Ghost Story

[GamesMaster]

She levels her best schoolteacher glare on him. "Mr Tethras! I do not appreciate that tone!"

[Varric]

"Good, you weren't supposed to." His smile turns cold. "Now. Perhaps you can get over yourself long enough enough to do your job?"

[GamesMaster]

"I very well have! The last thing these children need is some biased so-called benefactor coming in and trying to change them to make them more cosmopolitan. Now get out of my schoolhouse before I have you thrown out!"

[Varric]

That would be pretty damn amusing to see tried. "Cosmopolitan? Interesting word for 'properly educated' but as you like." Not bothering to say goodbye, he turns and heads out the door. Add a request for a Se-- tutor willing to come down as well (convert the barn on the manor to a school house) for kids and special tutoring for adults.

[GamesMaster]

"Mister?" asks the boy, coming back from the well with a bucket. 

[Varric]

Varric slows for a few seconds, head slightly shifting to glance at the kid. Instead of stopping, he subtly nods to the side of the building, out of sight of the so-called teacher.

[GamesMaster]

The kid hurries after him, lugging the bucket of water with him. "Do you really live in the Ghost House?"

[Varric]

Cheery name. "I live in the formerly Verbury estate, so if that's the Ghost House, then yes."

[GamesMaster]

He nods. "I couldn't live there. It's so spooky. Did you see the ghost?"

[Varric]

"Can't say as I have," Varric says with a faint smile. "Heard some wailing, but there's a lot more than ghosts that can make that sort of noise. Why do you think it's haunted?"

[GamesMaster]

The boy gives him a disgusted look. "Everyone knows it's haunted. Even adults know that. Things move when no-one's around, there's weird noises, I heard the ghost even killed Lord Verbury."

[Varric]

Ah, everyone knows. Of course. The best of all possible evidence. "Well, I'm new in town so no-one has had a chance to tell me the story yet. Think you're up to it?"

[GamesMaster]

His eyes light up. "No-one knows where the ghost came from. But Joey Farmer snuck in there last year at midnight on a dare, on Mileen's Day, and he almost died! He crept into the house through the cellar door, and snuck up into the main part of the house. He felt like there were eyes on him the whole way, just watching him, but he couldn't see no-body. Then all of the sudden, Wham! This big heavy statue comes toppling off a bookcase, just out of nowhere! This big metal statue, just a guy's head and shoulders, no body. It nearly clocked him right in the head. He scrammed out of there before the ghost could do him in too." Come to think of it, Varric knows the bust the kid means -- it was on the floor in a dent in the front parlor, as if it had fallen in an earthquake. 

[Varric]

Earth tremor, vibrations of his own footsteps, animals, a homeless girl scaring off some random guy sneaking around in the middle of the night, ghosts, wind. "Wow. That must have been a real fright for the guy. There any more good stories like that that you know about the house? The Ghost House I should say."

[GamesMaster]

He shakes his head. "Joey told me a good one, but I forgot most of it."