Session 8

 Night of the 3^rd Armsday of Bales, Eldermass

Karpat Fortress

The Knights are taken to their quarters, narrow rooms with high ceilings and strange angles. There arrival may have been foretold - or maybe the rooms know which Knights they will accommodate – as traditional pagan icons (or small paintings) of their respective Seers hang on the wall. Sir Andrasz peruses a strangely spiky iron bookcase of spiritual texts and sheet music, while Perilake's room is dominated by a rusty suit of armour with a notable hole at the back of the ancient helmet. Heldris marvels at the misty abyss outside the arrow slit windows.

After they are refreshed they are taken by servants to the Great Hall where the court of Lady Lamberta of Karpat is sitting at a long banquet table. The room is filled with candlelight. Hushed conversations and a lone eerie flute playing sacred music are the only sounds. The Lady, a short woman with greying hair under a simple iron crown, sits next to her equally unassuming husband. She laments the lack of spirituality in the realm that is exemplified by the rise of heretic cults and she congratulates the Knights for making an end to sect of the Eye. She warns them about another cult, the followers of the Child who are gaining popularity among her vassals. Nothing else of importance is said as soon the Lady invites the Knights to a meeting of her Council where such matters belong.

The Grand Hall (shown here before the banquet)

Lamberta bows to the altar of the throne room and gestures the Knights of the Council and her guests to take a seat at the round table. Tonda kneels next to her with a bucket of leeches in order to conduct a blood letting of the ailing ruler. In the case of the bandits it is decided that the Sheriff will aid the Knights to get rid of the threat to the law. Soon after Lamberta excuses herself due to deteriorating health. She waves with her ringed hand – the one placed upon her under oath to not remove it by King Andrasz the Ring Knight – and the Knights of the Brotherhood conclude that matters are discussed that the King shouldn't hear.

Indeed it is explained that Mateusz will only be accompanied by a few spearmen as the warband is needed to be ready to protect Karpat's claim over the peat bog when the tax collectors arrive for the Tithe. Tonda returns and exchanges nervous glances with the Envoy, Adalgunde of Kranach as Perilake demurs that the decision of the King should be respected but the Steward, Dorota of Masur, an older haggard looking woman, sharply disagrees.

After the meeting Anastasz takes Tonda aside to a small turret where they sit in the cushioned window sill. He mentions the Beekeepers and shows her the letter they found on Sir Grigori's body. Tonda turns pale before she composes herself. Her flirty demeanour is gone and she leans in to say.”If such a group exists what would you want to tell them?” She talks about certain opportunities that would arise from a change of leadership, maybe a Holding for those who aid the new ruler. Anastasz suggests a meeting and Tonda promises an answer within a couple of days never confirming that the Beekeepers even exist or that she might be associated with them in any way.

It is midnight when the Knights return to their rooms. Heldris finds two chestnuts, one dead and crumbling, one containing no fruit but an entangled ball of string. Many theories are suggested: A message from the Seers on such a holy day perhaps? Zoltan who had been on watch at the stable arrives and reports that a masked figure has left the castle at midnight and the Knights suspect them to beTonda. And indeed when they break into her room it is empty and nobody had slept in her bed.

Mateusz alarmed by the noise confronts the Knights, but Perilake assures him that their fear for the safety of the Leech is justified: Maybe the bandits have taken her prisoner. Mateusz and his men search the castle. Long after midnight the noise of the search subsides and the Knights finally find some sleep.

A mountain cave

Morning of the 3^rd Riverday of Bales

The leave at dawn with Mateusz and his men and ride down the mountain pass until at noon they arrive at a hollow way in a mountainous forest. Above them on a plateau they see the walls of a hexagonal building. They leave the horses with Mateusz and his men and climb up the cliff where they enter the ruined temple. Seven stone seats are the only furnishings left. Each has a skull placed on it, the crest of a Knight roughly scratched into each seat. A flame weasel gnaws the skull that is placed on the seat that bears Perilake's crest. Perilake feeds it and is bitten playfully by the strange creature. A rush of clarity and purpose pulses through the Gilded Knight's body. They search the plateau and find some footprints, a path leading north and behind some shrubs the entrance to a cave that they follow for a long time until it ends in a fortified door that is barred from the other side. They return and follow the path to a clearing where four soldiers guard the entrance to another cave. They climb above them and prepare to attack.