A Rambling Tale

Your estate in the country is nice, you certainly enjoy going there on holiday, but your real home is Fort Onerous. You and a few of your contacts from your years as an adventurer cleared it out when you moved in. You even made a tidy profit in the coins and baubles you found. But when winter came all your friends left and went back to civilization while you settled in, ready to be snowed in for a couple months.

You've turned Fort Onerous into a sanctuary to weary travelers and a bulwark to threats of the wilderness. The occasional Longstrider seeks shelter behind your walls and you welcome them in, glad to have the company. You don't mind the quiet but you didn't realize how much you'd miss talking to other people. One morning you wake up early, eager to prepare breakfast for your guest but they are nowhere to be found. You suppose they rose before dawn and set out on their unenviable task of protecting the road.

It was later that night that you found your guest's boots near the hearth. Surely they didn't leave barefoot, they must have returned.

Curious that you didn't hear them, though.

Following a familiar voice you head to the guest quarters in search of your visitor. Nothing there but the voice still echoes down the hall, so you check the larder.

Nothing.

You expand your search, up into the north tower and out across the wall. No signs of anyone coming or going. Finally you venture down in to the dungeon, following the voice the entire way.

A small glimmer of light flickers beneath a door, beckoning you to enter. You push the door open to find the withered, desiccated corpse of your guest strung up on a hook hanging from the ceiling.

Your adventuring instincts kick in and you curse yourself for not ensuring all the sleeping evils in your fort were fully removed.

"It's not what it looks like," comes a quavering voice from inside dead Longstrider. You recognize it as the voice you've been following this whole time. "Yes, I killed this person, and yes I am an undead spirit that haunts this fort. But, I mean you no ill will. I only killed this guy because he was going to rob you. You can check his bag if you don't believe me." The dead, withered arm of Longstrider takes the bag from it's shoulder and tosses it across the room to your feet. You hear it clink as it lands, a jeweled censer you recognize from the antechamber slips out.

"If you don't want me here anymore, I understand. I'll go. I just couldn't let this jabroni get one over on you."