On Ending Through The Drakwald

The long days of your march through the edge of the Drakwald and through the madness of a good woman are over.

You and the straggling band of survivors you helped make the long slow passage up the southern causeway, meandering across the Fauschlag, rising ever higher on its slopes, only to run the last hundred yards in great causeways of stone and timber, cunningly fashioned to be pulled up to the gatehouses at need.

Middenhiem awaits you, her four great causeways leading from the valley floor below still intact. The cliffs below the city and its walls are home to murder upon murder of crows, covered in ravens and other less savory birds preying on the remains of the fell creatures of Chaos which died on the long climb to the peak of the Ulricsberg and the city. Strange beasts with long chains dangling from their malformed corpses are like so many sides of beef hung for the butcher, barely recognizable man-forms, thier hands ending in iron claws stuck fast in the cliffside.

Updrafts carry the odor of rotting flesh from the valley floor, the bodies of chaos worshippers and worse lay far below, dashed in great gory display on rocks where they fell. The clean mountain air tainted with the smell of brunt timber and scorched stone, and other, less savory things linger at the edge of your senses, sickening.

Closer, the gates are manned, but not by the regular army, nor even the militia. Rather, it is the town watch which draws this duty. Everywhere on the walls and at the huge gates there are signs of the siege; burnt and ruinous towers like broken teeth, shattered portions of walls, the gates themselves scorched and scarred. The massive Dwarf-forged chains which draw the causeway bridges did not entirely escape damage, and some few Dwarfs, engineers apparantly, can be seen muttering over the stays at one end.

The gate, which Captain Schiller tells you is the South Gate, stands open now, but the refugees which are pouring into the city even now clog the road, making it slow going. The watchman sees but another straggling group of refugees in you and your charges, and gestures you through the long bore of the gatehouse and into the city without a word or the traditional gate charge.

The din of hammering and the calls of work-gangs repairing those walls are loud, but the sound seems to drop off quickly as if shy without the presence of the usual residents near the walls to hear it. Many buildings are damaged.

Shiller guides his people through the Southgate-Ostwald District, the poorest in the city, and then through the merchant district, where most of the wares seem to be hidden from greedy eyes. Storekeepers are closing up shop as the mournful sound of Last Bell rings through the city, announcing the closing of the gates.

The press of people is stifling, though on reflection this is more due to the lack of homes or work for the refugees than any great increase in the number of people withing the city.

Schiller leads you all to the Great Park at the center of the city, where he quickly details some of Untergard's watch to stake out a claim of campsite space for his people.
Exhausted, weary beyond words and safe, as no one would think to steal from refugees as threadbare and down-at the heels as your group, you curl up in your cloaks and fall off to sleep, unsure of the future.

Your last thought before succombing to sleep, "Welcome to Middenheim."