[Job Thread: Auldwin] This Horse is Possessed

[Caoin]

“Do not be afraid,” Auldwin reassured Caoin, but it didn’t stop her from startling at what happened next. Before she could put her apple away, she watched a slender tendril of what he called soulmist snake away from his body to encircle the apple in her hand. The tendril snatched the apple from her hand and Auldwin caught it in his own hand. There was no sound as the ghost tossed the apple up into the air repeatedly, catching it only to throw it up into the air again. There was no sound because there was no skin for the apple to make contact with when it came back down, she reasoned. Were she not able to see Auldwin, Caoin might have been frightened by a mysteriously floating apple, though she had to admit that it would make for a great party trick. When the apple was tossed back at her, Caoin caught it, noting that it was cool to the touch.

When Auldwin had agreed to follow her, Caoin smiled and nodded her approval of the arrangement before turning the mare back toward the pavilion and starting off at a leisurely pace. She wasn’t in a hurry and she didn’t want to rush the tired mare. Caoin took a large bite out of the apple as they walked, not bothering to wipe away the juice that ran down her chin. She walked and ate and talked to her new ghost friend, or acquaintance, since she couldn’t really call him a friend yet. “That makes sense; I imagine that there would be many things that would hold a person to the place they died, even if it was a place that held such a terrible memory as one’s death.” The woman thought about it some more though, and couldn’t help but wonder if the ghost had been anywhere else since his death. “Have you been outside of Endrykas since you left? Have you visited your family?” She wondered what it would be like to die and then to visit your family as a ghost. She wasn’t sure it was something she would be able to do. She imagined that having your loved one come back as a ghost would be hard.

The horse nickered softly, tossing her mane lightly before turning her head towards Caoin, her lips reaching out for the apple that was in the woman’s hands. Caoin let go of the mare’s yvas, clicking her tongue softly at the animal to indicate that the mare should follow her, not that she had any intention of stopping, after all, the mare wanted some of the fruit. Caoin bit off another large bite, rather than using her dagger, and plucked it from her lips, offering it to the horse. She wiped the palm of her hand against her leather pants, cleaning off the slobber from the horse’s tongue. “And you don’t know many people here in Endrykas, yes? Is it lonely being a ghost?” She wondered how many people he’d met since he died, whether ghosts started friendships with humans.

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[Auldwin]

All the while Auldwin had been attempting to maintain a strong semblance of a Human body by compressing and Materializing his Soulmist. The problem was the difficulty in keeping everything in order. Materialization was a skill that came naturally to most Ghosts, but it didn't bode well for Auldwin. In life he had never taken the time to really examine himself. The work he performed and the things he did were often for someone else, and due to that lack of strong self value he hadn't taken the time to truly ever learn 'what makes Auldwin?' His wife could tell him things, and for the most part he drew upon those to try and keep his form together as a whole, but the muscle, if it could be called that, which allowed his Soulmist to flex was horribly atrophied when it came to that discipline. Soulmist Projection? Not a problem. Possession? Easy. Simply focusing on ones self proved to be infuriatingly difficult though.

Caoin could probably tell that Auldwin's Soulmist was damaged, tired, or fading. The outline that made him up blurred now and again, turning and twisting at odd angles, playing strange tricks on her eyes up close. Faint crackling could be heard, as if bones were popping or faint bits of static electricity were striking somewhere. It was his Soulmist telling him that it was time to release, and eventually he had to allow it to go slack and lose some of his outlying form. He became less solid and more like a vapor. The vapor held with it the outline of a man, but only because Caoin had seen what he looked like previous to losing his defined form. Auldwin didn't seem to speak much of it though, as if it were something he had been dealing with as a normal part of his existence.

He thought about his travels. One day he wanted to travel all of Mizahar, he had the means. Somehow it never happened. He had all the time in the world, and rain nor snow could slow him, but mainly he remained in the two places he felt...comfortable. He wondered if 'comfort' could be used, but there was a tension when he thought of leaving Cyphrus or the area surrounding Black Rock. "I've go to a place. Black Rock, a place with many Ghosts. I learned much there about myself. Ghosts there teach, work, have jobs. Have property." the word she spoke were starting to get more difficult to understand, how that he had less of a body to utilize for Pavi.

"No visiting family yet. Once for soon. Far with time long. People Drykas seen, not with speak all." eventually he simply gave up and switched to his more common tongue, "Pavi is easier to listen to than to speak, especially when you have no physical body. I'm afraid any further continuation from my part will have to be in common, I hope you speak some of it. Lonely? Sometimes. It's difficult to describe though. I feel connected, and yet so obviously detached from everything. It's difficult to remember exactly how it would have felt to be lonely when I was alive. Sometimes I desire to meet people, sometimes I wish not to. Ghosts don't typically gain immediate favor with those they meet, so meeting people is done with some hesitance."

[Caoin]

Caoin could see the ghost struggling to maintain his appearance, his outline blurred and the mist that made up his body crackled. She watched as his form lost much of its detail and solidity, becoming nothing more than human-shaped vapor. When he spoke again to answer her questions, his Pavi had lost much of its clarity, becoming harder to understand, especially the parts that relied on physical signing to convey. Eventually, the ghost simply switched to common, which Caoin had no problem with. Caoin could see that Auldwin was definitely exhausting his soul mist and she wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to keep himself visible. She felt a little bad for asking him all of these questions and making him exhaust himself.

The Drykas woman waited for the ghost to finish speaking before she spoke up again in common, “Are you getting tired, Auldwin?” The tone of her voice indicated her concern for the ghost, as did the change of expression on her face. She didn’t know what happened when I ghost used all of their soulmist. It could cause them quite a few problems or even cause them to stop existing for all she knew. “You should go rest,” she offered to the ghost. As the three continued to walk, Caoin decided that she was finished with her apple and offered up the rest of it to the mare. The horse needed the nutrients anyway, to replenish her strength. “We can always speak again later, and my family’s pavilion is not hard to find, we always camp along the outskirt of the city so that we have enough room for our horses.” It was a logical reason to choose the spots they did, but it also meant that they had to be much more vigilant, always on the lookout for predators that like to scavenge or hunt along the edges of the city.

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[Auldwin]

How annoying it was to simply exist. To keep a definitive form took so much effort. To think that traveling across the entire world would result in absolutely no lethargy, but simply appearing as the man he once was could be so difficult. Caoin knew this, it seemed. How thoughtful of her, considering the vast differences between their two species, if a Ghost could even be called as such. "Yes, it happens." he said, even his voice seemed to lose some of it's forcefulness. Everything about him was fading, as if the very essence of Auldwin was disappearing from the world. It took more than that to get rid of a Ghost however.

"I will do this, you speak the truth." he replied to show Caoin just how correct she was. "To utilize Possession is very difficult. It takes a great deal of Soulmist, and more to use the body of something I'm not yet too familiar with. I make too many mistakes, and that is very costly. I will rest and my Soulmist will replenish. I enjoyed our meeting though, it was a good use of Soulmist. I appreciate all that you have offered, and I'll be sure to visit you. I get around Endrykas quite a bit, so I'm sure I'll find it just fine."

Auldwin didn't have any friends as far as he was concerned, not as a Ghost. He made choices, and sometimes they impacted the lives of those around him, but for all his time wandering the world as an apparition, no one had ever really seemed quite so intrigued about his state of being. That state would never change though, other Ghosts had assured him of that. The Gods took no interest in the state of Ghosts, even Dira wished for them to pass on, but did not force them to do so. Yes, it seemed that a Ghost was simply just a stye in the face of Mizahar, something that wasn't supposed to be there, and that would remedy itself given enough time.

"Until then." Auldwin said, and with that his entire mass of Soulmist simply vanished from view completely. The air where he had been immediately began to warm back up, and there was no trace of where he had gone off to. As he returned to a secluded place in which to rejuvenate his essence, he thought to himself, could he change the view of the Gods? Could Ghosts be worth more than simply things to be barely tolerated? One way or another, some more...something greater had to be possible.

[Lariat]

Caoin

Experience:

Riding: 3 xp
Observation: 2 xp
Rhetoric: 2 xp

Lores:

How to hang on to a strange acting horse
Mist pouring from it's nose? Its probably possessed
Meeting a ghost
Soulmist (Basic)
What a ghost can do (Basic)

Auldwin

Experience:

Possession: 2 xp
Materialization: 2 xp
Soulmist Projection: 1 xp

Lores:

Taking over a intelligent horse is rather difficult
The gait of a horse (basic)
Manipulating four legs

Comments
Good thread guys, I rather enjoyed reading it. A few tips though for future reference.

ooc- Auldwin If you'd like more points in your possession and soulmist projection, I'd suggest going into more detail like how you arm manipulating your mist with your mind to perform the desired goal in mind as well as flexing it beyond it's limits to make it stronger. Also key for your level is developing new techniques for doing things that make it easier on you with your soulmist, and make you more powerful because of it. As you start nearing expert range and beyond, it will be harder and harder to earn xp because you need to do new things to get better at it. With those two skills you've already past the point of repetition and now entering the realm where you need to learn how to do new things with your soulmist. For materialization I'd suggest a bit more detail and concentration on the soulmist manipulating I mentioned before. Also if you want Pavi to go to fluent, you need to actually learn more words and context from another that knows it instead of merely repeating what you know. Achieving fluency is learning something you previously hadn't in order to get past the final legs of the language barrier and into the realm of understanding. Also if you want to more in depth talk on how to earn more xp, feel free to pm me!

- Caoin, I've already given you some tips today.