No one answers Alba’s call.

Togo and Vinto look over the new wall.   From a distance, it seemed nicely done.  On closer inspection… neither are masons by trade, but both can see that things are Not Quite Right with this wall.  It’s very definitively really there; Togo proves that with a stick.  As he pointed out, sticks, poles, staves, and similar obects are very good for testing whether something is actually there.   (They are also very good for pointing things out.)

But now they can see that some bricks are old bricks, and some bricks are new bricks (new bricks?  Where did they get new bricks?) and both are set not in mortar but in mud.  It’s good solid dry mud, but this house is going to have problems in heavy rains in the future.

”Humor in the presence of the supernatural is not appropriate,” says Fijero the faun.

Jerrick, the young man from Namnates, looks at him.  “Who says this is supernatural?  This is just a wall somebody built.”

”But we Fey never touch bricks,” Fijero says.  “And your folk didn’t do that.  That leaves only a few a possibilities and I don’t like any of them.”

The crew looks around.  They are one of the perimeter streets of this little town, the Southeast Perimeter Street, to be exact.

From here, they see to the east, a large collapsed pile of logs and boards.  North, along the perimeter street, they see ruined farmhouses and a large mill building.

To the west, there is the main street, which leads into the middle of the town.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:00, Tue 02 Oct 2012.

Alba isn't sure she likes the idea of unknown bricklayers (and ones that do a shoddy job too!) hanging around. Whoever or whatever fixed up the house, isn't likely to be hanging around in the ruined buildings. "Let's check the mill out first, and then we can see about investigating some of the other buildings that don't look too ramshackle."

She heads for the mill to see if anything is unusual over in that direction.

Togo shrugs indifferently. He'd just assume starting with the building where they are at instead of walking back and forth but since he wasn't in any rush he just followed after Alba. He did make an effort to take notice of any notable shrubs or trees in town as well as any tracks besides their own.

Togo quickly checks  out the ruined and now repaired little house- he can easily do this and catch up to Alba because there isn't much to it.

Just an empty little farm house that hasn't been used in a long time.. nothing of any interest.

The mill, though, is the biggest building on this side of Tilium.  It's a big circular building, the kind in which oxen would move a shaft to turn a millstone.

It looks to be in good condition.  Doors, windows are closed, and all the walls are sound.

Alba waits for Togo to search the small cottage before turning her attention to the mill. As one of the more important buildings in any town, she figures that this will be a place that will provide some answers.

Cautiously she approaches the building and looks to see if there is any sign of life before going up to the door. Once there, she listens carefully for a moment before knocking on the door. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

Togo ambles up next to Alba and says quietly "Strange. Seems quiet...too quiet." He leans on his staff in a contemplation pose and looks for Vinto to make sure he didn't get lost. Reaching out he rubs the thick fur of his substitute bear companion. He often did that without really even thinking about it. Usually he talked to the animal in question when doing so but since Alba was listening he did it quietly.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:53, Mon 08 Oct 2012.

Vinto teleports to the top of the mill and gets a better veiw of the town. Every body else momentarily  confused about where vinto went. Hey you wook wike ants"

The mill is a large building, with a main section about forty feet across and a few attached rooms, the biggest thing in the town. The roof is a tall pitched shingled roof, with a post on top.  The post has an old weather vane in the shape of a bird.

Alba's knock gets no answer.  But it does seem like.. for a moment.. light, underneath the door.

Togo's bear does not look happy.  It growls,  and the ears start flicking around.

In reply to Ben (msg # 13):

Togo turns and looks at Alba and says softly "Should we try the door?". He's not sure exactly what purpose Vinto had by teleporting to the roof but then again fey creatures were often a bit wacky and often doing silly things that amused them. When Substitute bear growled it signaled that *something* was inside. It seemed likely that it would be humanoid given the repairs done but with magic anything was possible.

Alba notes the appearance of light under the door. That means that there's someone or something inside that understands them. She gives Togo a nod when he asks if they're going to open the door.

Cautiously she pushes on the door, hoping that whoever or whatever was in there hadn't had a chance to bar the door. She doesn't want to break it down after all. . . .

3. From his perch up on top of the Mill, Vinto does have a good view of the rest of the town.  It is a peculiar mix of buildings in fine shape, buildings in apparent fine shape but showing signs of extensive and sometimes questionable repairs, and buildings that are just… gone.  Stripped away, with only the foundation walls still there.  But even with those, it is like someone did it professionally and neatly, removing the rubble and cleaning the parts that remained.

And looking around.. he also sees the rubble.  It’s been neatly arranged by type and size:  big bricks, little bricks, shingles, stones, wooden beams.

From up here, he can see the middle of the town, the street they came down the first time when they went towards Namnates before the battle.  It is the part in best shape, mostly.  It includes a pair of wealthy looking homes, a forum (covered walkways around a paved plaza, with shops), and a  fountain (not working).

Beyond, on the west side of town, he sees a large barn, another nice looking house, and past that, the strange sorted rubble depot.

Near the sorted rubble is one small pile of unsorted rubble- a heap of bricks, stones, and junk about 10 feet high.

Below, Alba tries the door.

It swings open easily, with a tired sounding creak.

The inside is just one large main room, with old straw on the floor, and a central axle where yoked oxen would walk around for hours, turning the axle, which turned the millstone, which ground the flour.

There room is forty feet across and about 30 feet high in the center.

There is something else here… a swirling thing of dust and straw and dirt and some stray strands of gray fog.  It would be like a dust devil, but you don’t see those indoors.  Or anywhere without wind.

Substitute bear whines and growls.

"Awba what do you see? Somthing important, dangerous, tasty?" Vinto smiles when he says tasty. All of a sudden he is hungry.

Alba isn't sure just what they found, but one thing she knows is that it isn't good to eat. "We found something but I wouldn't want to try to eat it."

The swirling mass of stuff is a completely unknown quantity, so she readies her shield and gets her dagger out. She holds the dagger in a non-threatening manner however. "Hello! We don't mean any harm but we will defend ourselves if attacked. We want to talk to you."

"What the heck is that?" Togo asks nobody in particular. He stands there scratching his head trying to piece together what he knows about elementals and keeps coming up short. "Well this creature certainly wasn't in any of the books. Maybe it's some sort of dust or dirt elemental variant...I dunno." For the moment he's happy Alba took the initiative by both opening the door and starting a dialog with the creature. He wasn't sure if this thing was even capable of speech though.

What the heck is it is an excellent question.  And Bear is very unhappy with this- fur is all on edge, ears are up, Bear is growling.  Togo would know that most “normal” animals are extremely agitated by certain aspects of the supernatural.  In fact, Bear looks about ready to Freak Out at any moment.

Alba looks in and talks to the thing.

Very unsurprisingly, it does not talk back.

But Bear is at the end of its mental rope.  Togo can tell that something is very wrong, and if he doesn't do something fast… well, something bad.

Vinto sees the bear going crazy, he knows something is off."What does it wook wike?" he then starts to deach for a way inside on the roof.

Alba calls back to Vinto. "It looks like a vortex in the air with some mist and debris left over from when this place was an active mill."

Seeing as how it hasn't reacted to her attempts at communication, she pauses for a brief moment to consider the options. The bear isn't very happy with this thing, whatever it is and she has to make a decision fast or it will be taken from her.

Hoping that she's not going to precipitate an attack, she enters the door. Warily she enters, but doesn't get too close to the thing spinning in the room. As she does so, she looks around trying to see if there's anyone or anything that might have summoned this thing.

"Alba, Substitute bear would only get this freaked out if this thing was undead or evil." Togo decides to cast barkskin (standard action) on himself. He's not sure if it's going to help much but it might if there was going to be flying debris. Also, it would make good use of the time while Alba does whatever she plans on doing. After casting, he moves 5 feet into the building with substitute bear in tow and closes the door (move action) thereby preventing the creature from easily escaping.

Well now...


Things happen, once bear is in the room.  Bear does not want to go in here!  But Togo brings bear in and then closes the door.

Substitute Bear does indeed Freak Out.

And the swirling thing approaches.  It doesn't attack, but Bear certainly freaks.  It pushes away from Togo, actually swatting at the Druid with a big hairy paw, and then claws at the door to get out.

But that's not all.  After a few moments, Bear turns... and...  talks!

In a deep, growly voice Bear croaks:  "The curse is upon this place, blood vengeance of builders, till scores are settled and apologies accepted!  Now they must finish what can never be finished, and never rest!  The fault is on the tricksters, the guilt is theirs to bare!  Alas, the task eternally undone, and the curse, upon this place till the last stones are set!"

Bear has a very funny look after that.  Glazed, dizzy looking eyes.  But the only other thing the bear says is a confused and worried "Growf?".  Then the bear resumes trying to escape.

Vinto sees every body go inside and then tries to pry a shingle or two or five off the roof with the 3 ft pole. if any body can hear him, he says "warge people, coming in now."

"What the h..hollyberries?" Togo exclaims in shock. He stands there in a shocked state until Substitute Bear returns to normal and continues to paw at the door. In sort of a lost stupor Togo just opens the door to let him out. Then he turns around and looks at Alba. "Now this is a real mystery that's going to take some thought and probably a bit of luck to boot."

Alba is surprised by substitute bear's actions and speech as well. At first she's confused by what is said, but she listens closely. Furrowing her brow in concentration, she wishes that a priest or priestess of Pluto was here. They could certainly help get to the bottom of this thing.

However since one isn't available, they'll have to muddle through. When the bear exits the mill, she quickly sets down her pack and rifles through it to get parchment and pen out. Before she forgets, she scrawls the message down. As she does, she starts muttering to herself. "The townsfolk were fighting the fey, so I'd expect that the spirits here want them to be the ones to apologize. They may need certain fey to apologize.

The hard part is figuring out what else they want. Something needs to be finished? A part of the town?"

She looks up at Togo and Vinto. "We probably need to find the town hall. Records will be there of what they were working on and we can see if we can figure out what was so important."

Togo focuses on one word 'fey'. Vinto was the closest..no Vinto IS a fey creature. "Vinto, quit playing and get your little behind down here. WE NEED YOU NOW!" he emphasizes the last to hopefully get his attention. Silly Brownie seemed to have an attention span of retarded ferret. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad but it seemed that bad at the moment. "I believe Alba is onto something here, and it is quite possible that you may be the only one to be able to do it."

Vinto pulls up roof shingles, apparently deciding that the best way to get down to Togo and Alba is through a hole in the roof.

The roof is in good shape.  The shingles are the customary baked clay tiles that so many people use.  Typically, over the years, a roof like this loses shingles every now and then.  They break loose in storms, and end up as broken pieces around the base of the building.  Very few tiles are broken here.

But some don't look they've been fastened down well.  Vinto finds it very easy it to dislodge these, and all it takes it just three shingles to produce a Brownie sized hole.

He has his hole very quickly.  And there is a grunt and a crashing sound in the distance, as if someone just dumped a whole wheelbarrow full of bricks and stones on the ground.

Before popping through the hole he made in the roof, Vinto looks in the direction of the sorted piles of debris, because that is where the sound came from.  But all he sees is the neat, orderly piles of sorted bricks and stones.

Not the one large unsorted pile, though.  It's gone.