The PCs passed south along the Arterial Highway, and noted several Darkonian army camps and tents along the way, setting up crude basic fortifications. They got to Nartok Keep late in the afternoon, and gasped at the changes.
Naked, twisted earthen trenches and ramparts had been gouged into the hillside surrounding the walled city. A separate flag flew over the city now, and the walls and towers bristled with armed men. The PCs drew near and the extent of the Falkovnian administration became clear - deep, roofed entry tunnels led in zig-zags up the hillside, clearly set up to deter any invaders hoping to recapture the citadel town.
At the gates, the Falkovnians stated that the PCs would have to specify a visa type. If they were here to speak on the Beurteilung (public truth-and-reconciliations committee), they would be taken aside and interviewed over the course of several hours to ascertain the truth or relevance of their testimony. If they were here on mercantile or diplomatic business, there would be a deposit payable at the gates of 3,000 Darkonian Eyes (or 30 Darkonian Sceptres) to ensure compliance with martial law. The PCs did not have that amount of money, and they weren't particularly keen on joining the Beurteilung to speak out against the "depredatory rule of Darkonius Rex".
They took to the ramparts outside the city, where a vast number of mercenaries, sellswords, and ne'er-do-wells made their living.
Asking around, they found that the Falkovnians paid handsomely for mercenary aid to defend the city at nights. 100 Darkonian Eyes per night - if you could survive an entire year, you'd come away wealthy with the equivalent of 3 Darkonian Crowns - enough to live in a comfortable style for a number of years. The PCs spoke to several adventuring groups, and found them in decent enough spirits. They refused to tell the PCs what the Creeping Death was, though - they said like any other rookies, they'd have to find out first hand.
Shortly before sundown, the mercenaries took up a haunting refrain of defiance, ringing across the hillsides. "
There's only one will to fight - and that's your own, your own, your own! There's only one will to fight, and that's your own, your own, your own..."
A Prominente guard came out of the Keep, with a person of some clear importance leading. The PCs got closer and saw a good-looking man speaking fluent Darkonian and fluent Trecht, weaving among the mercenaries and asking after the health of their comrades, and asking what they needed. He made notes of equipment requests, trying for blankets and pillows and bandages. The PCs noticed that the Falkovnian guards on the city walls behind them only had shields and clubs - the sort of less-lethal armaments you'd see with police and constabulary, while the big weapons like glaives and halberds were outside the walls for the mercenaries to use against the Creeping Death.
The man came by the PCs' group, but they did not speak with him and he passed by amiably enough. The mercenaries nearby said they were indebted to this man, Colonel Leopold Neiß, for he was the policymaker who recommended a high mercenary wage for hired help. After ten days of service, they could afford to enter the city. With a few days more, they could afford to do recreational things inside. This cycle repeated itself until the mercenary gathered enough wealth to leave indefinitely, or until some battlefield misfortune claimed them.
A short while later, the PCs met up with a braying oaf of a man,
towken jas loik vis, whom they had unwittingly aided a few months previously to regain his lost libido by the unusual aphrodisiac restorative of skinning a Falkovnian Hauptmann alive. Large as life and twice as unkempt, it was Dale "Cut-Me-Own-Throat-Or-At-Least-Somebody-Else's" Reeve, terror of the Darkonian highways, travelling salesman of bandit insurance, and requisitions expert nonpareill.
I shall spare the reader the exercise of deciphering his accent and merely relate that Dale Reeve had clearly overcome his previous hydraulic dysfunction and was busy trying to bed every wench in service around Nartok. Between mugs of ale and cherrystone spitting competitions, Reeve confided to the PCs that he had heard of the first shipment of grain coming up the Arterial Highway from Falkovnia to Nartok. This tallied with what they'd heard as well - the Falkovnians were using the Beurteilung as a truth-and-reconciliations forum, to try to reconcile the Darkonian public with the past. There would be vast reparations in grain to individual Darkonians who could prove lineage to fallen Darkonian soldiers. And Dale Reeve was going to lead his mercenary company of the Bec de Corbin to raid the shipment.
The PCs declined his generous offer to join him in sticking a thumb in the eye of the Falkovnian occupiers.
The first night, the PCs saw the Creeping Death approach in the firelight as a roiling mass of shadows. And then they saw the reflections of the firelight in paired pinpoints of vacant, staring eyes. Jaws lay slack with rigor mortis, or bare of flesh and sinew in the cold. The mercenaries shouted and manned the ramparts, striking down into the mass of shambling corpses with mace, halberd, and poleaxe as the undead hordes stumbled relentlessly onwards, claws and fists and mailed gloves reaching for their prey.
The PCs felt a chill in their blood, and Alen (born and raised in Darkon) had a moment or two of abject panic. This was the revenge of the Grey Realm that the Eternal Order had spoken of! But they fought down the revulsion and horror long enough to help the seasoned mercs fight back the first wave, pressing them back from the packed earth ramparts and mashing them to the ground. Blades sang out and maces crunched as the impudent dead fell back and surged, fell back and surged, in a neverending unthinking tide of rapine and destruction.
At some point during the night, the PCs came up with the idea of laying down a path of fire. This blocked some of the ramps, and also gave them some effectiveness against the walking dead. They also availed themselves of various weapons provided by the Falkovnians and Nartok watch. They found the following results:
- The undead do not appear to infect their victims with tooth or claw.
- The undead do not appear to be vulnerable to head-strikes. They will keep on advancing even without a head.
- The undead are slow and sluggish and do not have any coordinating or strategic ability.
- The undead suffer the most when hit in the center of mass and disrupted physically there.
After an utterly sleepless night, the mercenaries and PCs enjoyed (if that is the right term) a morale boost in the morning. Apparently, the Falkovnians had captured a member of the Kargat - Agent Simundip - and after a night of interrogations, the "public" had called for his immediate execution as a blight upon humanity. This went beyond the hatred typical of an oppressed people for their oppressor - this had the feel of a pogrom or witch-hunt.
Being outside the city, the PCs couldn't follow the executioner procession inside, but they were aware of a gathering near the Hanging Wall (where only a few months earlier they had witnessed the execution of some Falkovnian collaborators... strange how the times change). Then, with a great cheer, a figure appeared at the top and plummetted earthwards until it stopped with a jerk of the noose, and began an agonized, dancing sway from side to side. The struggles continued, abating, for quite some time. As the sun came up, the true nature of the thing became clear - much larger than a man, though man-sized, and with patches of golden, black-striped fur between the clothing. Amidst the ruined, blood-matted confusion of the face, the unfortunate convict featured a gaping maw with sharp, curved teeth and incarnadine whiskers, like some great cat. His eyes sagged vacant - one staved in by a stone from the mob, and the other catching the glimmer of the weak dawn sunlight.