Are you a new reader of the Asheraven Play Report? Consider reading from the beginning with part 0.
Good morning and thank you for reading the Asheraven Play Report part 4. This is where things almost come to a head with the Aldo investigation, and other matters begin to show through as well. The players have been a little over here and a little over there so far, and this trend mostly continues through the events described hereafter. Still, good progress is made, and they are ever closer to the bottom of whatever is going on. I was having a severe stuttering issue with my computer last week, which made it nearly impossible to type anything out. That’s fixed now, which allowed me to write this letter.
The players have just gotten off of a period of rest and were sent for by Fredenick, a scholar who lives nearby Narwell. Other news included that of a number of missing knights that were acting on behalf of the king of Asheraven not far from Narwell either, as well as a commotion of combat from a few miles westward. First on the agenda was picking up the translated document from Fred. The party had some gold from their dungeon delve a few weeks prior, so the cost would not really be a concern for them. They picked up the document and found that it was a trade agreement between a hill giant named Grubary and Butcher Venhall, Aldo’s brother. The agreement did not make clear any of the specifics and used ambiguous references seemingly at every opportunity. The party wasn’t sure how to proceed in their investigation of Aldo, but one thing they did is they went to the barracks to talk to Sergeant Renault again. By this point, they were on a first-name basis with the clerk in the barracks, Jude, who went to alert Renault of the party’s arrival.
The barracks is mostly a storehouse for gear used by the guards, but it is more than just a weapons cache. Any criminals that are arrested are brought to the barracks first and held in temporary cells on a level below the ground floor. There is also space for about half a dozen guards to sleep, although this space generally goes unused, since the guards also just live in Narwell. By the rear door of the barracks is a changing room, which is where the tabards are kept. The first room that the party has seen so far is an antechamber to a hallway that connects it to all other rooms. The antechamber has a couple small round tables, around which off-duty guards may sometimes be found in conversation with each other, as well as a small office sort of area for Jude. This area has a pair of short, wide drawer cabinets that sit against the wall, a writing desk that Jude uses when signing or labeling documents, and a bench that he uses as a table desk for general purposes. The other room that the players have seen is Sergeant Renault’s draft room. This is where he receives any visitors and analyzes the form and function of the guard. One might call it a “war room” if it weren’t for the fact that nothing resembling a war would be decided within the walls of Narwell. It is this final room that Jude corralled the party into, shutting the door carefully as he leaves.
Sergeant Renault and the party talked for a few minutes to come up with any other ideas to investigate the guards. Finally, an idea came about to paint each of the tabards with a small spot, each spot being a different color. The party really wanted to go to find the missing Asheravian Knights, but Aldo’s compound is not far from where they were last seen or their supposed destination. By putting the spot on the tabards, the party would be able to go observe which color spots the guards at the structure have, check out Lord Octavius’ residence, and be able to tell Renault which spots were seen. It would require Jude and Peter (the night shift clerk) to discretely mark who wore which tabard and on which shift, and the party was able to convince Sergeant Renault that those two could be trusted not to let it slip to the guardsmen what was going on. As for explaining away the spots to the guards, the plan was to say that the spots let them better hold the launderer accountable in making sure all of the tabards were being thoroughly washed. This raised no concerns for anyone involved in its planning, so the tabards were ordered to be marked immediately. It would take at least two shift changes for all unmarked tabards to be swapped for marked ones, so the party spent that time preparing for the unexpected at Castle Octavius. Once they were sure the tabards have all been marked and circulated, they made their way to it, taking a stop at Aldo’s compound on the way and saw which colors were being worn by the guards in front of it.
At the castle, they found a disastrous-looking scene. In perfect condition, the castle would be a singular square building with four attached towers - one on each corner - with a large, reinforced wooden door as its entry. In its current state, however, the southeastern tower was completely destroyed, which allowed alternative means of entry. The reinforced door was lying on the floor just inside the castle, cracked and battered. The stonework that was still standing with the structure was in fine structural condition but could have used a wash. The signs of some armed conflict of recent past were obvious, but there were no bodies seen around the area. The party entered through the main entry, and poked around a little bit before realizing the castle was larger than they had anticipated. In that moment, the players were not mentally prepared to do a proper, procedural dungeon crawl, and I did not have a map of the castle either (I did not plan on them going there so soon, though I did not tell them any of this), so we decided to abstract the initial delve a little bit. They were only looking for the knights of Asheraven, so I rolled for a couple encounters and another die to see how many knights they might find without serious searching. They found three knights this way, and all were living.
The knights said that they had come to arrest Lord Octavius and that he had not initially resisted. Some of the knights remained with Octavius nearby the landing at the top of the stairs in the entry room, while the rest were searching the castle for anything that might interest King Belgam IV. The reason that Octavius was being arrested in the first place was denouncement and treason. He had declared that he was no longer a vassal of the king, that he would operate his castle and its surrounding lands as an autonomous state, and that if King Belgam IV wanted to be in Octavius’ good graces, then he must negotiate terms of such a relationship. Octavius had no towns or villages in his stewardship, but he had a fairly large population housed in his castle. when the knights arrived to arrest Lord Octavius, there did not seem to be anyone else inside the castle. While the castle was being searched, however, the earth began to tremble and the castle shuddered as the southeastern tower began to lift off the ground and away from the castle. The tower wasn’t flying, no, it was a massive creature that seemed like a mountain in every respect. It seemed to be made of dull, gray stone, it had a sharp and rough texture, and, when it made contact with the tower, it made a harsh grinding noise as its hands moved around the stone of the tower. It brought the tower away from the castle, along with everyone inside it, and bounded off while letting out a loud, gravelly groan. The entire event took about half a minute, so the knights who were not in the tower sought cover, not knowing what exactly was happening. Octavius used the distraction to his advantage and escaped custody of the knights, and, as far as any of the three knights that talked to the party knew, he was successful in his getaway. It was uncertain how many knights are missing as of then, but there were a total of twenty who were sent to make the arrest. The party then returned to Narwell to rescue these three knights and claim their reward.
Once they took care of that business, they went to talk to Jude at the barracks and see who had which tabards. According to Jude’s records, the only guard who had any of those colors was one named Simon. None of the other colors they saw had been worn by any guards during the time they saw them. The party decided to pay Simon’s post a visit, since he was on duty again at the time. To their surprise, they actually found him where he was supposed to be at the eastern gate of Narwell. They asked a few questions, like where he was at the time they saw him, his feelings about being a Narwellian guard, and more like that. They also interviewed the other guards of his post, and the only interesting thing that one had to say was that “it’s not really expected that all of the guards should always be exactly at their post all the time. We often wander a bit, so I can’t say for sure that I would have noticed Simon missing for any length of time. As for me, I’m the rookie of this post, so I mostly stay put and handle the boring tasks for the gate”. The remaining guards more or less corroborated Simon and the rookie’s statements, since the facts essentially boiled down to a near-complete lack of accountability in keeping track of the location of guardsmen. The party went back to the barracks to talk again with Jude and Renault and told them this information, and they asked more about Simon. The party learned that he had a wife named Gertrude and the two lived in a standard, humble home within Narwell. Renault also warned the party to be careful now, since any guards who might be engaged in these unlawful activities will certainly soon be aware that they are being watched by the party.
Nothing seems to have cleared up for the party just yet, and, in fact, the opposite has happened. They seem to be pulling themselves in multiple directions as things interest them, so the question is whether this approach will pay off for them. We haven’t gotten to the present day yet in the play reports, and, at this point, I could not say how many more it will take to get there. I had thought the job would be done after the first three, but here we are. Thank you for reading, and look out for part 5 next week.
Next: Play Report #5