As confederates and imperials traveled the halls and walls, certain castle residents were awake as well.  Guards patrolled down the center of the castle on all levels, to ensure the first night treaty held.  Various servants roamed about as well, keeping things tidy for perhaps the last night they would have a good time to do so.  The moon beamed down upon the castle, bathing its outside in a soft, gentle light.

One of the empire's scouts was exploring the castle's out most wall, to see if it would make a decent invasion route for either side.  The wall was decently wide, maybe four people wide at best, though, there were turrets spaced along the wall that one would have to get through, the doorways only wide enough for one man at a time.  Any major group that attempted to invade the other's territory by the outer wall could easily get held up at one of the turrets and if that happened the troops would become sitting ducks if anyone with long-range weaponry was stationed below.

The scout suddenly broke into a cold sweat as a strange, loud cracking sound could be heard nearby.  He quickly turned toward the noise and realized he was staring at one of the castle wall gargoyles.  Wide-eyed, he watched as giant cracks were forming at an accelerated pace along its back and wings.  Within only a few moments, shards of stone crashed down upon the wall top and a horrible beast burst out of the stone and turned toward the scout.

The gargoyle as matted-gray, with bristling fur, one long horn and one small one on its head, hooved feet, clawed hands, and menacing yellow eyes with a diamond shaped pupil.  While the creature was no longer stone and could probably be hurt, they were not called castle guardians for nothing.  The scout was not about to find out as he raced for the nearest turret to barricade himself in.  The creature snorted and started to run after him.

The quick thinking scout ripped open a small pouch of powder and threw it back at the monster.  Taking it face first, the creature started to sneeze, which threw off its stride, and made the creature stumble for a few spaces, giving the scout just enough time to dive into the nearest turret.  The creature smashed into the doorway but it was too stockily built to squeeze through, so it settled for trying to grab the man with one of its arms.

As the scout fought off the creature he thought to himself, [i]"What kind of hell-hole is this place!  I thought we'd just be fighting those wet-backs!  This place must be cursed!"[/i]  Taking out his sword, the scout started to bat back the gargoyle's arm.  The war hadn't even really begun yet but for this particular solider, he was already in a life or death struggle.

[hr]

Meanwhile on the confederacy side a certain maid of the castle found herself getting some unneeded attention from a confederacy ranger.  The pretty young maid on the receiving end of the ranger's attentions, was a dark-skinned brunette who had been tidying up what appeared be be somewhat of a trophy room filled various busts, statues, and animal heads on the walls.  At the moment the ranger had the maid trapped against an armored dummy as he made his move.

"Well fancy meeting such a pretty thing here.  You know I hope you can tell me all about this castle, you've probably dusted every inch of this place and I'm not feeling particularly motivated to find it all myself."  The ranger smiled and shoved the maid into the dummy, but the dummy was bolted in place so it didn't move.  "I know that boss of yours is all about bribes, probably trying to make some money off of us, but I don't feel like paying.  How about you start giving so I won't have to start getting a bit rough with cha?"

The maid tried to run to the side, but the ranger caught her by the wrist and slammed her back into the armored dummy.  The maid, looked frightened, but there was a certain darkness in her eye as well.  "I d-don't know why you think you can get away with this but if Lord Grimm finds out!"  She was stopped there as the ranger covered her mouth.

"Well if you don't recall he also said he was fine with casualties.  If I specifically remember it was something like if we are attacked we're free to kill even the Castle's residents.  Now ain't that right?"  The ranger brought out a nice and danced it in front of the maid's face.  "Now, why don't we have a little chat?"