"Bad place, y'mark me, boys. I know a couplea' trails past the place, through the Wilds and such, but I'd rather go over the mountains in the deada' Winter'n go near that place. Camped up there once and didnae sleep a wink. Screaming in the stones, mark me. Under 'em, too. Three of our lads didn't wake up the next morning. Didn't get found, neither."
-Herman Schloss, Syliran wilderness guide
"Brahmsburg Castle is, quite simply, beyond the purview of the Order at this time. The site is a ruin, and the woods can claim it for as long as our resources are so stretched that establishing an outpost there would remain folly. I have heard that previous generations have tried but... records of those attempts are sealed. Clearly my predecessors realized the same as I did: the castle is best forgotten."
-Warden Knight Horatio Yang, Syliran Knights
"Cave of stones. Carved stones. In ground, but over ground. All inside, smell like men. Now old and dust. Have been there, my kind, my people, many years. Since world shook and sky died and all lived in dark like my people. Now sky is alive, gods and men come back, but not to stone cave. My people, they not leave. Good home. But old wings, old hunters, they tell us, "stay away from caverns in the stone cave that men built". Some places, some caves in caves... bad things there. Old things. We listen."
-Zcorn, Syliran Zith
-Herman Schloss, Syliran wilderness guide
"Brahmsburg Castle is, quite simply, beyond the purview of the Order at this time. The site is a ruin, and the woods can claim it for as long as our resources are so stretched that establishing an outpost there would remain folly. I have heard that previous generations have tried but... records of those attempts are sealed. Clearly my predecessors realized the same as I did: the castle is best forgotten."
-Warden Knight Horatio Yang, Syliran Knights
"Cave of stones. Carved stones. In ground, but over ground. All inside, smell like men. Now old and dust. Have been there, my kind, my people, many years. Since world shook and sky died and all lived in dark like my people. Now sky is alive, gods and men come back, but not to stone cave. My people, they not leave. Good home. But old wings, old hunters, they tell us, "stay away from caverns in the stone cave that men built". Some places, some caves in caves... bad things there. Old things. We listen."
-Zcorn, Syliran Zith
If one were to draw a straight line across the Wildlands of Sylira from Nyka to Zeltiva, right bang in the middle of it would stand an imposing heap of turrets, walls and keeps that was formerly Brahmsburg Castle. That name is the one thing from its glory days that still remains unblemished. All else has been marred by time and the encroaching wilderness surrounding it. A handful of explorers in the last century have made surveys of the rambling edifices, and all have concluded that it would take legions of men and an ocean of mizas to restore the castle to the stronghold that it once was.
The few histories that remain from before the Valterrian concerning the castle tell of a fortress of the Alahean Empire, strategically located in the northern borders between it and the Suvan Empire. Like most fortresses, it was designed to be impregnable to direct assault, and sprawling enough to contain supplies for a sustained siege spanning years. And like many relics of that ancient time before the Great Sundering, it was forgotten and abandoned.
Now lying many days hard ride from Syliras, Nyka or Zeltiva, across terrain hostile and remote, the castle has simply been written off by most powers in the region as not worth the effort of reclaiming. Precious few trails go near it, and even then, the population of Sylira is but a fraction of what it once was. The standing cities of the continent are where power and wealth lies now: Brahmsburg Castle is superfluous.
Which is not to say that prying eyes and avaricious hands have not touched upon the place since then. Every few years fresh stories circulate about treasure-hunters, fugitives, intrepid merchants and even scholarly expeditions trying to map out the twisted warren of halls, redoubts, caves, cellars and battlements, hunting for gold or lost knowledge of the Old Eastern Empire.
Stories circulate, but few tellers do. Most see that as proof enough that whatever lies in and under Brahmsburg is meant to remain hidden.
Even the Zith colony who have called the ruins home for centuries do not dare venture too far into the structure, for whispers of evil things lurking in sunless corners. Mayhap the presence of Zith would be reason enough for the Knights to sally forth, but just as animals know better than to threaten larger predators, the Zith of Brahmsburg know to keep their numbers small and their hunting confined to a tight circle around the castle and no further.
For miles and days beyond it, there is naught but the Wildlands. That has been their best defense for for centuries. Theirs, and whatever secrets still lay undisturbed.
