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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carlo-One" data-source="post: 8194462" data-attributes="member: 7015827">At Aerikoth’s suggestion, their first stop was at the barracks, to visit the leader of Baron Pahar’s guards. Darrow knocked on the door and entered, being greeted warmly by Guard Captain Calen, who immediately inquired if they had come about the ghost. The dwarf said he had just heard about it and planned to look into it. Aerikoth then asked the guard captain to tell them what he could about it.Calen, after a glance at his men clustered in the rear of the barracks, described how the previous night they had two guards stationed outside on the manor perimeter, with the rest staying inside out of the rain. In response to a query from Shanni, the guard captain explained that although there was no specific reason to keep a watch outside, with nothing around the manor hill, he had insisted on it as standard protocol. He called the manor a source of evils, which Dermot contradicted by saying it was just bricks and tile.After the interruptions, Calen continued by relating how when the morning shift guards had gone to relieve their comrades, they were found with their throats slit and warnings written in blood next to the bodies. The guards came running back inside, only to see blood being drawn upon the walls of the manor itself, warning that Hallton had returned to claim it. Calen believed it was indeed a ghost that wrote those words, for no hand had been seen drawing them. Aerikoth bluntly asked whether a ghost had slit his men’s throats, while Darrow suggested it could have been someone invisible, even someone who might have hopped through a gateway.Apparently unwilling to further debate the matter, the guard captain lowered his voice and described how his men had panicked and now refused to return to the site. He described them as good men who had seen battle, but not ghosts killing in the night. Looking shamefaced, Calen admitted that the two dead guards were still there. He asked if the adventurers could at least recover the bodies, which would put him in their debt. He said he had convinced his men to stay on in Tallwell for the time being, but was not sure how long that would last. The manor was too close for comfort and some spoke of a curse on the land.Aerikoth stated that he was starting to believe, from the information given, that this was not the work of a ghost; a ghost would act differently, if what the wizard had read were accurate. Dermot volunteered them to recover the fallen fellows, earning a grim nod of assent from Darrow and a disturbed look from Shanni. After some speculation about what they might find, Calen said he would tell the others about the adventurers’ plans, which hopefully would ease their minds, and gave them a farewell salute. (It might be easy for those who read these chronicles to feel superior in their logic and knowledge, and so to dismiss the fearful tale of a ghost as that of uneducated, panicked soldiers. I would first query any such reader whether they had seen the bodies of comrades slaughtered as their companions slept and bloody warnings scrawled on a wall, appearing before their very eyes. Reality is not so easy to deal with, in contrast with the comforting distance of events that are but words on a page. --R)Outside the barracks, the topic of fighting ghosts was discussed, Aerikoth saying that it could be done with magic and enchanted weapons, which did nothing to improve Shanni’s mood since she had neither. Darrow offered to lend her some magic arrows, while Dermot reminded them that the business at hand was to collect the fallen lads. Aerikoth expressed his curiosity as to if it were a true ghost, or just something or someone frightening off the guards, which is what Darrow thought was the case.The coincidence of the ghost appearing the previous night, when the night before that House Cormaeril had fallen, was not lost on either the wizard or the dwarf. Aerikoth remarked that he thought a skilled assassin could make an appearance as a ghost if needed. In response to a question from Darrow about a mage being responsible, the wizard pointed out that a potion or ring as well as a spell could be used to render the person invisible. He also recalled to the group that Hallton had been supplied by House Cormaeril in the war against Baron Pahar, some nine months past, and there was a portal in the cellar of the castle that was used to transfer supplies to Hallton magically. Shanni observed that Aerikoth must be thinking someone had skipped through the portal, as indeed the wizard did. Darrow also pointed out that if Hallton were to have come back as a ghost, why would he have waited so long after his death.</blockquote>

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