A NIGHT IN THE HAUNTED CASTLE

A Forgotten Realms Tavern Tale:

(The sort of thing a minstrel or bard might tell to families in a tavern, early of evenings)

A NIGHT IN THE HAUNTED CASTLE

Far away and long ago, there was a castle in the Border Kingdoms that stood empty and ruinous, for its folk had long fled, and the forest had swiftly reclaimed their steadings and taverns and mills. Even bold wayfarers feared to go anywhere near, for word had spread that the once-fair keep was haunted by a severed head that whispered fell secrets in ears and then flew away, or hung watching from afar, a sad-eyed beautiful young lady with no body to call her own.

Once she’d been the lady of the castle, before her father, the baron Narlavur the Just, took deathly ill, and priests were sent for, and found poison in him, and spell-quenched it. Soon after, the priests in turn fell ill, and soon died, and the talk was that they’d been poisoned. And then the baron fell ill again, and suspicion fell on all within the castle, and folk watched each other in cold fear, as the baron grew weaker and took to his bed and awaited the hands of the gods to gather him.

One morn to that castle of Highrock there came a stranger, a tall and handsome man who claimed to be a priest of a god none in that keep had ever heard of, and he forced his way to the baron and gave him a drink that brought back his strength in a trice. And that priest told Narlavur the Just that his own daughter was the serpent within his doors who’d poisoned him, and worked a magic that showed the baron his beloved Evaena crushing spiders so their venom...

**Please find the full transcipt attached in .docx and .txt formats