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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GodOfCheese" data-source="post: 4616728" data-attributes="member: 19170">The HauntingJo led them down a main road into the town.  The road here too was cobbled and well-maintained.  Shops crowded for space along the edges of it.  They were diverse without the appearance of shabbiness.  All of them were well-built.Dorin and Jo took no notice of them.  Wik eyed them curiously, but often had to hustle to keep up with the others.“Hey, tell us about this haunting,” offered Wik, who was slightly out of breath.  “And how far to the alchemist?”“The nearest shop is just up there.” Jo said, pointing for emphasis.  Dorin didn’t look.  “I’m told you’ve a druid in residence.”  He added quickly, seeming embarrassed, “…in the city even.  I know it can’t be the case…”Jo heel-turned and looked him in the eye.  “I thought you wanted an alchemist?”  Her tone suggested she was about to call him a liar.“Isn’t your druid an alchemist?” asked Wik quickly.Jo’s face went blank.  “I have no idea.  And yes, a druid does live here.”  She thought for a second.  It looked painful.  “He’s the talk of local rumor here, I have to say though.  To some he’s crazy.  Others tell that he was excommunicated by the other druids, so he’s forced to live in the middle of a city. “Never met him myself though.”  She added abruptly and turned away.  “I’ll take you to him.”The man looked unconvinced.  “Won’t the other guards be missing you back at your post?”To which Wik added, “We wouldn’t want to burden you.  We can find our own way.”Jo didn’t look back.  “I’m not a town guard,” she said, shaking her head slightly.  “I just help out sometimes.”Dorin and Wik exchanged glances.  The man’s eyes squinted a little.  “Wait, how can you find this druid if you’ve never met him in a city of so many?”“Everyone knows where Nicholas lives,” Jo replied over her shoulder.  “That’s why nobody goes to see him.”“So… the haunting?” Wik prompted minimally.  Her smile faded a bit when Jo resumed her lengthy stride.---The haunting, as it happened, was the talk of the town.  One of the lumber mills, as Jo had said, was being visited by strange happenings.  Jo’s terse description was only “a lot of bleeding.”  The hauntings had occurred with alarming frequency.  Attempts to exorcise the mill had met with only limited success… whatever spirit inhabited the mill would go away for a few months, only to return.  The mill’s owners were suitably distressed.  Dwarven culture famously eschews anything supernatural, and unexplained happenings like this do not speak to their collective good sides.  Additionally, having to close the mill whenever one of these events happened was taking its toll on business, not to mention the mill’s employees, who were out the day’s wage.  Despite himself, Dorin questioned Jo about the details.  No, she didn’t know how often it happened.  No, she didn’t know how everyone knew it was a haunting.  The only description she really had of it was that there was “a lot of bleeding,” which at one point she followed with a simple shrug. As conversations went, it was not the most productive one he’d ever had.</blockquote>

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