By Beth Griese

Date:   September 16, 1995

Quote of the Day:
"That's a mighty big evil you got there." -- Brian Smith

To Garen Thundersson, cleric of Mielikki. From your faithful servant, Jade.

On the recommendation of Geldroon, we sought out Halaband's Inn for our stay in Immersea. It was a simple place of good food and sturdy beds. However, on our way there we picked up three followers who were muttering to themselves and not doing a good job of subtly shadowing us. I told the others to continue to the inn, and dropped back in an alley. It was three noble fellows on our tail, and they hadn't even noticed me, so I fell in behind them. And so we made a nice train all the way to Halaband's.

The three nobles, as it turned out, were very drunk, and looking for fights. The problem was that their liquor seemed to have hurt their ability to insult as much as it had their ability to tail someone. None of us were feeling the least bit inclined to thrash their sodden heads and land ourselves in Immersea's jails, so I told them to sit down. Amazingly, they obeyed, and we simply left. By the time we returned that night, they had emptied their purses at the inn and completely forgotten us.

So we were left free to meet with Geldroon a second time and solidify our job. He was easy to find at Redstone Castle. He gave us directions to reach the house that was supposed to be spirited. According to him, an alchemist had created the house and died or disappeared there. For the past five years, strange lights, moans, and shrieks have been connected with it. Our duty, as Geldroon explained, was to find the source of these phenomena and, if they were undead, to destroy them. We decided to head out to the house first thing in the morning.

We found the house without problems; there was even a sign to announce its presence. It was a two-story house of impressive size, although less than impressive condition. It sat atop a cliff overlooking Immersea. The only outdoor features of the house - a stone wall and well - were in ruins. Every window was broken. All in all, it looked quite the part for a haunted house.

We spread around it and started by peering in every window we could. I found a fresh set of tracks - less than a day old - leading into one of the windows. B'rinth gave me quite a turn when I found his horse abandoned on one side of the house, until I found that he had already started climbing in. I followed the tracks to the staircase leading to the second floor. The house, as far as we had seen, was rotted, dusty, and quite vandalized.

We decided to split up. Borreau and I went upstairs, Telaran and B'rinth explored the first floor. They found a number of libraries, some of which had a few books that had B'rinth muttering happily. They also found a trap door and a staircase leading below the house.

Borreau and I found more interesting things, including a person. The man I had been tracking had been hit over the head and trussed up like a market turkey in one room. We cut him free and roused him. The man's name was Ned, and he was, to put it bluntly, a thief looking for liftable objects. He was anxious to follow us around as we explored, but Borreau and I both suggested he stay behind, more, I think, out of concern for his light fingers than for his health.

While we were moving Ned, Borreau fell through a weak spot in the floor and managed to give himself a good bruising on the floor below. From that point on, we were constantly checking the floor; half of it seemed to be rotted away. We only hit trouble one other time, when the wood at Borreau's feet decided again that it wouldn't hold. That time, though, I managed to catch him before he fell through, and we got back on solid flooring in one piece.

Our other interesting encounter was with yet another spider; I'm starting to truly hate the nasty legged creatures. A stove built for fires had a glittering gem in the back of it; when I reached in to pick it up, one spider landed on my hand and the other crawled out to join it. They were horrid things as big as my hand, but we were able to turn them into paste quickly enough, with only a stinging welt to remember them by.

Besides the deed to the house - an interesting find - and a clerical scroll that Borreau could use, we found nothing else special on the second floor. The only thing that set my mind humming was a circle of tallow in a window sill that faced the lake. You've commented enough on how often people see what they wish to see, Master. Could a lantern here have been a source of the "strange lights" reported at this house?

We all met up again in the foyer and decided to tackle the attic before we tried going downstairs. Telaran lifted me up the broken staircase first, and B'rinth followed. The attic was mostly bare, except for two body-sized bags in one corner. I was afraid the contents of the bags were obvious, but felt I had to check on them anyway. When I did, four stirges - those birds that draw blood through their beaks - swooped down from the beams onto B'rinth and I. We managed to fight them off without too much difficulty, and with some help from Borreau and Telaran who came clambering up at the first sound of trouble. With the birds safely dispatched, we found the expected bodies in the bags, coated with a disgusting yellow mold. They were far beyond our help, and so we gladly left the attic behind.

That leaves only the basement, or basements, for us to check. We've seen no signs of anything supernatural yet, and in fact seen very human-like signals. Ghosts that whack people on the back of the head, or stuff bodies into bags? I'm beginning to wonder if we've found something far less than the supernatural. Maybe the food cellars and the mysterious trap door will give us some better information to take back to Geldroon and earn our registration as a company.

Your faithful servant,

--Jade

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