Once we’ve made sure Lenata and the crew have fully recovered from our encounter with the Deadwood Saragasso, we cross our fingers, hold our breath and activate the planar sails to get ourselves back to the Prime Material. Unfortunately, being in the uncharted area that we are… there really is no telling if we’re in the right place or not. All we have to go on is the map the EIN gave us… so our fates are tied to the quality of their cartographers.

I guess this is one occasion where I hope that their anal attitude about things pays off.

We travel for what feels like five days down through the thick mists of the flow when once again, something “interesting” happens. No sudden stops this time, though… just freaked-out crew running through the hallways like their pants are on fire.

I pop my head out into the hallway to see an annoyed Vedis shaking her head at the retreating crewmembers. “Shall we go check it out?” I offer as I nod toward the apparent source of the problem, which to my surprise seems to be Ef Utan’s room. “I wonder what was so scary? Do you think they walked in on him changing clothes or something?” I laugh.

“Might as well see what it is this time,” Vedis mutters as we walk down the hall and cautiously open the door to find the walls of the room dripping blood in red rusty streaks.

“What… AGAIN?” I groan in frustration. “Do they know how hard it is to get those stains out?”

“Seriously,” Vedis replies as she slaps her thighs. “We travel through the Ethereal Plane and hold seances… nothing. We got out in the middle of nowhere in the flow minding our own business, and BAM!”

“I’ll go get the priest,” I mutter.

After a quick update, with a few muttered words the cleric of Celestian emits a wave of positive energy that leaves me feeling warm and tingly and puts a halt to the bleeding walls. “This room is clean from spirits anyway,” she jokes before heading above to ease the minds of the worried crew.

“You know Kenari, I was thinking…” Vedis starts as she looks around the once bloody room. “it seems that all of the times we’ve seen the blood, it’s been in this section of the ship.” She turns to me with her hands on her hips. “Do you think something might have happened in this room to be the focus of it?”

“You’re the psychic, not me,” I chuckle as I run my hands along the cracks of the walls. A few minutes later a particular panel catches my eye. “It seems that this section of the wall is newer than the rest of it, though.”

“Hmmn… let’s get Hatuk and Kora, and see if we can open up that panel and see what might be inside. You never know… it could be a skeleton, a bloody weapon, proof of a crime, who knows?” Vedis says excitedly.

After about an hour of arguing and explaining to Hatuk and Kora that we’ll be perfectly fine in our air envelope if we pry open a panel in our ship and that Lenata will stop any bad spirits, we finally are able to pry off the panel to look at the innards of the hull.

“Do you see anything interesting?” I ask to Vedis as she peers closer at the exposed struts. Honestly, I’m kind of hoping we find something cool to add to the stories of the Nomad.

After a moment she sighs dejectedly. “No… there’s nothing here.”

Hatuk immediately spews forth a string of epitaphs in his tongue that make me wince. I haven’t learned Hadozee yet, but I’ve heard enough hanging out with the crew in the rigging to pick out a few choice words. “Does your mother know the kind of things that come out of that mouth?” I laugh.

Hatuk snorts. “Who do you think taught me?”

“You know,” Lenata begins as she takes a peek, “my positive energy wave might have something to do with nothing being here right now. How about we give it some time to wear off and check again later?”

Right, right… I could just kick myself.

With a few more muttered curses the panel is replaced and we decide to just let the crew know to avoid this room until further notice.

…it’s up to Ef Utan if he still wants to sleep in here.