Yes, yes, well, the old stronghold was falling apart rather notoriously. Leaky ceilings, rotting beams, peeling paint, dank basements littered with corpses, and even rats in the walls! Many cowards residents decided to seek abode elsewhere.
But really, as our ancient saying goes, there can't be active threads and quality posts if people merely complain instead of posting them. Such whinging about is not merely pointless and petty but pernicious in equal measure and ought to be punishable by bear (perhaps polar) wrestling in the Arena. Its sands do thirst for fresh blood.
Oh, young one, if only you could have been spared such misery! But how could you have known? You are not like us, who have forseen this, as plenty a happening we do scry. For we have been watching, long back at the beginning, when it was but a sapling striving for the light. Even then we knew. Countless summers have gone past since, and the winds and the sun and the petulant cruelty of its minders have indeed seen it grow to crooked branchings and infested with the foetid nests of vermin. And the tree once crooked, noone can set straight!
We shall be watching, too, at the end, when the last leaves fall and nothing but a dried-up husk remains. Fine charcoal shall it make for the ever-burning braziers of our dark castle; no better destiny could befall or befit it.
And now that you've escaped from such wretched place and find yourself amongst us, pray tell of your deeds and misdeeds! Or if your story is yet to be written, surely you must know tales of some lord or lady that you hold in admiration—or in spite? The night is long, our cups are full, and our bellies yearn for an uproar!
