No?
He sits down at the table and waits. If nothing happens after a while, he shrugs and heads out.
Prochorus sits there, waiting for the ghost to manifests, not nothing untoward happens in the kitchen. As his patience starts to fray, however, he realizes that he can hear a sound coming through the open window from the courtyard behind the former inn. A voice that is... moaning? Or pleading?
Rising from his stool, he moves to the window to see what the source might be. From this angle, he only has a partial view of the courtyard. But there, close to the river, is an almost invisible figure moving slightly, its arms stretched out towards a point that isn't visible from here. The figure looks vaguely like a thin woman, but it's hard to make out any details for she is almost transparent.
Prochorus hurries outside and creeps closer, trying to hear what it is saying and what it is doing.
Her voice is faint and hard to understand, even as Prochorus gets closer. She seems to be pleading with something standing behind the storage shed in the backyard.
As the small magus gets closer, his angle of vision changes and he finally sees what she is pleading with. Three young children playing in the river. At the same time as he sees them, Prochorus begins to hear what she is saying. "Please, my children, come inside with your mama. I baked some fresh bread for you! Oh, please come home." On and on she pleads with them, trying to get them to leave the river. But the children simply keep playing, ignoring the ghostly woman.
Switching his gaze to the children, Prochorus notices a few things. Unlike the woman, they seem fully solid. And quite wet, from their head down. Yet, their movements seem to produce too little disturbance in the water. They also look... gray, or colorless. Not simply their clothes, but also their skin and hair. And their laughing, as they play in the river, is a bit... jarring. As if reverberating from a metal surface.
Just then, one of the children notices Prochorus. As one, they stop their playing and turn towards him. "Come play with us, sir! The water's not so cold and it's fun! Come play!"
All the while, the woman keeps pleading with the children, totally ignoring Prochorus.
Prochorus seems unfazed by the ominous scene.
Why thank you, children, but your mother here has baked you some bread. Aren't you hungry? he asks in his sweet voice.
"We're not done playing yet," the youngest says.
"But we are starting to be hungry," the oldest says.
"Come and play with us," the middle one says. "Then after that we can eat." The other two nods at that, smiling.
"Oh, I would rather not get my beard wet. Should I get the bread for you? Nice to eat outside. But be careful in there in the meantime, the river can be dangerous."
"You are wrong," replies the middle child whie moving closer to you. "We are safe in the river. Are you sure you won't play with us? It has been a long time since anyone has played with us."
Meanwhile, the other two children have moved closer to the ghostly woman and are talking to her. Prochorus couldn't make out what they were saying, because you were listening to the one speaking to him. But now she seems upset and is crying.
"Please come home my children! Oh please, come home! I didn't mean for him to hurt you. Come with your mama, you will be safe now."
And again the middle child speaks to Prochorus. "It is inside that isn't safe. Are you sure you won't come and play?"
It is about then that Japik arrives in the kitchen, finding no one there and seeing a scene of disorder, along with the smell of freshly baked bread. Noticing the open door, he moves to it to see Prochorus not far from the river and looking at something behind the storage shed.
"Hey there sodalis. What happens? It smells lovely in here." Japik shouts out to Prochorus as he moves out towards the other magus to see what happens behind the shed.
Prochorus ignores Japik.
"Oh, but I was just inside. It seems safe to me. What do you think is in there? Can't we play there?"
When the middle child hears Japik's voice, he calls out to the other two and starts running towards them, still in the water. "He's coming!"
All three children act as if terrified and call out to the ghostly woman. "Protect us, mama, protect us! He is coming to hurt us again!"
The woman lets out a moan, turning to look at the approaching Japik. She collapses on the ground, raising her arm as if to ward off blows from the advancing magus, while also calling out to the children. "Come inside now, or he will just be angrier!"
Prochorus had turned towards the woman when she called out. When he turns back to the children, he sees them floating in the river, face down and drifting towards the sea along the current.
"Noooo! [size=85]My children![/size] [size=50]Not my children![/size]" The woman's scream fades away, as does she.
"Plato's pederasty! Now look what you did. I'll bet that wasn't the last we'll hear from them."
Japik stops and looks at the scene in the river, when the children and the woman has faded away he turns to Prochorus.
"Those are the ghosts people have been talking about here? Did they hurt that young girl inside?" he points towards the inn.
(Are there any other people close by that could have seen this scene or is the area secluded from the main streets?)
(This is a bit out of Meden town, so there are only a few neighbours on this side of the river, and none close by on the other side. So there may have been some distant witnesses, but probably not.)
"The very same. There might be more, though, and deadlier.
I think the girl is just scared. Should we do something about that? Might have a hard time finding servants, otherwise. "
"We should probably try to stop the word from getting spread if possible. If she just got scared from seeing the ghosts then it's nothing to worry about we just need to tell the staff they are unharmful. It's different if they get deadlier as you say. We should make notes of the ghosts' appearances so that we can see if there is some sort of pattern when they show up. If something triggers them. The kids in the river seemed afraid of something. Might have happened somehting here in the past, what you think?"
Japik then shifts topic.
"I have something in the warehouse you must see. Something we brought up from the sunken ship I told you about a few weeks ago. I strongly believe there is more of that stuff down there but we need more power to bring it up. Come let me show you."
(I suggest that the discussion regarding the sunken ship and its cargo take place in the other thread.)
(You can keep discussing the ghost here.)
"Think the servants will take our word for it? Bah. Must I run into this nonsense at every turn?" Prochorus stomps inside to see the girl.
"Why wouldn't they? They work for us." Japik doesn't seem to understand what Prochorus means.
Who knows. Let's see.