NOTE: This fiction is based off of the canon of my own Greyhawk campaign. There are people, places, and names taken from information I gathered from various published or unpublished references to the Viscounty of Salinmoor as well as the original U1-3 adventure modules.
The Sinister Secret at Saltmarsh
By Wes Herbst
A soft rain pattered on the roof of the small black carriage as it jostled down the washed out road towards Bale Keep. The sole occupant looked out the window at the rolling sea to the south of the road, he felt so very out of place here. Flat and hot, the country named Salinmoor could boast little association with picturesque scenery. Most of the country was wet and soggy all the way to the ocean’s edge. Ahead of them on the path standing outlined against the morose was the dark crag called Bale Keep. Built by a king to fight an unwinnable war it symbolized all the failures of the Kingdom of Keoland.
The carriage shook as it came to a halt beneath the shelter of a breezeway near a side entrance to the keep. The occupant slid from his seat, his sweat dampened back peeling from the leather seat as he did. The driver, dressed in black, came about to open the carriage door. As the occupant stepped down he looked to the man before him. His driver was tall with short blond hair which was at current plastered to his scalp by the rain. He had an angular face which could scarcely be considered handsome. His eyes were a piercing blue, his skin was pale and white.
“Oliver, you should have worn a hat, you’ll catch your death out here.”
The driver shook his head, “Please do not worry, milord, I find them detrimental to ones vision. I tend to look over my own shoulder rather often.”
His lord smiled, his white teeth standing out against his tan skin, “I appreciate the effort, though I would hate to have to find your replacement over your death from illness.”
Oliver nearly smiled himself, “I would be fortunate to die in a bed.”
“It’s been years since I have been here, in Salinmoor. I used to visit father once a year during the rich festival. I was a child then, it has been too long.”
Darkly dressed Oliver could not reply.
“I cannot say I am as stricken with grief as I rightfully should be, I have just buried my father this day. I have not seen my father in years and years, and this afternoon I put a portrait of him in the ground to represent a body that could not be found.”
“Procan keeps his own, milord.”
With a nod, his lord responded, “he does that, Oliver, he does that.”
“A funeral in the rain is rather fitting, wouldn’t you say, milord?”
A quick laugh and then, “but Oliver, it always rains.”
The fire crackled faintly against the percussive sound of the falling rain. Two men sat in a well-decorated room. Besides the fireplace, a number of paintings and vases were in the room. In a corner stood a suit of plate armor and on the wall opposite the men, near to the only door out, hung a pair of crossed swords.
One of the men, dressed in an unbuttoned silk vest over a white long-sleeved shirt, eased further back in his tall backed posh evening chair and idly examined the contents of his unlit pipe as his nearby company spoke. The large man looked to be in his fifties with grey infringing upon his once golden crown of hair.
His guest, a younger man with a shorn scalp and a nose like a hawk’s beak, continued, “…we normally follow the trail of money left behind when reselling stolen goods. This time, there is no record of sale anywhere up along the coast. I could get men in Monmurg to look there as well, but that would mean what has gone missing is going to stay that way, regardless.
The larger man spoke; as he did he glanced up at a coat of arms hanging above the fireplace, a golden chalice over filled with lush violet grapes, “I froth at the mouth to think of those bastards in the Sea Princes making even so much as a bent copper off of me. I have half a mind to contract a dozen assassins and just blow my fortune killing as many of those pirates as I could get off with.”
The shaved-headed man shook his head, a wry smile on his lips, “that would likely be very few. The standard for hired killers on that side of the Azure Sea is much higher. It’s really much more expected behavior of the wealthy to partake of such things there. A good assassin could make a killing in these parts.”
With a scoff the large man returned, “There are few enough of us left here without a professional murderer thinning the herd further. Besides, the only rich man worth killing is already dead.”
Excellent! Keep the fiction coming, we need more of this kind of stuff. Ideally it would be good if you could submit any installments you have as 'articles' for the CF frontpage but this works for now.
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