They slept in shifts but no further danger presented itself. In the morning they found the Weather Witch had gone but that wasn’t suprising, by midday they could see the sail on the horizon. Doubtless Sketti had been forced to cut the anchor cables rather than risk the storm so close to the rocks. They ate a breakfast of dried fruit and fish which Grimey produced by the simple expedient of throwing a glass bottle filled with gun powder into the harbor and collecting the stunned creatures the blast brought to the surface. For most of the morning Calliope had Sron and Grimey bring the Litch’s books and surviving alchemy equipment up from the cellar. It certainly made for more interesting reading than the dry histories of the previous day. From notes in the various spell books the story began to emerge. Titus Kepperman, the fort’s mage, had come across a book buried in the archives, apparently dating back to the early days of the colonization. In the book was laid out spells that had been taken from the native shaman the explorers had met, spells for contacting the dead. With that power he had begun his own quest, at first to escape the boredom of a nowhere posting and then, as his powers grew, to try to obtain power for himself. Titus had been an old man at the start of his studies and he had feared that he would not have time to learn what he needed and so had redoubled his study of necromancy. The need for fresh corpses had been his first priority. A number of soldiers had been hung for possessing contraband that Titus had hidden in their quarters. Then one of the fishing smacks had apparently been ‘lost with all hands’. By the time he had resorted to outright murder, the forts commander had already been growing suspicious. Finally they had confronted Titus, at which point he had used his powers to summon the trolls and hunted his former comrades through the keep, picking them off one by one and using their bodies for his experiments. At last, alone on the island he had created his phylactery, cheating death and prolonging his studies indefinitely. Calliope reminded herself that though the books contained knowledge that she could use, she should also be cautious lest she find the same snares set for her. Markus, Grimey and Sron set to work shifting the cannons, lowering each of the long iron guns down from the battlements to where Calliope could untie them against the moment the Witch returned. Owing to the contrary wind, it was nearly nightfall by the time the Weather Witch slid up against the quay and the ropes were cast off to secure her. Sketti stomped ashore looking no worse the wear for having spent the past twelve hours battling the stormy sea. “Ahoy capt’n,” he called before turning to the crew. “Get those guns aboard you lice ridden curs!” he snapped to the crew before heading over to Markus and Calliope. “Glad to see ya had no trouble,” the dwarf grumbled.