The Black Citadel
At the top of the staircase, you come into a large room with a cold stone floor and similar engraved columns like in the hallway below. The sounds of men shouting and the clang of metal are quite close now. You look towards the end of the room and see that it opens to a large spacious open area, and behind it, rising over the last rays of the setting sun, the central dark spire of the Black Citadel. Surrounding the citadel is a massive outer fortification, with only two of its crooked towers visible in the distance in front of you to the east.
Your footsteps echo on the hard stone as you head towards the door. The open area you realise is a large arena. Silent wooden stands rise up around the arena. You stop at the final pillar at the entrance to the arena when you make out about two dozen men training over to the right, a few yards off. You look quickly behind you to make out two exit points in the room, you assume, that lead to corridors in the inner part of the fortified wall that surrounds the citadel complex. However, these doorways are shut with locked iron gates.
You look back towards the arena and suddenly freeze when you notice two men walking over towards you who look like citadel guards.
"Hey, you there, get back with the rest of them or you'll be lashed!" one of them shouts at you, "Now, move it!"
Looks like you have no choice but to walk over and join the large group of men. The man that shouted at you whacks you painfully over the head with a wooden staff, and then another time in the middle of your back. The other stares you down and spits at your feet and proceeds to walk past to the large room you came from.
Your footsteps echo on the hard stone as you head towards the door. The open area you realise is a large arena. Silent wooden stands rise up around the arena. You stop at the final pillar at the entrance to the arena when you make out about two dozen men training over to the right, a few yards off. You look quickly behind you to make out two exit points in the room, you assume, that lead to corridors in the inner part of the fortified wall that surrounds the citadel complex. However, these doorways are shut with locked iron gates.
You look back towards the arena and suddenly freeze when you notice two men walking over towards you who look like citadel guards.
"Hey, you there, get back with the rest of them or you'll be lashed!" one of them shouts at you, "Now, move it!"
Looks like you have no choice but to walk over and join the large group of men. The man that shouted at you whacks you painfully over the head with a wooden staff, and then another time in the middle of your back. The other stares you down and spits at your feet and proceeds to walk past to the large room you came from.