The party uncovered a few books in the course of the adventure. Normally that happens now and again, but these books were special. They were found in the Lycos Suns offices - in a locked office that had no key on the ring to open it - of a person who did not appear on the payroll but had a place nicer than Vanir's - in a closet that was locked and trapped with some sort of flaming glyphs.
This is the first of the three books: Dargan's Folley, Volume One of Four:
This is the accounting of Sir Dargan Cooperson and his discovery of the abandoned dwarven halls where he erected keep and wall to protect the people of his land away from the open fields of Ponyboro as told by me, Cyric Mulholland: gentleman, sword swinger, scribe, and squire to the selfsame Sir Dargan.
* * *
The call came from Earl Marron to venture north and see what or who it was that seemed to swallow whole the two crusades that went before them. I remember clearly the day Sir Dargan Cooperson got his papers to march for king and country. There was much ballyhoo and his fathers and uncles and brothers wanted him to hoist banners high and join them.
Sir Dargan wrestled with this, I know he did. He would speak to me at night after the dogs were asleep and the shepherds bedded down, wondering if he should abandon the Seven Swords and do as his family asked of him. What could I tell him? Bonds of family and vows of brotherhood should not be entered into lightly and must be weighed out each of their own merit.
* * *
The last words Sir Dargan made to his father were ones of anger as the nobleman rode northward toward Maronnia and our Earl with his sons and brothers in tow. I wonder often how many times Sir Dargan replayed that encounter in his mind?
* * *
It was a cold day when the first reports came to light of the Orc raid on Caer Ushar in Timbleton Baronny. There were shocks and noises and tsks tsks made but for the most part, I know the populace gave it no thought. Some assault on a distant place on the other end of the Earldom meant as much to them as the stories of cholera in the slum districts of Darkwaters did trickling northward.
It was Sir Dargan who I remember looking pensively over the horizon and saying, “Cyric my friend, I think this is the beginning of something calamitous.”
* * *
The Seven Swords were actually looking to bag the white stag for sport when the ground opened under Rinigar’s mount and the animal snapped its foreleg. The hilltop was lightly forested and the hole seemed deep as evidenced by the echoes heard within and the stale air that wafted out. Rinigar’s mount was given a clean death and it was Sir Dargan who prodded the hole with a 10’ staff of ash, widening it as the dirt and loam fell free.
We rested that night and went in with rope and piton and saw that it was some sort of long forgotten dwarven halls. Some bats and insects sought to disturb us as we explored but the place was so old and in disrepair that the Seven Swords lost interest and we returned home the following three-day.
* * *
Orc raid was spoken about on Harrowdale up north. Don’t know anyone that far north, otherwise I’d have been more interested. There was talk though, where was Earl Marron and the Third Crusade? Shouldn’t they have been able to deal with an orcish raid?
* * *
Sir Dargan, I, and a team of architects went back to the same dwarven halls discovered last month. My lord made sure to take numerous measurements and sightings, making a detailed drawing out of charcoal and vellum. We stayed here just about one week before heading back. Talk around the inns is some keep or fort (again, far north) was attacked and overrun by Orcs. According to my lord this was the 7th such occurrence in the last 3 weeks.
* * *
Steward Thandar Marron has called for a dissolution of adventuring guilds under this time of concern and aggression. I can only imagine the Earl’s nephew trying to appear tough and decisive with kohl on his thin chin whiskers as he stands outside the manor house and attempts to muster the populace and keep them calm.
There is still no word of the Third Crusade which I am sure upsets Sir Dargan.
* * *
Sir Dargan and I made a journey to Cymbarton where my lordship registered the same dwarven warren he discovered as his own discovery and made his first tax payment upon it. The Exchequer wouldn’t record it under the Cooperson Demesne as there is an outstanding lien on the family holdings for some other property outside of Karon, so it was under the name and recognizance of Sir Dargan himself.
Long and short, he fails to make good on the debts, it comes out of his pocket. And currently his pocket IS the Copperson Demesne! If his father was here, I know he’d stripe Sir Dargan’s back for this.
At least I was able to visit with my family for a while. Grettel is getting so big and Juru is as proud a mother as possible. I gave everyone fond farewells and left Bower Lane with a smile.
Little did I know that when I returned again it would be at a world changed and shattered.
* * *
The place is a wreck. We went in a bit further and it’s nothing but empty halls long abandoned and taken clean and clear of anything that wasn’t nailed down in the first place. Told Sir Dargan this and he made note of it.
I think he likes it.
And I don’t think he cares that no one else does.
* * *
We’re going to need some local artisans to help us on this. Urgic brothers have a handy knowledge of architecture, and there is the Tunnis family in Seneshia that has done some work before. But we are going to need lots of local and imported help on this, especially on the plans I’ve seen Sir Dargan cobbling together.
How we going to pay for all this?
* * *
Limers, carpenters, masons, smiths, riveters, welders, laborers, teamsters, caskers, mortarers, leatherworkers, glass blowers. And that’s just off the top.
And where are we going to get the stone from? The quarries here in Ponyboro are substandard at best, but we’ve gotten a 35% confirmation agreement on 9 months output so there will be plenty for forming and foundation.
* * *
Winter is not helping and we had to make next tax payment. Nothing there but fencing and raw goods and scrape lines in the hill top and half erected walls and foundation blockings.
* * *
Radergast was plundered up north. Big city too, almost 40 thousand I heard. That’s a lot of people to assault. What the hell are the bloody greenskins doing?
* * *
Ogres. Orcs and ogres and some sort of giants as well. Talk around Eight Acres Black is that thousands were unable to flee Radergast and were slaughtered or captured for slave and food by the humanoid army.
War is not coming any more. It is here. And it is moving south.
Sir Dargan says nothing, but I know he is aware that his father, brothers and uncles are never coming home.
* * *
We have stone coming in. Purchased great quantities of it, and for that I am finally happy. Can’t build a keep out of wood – not unless you want it torn down within the first hour of the siege.
I asked Sir Dargan the price and then pretended I hadn’t wanted to know. This keep is going to bankrupt the family.
* * *
The Steward Thandar Marron got approval from King Daro to muster an army to, as hawked in Town Circle, “draw a line between the ferocious barbarians who threaten our lives and families.”
I’m sure the Earl’s Steward then asked for a cookie and had his nursemaid change his diaper.
* * *
Architect is worried that the north side of the keep is going to punch through the vault below. We barely have the upper area searched to say nothing of surveyed. The ceiling is thick but there is concern as to whether it is shelf or table stone or compressed and compacted earth.
Sir Dargan is putting a team together. Guess which man is going to be seconding him in there? The things I do for my liege lord.
* * *
Many rooms, some cramped. The dwarves who lived here did so in style and with an eye toward defense. It’s a bit confusing with some seemingly straight runs dead ending and other narrower places leading to many chambers and vaults. But its been abandoned by the dwarves for a long long time. Seems a bit sad too.
* * *
Came upon the place where the north side of Caer Dargan is going to be situated and had the diggers do their thing. Took a few hours but its confirmed – table stone above thick enough to support three Caer Dargans.
I hope this means we aren’t going to make the place bigger.
* * *
Eldon was taken this week. Some sort of fishing village and home to twelve hundred people. Gone. That means the orcs are on the other side of the Firetail Hills and have successfully cut off almost half of the Barony of Nosarin.
The Steward has mustered over nine-thousand able bodied and sent them north. Trying to effect a breakthrough the greenskin lines I understand.
Sir Dargan has taken this news as more reason to fortify not only the holdings here in Ponyboro, but to redouble his efforts at Caer Dargan.
* * *
At this time the keep’s inner walls are finished and the lower rings of the towers are set. The outer walls should be tackled within the next couple of months. Last count, the Exchequer informs me that we have almost 900 bodies on the payroll just at Caer Dargan, with another 300 coming on in the ramp up and completion over the next and final four months.
And I know that another tax payment was made. Sir Dargan had to borrow from the family holdings in Karon to do so. This will not go over well if he can’t make payroll, tax, or material costs.
* * *
Another muster was called for. This time they are looking for fifteen thousand. I guess the “breakthrough” didn’t go over so well.
Where’s King Daro and his forces?
* * *
Sir Dargan has been missing for almost three days now. At first I didn’t really worry as he’s been taken to wandering the dwarven tunnels on his own. He came back now and again with the odd bric a brac and artifact long corroded and rusted from under the ground. But no one’s seen him come out of the dwarven tunnels for some time now and I don’t want to alarm the workers by organizing a large search party.
I think I’m going to have to hand pick a small sampling, five stout fellows with truncheons and keen eyes, to help me find Sir Dargan.
I hope to Odin he’s not hurt.
* * *
This place is much bigger than I guessed. And it’s not as abandoned as I suspected. I’ve seen at least two signs that scream goblin to me. And they aren’t nearly as old as the dwarven tunnels. A year? Two? A sharp eye is to be kept from now on out.
* * *
Indath is dead.
It happened so fast. A door was stuck closed and Indath pressed his shoulder to it and there was some sort of grinding sound and just like that, the ground opened beneath him and he fell to his death on some ancient spikes.
I am not so sure we’ll find Sir Dargan alive. We’ll take Indath out. I know his father will want to have the body home. I’m going to send Frintz and Leifsig back with the body.
I’m pressing on.
* * *
Found Sir Dargan. He was unconscious and dehydrated at the top of some wide avenue stairs that lead even further down. Down? There is another level? Dear gods, how big is this place?
He had an ancient and cracked leather carryall stuffed with some moldering tomes and cake like fungus. His waterskin was pretty empty but the water that was in there had a reddish hue to it, testament to the fact that he found some other water source elsewhere down here.
* * *
We’ve been in Ponyboro now for a week and Sir Dargan is awake and mending well. He seems changed, as if he knows something. The books he had with him were closed and I tried to sneak a peak, but no amount of prying could get the pages to open, not even a knife blade was able to slit through the pages.
The orcs are still rampaging across northern Marronia. Prices are beginning to rise. And I know that other lords are working on defenses as well.
* * *
I worry about my friend as I feel he’s too weak still, but he has picked himself up and gone back to Caer Dargan. I was going to put my foot down and not let him go into the damned dwarven tunnels alone this time, but he surprised me by having some of the ironworkers begin work on a large door. I seems he wants to have the entrance closed off from casual exploration.
I applaud his decision on this and look forward to seeing it done.
* * *
The payroll is short. Exchequer came out and said it. And we have 1,167 workers looking to get paid next week. I hope Sir Dargan has a pile of coins somewhere because I know his finances are stretched thin.
* * *
We had a walk off today. Almost three hundred laborers refused to work. Sir Dargan grew furious. Madder than I’ve ever seen him before. He cajoled and begged and threatened.
Then he had the roustabouts start cracking heads and the bowyers fired a thirty count of clothyard shafts into the crowd.
* * *
Forty-three workers died in the scuffle last week and eighty-seven were wounded. Sir Dargan has had the area around the Caer patrolled and any man found attempting to leave the site is beaten without question and brought back to the worksite.
This is not the man I’ve known all my life. Why the driving need to have this place built?
* * *
As I suspected, the timber we were expecting is not going to be delivered. The lumberers are claiming that Sir Dargan has defaulted on the last two deliveries and still has not paid. They won’t send anymore unless he makes good on his current debts.
I can’t in good faith rewrite the number of colorful expletives I heard him shout, merely because I’m sure one day my mother is going to read my memoirs.
* * *
Sir Dargan has been reading one of his books for a while now. I don’t know how he got it open, but he’s been really engrossed in whatever some long dead dwarven scholar penned down. I tried to talk to him about it but he told me that it was pretty frightening and esoteric stuff.
I wonder if it’ll tell him how to pay back the creditors?
* * *
We had new timber come in. Seems Sir Dargan took a loan out with the Wolverton estate. I asked him the percentage and he told me 30% without blinking. 30%? Sweet Frigga’s Asscheeks! 30%!?!
Why, oh why, would anyone take out a loan at such delirious rates? I tried to counsel him on it but he told me that this was the last of the timber we would need and then Caer Dargan would be finished.
I think the Cooperson family is finished.
* * *
Sir Dargan had the doorway to the dwarven tunnels opened this morning and he went down there with his books and two stout ponies with empty bags. I asked him what he was going to do and he told me he was going to get the money needed to pay everyone off. He told me to keep everyone away from the tunnels and not let them know where he went. Promised me he’d be back within half a day with payment.
I guess he’s going to pay them in cake mushrooms, rocks, dust, and spiderwebs.
* * *
Gold and silver.
Sweet Odin, gold and silver. The two ponies were staggering under the load they were taking out. The bags were bursting and Sir Dargan himself was dragging a large sack behind him stuffed with gold and silver.
I asked him where he got it from but all he did was smile.
* * *
The size of the bonus he paid to each worker was almost the same as what he got paid for the entire job. He paid the suppliers handsomely. He paid the next tax bill without concern. Every artisan, every person, every teamster, every lien holder was repaid in the smooth faced gold and silver coins that Sir Dargan brought out of the dwarven depths.
No one else but me knows where he got such coinage. And outside of just knowing that he got it from the dwarven tunnels which from what I have been conjecturing is as expansive as any city, I couldn’t imagine where down there he found such coins.
But I hope he is willing to share such information with me soon.
* * *
This ends the first part of my tale of Dargan’s Folly, the Dungeon of Sir Dargan. I will be continuing this tale in the next book.
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