Shadow manages to fire off an arrow that she's set on fire and hits the ghost shark. It seems unconcerned. It just flies about. It steals someones hat and eats it. It seems pretty aggressive. People are panicking and running around. A young child pops out of the rubble of the Academy and watches the havoc as it's going down.
The rest of the party finally arrives after having heard the commotion, and we defeat the shark. As it disappears in a puff of magical energy, the kid runs over and thanks us. The shark was a magical construct that he had been working on for a school project, and it had gotten out of control. As he's explaining this to us a woman comes out of the school in a blue dress with bright red hair.
She explains that at the Twilight Academy they encourage creativity amongst their students, although they don't typically have problems get out of hand quite like this. Another student had been working on an anti-magic field for gladiatorial combat, and there had been some side effects which had lead to the shark being able to escape. She thanks us profusely and asks us to wait a few minutes while she rounds up a suitable reward for us. She returns a few minutes later with a small leather bag with some coins in it and a big green gem. She tells us that she knows the gem is magic of some sort, but she hasn't yet been able to pin down exactly what it does. She offers it to us in hopes that we can figure it out. We accept and move on.
The townspeople seem a little shook up. This kind of event must be fairly unusual in order to cause such a disturbance among them. We decide to head over to the pub in town for a bit of food and to catch up on the local gossip. We ask the barkeep about Brinewall Castle. He tells us that people around here tend to assume the castle is haunted. They've heard stories that the last few groups of people who went there never came back.
After dinner, as we're sitting in the pub, we notice that the town's Sheriff is in the pub as well. We decide to have a chat with him too. Sula tries to win him over with her womanly charms and it works reasonably well. We ask him if this kind of trouble from the Academy is common. He tells us that it really isn't. They're a little bit unusual, and nobody's really sure what goes on inside the walls, but they tend to keep to themselves. Plus they pay the town to be allowed to operate here, so in general it tends to be worthwhile to have them around. We ask him if he knows anything about Brinewall Castle, and he tells us the same story as the barkeep. He figures it's haunted as well.
We bid the Sheriff a good night and decide that maybe we should go ask the woman in charge of the Academy if she's heard anything about Brinewall. The Academy might have different lines of communication and she might have some ideas that we haven't heard yet. So we head back over there.
Knowing that the red haired lady is the head of a magic school, Bukka decides to take his turn at trying to impress her with some magic. Unfortunately, create water gets more laughter than respect, but she still agrees to let us in and have a chat. She doesn't know anything about either Brinewall Castle, or ghosts in general. She suspects that there may not even be ghosts. She thinks people are just superstitious, and combined with the fact that some travelers have gone there and not returned, it makes for an excellent scary story to feed their superstition.
Once we find out that she ultimately can't offer us any real help, we thank her for her time and go on. We head back to the pub and celebrate saving the town with a few drinks before heading back to the caravan for the night.
The next day we leave Galduria and head off along the road to Brinewall. We travel all day and reach the town of Wolf's Ear.
Once again, we head to the local tavern to get the local gossip. Nothing of real note has happened lately. There was another caravan that passed through recently heading South, but that's pretty routine. This is mostly just a simple hunting and tanning village.
We specifically ask the barkeep about Brinewall. He says he doesn't know much about it. It's a good long way North of here, and the further North you go, the less animals and more ogres there are. So it's not as profitable for hunters to head up that way. Once the castle stopped being a major trade point caravans slowed down from up there, and so did the news. The barkeep says if we want to know more about the area around town, we'd be better off asking one of the hunters, as they spend more time in the woods. He says we'd do well to seek out a man named Cletus, and tells us where to find him.
We wander through town to where the barkeep told us to find Cletus, and find him practicing some archery. We sneak up quietly near him, and Shadow splits one of his arrows in his practice target. He's a little surprised by the arrow flying in past him out of nowhere, but once he sees where the shot landed, he's pretty impressed.
We ask him the same kinds of questions. He says he's never been to Brinewall personally, there's no meat on ghosts, so he doesn't figure it'd be a worthwhile trip. He is able to tell us about some patrols of ogres and goblins that have been in the woods outside of town though, which we figure will be helpful on our trip either way.
After talking to Cletus for a while, he finishes up his archery practice, and decides to head to the pub for a drink. Sula goes with him to see if she can get any more information out of him, and the rest of us head back to the caravan for the night.
We get up the next morning and get ready to head out, but Sula is nowhere to be found. We head back to the pub and find out that she had had some drinks and left with Cletus last night. Once we collect her, we head out of town.
A few days of travel pass uneventfully. Because of the places Cletus told us to avoid we don't run into any trouble. Then we reach Roderic's Cove.
Sandru tells us that Roderic's Cove is a smaller town, but because it's also a port, there is a fair amount of trade that goes on here. It's a little bit piratey, but nowhere near the extent that Riddleport to the North is. Sandru tells us that he'd just as soon avoid Riddleport if we don't have to go there, and he recommends that if we have any sales or trades to make, Roderic's Cove might be a good place to do that.
We spend a good part of the afternoon trading and bartering with the locals for some of the trade goods we had stored on the caravan. Around supper time we head to a pub for the typical grub and gab. The bartender tells us about the path to the North. There's really two paths, one that goes to Riddleport and one that doesn't. He says many people he talks to prefer to avoid Riddleport, and that's often why they're in Roderic's Cove. So the path that skips Riddleport is fairly well known. The barkeep doesn't know anything about ghosts, so we head back to the caravan for the night.
Sula and Qunna teach Kapo to dance while we all relax around the fire before we call it a night.
Once again, we pack up the caravan and get moving. We pass through the mountains as we skirt Riddleport, and on the second day of travel we meet another caravan heading South.
They've just come from a successful trade trip to the Elven city of Celwynvian to the West. They say that the elves typically keep to themselves and aren't always welcoming of visitors, but if you can convince them to talk to you it can often be a worthwhile trade stop, because they produce some beautiful carvings and fabrics and the like.
 |
 |
We do a little bit of trade with them, they take some of our stuff, and we get some of the elven stuff they've just picked up. We ask them if they've been as far North as Brinewall, but they say they don't go there. There's no trade to be had, so why bother. They mention that they saw some ogres on their way South, and tell us roughly where to avoid.
Once they pass we carry on. We travel uneventfully for 6 more days without passing through any other major settlements. We spend our evenings camping around the caravan.
On the 6th day, we arrive in the area of Brinewall.
The caravan path doesn't lead directly to the castle. We've got to leave the caravan and walk into the castle itself. We decide that the drivers for the caravan will stay with the caravan, and the rest of us will all walk in. As we've arrived up, Ameiko seems to be a little listless. She says she's just a little tired, and it's still midday so we decide to push on to the castle.
We start walking in, but not far from the caravan, Ameiko collapses. Sandru carries her back to the caravan, and we go with them. She's mumbling a little bit. She says in Tien "Beware the earthbound ones longing for the sky." When we get back to the caravan, we've surmised that there's some kind of magical force keeping her unconscious, but we can't seem to do anything about it. She's still mumbling, and she says "He holds half the key in 10 hands."
Unsure what to do, we decide to move the caravan back the way we came: away from the castle. When we do that, Ameiko starts screaming and seizing. We quickly head back towards the castle, and she seems to settle down. Sandru, Koya, and Shalelu decide they'll stay with Ameiko to keep her safe, and the rest of us will go investigate the castle to see if we can find the source of her problems.
