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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haraash Saan" data-source="post: 3207302" data-attributes="member: 46615">Maybe an hour or so after settling myself I heard Mortec calling out. I answered in kind and soon he was telling me a remarkable tale. The three, as mentioned before, struck out along the cliffs to the lighthouse. As they wandered forward Morgan noticed that the light was already shining, even though it was daylight. This struck the trio as unusual as they could see no sense in wasting the considerable fuel that the light required, during the daylight hours. Morgan also noticed that the light did not seem to be spinning properly, or perhaps it was partially obscured by something as it did not seem to be as full as it should have been.My intrepid friends arrived at the lighthouse, and after the usual formalities, borrowed from myself, entered the tower. There was nothing particularly notable about the lighthouse. It was a tall circular building that narrowed as it crept higher until it ended in the great light. It was whitewashed outside and in. The bottom floor held nothing of interest, it was more of a living area, with a cooking fire, crude table and chairs. There was a game of cards for one laid out on the table, unfinished. A store of staples was in a corner near a long bench which held cooking implements. None of it looked disturbed. They clamoured up a ladder on the side of one curved wall to the next floor where they found modest sleeping quarters for one. Again the belongings were all untouched. Another ladder. This one led to a storeroom that held several large sealed ceramic jugs. Their labels proclaimed them to be oil. The next ladder proved a tad more disconcerting. At its base was a pool of blood, slowly expanding with each drip that slipped from the ladder’s rungs. Its source was as yet unknown. Every rung of the ladder had been soiled by the crimson fluid. A drip of blood slowly swelled on the underside of the top rung, before falling and bursting on the rung below with a thud. It took a moment for them to realise that the sound had come from the room above. Suddenly they were aware of the monotonous rhythmic thudding coming from next level of the lighthouse. After minor debate Morgan took the fore and headed up. He was greeted by his second horrid sight for the day. The light keeper, or so he assumed from the simple garb, lay sprawled with a massive head wound. It was his blood that had caused the pool at the base of the ladder. The whitewashed walls had not been spared either, in fact it looked as if they had actually been his demise, a long smear ran down the one that his head now rested against. Tearing his eyes from the repulsive scene Morgan fought to control his stomach, although he did not manage it. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, called the others up. They surveyed the grim corpse and the reason that the light had been hampered in its journey. It looked as if a person had been thrown onto the light by the light keeper who simultaneously had been knocked or had slipped backward and dashed his head with significant force on the wall. His assailant had fared no better and when Morgan pulled him free it was revealed that the unidentifiable front half of the man had been char grilled upon the searing heat of the huge metal dish that served to light the perilous rocks below the lighthouse. Finally the thudding stopped and the light spun freely.Mortec searched the assailant, who for all appearances was no more than a simple brigand. He wore a leather breastplate that went low enough to cover his essentials, Both the essentials and armour were now useless. The rest of his attire was simple and hardy,. His sword lay in the dish, too hot for my friends to retrieve.  More curious though was that his hand was clenched into a rigid fist. Mortec wrenched the corpses fingers loose and saw a red tinged gold coin in the bandit’s palm. A Gnome never shies from a profitable venture, so he casually removed it, upon which, before their very eyes the brigand transformed! His garments blurred for a moment then it was as if he never had been a brigand. No longer was he garbed in leathers, but in the loose fitting clothing of a sailor. Mortec looked oddly at the coin in his hand, sure that it had caused the transformation. It was no longer reddish in colour but looked to be a normal gold gromit. Its stamp showing that it had been minted in the Port of the Warlock on Sorcerers Isle, which in itself offered a satisfactory explanation. Baastian later revealed that it was called a Sorcerer’s Coin. These coins usually only had one simple transformation charm that could be invoked by the bearer. That coin was the last information of significance that we learned, for there was nothing else we could do here in Ravenswood to provide a detailed report to the Baron when we arrived in Yorathton. The night passed uneventfully for Mortec and I. Strav and Morgan had also gone to the Copthorpes for what was sure to be a crowded affair. We both studied quietly long into the night and were woken by our comrades early the next day. Their night had been enjoyable too, with plenty of apple pie for dinner. When passing through town they managed to ascertain that the mayor had not returned from the woods, and it was felt that perhaps, being a man of some importance in the region, he may also have been taken by the pirates, “Or done a runner” as Moxadder put it.Whilst making final preparations to depart, Jessop returned to Leathe’s Abbey and was full of gratitude for Mortec and myself for assisting him the previous day. Not one to miss an opportunity, I asked whether I could borrow some volumes for further reading but was politely denied, although Jessop assured me that I was welcome back at any time.</blockquote>

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