The Watch Opens
At first light, the party broke camp below Grayspin Pass and climbed the eastern ridge toward Warden’s Watch. Faro and Ilsevir had seen nothing during their watch, though Faro admitted he had heard movement above the camp around midnight and dismissed it as wind; Yenn made clear that he should not have. The fortress proved half-ruined but not abandoned, its western half maintained behind repaired gates while the eastern wall lay fallen away. A crossbow bolt struck rock near Faro’s boot, and he answered the challenge from the ramparts by showing the iron tag. The gate opened only after its circle-and-three-lines mark was seen. Inside waited the Watch’s remaining wardens: Pyatt, Aldous, and Sister Raina.
What Hollowpeak Holds
In the keep hall, Ilsevir laid out the ciphered orders, the marked map, and the account of the husks from the East Mine. Sister Raina’s alarm confirmed that the documents mattered, especially after Kettra told her that a marked woman had escaped east along the ridge. Pressed by Brask, Raina explained that Warden’s Watch had been built to observe Hollowpeak above Kaldrek, where something ancient had been sealed beneath the mountain. The tag’s mark belonged to people who had once sought to break that seal, though Raina refused to say what lay below. As rain gathered against the fortress, Raina went to search the Watch’s records while the others explored what remained of its defenses. On the ramparts, Yenn found Corrin’s old supply cache below the stair and recovered climbing gear and a waxed map case from it.
Storm on the Ramparts
By near-dark, the rain had become a storm, and Pyatt spotted six or seven ash-wrapped attackers crossing the eastern ruin with two massive frost-and-stone beasts. The fight spilled across slick ramparts and the unrailed stair along the cliff edge, where a misstep could have sent anyone into the dark below. Kettra held the stair with shield and cinderline blade, its magic keeping her sure-footed on the wet stone, while Ilsevir burned back whatever reached her position. Yenn and Pyatt fired from the north tower, and Brask and Faro guarded the hall door. One beast broke through Kettra’s defense and knocked her down, but Sister Raina drove a warden’s spear through its neck before it could finish her. Ilsevir destroyed the second beast on the stair, and Faro cut down the last attacker to reach the hall door. Yet two raiders had already entered through a western window and killed Aldous at the fire.
The Watcher’s Clasp
The surviving attackers fled back over the eastern ruin, leaving four of their number dead along with both frost beasts. The defenders gathered the bodies in the yard, but the attackers carried only ordinary weapons, a few coins, and no useful mark. The real purpose of the assault became clear beneath the north tower: during the fighting, someone had opened the vault and taken most of its records and unnamed contents. Near the door lay one thing left behind, an ancient iron cloak clasp shaped like a closed eye. Sister Raina identified it as a Watcher’s clasp and gave it to Brask, who wore it and felt its protective steadiness at once. Aldous was dead, and Raina kept the rites and the losses of the vault to herself while the party stood watch through the night. In the morning, she gathered them in the hall and said she would tell them where to go next.