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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cristian Andreu" data-source="post: 6237553" data-attributes="member: 23822">Part VII: Ghosts, of CourseThings were about to get more complicated than that, however.Reports started coming up from the Brass Legion (the band of soldiers of fortue hired by party to institute some kind of order in the town. It was mostly a bunch of abusive bullies, but better to have the bullies on your side), that Saltspiterians -or Saltspitians, or Salspitooners. A proper noun was never truly decided upon- were being found dead on their beds by the numbers.Initially this was attributed to disease, which in the festering pit of brothels and alehouses that Salspit and it's more than 3,000 souls had turned into was something waiting to happen, but as the incidents became more and more regular, Rakhim and Valanar decided to investigate things personally.As it turned out, people found dead didn't appear to show any signs of fatal diseases, murder or anything like that, except for the fact their hair, eyes and skin were white as milk. This, in conjunction with the fact every single people died while screaming horribly, led to the widespread rumours of ghosts and other malign entities haunting Saltspit.As if things weren't bad already, Imam Salim Al'Salam, caretaker of the local Temple of Sarenrae (the Sun Goddess and dominant deity in the region. As people began flocking into Saltspit, religion followed suit. A few other cults have also set foot in town, but only that of Sarenrae had a proper temple built), began preaching that these deaths were the cause of the excessive greed and avarice with which the owners of the mine had been chasing material wealth, sacrificing countless lives in the process.The preaching became more and more incendiary as deaths multiplied, and by the end of the month, the makeshift cemetery outside the town counted over 80 dead bodies from what came to be known as The White Woes.Dealing with a progressively more scared workforce (several workers had stopped going to the mines altogether. That's the problem with paid employees), a string of inexplicable deaths, and a looming outbreak of religious zeal, the party decided to take things more seriously.Using their contacts within the Church of Desna -Hassan still hadn't repaid what he stole from them, by the way-, they hired a couple of exorcists to find out what was going on. Valanar was suspecting some kind of ghost or spirit that came from the Ethereal Plane, yet the exorcists found nothing of sorts, even after covering the settlement with all kinds of "ghost-sensitive holy water vials" and other such items of dubious effectiveness and considerable cost.Still, during that night, they heard the same horrible screams reported earlier, and rushed to see what was going on: a homeless was bellowing his lungs into the street, and they found him literally trying to gouge out his own eyes, while his hair and skin turned pale in a matter of seconds; he was dead before anyone could do anything. Quickly, they broke out every kind of divination spell they had at hand, and managed to detect an evil aura lingering in the area, as well as a strong leftover of conjuration magic.Conjuration? That meant some kind of force -or creature- had been brought here from another location. Rakhim quickly pointed out something else: When they found the screaming hobo, he was yelling about worms and bugs, and rather than contorting in pain, he looked like he was downright horrified.Knowledge check; something is shouting in the back of his head, but he can't take a hold of it. He announced he needs to take a trip back to Katapesh to consult the libraries. He has a strong suspicion of what might be going on.So Rakhim the Sonk takes a leave of absence from Saltspit to visit Katapesh, where he meets up with a fellow vudrani, who helps him gain entry to the Old Archives of the Grand Lodge of the Golden Peacock, one of the oldest civil organizations in the city, and keeper of quite a vast collection of books and scrolls, most of which were donated by the many members of this tea-and-crumpets -or coffee-and-dates- society of well-off gentlemen with large turbans.After searching the archives for hours, he finally stumbled on the kind of information he was after. Long story short, Rakhim cleared up his suspicions: It wasn't ghosts what came through the portal, but night hags, denizens of the Deep Ethereal that hunt the souls and dreams of mortals to barter them with nameless entities or engorge them themselves.He buys a magic lamp emitting a constant effect of Dimensional Anchor from the infamous Dark Stalls of Katapesh and rushed back to Saltspit to get himself some hags, which oblige him and the party in one of the many fetid alleys of the town.</blockquote>

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