Highpass Hold and the McCabes

The only pass

EverQuest Online Adventures describes Highpass as commanding the only pass through the Serpent Spine mountains. Every traveller between eastern and western Antonica, merchant or army, had to go through it.

That is why the hold was built like a war fortress: heavy gates, catapults on its walls, and cauldrons of oil above the approaches.

The McCabes

Highpass was founded by Sean McCabe, and his family still rules it. In classic EverQuest the guard Tarn Visilin explains that Carson McCabe, Sean’s son, rules Highpass Hold from the royal chambers of Highkeep, the keep above the town, and that visitors should seek him when he comes down to its lower levels.

His own household was not safe. One of his personal guards, Stald, turned out to be a mole, and was quietly eliminated at Carson’s request.

A sham of a fortress

Not everyone admired it. The rogue Knargon Lanenda calls Highpass a sham of a fortress run by Carson, says his people have been dealing with him for a few years, and complains that lately Carson seems to be losing control of his business. On Project 1999 the smuggling ring is easy to find: an underwater tunnel near the Tiger’s Roar leads to a hidden smugglers’ den, and Stanos Herkanor, the man behind the curtain, heads the ring that controls Highpass Hold.

The town below the keep was built for travellers. Three of its six buildings are bars, and its shops carried what brewers and potters needed, so the hold became a trade-skill stop as well as a rest stop.

The goblins of the pass

The pass had its own residents before the McCabes. The Pickclaw goblins live in the caves nearby and keep Nurgal’s Stone, and their dealings reached as far as Neriak, which traded with them. Highpass’s gates were as much for them as for armies.

The council of Kithicor

Highpass also played its part in the darkest night of Antonica. In the story Bloody Kithicor: The Council, Lord Tephys of the Koada’Dal and Carson McCabe sit over the council table in Highkeep after word arrives of a Teir’Dal plan of conquest. Tephys has sent to Felwithe for help and heard nothing, and most of Carson’s council are merchant lords who talk of buying their way out, calling the goblin informant a liar, or leaving.

Carson and Tephys know the dark elves will not bargain. Antonius Bayle cannot help: Carson’s messengers report that the king fears the gnolls of Blackburrow or the Bloodsabers would take Qeynos the moment he looked away. The brewing merchant Taliman Yurick asks about Freeport, which borders Nektulos. That council is the prelude to the battle that left Kithicor Forest haunted.

Legacy

Most players knew Highpass as a stop on the long road between Qeynos and Freeport. Coming from Freeport you crossed Kithicor Forest into its southern end; from the north you wound down a narrow gorge into the Plains of Karana. Orcs held the southern approach and gnolls the northern, and the guards rarely came out that far, so travellers learned to run or go invisible. Its story is the story of the road itself.

Read it with Firiona Vie and Kithicor, and with Antonius Bayle and Qeynos at the western end of the road.