IC Story Thread: Ch.1, Ad.3 - Black Hand

You can hear the faint sound of intermittent, distant voices before you even reach the crest of the cliff-face you're climbing. And once you've gained your summit, you can hear them a bit more clearly, though it's still hard to pick out specifics.

The din of voices is that of an apparent active encampment, which you sit above on a rise.

From your concealment and higher ground, you can see 4 large and sturdy tents, crafted of some sort of animal hide, and there are 11 people that you can see milling about below you - which includes 2 children!

The people are mostly wearing heavy cloaks and cold weather coverings beneath that, so it's hard to tell if they're armored or not. But if they are, it's certainly not heavy armor. And from what you can tell most of them are not wearing real weapons. Many have sturdy functional hunting knives or hatchets, and there is a tall basket near the center of it all that holds several spears - but no swords or weapons of trained warriors.

There are several camp fires burning, one near each tent with some manner of cooking infrastructure set up over it - pots hanging, kettle sitting, or spit for turning, and also a larger one, again near the center of it all.

And lastly, to the north of your position is a set of ancient stairs that wind up to a higher position on the mountain. And you can see that up there, there is some manner of ruined fortress with crumbling walls and fallen towers...

Duinhir notices that, whereas the camp below has 5 different curling wisps of smoke rising from the various fires, the ruins above only has one, albeit a larger one. And he spots no activity at the uncovered window openings dotting the ruined walls, and certainly no sentries patrolling what few ramparts remain.

If there are people up there, there aren't many. And they're not expecting any sort of attack.

Cirion can't pick out the specifics of any conversations, but he is certain that he hears words of Westron down there now and again barked out as a brief exclamation or in emphasis of some greater statement, but it is not the bulk of speech, most of what he can catch is in one or more languages that he does not know.

Eothain knows that no people live here (except the Druedain, the primitive people who housed you), and these are definitely not Druedain. His knowledge of the history of the area is that Andrast - the entire peninsula - is completely unsettled by "civilized" peoples. There is no nation that owns it, there are no villages towns or cities such as might be created by Men of the West - or South for that matter. It has however, at different times over the centuries - hosted military positions of various cultures, including those of Gondor, Dunlendings, and the Harad depending on who was in power and when. And this specific ruin seems unlikely to be one of the Harad, as they only took coastal positions (being a heavily seafaring people), and his understanding was that most permanent constructs of Gondor were on the western coast. This is likely an old Dunlending fortress, which Eothain knows that culture well as they are an old enemy of Rohan, as well as Gondor and other Men of the West.

The main clues that can be picked out from the things in the camp below is that these people are preparing for wintering here in the mountains. And that makes it hard to differentiate much, as their heavy winter cloaks cover what might be more distinguishing features. Same with the winter tents. The most that can be gleaned from those items is that they are of basic but sturdy craftsmanship and most of it looks fairly new - none of it has been through a winter season before - and it's fashioned of elk hide such as is common in the region of western Gondor which you all just traveled through to get here - and likely they did too.

In your present position you do feel a little bit exposed, if anyone were to peer out from above.

The ruined walls of the upper structure rise up, flush from the edge of the mountain outcropping above. Climbing that safely, without purpose built gear, and in your exhausted state, would seem basically impossible. Such is at least part of the reason whoever built this fortress where they did. It would be easy to lay siege to such a stronghold, but nearly impossible to take it by force.

The steps are the only other obvious access point, and to use them during the day you would certainly be seen by the people below, if not above. At night, which is many hours away yet, it would just depend on what their night time watch or activities looked like.

To approach the encampment peacefully, would be easy enough, you could either just climb down from your current vantage point - though that might seem a little strange - or you could descend a little ways down back the way you had come, circle around a bit, and approach from the path which the map would have taken you in by.