The Castle - B2

Yesterday…
An invitation—by a Count of a name you’ve never heard. From a Castle in a land unknown around these parts. And a Curse which plagues him, pleading for each of your aid—by name—in exchange for an offer too tempting to ignore.

By next morning a horse-drawn carriage awaited each of you. The dark horses stood silent, their black eyes seeing everything and nothing. The sharp-collared driver shifted on his bench, mumbling to himself. You climbed in anyway.

The carriage lurched forward the moment you clicked the door shut.

This Evening…
Through misty woods and grey fields you saw the tall spires of the Castle in their slender glory towering over this strange land. Your carriage joined a procession of others, dropping each of you off before an empty courtyard like noble guests arriving too early—or too late—for a gloomy ball. Your companions glanced at one another as the great door hinges groaned as they swung open. It looks like it’s going to rain
tonight. You stepped inside.

Escorting yourselves through the empty halls, you found the Count. A pale corpse of a man, standing tall, eyeing each of you as the starving man lusts for fallen crumbs. He uttered something about a Curse he could no longer bare alone…

Then he pounced.

Moments Ago…
Darkness. A struggle. An icy pierce of your flesh. You grew cold and still like a rabbit surrendering to the wolf’s jaws…

Yet now you wake. But something still sleeps within you. Hidden beneath that heart-racing urge to flee the Count. Escape the Castle. Purge the Curse.

Or die trying.

You wake to sloshing water and clinking chains. Smells of decay and stagnant water. Darkness surrounds you, save for a single candlelight floating outside your broken cell. You're dangling a few inches above black water from a single fetter suspended from a stone ceiling. The fetter is loose on your wrist and is spotted with corrosion. You hear faint snoring coming from somewhere outside your cell. You are still wearing the clothes you wore when you arrived but are stripped of any weapons or items, except any religious tokens which remain untouched.

[ +- ] Stress Level

10

As Gregory splashes down, he notices the water is waist high. Judging from the voices on either side, he feels the room is circular with holding cells dotting the perimeter. The candle floats in the center about ten meters ahead of him. If he can grab it he can hold it high enough above the water to prevent it being doused from any splashes.

Now the Gregory is in the middle of the space he sees it is a flooded dungeon. Moreover, the snoring sound is coming from a dangling cage hanging just above his head. One thin, pale, dirty arm pokes through the bars.