Chapter Two

Tenser did return to Castle Greyhawk.  He went with Yrag and without Yrag.  He made new friends, fellow adventurers all, who sometimes accompanied him.

He did ask Ehlissa to return with him.  Indeed, he asked her twice.  The first time she coolly said she had more important things to do.  The second time, three weeks later, she icily gave him a lecture on how he should find a more reliable method of making money off of magic, as she was doing, and it was time for him to think of his long range plans for a career if he ever planned to settle down someday.  Tenser told her he had no desire to settle down, but this only seemed to bother her more instead of less.  So he gave up asking, though he told himself he would ask again in a few weeks.

But six months passed.  Six months since Tenser had his first taste of Castle Greyhawk.  He had seen quite a lot of the first dungeon level and some of a second and third level to the dungeons already.  There were monstrous denizens aplenty and many hard-won battles, but the treasure to be looted grew larger and more valuable with each haul.  Word of so much treasure spread quickly, so that there was soon competition for it.

There was a friendly rivalry between the competing adventuring companies, but it was still always a sad day when an expedition had been planned, only to find a new section of the dungeons cleared out by rivals the day before.  It got so bad for a while that Tenser stopped returning to the City of Greyhawk at all for a week or more at a time, for fear he would miss something good.

But it was not just rival adventurers that were the problem.  Word of the castle's spoils had drawn bandits and brigands to the region, thick as flies on a dead rat.  The scoundrels had always been a nuisance, but they were better organized now, with stronger leaders, so much so that sometimes it was safer to stay in the castle than venture out of it. 

Many of the brigands, it turned out, were using a small fort in the area as their base of operations...

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