelins! After a terrible fight in which many of us were injured, we were victorious and beat a hasty retreat down the river to avoid more trouble. Things have gone from odd to scary, first with the coins, and now with Orgoshi and the undead, I don't know what to think. Right now I am just hoping I survive to report to the Wall.

Later that day, night was approaching and with the added burden of Knute, we realized we were going to be unable to make it back to town, so setting up camp and choosing a watch order, we went to sleep. During the night I was awakened by the sounds of fighting and discovered Gideon fighting with a shadowy assassin. After a brief skirmish in the dark, we overcame the attacker and noticed he was an easterner. And also to our dismay, found Knute dead, having been shot several times with poisoned darts.

We seem to have stumbled upon something much bigger that ourselves, but I am still anxious to investigate all of this further. I hope we can get to the bottom of what is going on, why the Orgoshi are here and what the easterners have to do with all of this and why they are even showing their presence in these parts. Hopefully we can learn more in Wildsgate, our next destination."

- Conversation with an acorn.