Ok, so it is Halloween today and I would be totally remiss if I didn't recount how Julie/Ruby dealt with a ghost in the game.
When I left off, Ruby and Captain Seith, Gar the first mate, and Naj the ship's bard (a tale-spinner musician type) had managed to sneak into the tunnels beneath the Tipsy Pirate Tavern where the river pirates were storing their loot. In one room they found nothing except a letter written by a knight named Miles to his family, regretting that he had been captured by pirates on the way back from the crusades (to win back the Shield Lands from the Empire of the Demon Lord Iuz) and held for ransom but was now dying of pneumonia. Julie was very touched by this letter and the thought that his wife and son did not know what had happened to Miles. So she determined to take the letter to Miles home. I was very proud of her for that since it was not really her business and it would take her out of her way from her journey back to Ruby's homeland on the edge of the Burneal forest in the far north. What Julie/Ruby didn't know but would soon find out is that Mile's ghost was invisibly watching and was very pleased and now determined to help her.
Now this might sound like a heavy thing to lay on a nine year old girl. On the other hand I want this game to be about more than just killing stuff. Julie tells me that the boys in her school talk about playing D&D, but that there are no elves in their game, only monsters and killing. But why this particular thing? Well, first of all I was more or less randomly trying to pick monsters and other obstacles for the pirate's hidden base and a ghost came up. The thing about ghosts is that it means someone died. So I had to think about who this was and why they were a ghost. Ghosts mean unfinished business - on the part of the deceased and those who are bereaved. So I had to think - what would some good unfinished busines be? And instead of making the ghost an adversary, why not a potential ally? So I thought - what if the ghost needed Ruby to do something it could no longer do for itself so that it could then go on to heaven? This would provide Ruby with, not something to kill or destroy, but rather with a choice - do the right thing and help the ghost and his family, or selfishly ignore it all and just collect treasure and head home. Again, to her credit and without any prompting from me, Julie immediately chose to do the compassionate thing. In addition to being a kind of test or "what would you do if" situation, Miles also provided me with a way to deal with stuff that Julie occasionally asks about ever since her aunt died a couple of years ago when Julie was in Japan and then attended the funderal and cremation. Julie wants to know about heaven and such things - so in this story I was able to provide a kind of cathartic experience of enabling someone to go to heaven and for the ghosts family to come to terms with his passing. Oh, and why did Mile's die from pnuemonia. I decided that because the pirates I had created are not truly evil or vicious - they are just greedy and selfish. And I really didn't want them to have murdered Miles. Better for him to have caught pneumonia and died due to being shut up in the basement as a prisoner. That way the pirates are at fault but are not murderers. This will be important later on.
In the meantime, all was not to be heavy existential angst. At least in a fantasy story you can have a little fun with ghosts. So as Ruby and her compatriots searched the tunnels they came to a locked door. Just as Ruby was about to try to open the door a ghostly voice wailed (here I used my spooky voice and cupped hands) "Don't open the door!" Julie actually jumped at that because she was not expecting it. She still laughs about that and the way I said it. At that point Miles appeared to warn her that the door was booby trapped with poisoned needles. He then explained that because Ruby had volunteered to take the letter to his family he would help her get the treasure. Miles then caused the door to open on its own. They then entered the pirate captain's room and with Miles help found the inner secret treasure chamber, avoided more traps and looted the loot. With Miles help they found the secret exit from the tunnels that let them out in an abandoned hovel. Ruby and her friends then sneaked past the returning pirate captain and his crew - Ruby used a spell to create ghostly sounds to distract them while they made their way back to their boat hidden in the reeds on the riverbank. And so once again with the help of friends and some relatively low level spells, Ruby defeated the pirate captain and his crew yet again by getting their treasure away without killing any of them.
And so that is how Julie/Ruby ended up befriending the ghost named Miles, gained a lot of pirate gold, and prepared to set out on a mission of mercy to help a poor knight's ghost enter heaven which I will recount in my next installment.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei