This session tells a small story of children playing in the shadows and what lurks just beyond your vision.

Ka’Tau and Romero were having a good time mingling and eating at the celebration of the arrival of the last group. Jonathen had one of the cows to be slaughtered for the feast, and the townsfolk as well as the new arrivals were happy to once again taste some meat.

At some point Ka’Tau notices a woman shouting out for her child, and he remembered another parent shouting out earlier for their kid. A little bit wary he decides to ask the woman if everything is okay, and she responds that she cannot find her little daughter anywhere, even though it is bedtime. Ka’Tau (being the tactful person he always is) then decides to magically enhance his voice and shout out over the feast: “Has anybody seen this little girl or the kids she was last seen with?”

Of course everybody instantly becomes quiet after his booming voice, and in a few seconds a few other parents also begin to wonder where their children are. Within minutes the panic spreads and it is found that 6 children are missing. Search parties are sent out to search through all the houses in the town, and Ka’Tau and Romero join the frantic search.

After an hour of searching without finding anything, Romero becomes certain that the children are not within the confines of the town anymore. Ka’Tau smartly begins talking to a few of the kids, and asks them about any secret spot that the missing kids might have gone to (kids being kids). After some effort one kid reluctantly tells them about a spot just outside the village and shows them a small opening through the rubble wall where the kids can get through to play in the houses on the other side.

Ka’Tau and Romero waste no time and they climb over the wall and start investigating the other side. On the corner of the nearest house they find a torn piece of clothing and a lot of footsteps which have trampled the grass. While they look around they suddenly hear the cry of a small child from the direction of another house, and Romero Sprint with magical speed towards the house.

As Romero bursts in through the door, he is immediately attacked by a foul smelling gnarling beast. The attack came so suddenly and with such force that it completely incapacitates Romero and he goes out cold.

Ka’Tau comes running after Romero and sees what is happening. The beast then turns to him and he can hear it  rasp “More FOOD!” The first thing Ka’Tau does, is use his magic to heal Romero a bit from the distance. As Romero slowly gains consciousness, another (smaller) beast jumps on him and wacks him out cold again. Ka’Tau desperately tries to reach Romero and tries to bypass the first creature, while healing Romero once more. Romero once again gains consciousness, just in time to see Ka’Tau go down from an attack from the bigger of the two creatures.

Romero, still prone on his back on the floor, his staff out of reach and with the smaller creature looming over him, does the only thing he can do out of desperation: He loudly roars and bellows forth a fiery, white-hot, tenfold overheated ball of flames directly at the smaller creature! The smaller creature hardly has the time to screech in pain as it incinerates into ashes, leaving a scorch-mark at the ceiling above Romero.

The larger of the two creatures, which was just about to feast on Ka’Tau sees this immense show of power, hesitates and then whimpers off in the dark…

Romero shakes his head, clearing the disturbing flashes of the short battle he had seen from his mind, looks around and sees his friend lying a few feet from him. He moves over to him and bandages his wounds, and a little while later Ka’Tau wakes up again.

“I believe those were Ghouls”, Ka’Tau explains as they start to look through the house for the children. “Although I have never heard of a ghoul fleeing from battle.”

The inside of the house has a little kitchen area through a door on the side of the entrance, which was were the ghouls emerged from. In the first room beyond the entrance there is another door leading further, and there is also a remnants of stairs leading to the floor above. The two Dragonborn decide to go climb upstairs first. and when they get up there, they can hear a little whimpering sound coming from a door at the end of a hallway.

Ka’Tau decides to bash down the door, and inside they find a little girl standing in the corner, with her face turned toward the corner. Next to her on a bed-stand they can see a small picture in a frame. Something must not have felt right about the situation, because the two Dragonborn are wary to approach the girl. When they repeatedly call out to the little girl and she refuses to respond, Ka’Tau again uses his forceful voice and tell her to turn around.

As the girl slowly turns around, she suddenly seems to grow larger, more shadowy and aggressive and she lets out a large screech. There must have been some power behind the screech, because Ka’Tau suddenly is scared beyond his wits and is unable to close in to the girl. Luckily Romero was standing a few feet further away and he hits the ghostly form with a fire bolt. As the apparition closes in on Ka’Tau he desperately swings his axe through her, while dodging her attacks on him. Romero once again hits her with a fire bolt, and she really did not like that at all. She suddenly moves forward right through Ka’Tau towards Romero, who scrambles backwards through the hallway to get away from her while slinging more fire bolts at her.

Romero figures the small framed picture must have meaning for this ghostly girl and uses a spell to fetch the picture into his hand. He holds it out to her, threatening to destroy it, but this seems not to have any effect on her.

Ka’Tau feels himself unable to move towards the apparition, yet his need to help his friend is strong enough that he attacks her with his fire-breath while also throwing his smaller throwing axe at her, which both connect. The childlike ghost shrieks in pain and flees through the wall to another room.

Romero immediately runs for the door to the other room to intercept her, and as he enters the room, he can only see some wardrobe where it had passed through the wall. Without thought he unleashes another fire bolt on the wardrobe with dry and dusty clothing, and the whole wardrobe goes up in flames, together with a loudly shrieking ghost-child who was hiding in it. All that remained in the ashes were 2 gold coins, of which Romero gave one to Ka’Tau.

The picture they found, shows two children looking down to the ground, with two adult shrouded people standing over them. Next to them is a large fire pit and behind them a door. The two friends can find no meaning in this however, and they decide to check out the rest of the house.

Behind the door on the ground floor, they find a large room with a fire pit on the far wall, and a large framed picture next to it. The large painting looks similar to the smaller version as it shows two happy children and two happy adults standing behind them. Next to the is the same fire-pit, but there is no door behind them. The fire-pit from both pictures looks exactly like the fire-pit in the room.

Ka’Tau is certain there is magic afoot here, and he starts a ritual which will allow him to see magical influences. While Ka’Tau is doing this, Romero looks around the room for clues and he feels a little draft coming from behind the painting. He decides to wait for Ka’Tau’s spell as he does not want to cause any bad magic to happen. He does however walk outside and check the back where the fire-pit and the painting should be on the inside. There he notices that the extrusion of the fire-pit is much wider than it is on the inside. He heads back inside to check, and realizes that there must be a space behind the painting. This time he simply fires of another fire bolt at the painting, convinced that magic is not the issue here. As the painting burns down, a door is revealed behind it.

Not much later Ka’Tau finishes his ritual and decides to check for magic anyway throughout the whole house. Sadly he finds nothing of the sort, and the two friends open the door to see a ladder going down into the ground behind it.

With some effort Ka’Tau squeezes himself down to the small hall below, which also ends at a door.

Behind the door, they find shadow that is not easily pierced by their magic light or torches, and they see something moving in the shadows.

<Last part will be written at a later date…>