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The beginning

Helldira and Deemo have always been cool with their professor Calvin VanKlein.  The staff advisor and coach of the disc golf club, and favorite teacher of Transmutation, Professor VanKlein knew exactly who to ask to run an errand for him one 3 day weekend. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get away, as finals were coming up and he needed to prep, he asked a few of his favorite students for help.  After class, he asked them to go check up on long time friend and former professor at Strydennhall, Ms. Safiyra Birken.  They kept in touch following her partial retirement to Windheim, though with her age it consisted of letter writing.  She had recently stopped returning his letters and he was getting worried.  After a not so promise promise of a good grade on the final, they agreed to help.  Along with school guard Grach, Helldira and Deemo took off on an airship, headed for the mountain city of Windheim.

The ride was smooth, and after a few hours, the group made it to Windheim.  Armed with the last letter Professor VanKlein had recieved from Ms. Birken, her address, and info on a firend of hers, they set off into town. Starting at the Inn and Tavern supposedly owned by Safiya Birken’s best friend, a kind half orc woman named Thaeda LaRayne, they began to ask around about the missing Professor. There were a few colorful characters around the bar, but none seemed to have any info on the missing professor.  The group got rooms at the inn and inquired with Thaeda about Safiya.  Theada confidently said she didn’t know anyone by the name, though her facial expressions seemed to dissagree with her, any time she was asked, she’d stare off into space, one time even dropping a tear, but she couldn’t tell the party why.  She was able to give them very clear directions to Safyia Birken’s house, as if she’d walked the path frequently, but said it had been vacant as long as she could remember.  With food in their stomachs, and night having just fallen, the group set out to find Professor Birken’s house.

The trip out there was fairly uneventful and Thaeda’s instructions were spot on, they found Professor Birken’s place no problem.  Upon arrival they found a pile of newspapers dating back about 2 weeks, a locked and dark house, but otherwise nothing appeared disturbed.  There was one neighbor across the street that took notice, but didn’t say anything, more just curious as to who would be visiting a permanantly abandoned house.  Grach snuck around and entered through the locked back door.  He let the rest of the group in through the front, they through the lights on, and began to investigate.  Nothing was a amiss downstairs, but upon inspecting the stairwell, they found a few claw marks on the walls where the staircase turned.  Following these up the rest of the flight, they found the evidence in the bedroom and study.  A frantically cleared desk seemed odd to Helldira in this otherwise undisturbed house, and the locked drawer, while hard to break traditionally, didn’t stand up to the blunt end of Grach’s polearm. They found research that Professor Birken kept locked in that drawer, but more importantly a marked up map.  The group took the contents, vowing to look it over later.  In the bedroom, Deemo alerted the others to the concerning scene. An otherwise untouched bedroom, but some large punctures in the pillow and mattress, and the faintest srops of blood, but no sign of the professor.  With this uncomfortable image in their minds, the group left the house quickly.  Mostly quiet on the way back to the inn, though there was a moment in an alley where a cat freaked out and there was a large noise.  They investigated but (but due to low rolls) found nothing and carried on their way to the inn.  They spoke breifly to Thaeda, but nothing changed about her demeanor.  After making no sense of her notes, they agreed to follow the map the next morning.

They awoke after an easy night’s sleep, and after a hearty breakfast, they set out to find the marked spot on Professor Birken’s map. The path was easy to follow and the entrance proved a bit difficult.  After some searching, they did find the cave entrance, but landed in another dead end.  This time however, there was a rune on the floor that Deemo and Helldira were able to dispel, granting them entrance to what appeared to be a lair.  Fortunatley for them, despite finding the same claw marks here, the beast wasn’t home and they were free to search.  The space looked like an alter of sorts, with runes on the floor and a desk along the wall.  The space seemed inert but after calling Professor VanKlein, he urged them to take what notes they could and leave.  Having cleared out the desk, they search the chests, finding some gold and other goodies, but unfortunatley ending on a mimic…

…to be continued.