Cathal's Journal - Day 12

   I am slowly but surely catching up with the plot of the campaign, but am still about a session behind. Hopefully I can write enough of these fast enough to do so, but in case I can't, I may have to jump forward with a few of them. Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoy these as much as we enjoy playing this game! - RD

It has been a few days since I have written in these pages. The ache of my father’s death still grips my heart, but is loosened by new opportunity for vengeance, if not justice. We have captured the catspaw whose poison draught laid my noble father low.

After the tragedy at my brother’s wake, I ordered the castle town closed and barred, until we could uncover the culprit. Despite our efforts investigating the serving staff and the origins of the poison, in the end it was lady Reynhild’s keen eye and a tactical error on the part of our assassin that led to his capture. At mid-day today, I ordered the east gate of the town opened, ostensibly so folk could return their daily business.

In truth, it was a ploy to force the assassin into action. We suspected, and I was quite sure, that the blackguard still lurked within the walls of the castle, posing as one of the servants. I closed the castle and the town to add pressure to his deception and hope he would break. To his credit, the assassin remained steady until the very end. When the gates were opened, he attempted to leave with a visiting delegation from the Western Temple of Haelyn. Lady Reynhild spotted the extra member of their party, and called him out. It was then that the assassin’s composure melted away.

The fool fled into the keep; a great blunder. Reynhild raised the hue and cry, and ran in pursuit, her faithful hound Callum close at heel. Try as I might to catch her up, she and the assassin had a wide lead on my soldiers and I, and Lady Reynhild is nearly as swift afoot as she is in the saddle. By the time I managed to reach her, she had engaged the killer, single-handed; Callum had been wounded in the chase. The assassin climbed and climbed, ever up the tower, though he often had to halt to fend off the flurry of Reynhild’s blades. This is what allowed us to close on him. As he reached the top floor of the keep, he attempted to leap from a window and thus escape, whether to his death or to the waters of Eirik's Bowstring, only he can know.

Lady Reynhild, much to our quarry’s chagrin, revealed herself to be an implacable hunter. Just as the assassin’s boots readied to leave the sill, she leapt and hauled him bodily to the floor, a stranglehold around the man’s neck. Unwilling to risk harm to my lady, I dropped my sword and sat my knee upon the blackguard’s chest, then stretched him cold with two sharp blows to the jaw. I checked my lady worriedly for injury as I helped her up, but she spoke only of helping her hound. We rushed to find him a floor below, slumped against a stack of shelves, hardly breathing.

The gifts a blooded scion manifests are as varied in effect and potency as the stars in the night sky. We blooded few of the Fulcairn line have the honour and pride to claim descent from a favored servant of the great and noble Anduiras. It has been put down in our history since before the written word that a Fulcairn stood on the slopes of Deismaar that terrible day on which the old gods died. And, while we have only the word that was passed by generation to generation to support this claim, I have always thought this to be true. In me, the light of Anduiras still shines, and it is due to the virtue imparted by his golden ichor that I bear a small gift in healing, with which I returned the gallant cairnhound to his brave mistress. I am relieved to have been able to prevent yet another wound from staining her ravaged heart.

For now, the assassin awaits his fate in our dungeon. Reynhild, Dolan, and Finn advise that I allow them to put the irons to him, but I detest torture. I have seen such carried out among the Rjurik, and its success has always seemed dubious to me. The wizard, Mara, offers me an alternate route. Should I be unable to drag answers from the knave’s black tongue, I believe I will entreat her to bend his mind with magic. Though I taste ash at the thought of it, I like torture the worse, and I suspect that enchantment, though I know little and less of its working, may be more reliable in gaining the veracity I seek.

My father and brother have both been laid to rest. I am the lord of Wilder’s Gorge. Baron Cathal Fulcairn, fourth of his name, Chief of the Wilders. My responsibility is now to my land and my people, but I will make absolutely certain that those who wish to do my house harm will know that they shall never do so lightly.