We found the noble’s study room. It's a small room, well, small compared to the other rooms, but it’s also twice as cramped as any other room with some papers on the floor and ink and what not. The seals and wax are also here and lot’s of pens, most of them feather pens. We rummage through the papers but even if it didn’t have an astounding number of papers it's such a mess that it feels like we won’t make any progress like this. A bill for import fee, pays for the kitchen workers, the timetable of major city events for every month, he even kept a drawing his kid made of a… cloud, I think? this guy was a serious hoarder who doesn’t know how to let go of any piece of paper, actually it’s not just paper, he had a drawer full of keys and another one with some expired fruit, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that it’s not since before the undead uprising but I don’t think moss takes over so fast that the only description I can give is “fruit” without knowing which.

It’s not the case that we don’t find any suspicious letters, but the ones we do find are dead ends.

“I have an urgent request regarding… this part is washed out. How do you erase ink from paper? it’s totally scraped out, and it’s only this word, it continues right after.”

We found a couple of others like these, sounds like a connection to the banshee but the name is wiped almost clean from the letters.

“Fren, this looks like a dead end, maybe we should go to the cemetery and look for some clues there?” Guy is getting impatient.

“I think he’s right, the names are always wiped, I think it’s the spirit’s doing, I haven’t heard of a spirit protecting itself by concealing its name… maybe it’s a demon? but then…” Grey agrees with Guy, I don’t have an idea for what to do, if we go to the cemetery we still won’t have a good chance of finding anything.

“I think she’s ashamed and that’s why. Listen to what I found: ‘To cover up what your son did to her, what a caring father you are. It will cost you, everyone will hate me if they find out I killed her after your eldest’... um… this word…” we all know what word follows that Lisa is too ashamed to say, that’s messed up. In disbelief I take the paper and read it myself. It’s all right there… wait! it continues.

‘I’ll do my best to make it look like an accident, just don’t drink from the same well.’

Don’t drink from the same well, it’s part of an idiom but I think it’s also a clue and I believe I figured it out. It just popped into my head the moment I read it.

“We should head to the cemetery now, if there are any fresh graves of women it’s our best bet.” Guy decides for the group, he’s probably right but I feel like I’m so close. All three are at the door looking at me holding the letter Lisa found. I leave the letter with the mess of the room and walk with them to the door.

“Fren, are you alright?” I guess from my walk Grey can tell I’m not fully there in my mind.

“You three can go to the cemetery, just to be safe. I’ll go look somewhere else.”

“If you need a moment that’s fine, it’s a terrible thing the noble’s son did.”

“No, it’s just, I think I might find her somewhere else. but I’m not sure, It’s just a guess.”

“Alright then, if you have a guess go for it.” Guy dismisses me, he really trusts my judgment I suppose, it feels a bit nice.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I’ll come with you.” Grey add himself “If you’re right, you’ll need a priest for the exorcism.” Oh he’s right.

“Let’s move, it’s near the church!”

Both teams take a torch and moves out, outside the banshee is reeling and the paladin is holding fast, but it looks like the banshee adjusted enough to the situation that the undead are active again during its assault. A second phase for the boss hehe, umm… What did I? Anyway we can go through easily but I don’t know how well the paladin will fare until dawn.

“Do you think she’ll be alright?” I ask Grey.

“The paladin?” he thinks for a while “If she’s who I think she is then there’s no doubt.”

“And if not?” I ask but he does not reply.

This little town is so different at night, and there isn’t anything but light from the moon that is much closer to the horizon than before. It will soon set and we will have a few hours of complete darkness. I am worried about that, the elongated night shadows are already making the town harder to traverse, not knowing where I step at all will be so much worse, I can only imagine how the paladin will fare with her vision practically nullified.

“Hey, we passed the church… Fren, where are we going?” Grey behind me is a bit hesitant and as we get closer he slows down, probably because of the smell. “Uhh, here again? this well stinks, why did we come here?”

“This is exactly where we need to be. It was just a single sentence from the last letter we read but I think she’s down here?”

“Down there?!” Grey points to the well.

“I think it explains the smell, this place is filled with fresh dead bodies and the only thing that reeks worse is this well, it smells like a dead body too, but more rotten.”

“So you think her body is down there?” We both look at the wells rope and bucket. “What line was it again that convinced you of this?”

“Do you want me to get in and down there? I’ll pick her body up and you can pull me back up.”

Grey looks very hesitant “I think… umm… how much do you weigh?”

How much did Dan weigh? I don’t know. “I don’t think that’s rude to ask, don’t be ashamed.”

“I’m not ashamed I’m just… Fine , I’ll do it, just don’t let go.” He gets closer to the well and covers his nose. I grab the rope and after he struggles a bit with the rope he sits on the bucket and dingles a bit back and forth. What I can see of his face in this darkness is hilarious, not only is he not calm at all, with both arms on the rope he cannot avoid the smell. Neither can I

“I’m going to let you down now, slowly.” I tell him and start lowering him down, he’s not heavy at all.

“Ahh, Fren, Careful! oh man, it stinks in here. ahh eww.” He doesn’t stop until I finally hear. “Fren! you were right… At least I think you were right, there’s a corpse here!”

“Is it wet in there?”

“No, It’s bone dry… huh I crack myself up. No, It’s mostly dry but I can use what little water is in here to turn off the torch, there will be light from the exorcism anyway.”

The red light from turns out and a white light starts to shine, I can hear him mumble stuff, oh sorry, another prayer.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Oh no…

I look up and I see… It’s the Banshee.

“Fren, what’s going on up there?”

I take out my sword, Fren is already at the bottom so I can let go of the rope, I don’t really have a choice. I don’t know if I can deal with the banshee… I must try to delay it long enough to let Grey complete the Exorcism.

“Focus on the Exorcism, I’ll deal with this right here!” Grey’s mumbling continues after a moment.

Focus Fren, you can do this!