Did you know that Hallifax sponsors an organization of ghost hunters? We're not famous, but we do exist. I will grant you that we are technically historians, specializing in gathering information about the past by interrogating those who experienced it. Some are cantankerous, some are merely cadaverous, but all of them have precious information. Most of them have terrible tempers, and thus we are, from time to time, forced to fight. As I say, we are ghost hunters. I have aided, abetted, chatted with, and shot many ghosts over the course of a long career. The same ghosts, in many cases, sometimes at the same time. It was the very first ghost that I ever met that concerns us today. I was just a graduate student at the time, with a void blaster on my hip and an empty purse. I'm sure you can understand why I thought it might be best to go looking for ghosts that died rich. I spent days perusing the old archives, looking for any hint of a clue that might set me on the right track. I struck gold when I hit an old collection of court records dating back to the days of the Empire. Most of them were quite boring. I read about an endless stream of heretics that preached poverty and humility and promptly met their ends at the hands of the noble class. I also read about one heretic that seemed rather more sensible. His minions called him the Gilded Sage. The judge that ordered his death called him Aurentine, an altogether more pedestrian name. I preferred the title. He believed that wealth led people to sin. Naturally, the only reasonable course of action was to give it all to him, that he may properly dispose of it. People believed him. That just goes to show that people who are foolish enough to have a hereditary emperor will believe just about anything. The judge was not so foolish. He killed the sage, but they never did find his gold. --- His little sect, like most terrible ideas, arose in the desert. That is where my journey began. I knew the general area in which he was active, and so I forced myself to brave the heat and the local culture to examine the place in detail. I will spare you the tedious details of the journey. Rest assured that I spent days trudging over dunes, each one precisely identical to the last, swatting at bugs, and generally enjoying the complete lack of amenities that the desert has to offer. It took me weeks to find my destination, but I did manage it. I eventually found myself at a series of cave dwellings carved into the walls of the desert mountains. Those were common back in the old days, when people thought they might be able to civilize the area. They offered shelter from the burning sun and a little more comfort than a tent. The Gilded Sage had lived in a carved cave. I hoped that I had found the same ones. I soon discovered that the caves were in use. They housed a whole tribe of the desert folk, squatting there as their ancestors had for centuries. That was lucky for me because they could give me information. It was unlucky for me because it meant interacting with them. --- I made my way to the local tavern, largely for lack of any better ideas. Don't ask me how they managed to find anything to ferment. I expect that it involved cactus, but I did not bother to ask. I doubt that they would have told me anything anyway. They glared daggers at me from the minute I stepped into the room. Some of them were drinking, some of them were chatting, and some of them were playing frivolous games of chance. Those were the ones who I approached. I had no money, but I slapped a handful of rings onto the table instead. I could do without my enchantments in a pinch, after all. Not that I had any plans of losing. Any graduate student worth his degree can cheat at dice in an emergency. It is one of the most valuable skills that any field researcher can learn. You never know when you'll run out of funding and need to scam a fresh dose of "grant money" out of an unsuspecting foreigner. I played, I cheated, and I won. That made them angry, and so I bought them drinks. They drank, we played again, I cheated, and I won. Over and over until they were nice and talkative. That was all I wanted. I've yet to meet a drunk that doesn't love to hear his own voice. I only had to tell them that I was looking for ghost stories to get everything I needed to know. --- It turned out that I was in the wrong cave. There was another cave just a few miles away that was much more haunted. Holy men would go there and meditate until they were half-starved and a holy spirit would visit them. He would give them wisdom or death, much as he pleased. This ghost had a mask of gold and a silver tongue, or so the legends said. That seemed like exactly the sort of ghost I needed to meet. I went to the cave and waited. It took a few days for the ghost to show up. I didn't bother to fast during my meditations. Perhaps that was why he was so reluctant to visit. I suppose it doesn't matter. The wind howled across the desert when the spirit came for me. He had the golden mask and the silver tongue and a sneering face that simply begged to be punched. Board have mercy! I could hardly resist the urge. Sadly, the spirit was not in a talkative mood. It floated towards me with its mouth agape and its hands reaching out. I shiver went down my spine, I'm not ashamed to admit that. I drew my blaster and shot it, but that didn't accomplish anything. What was left? I thought quickly and tossed one of my rings at it. A gold ring, since the spirit loved gold. It lunged for the ring at once and clutched it right up against its chest. It turned around at once and floated off into the desert. I chose to follow it. I didn't have any plans at that point, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I followed this ghostly sage over the dunes until we reached a ravine. The bottom was full of gold, ancient gold, along with a few modern offerings. He told me that the gold was cursed and that I must cast all that I own into the hoard. He said it over and over, as though he did not understand why I did not obey. I pretended to be stupid and uncomprehending until the sun rose and he faded away. Then I took his gold. Was it cursed? I couldn't tell you. Perhaps it was, perhaps it was not. I didn't take the risk. Why bother, when Gaudiguch was so close at hand? I lied may way through the gates, went to the market, and spent all that I had to purchase gems and silk and any other light goods that I could find. Those certainly weren't cursed! I took them home with my report and sold them off to get my money back. Perhaps I doomed those Gaudiguchian merchants with cursed gold. Perhaps not. I didn't lose any sleep over the possibility. If there's one thing that I learned over the course of my long career, it is that it always pays to pay the risks forward to somebody else.