Kasidy was sitting on the bed in the dead commander’s room with his journal in her hand. “So from what I am seeing the Haunting is the commander’s brother. Looks like the commander poisoned his brother.”

I had been looking through the wardrobe until she said that. Then I spun, “What? He poisoned his own brother? Does it say why?”

Kasidy held up her hand. “Hold on I am trying to find out.”

I stopped what I had been doing and went and sat down at the desk. As I waited for Kasidy to tell me what was going on, I started to think through what we knew, which at this point wasn’t much. There was a man that was on pay for slipping info on patrols to someone else. There was the commander who poisoned his brother. Then there was also a low-level noble whose throne was open to being claimed.

Kasidy made a slight gasping sound, so I asked. “You find something?”

Instead of answering, she kept reading. I saw her flip a few pages back and eagerly read more. I hated not reading. Most of the time it didn’t matter on this world, but I missed it. Being able to leave messages or, heck, even take notes would be helpful. The worst thing was I knew that I was a fast reader on Earth, so I assumed I would have already found the answer.

I tried again. “KASIDY whatcha find?”

She looked up from the book. “Oh yeah, so it looks like the commander was worried about this last patrol more than normal. He wasn’t going to be leading it but acting as the second for the son of the Marquess.”

As she looked back down at the book, I asked. “Why did he poison his brother, and how come they couldn’t heal it?”

She smiled and looked back up. “Oh yeah that, sorry this other stuff is neat. Some parts kind of boring but the patrols they were doing were keeping a pass open. Don’t know why that pass isn’t still used. It should cut right through the mountains. Not big mind you but we should be fine going that way if a patrol could go. He says here, ‘the pass was as narrow at points as the sides of a two ox wagon.’ That’s bigger than we are so we should be able to slip through.”

I shook my head and sighed. “KAS-I-DY!”

She jerked her head up from the book. “Why did the commander poison his own brother?”

Kasidy blinked a few times. “Right. Well, he was worried about the trip. I told you that already.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Because he was worried more he poisoned him?”

She nodded. “Well okay so it turns out that the Marquess’s son was more or less an idiot that the Marquess was trying to train. The kid and mind you when I say kid I mean like those kids that Blink found. The commander said… Oh let me find it. It was funny… Here we go, ‘that the heir to the Marquess’s throne had not even grown a shadow of beard, yet tried to act as through his hair had turned the color of smoke.’ Get it! The kid wasn’t even shaving yet but wanted to be treated like his hair was all gray!”

I nodded. “Okay so the kid was young but that doesn’t explain why he was worried.”

Kasidy waved her hand. “Right! Right! So it turns out that commander. Renaut was his name by the way. Knew that someone was selling information. He wasn’t sure who but knew that it was going on because they hadn’t been able to catch the bandits they had been after. Well the lordling had been made a scene about wanting to lead. Said something about being the next Marquess and so Renaut needed to let him lead or it would be bad latter.”

I nodded a bit. I could kind of follow the story that Kasidy was telling. It still seemed to be shaky a little as to why he wouldn’t take his brother with him. After all, it would make sense to take all your troops on a mission.

Kasidy looked back down at the book, and I said. “I still don’t get it, Kas. Why would he force his brother to stay behind if he was escorting his future lord? I would think he would want everyone he could get.”

Kasidy looked up from the book again. “Oh sorry, yeah he said that commander’s intuition triggered and felt that it would be bad. He tried to talk Eric, that’s the Marquess’s son, out of leading the patrol. However, he was told to take all of the men and that should be enough. Eric wanted to see what battle was like.”

I nodded. “Okay so let me see if I have this right. The commander Renaut had a skill trigger that gave him a gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. Eric the heir to the throne of Westiral still wanted the patrol to go. So Renaut somehow poisoned his own brother to keep him from going on the patrol so that he wouldn’t die? However his brother somehow felt guilty enough to form a Haunting?”

Kasidy nodded. “The Huanting’s name is Renfry. Looks like Renaut used red thistle in tea to give his brother a magic resistant stomach debuff. The effects of red thistle seemed to appear like drunkenness but magically incurable. Looks like it was meant to leave his brother down for about a day and a half. Which was longer than Eric wanted to wait and so they went without him. Renaut treated his brother like he was a drunk and forced him to stay and when recovered clean the whole building.”

I nodded. “I bet that went over well with Renfry. His older brother accusing him of being drunk and then being treated as such.”

Kasidy sighed. “Yeah, the last thing in here was Renaut hoping his brother would forgive him someday for what he did.”

“Well I guess we know what happened. Now do we just take this down to Renfry and let him know what happened? Will that end the Haunting and close out the lair?”

Kasidy nodded. “I think so but I am just guessing. I mean we know what happened but I don’t know if that is enough. We can take the book with us and hope that it works. I don’t know if we will have to go into the room or not.”

“Well lets finish out look through this place first. I want to make sure there wasn’t something else going on as well. Might be that there was more than one plot going on that we need to find out about. Let’s check the other door from the mess hall first.”

Kasidy stood up and set the journal back on the bed. She took a couple of steps away, then turned back and grabbed it. She caught my eye and smiled.

Then she laughed. “I like how Renaut wrote. Besides we might need it when seeing his brother.”

With that, we headed back into the mess hall. The two bedrooms only took up about two-thirds of the room, which meant that the door in the middle of the mess hall should give a room about the same size.

We rounded the corner of the hall that wrapped two sides of Eric’s room and then passed back into the mess hall. A few steps later, we were in front of the last room. As I grabbed the pull ring, I heard the faint click of the door unlocking. I pulled it open, and we stepped into a small kitchen and supply room.

On one side of the room were shelves and hanging meat that, oddly enough, still looked good. On the other side were a couple of small counters and then an open area with a couple of cauldrons and coal holders under them. The space was tidy but cramped. It only took us a few moments to go through the whole place, as it was all just food and food prep.

As I looked around, I muttered, “Why’s the food still good?”

Kasidy tapped her finger on her lips and said. “It must be the magic of the lair but your right. None of this should be good after how long ago this all happened.”

I pointed out of the kitchen. “Let’s hit this side of the second floor. I don’t expect to find anything but you never know.”

As we headed down the stairs, Kasidy asked. “What do you think that Renfry meant by we would either free him or die as he did?”

As I tried the first door, I heard the click again. “I think that he meant alone. But I am not sure. Perhaps something else happened here that we haven’t found.”

I opened up the door, but before stepping in, I brought back up the info on the signet ring.

Signet of the lord of Westiral

Wearing this ring proves the right to Westiral

Grants

Full access to Castle Westiral

Sealed message once a day seal a message only it’s precipitant may open

1/1

When I was finished looking at the ring, Kasidy was already working on the first footlocker. “Hey Kas, hold up for a moment. I want to try something.”

Kasidy shot me a questioning frown and stood up. “Are you wanting to try to break the locks?”

I smiled and shook my head. “No the signet that I found says it gives full access to the castle. I think it has been unlocking the doors. I want to see if it will do the same to these lockers.”

I reached down to the locker she had been working on and touched the edge. The latch fell open with a satisfying click. I smiled as I opened it up.

Then I gave a short bow to Kasidy and said. “Voila!”

Kasidy giggled and shook her head. Then she got a big smile. “Try the locked boxes in the noble’s room!”

We both rushed back upstairs to see what was in the last two boxes. While being trapped in a lair could have been scary, this one was turning out to be fun. Sure, I would have died without Kasidy knowing what the place was, but because we knew it was a Haunting and what we needed to do, the rest of the building was just fun. So our laughing as we ran was fine.

We burst into Eric’s room and ran to the two boxes. I touched the first and heard a click. Then I tossed a smile at Kasidy as I opened up the box. Sitting in the box were twelve books. I touched the first one and got a pop-up.

Would you like to learn the Skill

Script?

YES

NO

* * *