Session 8-6 SB The Witch's Curse Part 1

After returning home from the Quatrica Islands and the nursing back to health of Waveform, the goblurin pair alerted the members of the Spirit Bureau that something large was approaching the ranch.  Bifrost, the hapless automaton cleric investigated, and was briefly accosted by a large, shadowy form with fangs and red, glowing eyes, but retreating into the ranch proved to foil its aggression, and by morning it had disappeared, leaving behind no trace.  This is the third of a number of strange occurrences at the ranch that has had no clear explanation.  The first was strange lights in the sky which seemed to briefly cause the cessation of function of both automatons, Bifrost and Jivana, and the second was the unexplained vivisection of a bitaur on the property.  The gruesomely vivisected bitaur was moved to the work shed that also contains the airship, but the bitaur has been avoided by all animals and vermin, and so is decaying in only a limited fashion.   As has become the fashion, the Spirit Bureau was contacted to investigate a mysterious person.  A woman (Susan Deborah) from the Quatracan Islands was referred to us by an acquaintance detective, Kaine.  She had been in contact with James, a man of the Sapphire Port who worked in a music store, but he had stopped speaking with her 3 days past, and the local Maji Guard were reluctant to enter his house without evidence of foul play.  After some belated negotiation of payment, Bob, Rune, and Bifrost departed to investigate the missing person.    The trio arrived in the night to find the house locked and a light on on the second floor.  Knocking resulted in the light being turned off, but no response, and Bob, handy with an axe, discovered the back door had a surprising flaw that left it prone to opening when the axe was appropriately applied.  All three investigators entered the house, to find the doors and floor limned in salt, and the walls of most rooms covered in holy symbols.  Bob first noted a moving shadow, but as it came to no ill, dismissed it.   Things turned decidedly worse when they climbed to the second floor.  There they found a journal that detailed James's recent encounters with a witch, including a curse she laid upon him, telling him that within a week he would die.  James's body was discovered by the trio in the adjacent bathroom, and though the last journal entry was dated for the previous day, the body looked to have been dead and in rigor for weeks.     When the trio retreated to the bedroom to discuss this, Bifrost attempted to call the Maji Guard, but the callstone was somehow blocked and non-functional.  When Bifrost left the room the door swung shut, trapping Rune and Bob in the bedroom, or perhaps keeping them from being able to come to the aid of their spiritual companion.  When Bifrost attempted to leave through the rear door, he discovered the door had returned to full strength and a closed position.  A series of attempts at communication failed, and between his emblazoned shield and a light spell cast upon it, this seemed to drive the haunting spirit in the house into a frenzy, eventually manifesting in a shadowy figure that declared that all three current occupants were going to die.   Bifrost's observation:  The haunt's attempt to intimidate the cleric was interesting.  Perhaps the haunt felt that the Spirit Bureau was unaware of the natural state of mortality, in that all mortal beings are bound to die.  While Bifrost is unaware of what its own life span is expected to be, this was not, in truth, a really remarkable observation.  Perhaps this suggests something about the nature of self-aware undead.  Perhaps such beings are so caught up in their own expiration that they feel the need to warn the living.  Often such warnings might come across as hostility, and might explain the frequency of conflict between undead and the living.  It is unfortunate how often the restless dead are unwilling to assist in their own finding of peace.  It would be worth corresponding with others on this and other observations.