NA-09: Daybreak to Anshan

Scene One — Courtyard Send-Off

Read-Aloud (60–90 sec)

Morning pours over slate and stone, gilding saddles and spearpoints. Kitchen smoke drifts like a soft banner above the eastern roofline. You assemble in Asbury Manor’s inner courtyard as bells finish a quiet sequence for daybreak. Faces gather—farmhands with cap in hand; laundresses at the gallery rail; stableboys peering from the gatehouse slit. Pages pass up travel packs. A hush falls.

From the broad stair, Lady Elinor Asbury appears in a deep blue cloak, her hair bound simply, her posture calm. Sir Armount Andalarian waits a half-pace behind with a ledger and a set jaw. On the battlements, a small crowd leans forward with bright, worried eyes.

Lady Elinor’s Speech (short and personal)

Elinor steps down one stair, so you see her not as a distant lady, but as the woman who kept this house breathing through lean years.

“You ride for answers that my house has sought in whispers and prayers. I will not dress this in glory—there is danger east, and no certainty waiting at the road’s end.

You are not my servants; you are my guests and—if you’ll allow—a trust I place in the open hand of Rao. Bring back truth, even if it is not the truth I hope for. Bring back light enough to guide us through these next hard days. Look around you.”
She turns to the watching folk. “This is Asbury. We sew, we bake, we mend, we till—and we stand together. If ever you doubt, remember this place and these faces. Go with courage. Return with wisdom. And if you cannot bring either, come back alive.”

A low murmur of approval ripples through the courtyard. Someone on the wall calls, “Asbury keep you!” Another voice answers, “And bring you home!”

2nd-Person Beats (quick back-and-forth)

• Sir Armount (quietly, to you as he checks your girths): “You know your order of march. Keep spacing in the low fields—ditches have taken more good knees than brigands.”
• Olaf Berg hands you a wrapped bundle: “Bread, pears, and a ham. Ignore the ham until nightfall. Trust me.”
• Priest Paxton presses a small wooden sun-disk into your palm: “For a troubled friend. You’ll know when to show it.”
• Steward Boditea tucks a sprig of rosemary into your strap: “For luck—and for the stink of ditches.”

Exiting the Gate (single line)

The portcullis rattles up; crossbowmen raise palms in salute. You pass beneath the stone arch into clean, chill air and a road going east like a drawn breath.

Scene Two — The Road East

Read-Aloud (small chunks as you move the party along)

High sunlit clouds drift lazily across a clear blue sky, like ships content to let the wind decide their course. You ride out of Asbury Manor at an easy pace, hooves ringing faintly on packed lane and scattered cobble. Villagers watch from doorsteps and shop thresholds; others pause mid-row in nearby fields, hands shading their eyes. A gaggle of children sprints after you to the post fence, breathless, craning over the top rail. They whisper to each other, daring one another to call out to the heroes of the realm. Most folk greet you with nods or shy smiles; a few stare, awed or uneasy at the sight of your weapons and your well-kept gear.

You pass a low, square building that is obviously a smithy—or was. The forge is long cold, its mouth soot-rimmed and dark. The anvil sits under a drift of pale dust; a single cracked horseshoe hangs above the door, weathered to dull iron. A sapling has seeded between flagstones where the quench tub once stood.

On your right, pasture opens in two fenced runs. One side holds a dozen brown cows heads-down in grass, tails flicking at flies; the other holds a lone bull, heavy as a boulder and watching you with the patient suspicion of a king in a small kingdom. On your left, a tidy farmstead shows a well-built house with green-shuttered windows—and behind it, a dilapidated barn slumps into its own shadow. Laundry lines strung from post to post carry crisp sheets and thick blankets; sunlight turns the hanging cloth to pale sails. Across the low meadow, the morning dew webs everything—a shining net that beads along every blade and rail like spun glass.

Farmer Wagon Stuck by 3orcs

Further along, a second farm turns sour. Weeds choke furrows that were once neat rows; rusted ploughs sit at odd angles, their share tips buried like old bones. A rabbit bursts from the stubble, cheeks stuffed comically with a stolen radish; it freezes, regards you with one bright, accusing eye, then hops off in offended dignity into the hedge.

A calf—young, long-legged, and absolute trouble—awkwardly decides you are interesting. It toddles after your mounts, cowbell chiming a small, merry note. It bumps your stirrup, sniffs a saddlebag, and, realizing you are not its mother, stumbles away again, confused but unbothered, back to the safer warmth of the herd.

The road narrows, hedgerows grow higher, and the clean smell of sun-warmed grass slowly gives way to water and peat. Somewhere far ahead, the land falters toward the marches—but for now the sky is enormous, the wind is kind, and the day holds its breath.

Quick 2nd-Person Table Prompts (drop in between the paragraphs)

• A freckled girl at the fence cups her hands and calls, “Will you be famous when you come back?”
• At the split pasture, a farmwife lifts two fingers from her pail.
• Beneath the laundry lines, a boy on a stool steadies a basket of clothespins. A sheet snaps in the breeze and smacks him in the face.
• By the weed-strangled fields, a scarecrow leans on a crooked stake, hat torn, one sleeve empty.

Gentle Skill Touches (optional, low stakes)

• Perception DC 10–12: Notice the smithy’s quench tub cracked and dry; a sprig of mint grows where water once stood.
• Nature DC 10: Read the calf’s body language early enough to keep it from nosing your mount; avoid a jangle and a stumble.
• Insight DC 10: Clock the mixed looks—pride, fear, curiosity—Asbury isn’t hostile; it’s hoping you’ll be as capable as you look.
• Dew & Wind: The fields glitter. Wind moves the hedgerows in long, silvered strokes. Clouds scud like sheep—one anvil-shaped mass hangs stubbornly to the east.
• Cattle in the Lane: A broad, placid herd blankets the road. They won’t spook to noise; you’ll need to ease through with patience—or detour around.
• Markers of the March: Old boundary stones lean in the grass, lichen-bitten, cut with spiral marks. A shrike’s larder (mice on thorns) adds a small, unsettling note.

Stirge Raid on Cow Herd by 3orcs

Scene Three — Arrival at Anshan

Read-Aloud (90 sec)

By late day the land sags into darker greens. Ditches hold still water; reeds click and whisper. Frog-song swallows the wind. Over a low rise, chimney smoke peels into a rinsed sky and there it is—Ashen, a small marsh-thorp squatting at the edge of the wide flats.

Stone cottages crowd a beaten square where a temple of St. Cuthbert lifts its blunt tower, the best-kept building in sight. A stream threads the village, turning a modest mill-wheel into slow, patient circles. Fresh earthworks and log palisades belly up from churned mud—tools leaned in the muck, a wheelbarrow tipped on its side. Near the square, a stout stone guardhouse watches with narrow slits and a heavy door propped open. The place smells of damp wood, hearth smoke, and cabbage.

Two cloaked watchers stand on a half-finished watch-platform. One cups his hands and calls: “From where do you ride, and for what purpose?”

A shabby inn on the square wears a painted sign—The Jolly Farmer—but the laugh lines on its beams have long since faded. A dog barks once, then thinks better of it.

Thorp of Anshan