Game Thread: Alara

The courtyard beyond the gate is guarded by a powerful looking knight whose armour is themes around a hunting cat. It wields a skimmitar in one hand a chain with a claw at the end of it in the other.

The courtyard is essentially featureless, though around the left and right sides there is a 10 foot overhanging roof.

Though the blow was powerful your opponent remains. It lunges at you with it's scimitar while trying to strike at you with the claw. But you skillfully avoid both strikes.

Your spear finds your opponents flesh but only barely, giving it the opportunity to disengage with you and then leap at you claw chain swinging, though with the move so clearly telegraphed you avoid it with ease.

Your blow staggers your foe, for a second you think it might be over, but it mounts one more desperate assault, which fails to break your defenses.

You drive your spear through the knight and take the full wight of the body for a moment as it turns to ash. You absorb the soul of the Mahjim the Gate-Warden, on the ground where the figure stood is it's chain.The court yard has two additional exits; a ladder around the side of the gatehouse that leads onto the main walls, and a wide set of doors the lead through a smaller inner wall.

You throw the doors open and see another walled of section. This courtyard is a well get rock garden, it's central feature a sight for sore eyes: A bonfire.

You are not alone in the rock garden, a women in a fine dress rakes the sands. From what you see of her arms she doesn't appear to be undead, but you cannot see her face, as it is obscured by a wide brim hat with a veil hanging from it. She speaks to you as you enter. Bearer of the curse, please take refuge in my garden. You must be a powerful warrior to get past the gatekeeper, what brings such a mighty soul to the Firekeep?

Other then the door you came through there are three ways out of the garden, to the left and right wide staircases that lead to raised ground on either side, suggesting that the city behind the wall is raised, and the garden sits sunken to the ground level outside. Ahead a door that leads into the keep proper.

bearer of the curse, unless you wish to become as mindless as those you fight I suggest you find a stronger sense of purpose. I am Malora, and I red to this garden and this bonfire. By this place place do you mean the garden or the keep?

Well this is the Firekeep, it guards the entrance to the way of saints which leads to the sacred flame. The king of Legrion had it constructed over a much older site as he felt a place of such importance deserved more then then the degraded towers that stood over it.

As for the garden... This bonfire has stood here for some time, and though I have not always guarded it, it has been a refuge for the undead from times before even this keep was here. I maintain the bonfire, and not wanting to be idle as I do so, have created the garden to house it. The war and despair of which you speak is a recent affair compared to the garden and this bonfire.