The Black Citadel

You approach the group with the guard shoving and prodding you in the middle of your back with his staff. The group is arranged in rows of two, and it looks like they're doing some sparring practice with an assortment of different weapons. There is a more heavily armoured guard with a long black beard with a metal tipped war staff, walking up and down the rows of men and cracking some of them across the back of their legs or arms with his war staff.

"Sir!" the guard with you shouts to the more heavily armoured man. "This rabbit's looking for a lashing. Found him lurking over there," pointing behind him at the pillared room.

"Get back in line at once!" roars the bearded man at you. "If you even look in a way that displeases me, I'll whip the skin from your back myself!"

Upon that he cracks you painfully over the forehead with his metal tipped war staff, cutting you and drawing blood in the process. You think it's wise to keep your mouth shut and join a line and follow what everyone else is doing. You should keep your head low now and find out exactly what sort of situation you've put yourself later.

You draw your sword and begin sparring with a tall lanky looking man with no partner. You parry, slide-step, lunge, and dodge each other for about fifteen minutes before the bearded guard yells for a stop to the training and for the guards to lead everyone back inside. It looks like the sun has fully set, so you head back inside with the now other shadowy figures.

Once inside the pillared room, the guards disarm you and your backpack is removed. The gates you noticed before are now open and you are lead to the right, through into a passageway in the interior of the wall. After some time you come to a stairway that you all go down to a faintly lit bare room.

After some terrible tasting slop of a stew, the guards extinguish the torches and they leave you all there in the darkness, locking the door behind them. For a moment after they've gone, you consider invoking a spell to get out, but you have no idea where your weapons and backpack are, so you decide it's more trouble than it's worth. Apart from a few whispers in the darkness, the men around you don't say much and you soon fall asleep on your patch of stone in the sweaty crowded room.

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