1st of Spring, 518 AV
Down by the docks of Riverfall, sailors were busy offloading all sorts of cargo and sweating in the newly warm and slightly soggy Spring sunshine. Tall and muscular Akalaks surveyed the process calmly, cataloguing each shipment that was on the list and taking special care to note that everything listed in the declaration of goods was present as expected and that nothing unexpected had found its way to the city.
Of course, Hurik hadn't hidden in a crate of grains, like some dumb idiot might have. He never would have suspected that the extremely thorough Akalak customs officer would take issue with a crate of illusory clocks. However, the massive blue man did indeed take issue, and when he lifted up the lid to find a swarming pool of soulmist vaguely resembling a bulky red-headed brute of a man, he was taken aback.
"Shyke. Don't call any spiritists, son of Akajia. I'm as harmless as they come." Hurik said soothingly, drawing himself up and stepping out of the crate. His form took a couple ticks to reassert itself, but when it did, Hurik cut a striking figure. His materialization was not visibly armed, but his hulking muscles did no favours in assuaging the Akalak of Hurik's innocent nature.
Hurik's thoughts flicked back to weeks ago, when he'd succumbed to the Vapours, and even thinking about that event left him shaky. Annoyingly enough, his hair started dripping at that moment. Not dripping with water. Nothing so vaguely normal as that. Hurik's red locks were dripping with spectral blood, which as best as Hurik had figured, belonged to the slain foes of his from back when he'd been alive. And while Hurik lacked the memories needed to explain just exactly how a man could become so covered in viscera and gore as to literally drip with the stuff, the Akalak had begun to quiver in his boots.
Hurik cocked his head at that, the sudden change from mild disconcertion to fearful cowering seeming almost as though it were a different person. Something in the recesses of his brain clicked.
"Ah that's right, I suppose my little display will have tweaked your twin soul hm? Well don't you bother with harmless old me," Hurik muttered, flicking his hair out of his face. Specks of blood dappled the deck before reconstituting into the body of Hurik's soulmist. "I'll just be leaving now, before I make anybody else shyke their pants."
***
The reason Hurik was in Riverfall to begin with lay with his Mistress, Lady Madeira Craven, and her interest in the city came from two of its former denizens whom she hoped to put to rest. They, along with Hurik, were part of her motley crew of ghosts. Madeira was also traveling with a couple others she'd found of a like mind who wished to visit the city, known for its staggeringly beautiful sights and intriguing people and places.
Hurik had not been thrilled to hear that she would be taking him away from the place where Hurik was all but certain he had met his demise, and where all the answers most likely lay. There was also the concern of the trail running cold, but Hurik felt little worry over that particular issue given that he'd already wasted gods knew how much time in the throes of the Vapours. After discussing it with Madeira, she had insisted it had only been a couple seasons, but even if that were so (and Hurik had no sense of the time he'd lost) it would still have been far too long.
Hurik's killer could have been anywhere at this point. His wife, gods protect her, could have fled to any corner of the world. Both individuals could be anywhere from Lhavit, to Sylira, to...
Riverfall.
***
Hair dry and unstained by entrails, Hurik walked leisurely out of the city's port and past several houses and up the cliffside. He'd spent a fair few minutes admiring the monumental waterfall that was the city's centrepiece and having soaked in all of it that he could, Hurik felt he could reliably navigate the city, at least relative to where the waterfall was.
The ghost had wandered up into what seemed to be the main area for commerce, smartly adjacent to the port, and imagined that several of the crates being ferried to and from various storefronts had been aboard the ship he had recently disembarked from. He couldn't help but be taken in by the sheer amount of blue-skinned people roaming about, either doing their shopping or selling wares. In his time in Alvadas, Hurik had seldom seen more than a couple Akalaks in the entire city, and those had been located in a particularly shady location. They had been ruffians. Types that were not to be petched with.
Hurik still didn't have a complete picture of where his expertise came from, but something told him that anything short of a Myrian or a petching Zith would be preferable to having to square off with a fully trained Akalak. He trusted that instinct, but it wouldn't be his arse on the line this time around. It was his mistress. Madeira was Hurik's lifeline, his closest ally, and also the only thing keeping Hurik from falling back into the oblivion that seemed to wait at the corners of his consciousness, like a starving wolf.
Thus the early trip to Riverfall, ahead of Madeira's own travelling group, to get a sense of what they were dealing with. Despite what Hurik's apprehensions were, the commerce area itself, what seemed very closely to resemble Alvadas' own Bizarre, was quieter than its illusion-packed counterpart. Several people were quietly discussing business propositions, and Hurik was left to idly walk through, wondering when he would finally see evidence of the Akalaks' violent reputation emerge. He had heard rumours about how it was mandatory for citizens to fight for their right to live in Riverfall in an arena of some sort, where the penalty for failure was death. That didn't seem to make tons of sense to Hurik though, at least not unless the city was constantly receiving new immigrants.
Hurik's thoughts continued to meander while he slowly walked in circles around the Bizarre, or whatever they called this place. He spotted a woman leading a young Akalak boy from one stall to another and finally a bright idea popped into his head. He could ask somebody local to show him around the city! It might require him to offer something in exchange, but even so, it would prove invaluable to have a local show him around so that he wouldn't need to waste precious time floundering about like some daft idiot who would hide in a clocks box.
Decision made, Hurik solidified his form as much as he could, and stood in the middle of the throughway, awaiting somebody who looked approachable enough to question. Even though the vast majority of the people he'd seen so far had been men, Hurik hoped that a pretty girl might show up, so that he could feel a little more certain that whomever he talked to wouldn't randomly go from helpful to psychotic, or accommodating to sexually deviant.
Either way, beggars can't be choosers. Hurik sighed, and drew a deep breath even though he didn't actually have lungs. Force of habit, really. He wasn't anxious to rid himself of it. "Can anybody please show me your beautiful city in all of its glory?" Hurik shouted, louder than he'd intended. The ghost's voice rang embarrassingly through the now dead quiet marketplace, and he felt several people staring. Hurik straightened his back, and frowned slightly. Was yelling really that unusual? The ghost rolled his eyes, and started gently rubbing at his amulet, waiting as patiently as he could.
"I just hope that there are some people in this place who can appreciate my refined sense of humour," Hurik said in an off-handed way, cracking a grin at himself. He was always so gloomy and heavy all the time, but in this beautiful spring air and sun, in a new city, Hurik couldn't let himself wallow for too long. After all, the only mists that wafted through the air were crystalline and iridescent, rising shinily up from the bay at the foot of the waterfall.
