Finding Cragskeep

 To the Pits

Apparently I was not the only one to have a disturbed night. Claudie woke with a scream of fear, and what sounded like a name tore from her throat. It woke me, the echoes of my own disquiet reverberating through me. In spite of the desolate beauty of the city, I was starting to not like this place. We gathered ourselves and Gisir left us saying we should make it out of The Wastes before the end of the day. Mace and Magni did one final search of the ruble in the temple, just to see if any other items of note could be found. Mace did pick up some nice rocks...they seemed to make him happy so who am I to judge?

We left the temple and Mace asked if we could go to check out the tower that they had seen the night before while scouting. In a fit of 'why the hell not' we headed over to check it out. The doors must have been over 12 feet high and it had once been an impressive building, but most of the floors above had caved in and it was hard to tell what the tower had been intended for. We did a bit of looking around. Claudie and Ooru found some books, the titles of which I can't remember, but I'm sure they will tell us about them at some point. Having two book obsessed people to travel with is actually quite comforting. It means that I don't have to do the reading, just the writing! I noticed some letters carved above the door. I couldn't read it but someone who could read elvish told me it said 'Towering Knowledge' - so we gathered that this was a library of some kind. I'm sure Claudie and Ooru would have spent all day there trying to find more books, but we all decided to press on. As we leave Mace writes a few phrases on the outside of the tower "Only books, Sad Graveyard." Truly a rather apt description. We discussed the thought of walking through the city with a detect magic spell active for a while, then Claudie remembered the smelling salts...which once again...I can't remember where we acquired them. Through this magic, we did discover that the nice rocks that Mace picked up, which he had since named Ruff and Tuff...were in fact magic rocks. Magni laughed and told Mace to keep up the habit of picking up things he thought were  neat.

We traveled on through the city and sadly did not come across any other neat, or magical items on our walk. The dullness of the surroundings was just starting to wear on us when Magni pointed out a glimmer in the distance. A while longer and the glimmer solidified into two white and gold towers rising out of the horizon. As we drew closer, I was reminded of an oil painting in Bevemer's shop - perhaps of a time long passed when the towers were the focus of something beautiful. When we finally reached them, we found that they seemed to be untouched by whatever disaster had come to The Wastes. They were also purely decorative. As the wind blew through them the produced a haunting melody that grew and surrounded us. Beauty for beauties sake, I remembered Gisir saying. I think we just found the evidence.

It was not long after we left the towers that we found that we could see trees in the distance. We had made it into Cairnhorn! To tell the truth the border between The Wastes and Cairnhorn was rather stark. The dull dusty landscape of The Wastes came to an end and grass and trees stretched out in front of us. A brief break once we were out of the Wastes I took a moment to identify Mace's magic stones. They turned out to be thunder stones. A nice little thing to have as a back up at some point.

We walked on south a bit and eventually ran into a proper road. We turned west toward the coast as we knew that was the general direction we were intending to go. The farther west we traveled along the road the more rugged the terrain became. Much more rocky and rough looking. As we traveled Mace spotted an owl roosting in a tree off the road. Claudie had been asking around for an owl feather for one of her spells, and Mace took it into his head to get her a whole owls worth. Needless to say he did not succeed in catching the owl itself, but he did find a nest with a few feathers which he could pilfer. We had a safe and easy journey for the remainder of that day. We camped comfortably just off the road that night and enjoyed a lovely Ooru meal.

Next day passed quite the same, an easy travel on a well maintained road. It was coming to afternoon when the forest cleared away and something rose in the distance. Coming closer we saw it was a keep - but it didn't seem like a keep that had a garrison and a lord ruling over it. There were parts crumbling away, moss and lichen growing around the walls. As we came closer, it looked more and more that, although the keep was not really a keep, it was not abandoned. There were long gutting tables in what would have been the courtyard. A tall ship was docked in the small harbour. I can't lie that when I saw it I thought of Loni. Not knowing what his ship looked like I had a brief moment of panic and excitement that he might be at the keep.

We managed to catch hold of a boy sprinting by and he told us that we had found Cragskeep - it had indeed been abandoned long ago, but a village had settled in and had become a bit of a way point for merchant ships. He told us that the 'Tavern' was in the basement, so seeing an opportunity for a comfortable night sleep in a bed we headed down. The tavern was huge! My guess is that it was built in what used to be the store rooms of the keep and made for a good large area for people to congregate. We had to check our weapons at the door, but while we did that we heard about...The Pit. We had stumbled into a pit fight tavern! I had not been so excited in a long while! We went in and met Cadence the blue skinned tiefling barkeep. She gave us the run down of the fights and the menu for the night. A bit of asking around and I learned that the ship in the harbour was The Drowsy Rock - no Loni's ship. But I did learn that they were somewhat regulars to this area and were the influence of proper 'Fight Nights' at the tavern. We had missed this particular one, but there would still be unofficial fights on for tonight. We had ourselves a round, and Magni, Mace, Ooru and I got ourselves tokens for the pit!

Needless to say it was a cracking good night. Ooru was up first and came out victorious against a stout Cragskeep resident. They seemed to bond quite well and spent most of the night drinking together afterwards. I was up next and had an excellent scrap with a bean pole of a tiefling. Magni was next and up against a unique individual with blue green skin and his hair...was not really hair...Anyway Magni fought hard, but sadly didn't come out on top. Mace faced the same fellow and managed to best him in Magni's name! After the fights we had good chats with the folks and found that most of them were the crew of The Drowsy Rock. Claudie, who was well into her wine, came right out and asked if they were pirates. It seemed that they were not, just merchant traders who might be open to some form of slightly more shady dealings if the opportunity arose. They told us about the Plossorian tournaments that happen once a year, and other areas that had regular fights and such. Magni asked where they were headed next, and as it turned out they were off to Port Fairview next. We asked if we might tag along, which they were amenable to, but their price was a bit steep. We decided to sleep on it and make a choice in the morning.

The night wore on, I played and told tales and drank, and we had a grand time. 

Writing this now, I keep thinking about what it would mean to see Loni again. I don't think he knows I left Torunedar seeing as it was him heading back to sea that got me to finally get out. I wonder what he would say if he found saw me. Well, that is not something to care about now. I have friends to adventure with, and a way to live and live well!

Goodnight Asotta.