After a half hour of walking, the adventurers came upon the track leading up to the castle. Garf immediately began to walk up it but Leah grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He put his fingers over his mouth then pointed at the ruins. There were two lights in the tower either side of the main gate. "I've been this way before", whispered the Ranger. "No-one has lived at that castle for two hundred years. It's not even a real castle, just an expensive merchant's home made up to look like one". Garf nodded his assent and suggested the two shoud perhaps make their way off the track and approach from the side.
After a few minutes of searching, Garf found a part of the crumbled wall that could be scaled to gain entrance into the castle. After successfully scrambling over the wall he dropped noiselessly into the courtyard of the building. To his right there was an entrance door to a tower. Leah appeared over the wall and dropped down next to him. He nodded towards the door and wordlessly began to make his way over. Briefly stopping to consider a strange rattling noise coming from the blackness of the courtyard, the two made their way to the door. It was at this time that that pesky piece of chainmail once again rattled in Garf's pack, and the two broke into a sprint when the sound of footsteps and rattling came charging in their direction.
Garf spun to see what was chasing them, confused by the lack of a warning or challenging shout from their pursuers. As they grew closer, Garf was horrified to see three terrifying spectrals of the undead coming towards them! Three bone skeletons wearing the remnants of rusted armour, and carrying rust-flecked shortswords charged across the courtyard and slammed into Garf. Leah had made it to the doorway and was inside when he heard the noise. Turning, he came back out of the door as Garf raised his hands to Kord. "Begone thou fould creatures of the twisting netherworld, I command thee!" He shouted at the top of his voice. The undead warriors faltered, and two of them turned and ran back the way they came. The third however looked unphased and spread his bony face into a hideous grimace, raising his shortsword.
Garf parried the blow and landed his mace on the cranium of the horror, sending its bones smashing into the ground at his feet. Quickly recovering, he and Leah ran into the tower and barricaded the door behind them. Treading carefully up the stone steps, they heard once again the curious rattling noise and proceeded silently up the stairs. In a room at the top that in its day may have beeen a pleasant place to study there were two more of the skeletal horrors awaiting them. Garf immediately raised his hands to Kord, but Leah stopped him, "They've nowhere to run to!" he exclaimed, noticing the only exit was the one they had just come up. The two adventurers engaged the onrushing skeletons the old fashioned way, and made relatively short work of them.
They searched their surroundings and recovered some petty gold coins from the rotting carcasses of chests and drawers that were littering the room. The carpet was plush, although very worse for wear, and the fireplace ornate. It seemed Leah was right, this was not a castle after all but a stately home in a state of disrepair. Heaving with exhaustion, both adventurers checked the barricade on the door at the foot of the tower, then headed back upstairs to rest for the night.
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