Not that any of the party had asked much about their long eared magician. Leowyn had been bed ridden, sometimes delirious from her experience, to have a proper chat with Templeton about how he ended up in Winter Haven, how his folk came to be. Traladar legends when it came to beasts were antagonistic, but that was because the beasts were sharp toothed canids who scourged the land for plunders and slaves, no legend ever spoke of long eared, large footed folk who were a greater danger to carrots and cabbages than they were ever to a human babe. Leowyn might have been ashamed of her people had they gone to war with the rabbitfolk in the past.
She had no need to fear. Harengons, which was the name of Templeton’s folk, were, in the grand scheme of the known world, a recent addition through the principalities of the wizards. Templeton’s forebears emerged from a Glantri conjured portal as part of one inquisitive magic-user’s attempt to try and figure out where these rabbits that his colleagues were conjuring from hats came from. It could have been no case of sleight of hand, the conjurer’s friends would never lie to him, and they would show an empty hat. The trick had ultimately shifted an entire village of Harengon, neatly plucking it from their own world and settling it in Glantri. Had the other nobles, fellow arcanists eagerly curious and at times lacking the same earnest morals that the first mage, remained pleasant to the harengon, perhaps Templeton’s ancestors might have stayed in Glantri, but in those first few months several families had been taken captive and marched into towers of mages never to be seen again.
Templeton knew not the fate of the taken harengon, and sometimes he would say prayers to any kind Immortals that walked the known world. The remaining harengon fled where they could, and those who were of Templeton’s clan settled in relative peace throughout northern Karameikos. Both the Traladar and Thyatian humans were pleasant, even though Templeton’s clan were viewed as a curiosity. The clan had found peace around the city of Threshold. His clan used their knowledge of root and herb to trade with both the humans and gnomes who lived higher up the mountains.
When the flying city of Serraine passed through the region, Templeton had left the farm of his mother and father with a higher hope to learn the secret of arcane magic from the city’s great library, the arcanists who dwelt in the city and offered to teach those willing to either pay or work for their lessons. Templeton had some gold on him, a stipend from his family and clan, he also helped maintain Arcanist Keshadei Naumova’s garden despite the inhospitable environment of a flying city. When he returned on the first biplane back to Threshold, he was a burgeoning conjurer. From Threshold into the interior of Karameikos by buying the halfling’s hole in the ground and setting up in Winter Haven. He had hoped to use the gold the party found in Quasqueton to show his parents how all of his hard work had paid off. First was the matter of the mansion that they stumbled upon. The party had worked their way around the western side of the keep’s outer grounds, passing the stable and keeping a distance from a manor so that they were not immediately spotted from the broken window. A lazily flowing moat kept the party from reaching the keep, at any point they could have forded the river, but Leowyn wanted to conduct a sweep of the perimeter first before they attempted to turn and
“The only thing I saw in the stables was a nasty looking weasel that had mangled three shrews. We might have had some trouble if he wasn’t tired and gluttonous, he was napping when I poked my head in.” Rodda said as the party continued on in a casual line after stopping by the stables. Rodda performed a quick and quiet lookover of the low buildings, trying to see if the wolf riders had stored their beasts in the unkept buildings. The collection included stables, a cold smithy, and two cottages that would have housed the workers. All of it abandoned, and apparently hazardous. Rodda was able to return without any violence, keeping quiet and having sharp eyes and ears to detect trouble.
“They either are using a separate building, or they might be housing the wolves in the manor itself,” Leowyn said. The group had reached a middle point of the curtain wall with a set of stone stairs that led up the parapet.
Pausing at the stairs, Rodda broke from the line and made her way up, her little boots making only the softest tapping on the stairs. Although Halfling feet was said to be as tough as shoe leather, that was true for casual living in the Five Shires. A number of halfling adventurers, burglars, fighters, and at least one traveling chef had lamented being in the rough, or exploring a dungeon only to step on sharp objects that broke through the supposedly toughened sole and pierced their feet. Rodda wore a pair of buckled boots with soft soles, but still it provided a thin barrier between her feet and the ground she walked on. She peeked her head over the ledge where the stairs met the parapets. The goblins were too few to set a watch on the walls.
Back at the base of the stairs, where the rest of the group milled around, Rodda appeared and reported her findings.
“Let’s look over the buildings in the north and then we can come back down,” Leowyn said.
“The goblins will eventually go looking for their missing men,” Onatah said.
“Hopefully we’ll either scatter or slay any on the outer grounds so there are less of them.”
The party formed another line as Leowyn started walking towards the north, turning east at the sight of another ruined building. Ahead of her lay the source of the moat flowing under the walls and heading south. From the party stood, they could see that an intact iron grate protected the castle from infiltration by stream. Someone had laid out another pair of wooden planks to act as an improvised bridge between the two sides. For the moment, the grounds were clear and the shadows were lengthened as the afternoon sun had begun to dip below the hills and filtered through the trees.
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