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[ctsun]

"So, how bad is it?"

"Uhhh, there might be a few more of them still hiding out deeper into the fort.", she whispered back, aiming not to be overheard by the Elder. "One of them was super sneaky and nearly got Merrr-errr", she stretched out the sound as she considered whether or not telling a dad about his son's near-death experience might come off as a tad insensitive. "Err, nevermind. Anyway, it'll, uh, take us a good while to really clean the place out but we've secured the entrance and the upper floors so it should be pretty liveable. At least."

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Burying them would be the right due to the dead, but we've no land nor gravediggers."

[Haspen]

@Fortpeople

"Burning will be faster. Plus, I thought that was the orthodox way?" Merewin ponders the question, chin propped on his left glove. "Aras, how's it again, the funeral rites I mean?"

@Emilia

"I'm unhappy to hear that. And I've heard there was supposed to be only a ten or so of them?"

"Maybe... a dozen... we dared not approach!"

"Dozen or two-" Richart has a coughing fit. "Doesn't matter. I'm more concerned about the repairs. Hrmm..." Richart turns to his thoughts, stiffling coughs every so often as they make their way towards the keep.

[rustytengo]

Lilinoe sighs hearing everyone talk. "Markus has the right of it the dead don't walk unless an outside force is acting upon them."

[ctsun]

Emilia paused for a moment to count on her fingers.

"A dozen. Sounds about right. That's how many we'd taken out. Roughly. Repairs, um, that'll take a while longer. Those brigands really did a number on the place."

[Caellath]

"Cremation is the correct rite for the dead. No matter if they need a necromancer to animate their corpse first, cremation is orthodoxy and leaves behind no body to be defiled. Lack of cremation during the ravages of the Sixty Years' War has caused a sharp increase in the number of undead." Aras replied, staring at Sebastian.

"Is it different with you?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Oh, so that's what they teach you in the East? Interesting."
Sebastian rubs his chin.
"Lead the way."

[Caellath]

"How odd, it's supposed to be orthodoxy. Can I see your copy of Four Gods of the World after we are done? I'm now curious."

[Haspen]

"Hm, I see. I've been raised thinking cremation was the norm. Shows how little I know..." At this point a trio of others show up at the doorstep.

"Father."

"Merewin." Lord Ravenkeep looks around, and Elder Orwin steps right behind him, looking pale and shaking.

"S-so much... blood! D-did you kill all of them, really??"

"I would wager they did, considering the carnage."

"We've toured the keep, and it seems no one else is hiding. That might be indeed all of them!"

"Great job. Elder Orwin, get me some strong men from the village to deliver the corpses outside. They need to be burned. Aras and Sebastian will oversee the cremation."

"O-Of course... right away..." The old man bows his head and races out of the keep, looking as about to vomit.

"So I've inherited a ruin." Richart pauses, coughs and then shakes his head. "Do tell me it only looks this way from here. Emilia told me a little bit, but..."

[Solymr]

Markus sighed deeply.

: The best I can say is that the walls are still standing.

[Haspen]

"Is it that bad?"

"Servants' quarters and most of ground floor is in ruin. What I assume were noble quarters upstairs are barely in better shape, but they're liveable." Richart coughs a little, before taking in a deep breath.

"Hrmm, so not only the village is crap but the keep ain't much better."

"What do you mean?"

"I've spoken with Elder Orwin for a long while, Merewin. Most men of working age left or got killed, or turned to banditry. You've just killed at least a few of them."

"Oh... oh."

"Don't mourn them too hard. That said, the local forests are a den of monsters and giant beasties and villagers seem inept at handling tools. The village itself is mostly homesteads, the local inn is basically a house now and they don't even have a blacksmith or a temple. They--" Richart has a coughing fit. "They spend hours at a time to get to nearby Oxslope in the south or Hardoven, the village we passed on the way here, to get anything done."

"Wait, you mean Ravenkeep is basically a hamlet with no source of income?"

"Yes." Richart scrunches his nose. "I think instead of lavish retirement I will have to invest most of the money I earned over the years to make the place resemble a nobleman's holding." Merewin looks at his father, who shakes his head sadly.

[rustytengo]

"Well it could be worse. It could be a pile of ash your trying to rebuild." Lilinoe chimed in carrying what none destroyed papers she could gather. "If the village has documents I can dig through those and what ever papers we can salvage from here and see if your owed any debts now that you are the Lord ....hopefully I don't find debts you owe."

[Solymr]

: Poor bastards. Well, whether they gave you this title because they thought you could handle such a task or because they wanted to keep an uppity commoner down doesn't matter much. Did the elder tell you if Ravenkeep was known for anything before... Markus gestured to the keep in general. It became this?

[Haspen]

"The previous Ravenkeeps had been around for almost two hundred years. But in Sixty Years' War their family was reduced to two brothers who got themselves killed at Woodtower some seventy years ago. The Ravenkeeps before them were traitors and helped a rebel kingdom, apparently, but Elder Orwin doesn't remember the whole story and to be honest I haven't heard anything about that either." Merewin snaps his fingers.

"Third time's the charm, no?" Richart chuckles, which becomes a coughing fit, turning to Lilinoe.

"The keep is supposed to have documents and ledgers and chronicles of the previous family. I assume there's not much remaining, given what I see?" He stares at Lilinoe's hands, full of stained scrolls and singular pages without context.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

As the group laments their lack of documents, Andrea approaches, having gotten her rest and ensured her violin was in proper condition. She perks up a bit at the conversation that she overhears though,



"Oh, have you not heard about Sudewald? I suppose that's not much of a surprise. Three hundred years is enough time for a kingdom to fade from memory. I may not have knowledge on the Ravenkeeps in particular but if you're keen on learning about the forgotten kingdom, I can recall what I have learned of it."