Shadow and Flame
Fourth of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
The sun is high, the courtyard's cobbles white and tan and grey all bright like the scales of some great beast lounging in the sun, it looks nothing like a place that might hold shadows or curses in its depths and the smell of sizzling hare mingles with such spices as the forest and the sea can grant, rosemary and thyme yes but also pepper and clove and ginger that he had gotten his hands on cheap from Korman in the wake of the battle, where food was more precious than the spices to make it fine. A pinch of this and a pinch of that of course, for all are as precious as gold, but Antonio assures you that for a trading port it makes sense to share some of the bounty of the journey with those left behind
"I don't want to scare everyone..." you begin, but Zaia cuts you off.
Pushing one of his newly brewed potions into your hand gruffly he simply says. "Pity they should be scared. The dead linger only in one of two ways that I have found in every bestiary and in every talk I have had with the lady Esha, some are sorrowful wrathful chained to the world and to their place in it, these you might drive out with prayer and holy things, with myrrh and blessed salt and then there are those who draw their power not from the world and their place in it, but from those that yet live, those like if you will pardon the mention the lady's own father. That is likely what we had ahosting."
"And the monster was courteous enough to leave us a gift of pearls after slaying one who was not among us?" you do not try to keep the doubt out of your voice. Over the last year you have learned to trust those senses you did not posses , but you had also learned that even the least human seeming fey, even the most uncanny of beast had some reasoning for what they did and to have both left you pearls and a plague of rats made no sense. You motion up and down the line of the coast, it's a long way down the narrow road to the nearest village and they had none missing among them. "Perhaps it might have been a traveler, but those are few and far between and little sense in dragging one of them to kill in the keep rather than leaving them on the road for the beasts to see it the leavings."
"Or perhaps it was something less innocent... a pursuer," Esha still walks with soft step, easily long among the loud voices of the feasting. "If one of the servants of the... er, Nose came sooner to Wayfarer's Rest and failed in their search onto their ruin then perhaps the lady and her guards were as quiet in killing as they were in departing. The pearls are not magical that I have been able to find and neither is the invitation, but Inge is right there is a presence that lurks in the corners, that looks though windows out of empty rooms and it does not wish us well."
"If ill wishing is all that it can do then perhaps we aught not worry, we have dealt with worse," you reply.
"We have certainly, armored in will and magic and the power of the ship that is beyond earthly sorcery, but the villagers still reeling from the blood and the carnage of the raid, the children who breathe the uncanny with each moment, but have not yet learned to be cautious of it i fear that we might need an exorcism and to get that what we need most is answers."
Wayfarer's Rest Gains Curse: Shade Haunted
"I might be having a solution for your riddle good lord," Mog offers hefting a tightly screwed jug of... something you probably don't want to see unscrewed. "Fire, burn everything down to the stone and that will drive the dead out as sure as it would mortals lookin' ta save their hide."
Do you attempt Mog's solution?
[] Yes (will cost 5000 gp in lost furnishings and anger from some of your men and the Fishermen as personal possessions that are deemed tainted are destroyed)
[] No, you will find some other way
-[] Talk to the owls
-[] See about that ritual Inge used to summon the dead in Apuku, can she do it again?
OOC: Well you guys kind of flopped your investigation roll,
but at the very least you did not trigger anything too bad.
