In the last post, Ellu'kha Kael and Xander stumbled through the forest in search of the village called Gilded Vale. On their travels they were warned about a man-eating bear and they also saved a small dwarf from being enslaved by a group of bandits. After entering the village at long last, Ellu'kha discovered it wasn't the haven she had originally believed it to be and hurried to the inn to sleep and be well-rested enough to get the hell away from there. As she stumbled upon the inn, she helped a fellow wood elf, Aloth, defend himself against a group of drunken villagers before he pleaded for her to allow him to accompany her on her travels.
His split personality seemed both interesting and entertaining and so she agreed. With that sorted, they went into the inn to get some rest for the night so they could scamper away upon the morrow.
As they entered the inn, the woman behind the bar quickly waved them over. She recognised Ellu'kha's description from the rescued dwarf and quickly offered the group a discount on drinks, rooms, and food. It was as music to Ellu'kha's ears!
She happily grabbed herself a free drink then waltzed out into the kitchen to see the dwarf she had rescued. He was singing from behind a giant crockpot and he smiled widely as he saw her. Thrusting a bowl of steaming hot food into her hands, he cheered for her and told her to eat and be merry. That she did.
With a full belly, she found her room and fell fast asleep.
Her sleep wasn't a peaceful one. Nightmares ravaged her mind, nightmares and images of all she had seen over recent days. Wild winds, cloaked cultists, and dead villagers that were hanged from a great, dead tree. One of the dead looked at her and smiled. It called her a Watcher.
Eyes snapping open, Ellu'kha leapt out of bed and blinked away the last remnants of sleep. She had to go to the dead tree. She had to see if that dead person in her dream was actually in that tree. She didn't know why — she just did.
Grabbing Aloth and her trusty wolf, she sprinted through the village and to the dead tree then examined it carefully. Her wolf didn't really care, he was accustomed to her flights of fancy, but Aloth watched her with a cocked eyebrow.
She ignored Aloth's stare and kept examining the tree and the dead that hung from it. At last, her eyes crept upon the dull, lifeless stare of a dwarven woman. The woman from her nightmare. The woman who had called her a 'Watcher.'
The longer she stared at the dead woman, the more entranced she became. Soon the world felt as though it closed in around her and only she and that dead woman were left. The dead woman's eyes lit up and soon they conversed. Ellu'kha Kael, the wood elf, had never had a concussion; she had survived the great, evil winds and the strange machine and had become a Watcher. She could commune with the dead, see visions of the past, her third eye had been ripped open and she would learn to embrace it — she must embrace it.
Saying her goodbyes to the dead woman, she returned to the present, living world and found herself being scrutinised by both Aloth and a smirking blonde man.
The man introduced himself as Eder and then both he and Aloth questioned her about just why she was so entranced with the dead woman. She told them that she was a Watcher and was speaking with the woman. Both of them actually seemed to believe her, too! Eder quickly warned her not to just go around telling people that she was a Watcher. That was a one-way ticket to joining her dead friend on that tree.
She took heed of his warning but now felt as though she should return to the forest from yesterday. With both Aloth and Eder by her side, as well as her trusty wolf, of course, perhaps they could kill that bear and make the forest a little safer for the village. Secretly though, there had been corpses in the forest... perhaps they had interesting stories to tell, she thought to herself.
Ellu'kha told Aloth and Eder about the man-eating bear in the forest and how she thought it should be killed before it attacked any other villagers. They agreed and soon they were in the forest and at the cave entrance.
She made a point of walking past fallen corpses but the shadowy figures from the day before were long gone. They no longer wanted to speak with her. If only she had known about this Watcher business before, instead of just feeling as though she were concussed.
Disappointed that she hadn't been able to talk to any other ghosts, yet thrilled with the prospect of hunting a man-eating bear, she stepped into the cave and the others followed.
Eder was no stranger to battle, having been a soldier in a recent war, and Aloth was an adept magician who willed flames from his fingertips. With their prowess, her bow, and Xander's wolfiness, they took down the bear with ease. That beast would no longer be feasting upon unknowing villagers.
The remains of a man lay upon the ground. The air wiggled and wavered around him. Ellu'kha's heart raced. It was happening again — the dead wanted to speak with her!
Focusing on the dead man, she watched as his ghost angrily strode around the cave and flailed its arms into the air. He had been betrayed. Betrayed! His best friend had lured him into the cave, and when the bear came upon them his friend had tripped him over for the bear to feast upon as the so-called friend then fled. He had been betrayed.
Feeling the rage of the ghost swell within her, she promised him that she would seek vengeance for his betrayal and swept out of the cave, leaving a nonplussed Aloth and Eder to chase after her. She strode back into the village with the full-forced anger beating within and swiftly found the man who had warned her about the man-eating bear. It was him. He was the betrayer.
Inside a house, packing belongings into bags alongside a woman, Ellu'kha accused him of treachery.
The woman begged and pleaded, told her some sob-story about the man who had been her husband, but Ellu'kha was having none of it. Fueled by rage, she attacked and allowed the dead man some form of justice.
Leaving the treacherous souls behind to languish in their abode forevermore, a relief flooded Ellu'kha's veins. She had enacted the will of the dead; he had found peace and now so had she.
The peace was very swiftly shattered by shouting and swearing just up the road by an old mill. People, clearly drunk, were waving torches around and threatening to kill the man and his family inside. Her curiosity could not resist. As the drunken louts threatened to come back that night and wandered over to the inn to get presumably even more drunk, Ellu'kha went inside the mill and asked the trembling man inside just what was going on.
There was no food in the region, crops were failing, and the villagers seemed to believe that he was hoarding all the grain and vegetables for himself. He didn't have anything either and soon he wouldn't have his life. Ellu'kha offered to try and broker peace with the drunks and speak some sense into them.
If Aloth and Eder were surprised by her bipolar impulsions, they didn't say a word. But she wasn't fueled by a ghost's emotions any more and instead felt as she normally did. And she wanted to try and do this peacefully.
Walking up to the men in the inn, she bribed them into talking with her by shouting them a round of beers. They were very happy with the gift and the leader agreed to listen to what Ellu'kha had to say.
She appealed to any sense of logic that may be buried beneath the booze and told them all about how the man in the mill didn't have anything either, he wasn't hoarding any food, the entire region's supply was ravaged. The drunk leader lowered his eyes and concurred. He was treating the miller unfairly. He and his group would leave the miller and his family in peace.
Returning to the mill to tell the man and his family the good news, the miller near burst into tears with relief. He offered Ellu'kha a coinpurse for her help and trouble but she told him to keep it. Their family was struggling enough.
With that out of the way, Ellu'kha and her group returned to the inn for another meal and a rest.
She was doing good work!
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 
