This is part 2 of the story. To read the first part, click here
One Last Hurrah, Part 2
The silence fell again and Eyor took up the large tome from his belt and took up his large lantern.
“Let’s go” he spoke as they all prepared to move on. Pia stood up and held her left arm that looked like it had been dislocated from the shield bash. Eyor moved up to Pia, “Let’s put that back in place” he said as he abruptly pushed the arm back into its’ socket. Pia gasped from the pain but quickly recovered as the rest of the team moved out of the room through the door the guard had broken in.
They entered a service corridor with 2 doors on the right side and a door straightforward. Alfred took the point and lead them to the first door as he looked in he saw a large dining room, with 5 nobles sitting around a table and laughing, drinking and 2 troubadours playing music. The music was loud even out into the corridor and that must have kept them from hearing the fight earlier. Alfred quickly closed the door and sneaked over to the next door. He opened the door and looked in. he saw a large hall, with an alcove up ahead, right in front there was another queens guard by a large set of double doors. From what Alfred could make out of this, those doors lead back into the door with the nobles. The music wasn’t as loud here, but it could still be heard. On the other side of the guard was another single door. There was no good reason to attack another of those guards. This one had no shield and was armed with a pole-axe. So one good arrow could put him out, but the question was, Would Tyrogue be able to pull off that shot?
The answer was most likely no, so they snuck up to the last door. Pia was first up to the door as she had snuck ahead while Alfred was checking this door. Pia looked in and waved that the coast was clear as she opened the door slightly and pressed through the opening.
Inside was another part of the large hall, with the one guard. But on the other side of the stairway, if they could just make it up the stairway without alerting the guard, this was great! Alfred thought to himself. He moved up to the stairway and started silently moving upward, the rest of the group followed them as the soft carpet hid most of the sound of their steps. As they got up to the end of the stairwell and to the alcove, they noticed a group of nobles sitting in a sofa group, playing cards. Tyrogue readied his bow, pulling it up and aiming it towards the nobles. Alfred stopped Tyrogue with a motion of his hand.
The alcove was huge, most likely as large as the dining area on the floor downstairs, plus another few meters. Outside of the nobles at the sofa group playing cards, there weren’t any people there. There was a door on their left side, leading deeper into the castle and a door by the nobles’ sofa group, leading who knows where.
Alfred started moving, at a regular walking pace towards the door on the left. Trying to look as they fit right in there. The nobles didn’t react much, way to pulled into their card game to notice them. Alfred let out a long sigh as they got through the door and the group got in without much notice.
On the other side of the door was another smaller room with 3 other doors in it, one in each direction. Alfred signaled Pia to one door and Tyrogue to the other, so they could check all of them easily. Tyrogue carefully opened his door and quickly closed it again. Signaling the other to be silent and then holding up 3 fingers towards them.
They all heard the sound of at least 3 pairs of feet walking closer after this. And as they got closer, the soft clanking as metal softly rubbed against chainmail. Everyone was completely still as the steps got closer and then passed by. The sounds of step faintly echoed out. They all breathed out as Pia looked towards her door, she opened it slightly and peaked in. On the other side, she saw a single guard, with his helmet removed, sitting on a bench in the middle of a corridor. She couldn’t see the wall that the bench was standing at, so why the guard was there was unclear. It could just be a door or a stairway. Pia only knew one thing, they had to go further and further up, as the queen’s chambers were known to be at the top of the Keep, The Altar of Sulphur, as it was named after the yellow stone used to build it.
She waved Tyrogue over, Tyrogue saw the guard, nodded opened the door slightly more and as the guard noticed him, he had already let loose of his bowstring. The arrow flew through the air as the guard tried to stand up. The arrow was quicker than the guard and burrowed into guards face, just below the eye and the guard fell to the ground with a large thud.
The group quickly moved into the corridor, noticing the large stairwell. They hurriedly moved up, as if someone had heard the thud, they weren’t far away now, better to get away and to an unknown location before someone found this body.
As they climbed the stairs, the stairs started turning until they had turned all turned around. The group had moved quickly up the stairs as they got into a rounded corridor, the side that bent out had large arrow slits, facing outwards from the large castle. Pia looked out and saw the capital outside, the sun was slowly setting outside. She looked down out the arrow slit and saw the roof of the rooms they had just passed through and then up again. Seeing the entire capital reach out in front of here. The person that decided to build a castle on top and then down the sides of a mountain must be a genius. This would be impenetrable if there were no secret tunnels she thought to herself as the rest of the group passed her by.
She snapped back to reality as she followed along with the rest of the group. Alfred was moving up front with the man that had been disarmed before, Bjorn was his name as they got up to a door. They opened the door and saw that it was an armory on the other side, no one inside as they kept creeping through the room to the only door in the room. They opened it up and got into what looked like a small garrison, 12 beds with small chests lined the walls and a large double door further into the keep on the right side made the group nervous.
This was the first sign of soldiers living in here that they had found, from this point on. Finding guards would most likely become much more common. As they moved through the room they found that there was 2 guard asleep in the room. Pia snuck up the side of one bed and Bjorn to the other. As they both slit the throats of the man and women sleeping, they gasped for air and blood flowed unto the sheets.
As they slit the throats of the guards, Alfred snuck up closer to the double door, Tyrogue got up to the other side of the door and they carefully pushed one of the doors open. As they looked in, they saw a large room, with 8 large pillars in rows. By each pillar, an armor of black steel was standing, holding a large ornamented halberd. In the middle of the room, stairs appeared leading up to the farther end of the room. As they climbed the stair they noticed a large mirror standing in the middle of the room, taller than a man and wider than a full suit of armor.