As we continued our journey down the western coast of Taratos, we found things had pleasantly returned to normal. After about a day of swift travel, we arrived in the harbour of Jomba Town, where we intended to replenish our supplies and trade commodities. We found that area was quite rocky and steep, with the town itself was situated far up the cliffside, somewhat remote from the harbour. There was a path up which appeared rather rickety, and I felt a bit uneasy during the awkward ascent.
In town, we agreed that while I would deal with the mercantile aspects of our voyage, the others would gather information and rumours from around town. So, I went to the market and the traders' booths, but I quickly found that we had arrived in Jomba Town at a rather bad time, and there was neither big demand for the wares we had in store, nor was there much surplus food to purchase. Still, in the end I had found some good bargains, though low in volume, and I had hopes that we would find more affluent purchasers at our next stop. I took care of the formalities, and sent the porters down to the ship, where Equias would finalise the deal.
While I was still scouring the market, the others approached me. In a local tavern they had heard reports of a spirit that was supposedly roaming about, attacking people. And notable, after several of these attacks, the locals claimed to a found that every group of victims had contained at least one red-haired person. Auburn-haired Carlton, being his usual self, was thrilled at the prospect of meeting this ghost. I wasn't, really, but there was a reward advertised for putting these attacks to a permanent end, and also I felt that if there was a way to save lives here, we should, with our half-baked expertise regarding spirits, possibly investigate this.
There was another thing to investigate, however. A local man had approached my friends in an alley, appearing rather nervous and frightened, and he had insisted to show them an important secret, out of town. Was this a prank, a trap or something serious? Considering safety in numbers, the Captain wanted the whole group to go, and so the others wanted to pick me up to go to the meeting point immediately, which was about an hour's walk inland. So, we all went there, and indeed our contact was there, and showed us something rather gruesome. At this spot, the corpse of a man had been recently disposed of. Taking a closer look, we found that the victim's throat had been cut.
Our contact informed us that the man had been a traveller, who had disappeared some time ago, after he had made several inquiries about members of the town council. He urged us to investigate further, since obviously no local had the courage to, but also to be careful, since whoever did this was not too squeamish about murdering foreigners. At this point, Carlton spun his head around; He had heard somebody in the bush and courteously asked the man to come out. The Captain called for my magic, but when I could react, the person who had been eavesdropping on us was already sprinting back towards town. We pursued him at length, each one at their own pace, but in the end, none of us were successful, and before anyone had caught up, the spy had reached the town outskirts and had disappeared into the labyrinth of shacks. We scoured the town for a short while, but we found no trace.
Eventually all of us had arrived in the town centre, and there, we considered our options. We had little chance to find the spy, but I remarked that our informer, who may have been identified by the spy, was now in grave danger, and we should warn and protect him, and thus reach him before the conspirators did, whoever they were. We made our way back towards the outskirts of town again, but it appeared that the opposition had reacted quickly.
Our path was cut off by a group of rather rowdy people, weapons in hand, and we were surrounded by more suspect persons from the alleys around. I tried to reason with them, telling them that whatever plans or orders they had, they were not worth risking life and limb for. That they disagreed with that assessment became obvious when they reacted by assaulting us from all sides a moment later. Unfortunately for them, Master Krastus was at his best again. The combat was brutal, with my friends clearly outclassing the thugs, but they were too stubborn (or perhaps to terrified of their sponsors) to relent. After too much time, and too many lives lost, they finally retreated, leaving their dead comrades, and us, behind for now.
We were at a loss what to make of the situation, but one thing was clear. At least to somebody in charge, we had already overstayed our welcome.
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