Session 8: Nov 8, 2008
Chapter II: The Path to Understanding
Ghostly Companions (cont)
As the crew began unloading various crates and supplies, the group decided to look for something to do. However, they were soon approached by local soldiers and a captain who had questions for them.
As it turns out, the ship they had come in on was about to be raided/confiscated for smuggling/stealing goods and they wanted to know what the group knew about the crew, the ship, destinations, etc. While talking to them, a fire broke out aboard the ship while it was being raided so the questioning ended abruptly.
The group spent the night out on the beach under what was a clear night sky. Unfortunately they were awoken in the morning by a rain storm.
The group then decided to investigate by heading to the place where the injured were being brought to. Grail offered to help out as best he could and after some fishing around found a member of the crew (someone they recognized but had never spoken to). They led him away from the location he was being cared for to question him. Needed to apply certain "interrogation" techniques, Grail was sent away for food and drinks. The crew member did not share as much as information as they had hoped and the interrogation turned into a fight which resulted in the near death of the crewman.
They returned him to the place he was taken from, which earned them some irritated looks from the caretakers there, and decided to go see about sneaking aboard the ship to investigate the fire (though they were hearing that the boat was taking on water).
Upon arriving on the docks, they could see the boat was listing to one side slightly and had sustained heavy fire damage, but had not yet sunk and by all accounts it was not going to. Before they could set a plan in motion to sneak on board, the captain found them and led them down, offering to let them check out the boat first hand.
The boat was relatively gutted, with the focus of investigation occurring down below decks, near where their quarters were. When they got there, they noticed a group huddled around a particular wall and upon closer inspection found out what the buzz was about. On one particularly burned wall was a hand print... small... the size of a small child's hand burned in white ash and surrounded by a larger white ashen circle. They immediately chalked it up to the ghostly girl, but did not share this information with anyone.
That night they stayed in a nearby Inn. In the middle of the night, Ketana was awoken by a whispering. It was the ghost girl who at the same time was 'pawing' at his bag for what they assumed was the box. Upon pulling it out, the ghostly girl touched the box and triggered some kind of projection, only this time the circumstances were very different. For one, the box did not heat up and two, it was not projecting light of any kind, although an image was very obviously playing out before them.
The projection was that of a ship, whose passengers (relatively wealthy looking humans) appeared to be shackled to a chain, which was attached to the anchor which then was suddenly cast overboard yanking to the ocean all of those attached. Off to the side, there were more people watching, crying, or looking away and the focus came in on one particular woman holding a baby. The ghostly girl reached for her, but the image faded causing her to let out a very high pitched screech before suddenly disappearing.
Ketana began a ritual to comprehend the language he heard the girl whispering. It was something being said over and over again so he had it memorized, but the language was only vaguely familiar to him. when the ritual was completed he came to understand her whispering as, "I will find you, and I will kill you".
The next day, the group was offered a ride aboard a merchant ship by the captain who had been questioning them. They took him up on the ride, but on the second night, the ghostly girl appeared on deck startling the crew. As she made her way downstairs, the crew followed. She went all the way down to the room of the group and disappeared. This got them in a lot of trouble. They were held in their rooms until the morning.
That morning the captain of the ship put them on a smaller row boat and his crew rowed them to the nearby shore of Safari Island (In the Kingdom of Ierendi). There they were left, although they were given directions to the nearby village of Pupami.
They traveled through the day arriving at night and finding the village completely abandoned. Only the light in an upstairs window of the Inn offered any hope of company. when they entered the room, they found a lantern lit, but also the body of a human male who also happened to be missing a large portion of the back of his head. At that moment, they heard screeching outside and witnessed 5 creatures charging toward the Inn. They were humanoid in figure, running on 2 legs with claws for fingers, black skin, and no facial features (except for a slit for a mouth).
The group quickly prepared the room for combat just in time for the creatures to arrive trying to force themselves in. By the time the first one finally made it through the door, two more burst in through the windows of the room and the fight was on.
After defeating these creatures, the ghostly girl appeared holding the hand of another ghost... the ghost of the man on the ground. This ghost, however, could see the group (or at least didn't ignore them) and even talk to them. He did not remember anything really other than one moment writing in his journal and the next wandering the upstairs portion of the Inn as a ghost.
The group gathered the journal which was downstairs, at which point Jacob (the ghost) discovered that he could join them downstairs as well now. Piecing the journal together for Jacob he read and began to remember what happened. Him and his friend Markeen had been sent to Pupami to investigate the disappearance of a number of villagers which eventually led to them abandoning the village. He had sent Markeen for supplies in the southern village of Kobos, so he might still be there. Also in the journal they discovered that these black creatures were inactive during the day and that more had been discovered at a tower to the south.
Heading there, they passed another creature (it was now daylight) who stood completely still, it's face staring towards the sky. As an experiment they touched it and it prang to life attacking them, but they quickly ended its life.
At the tower they found more of the same and quickly dispatched of a large group of them on the second floor.
On the fourth floor they found a room with a floating black and glowing orb in the center of the room and an elderly man on the other side of it. There were also black figures in this room chained to chairs. Upon noticing them, the man eventually ran up some stairs to the roof, blocking his exit with a gate.
Suddenly in another corner of the room a monster sprung on the group. IT was a large gorilla-looking creature with horns - some kind of demon. They defeated it and made their way to the roof where the elderly man leaped to his death.
Jacob the Ghost appeared while they rested and let them know that Markeen needed to see this orb in the room - it was very important.
They left for Kobos, found Markeen, and brought him to the tower. He indeed needed to see the orb telling the group that him and Jacob had come across a number of these and had been destroying them via a ritual that the group would now need to help him with - enter a skill challenge.
Ketana read from an ancient scroll while the three others held a stone (from Markeen) each and stood one in each of three etched circles around the orb. Ketana needed to read without distraction and the others needed to not leave their circle and remain as still as possible. This became very hard to do when two rounds in 12 demon-like birds emerged from the orb and began attacking them all (making their checks harder).
Eventually they succeeded and from the orb emerged two demons which put up a great fight but were eventually defeated, and the orb was destroyed.
They decided to rest in the tower as they let Markeen investigate the box to see if he could give them any information on it.