Old Town Secondary School Campus

Old Town Secondary School is situated in the district of Old Town in the city of Lokmare. The campus, made up of modern buildings, was built on top of the ruins of the original one, which dated back to before education was made compulsory.
The architect designed the campus to seamlessly blend modern functionality with Lokmare's historical and culturally diverse aesthetic, and the main building won several awards.
The old campus was devastated in a fire, rendered beyond repair. The blackened ruins were cleared away to make space for the new buildings, and a memorial plaque is prominent in the entrance of the new main building. A much larger historical display is located in the library.
Many school rumours tell of the new school campus being haunted by the ruins of the old one. The two campuses had different layouts, and there are stories of people hearing taps running in Nenise Classroom B which used to be a girls' toilet, or walking into the assembly hall to glimpse rows of library bookshelves for a moment before they fade away. None of these incidents appear to have a human or even animal component, which has led to the belief that the buildings themselves have spirits and are haunting the new ones.
The fire which destroyed the old school occurred overnight. It is said that whoever stays in the school overnight can hear the flames that destroyed the original. Additional security measures have been brought in to keep out students who dare each other to break in and stay the night.

"Is there any truth behind (the myth)?" "Interesting question. I'm intrigued by the idea of a building, or rather a set of buildings, doing the haunting. That would be a first. However, in this case, I believe the full story may be a lot more sinister ..."

For a clearer insight into the cause of this anomaly, one needs to look into the history of the site the original school was built on. Old Town, as the name implies, is one of the oldest districts in the city. A local folk tale recounts the story of a wealthy but cruel farmer who accidentally slipped through a crack in the world to another world.
Exactly what he did there to anger the gods, nobody knows, but when he returned, he found his land had been horrifically blighted, and any crop or animal he attempted to raise on it died within days. His land was cursed and he lost everything. Nobody would buy his land and he was left with no money and nothing to sell. Because he was so despised, nobody took pity on him. When he was starving, he performed a forbidden ritual to make a deal for his own life.
An Ithonnhe granted the farmer and his land with abundant enduring health in exchange for total obedience. During the course of the rest of the farmer's life, his income soared with a fraction of the work and he never went hungry again. However, as the years went on and his conscience became louder, he became uncomfortable about the unquestioning servitude he'd bound himself into. This came to a head when he confronted his master one day, in a conflict which ended in both of their blood being spilled over the land. The farmer did not survive. The Ithonnhe got away with negligible injuries.
Blood spilled in violence, especially where magic is concerned, can have quite an impact on the land it falls on, espeically if it has previously been affected by some form of magic. The farmland in the folk tale includes what, much later, became Old Town Secondary School's campus. While the land is not cursed, per se, it does show some interesting magical anomalies which merit further study. There are various connected folk stories and urban myths connected with this one, for example that the farmer and/or the Ithonnhe he dealt with haunt the land, or that the gods re-cursed it after his death, as well as some completely unconnected urban myths.
Looking into the history of the site, no anomalies quite like the one with the two school campuses have been recorded before. However this could be due to the circumstances of the old school's destruction, which again was violent and--though this is not common knowledge--involved magic. The public story involves an electrical fault and, since the fire occurred at night, there was no expectation of anyone present.
However, at the time nobody realised that there were, in fact, two students present. These two students had been reported missing several weeks prior to the fire, and their bodies were discovered in the ruins. This was hushed up for several reasons, one of which that their bodies were accompanied by the body of a halfling and the body of an avrath, another of which that the cause of the fire appeared to be as a result of one of them performing fire magic. The incident was brushed under the rug and, after a discreet interval, the two students' families were informed that their children had gone overboard on a sailing boat.