After riding for another two hours we arrived in Amber. Well, when I say "in" I meant "near". Castle Amber is on a tall mountain 9000' approx) and near the coast. In between the two is the town of Amber.
At this point we were still a little unsure of what happens during the 13th Hour in Amber. Is everyone still affected, or does it not happen. We needed to know, so found a vantage point where we could watch the stair leading from the coast to castle Amber.
It seems that our lookout had already been used by someone recently. A dog had obviously marked the area.
Soon the 13th Hour happened and everything behaved as before. Charity froze, the rest of us didn't, and the demons patrolling the stair also froze.
What was odd was the opaque bluee wall that surrounded castle Amber. This looked like the edge of a sphere or hemisphere but with a very large radius. Obviously Castle Amber could not be at its centre.
After the 13th Hour finished we acted. i managed to alter my body to grow claws useful for climbing. We sprinted for an area to climb up, before the guards could see us, and climbed into the castle. 3 of us actually climbed - Allagahn was carried by Charity.
We entered into a dining room of some sort through a ruined window. Obviously some fight had happened here because of the damage in the room.
Now I should have mentioned our reasons for entering the castle. one of them was to find the Book of Selheim - apparently a monk - which may be in the castle's library.
Charity said that we were on the first floor and the library was on the third, so we started heading up a stair case.
And that is where it all went wrong. I should never have trusted humans with even such a simple plan. I know that they are supposed to be my relatives, but they don't have the reasoning that a gnome naturally has.
Demons appeared on the stairs above us. Immediately Charity started running back down the stairs, with 2 in pursuit. I followed her, to keep her safe and expecting the others to follow when safe. They never did, and I now don't know what has become of them.
Meanwhile Charity sped down the staricse and into a lower level of the castle. We found another staircase descending down a wide open stairwell lit by torches.
The demons following us gave up, but we continued down. Charity seemed to know where we were going.
Eventually we got to the bottom. We seemed to be in a circular room with passages leading off.
At this point several demons appeared in the room and we took off down one of the passageways, running in the dark to get away. This seems to have worked but Charity has led us down the wrong passageway! Now we are stucj down a passage that leads to nothing more than a wine cellar, with who-knows-what fate at the other end.
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| Hero of the Hour - Alfred | The Keep of the Thirteenth Hour |