[Flashback] Spectral Sojourn (Gloria)

[Seidaku]

Timestamp - 47th Day of Winter, 506 A.V.

Seidaku walked slowly through the streets of Alvadas, paying more attention to the thin tendrils of black ink that encircled his palms in bands of darkness and stretched a short distance up his arms. They were such a small thing, but they hinted at so much more. If he closed his eyes, he thought he could actually feel the currents of Djed moving down his arms and dripping invisibly off of his fingertips to vanish into the ether in his wake.

At this point in his training, Vauthor still required that he apply drawn Glyphs in order to assist with his channeling. He suspected that his mentor used it as a tool to assist with his skill with the Glyphs than his creation of portals. It had been over a year since he had reached out and bored a hole in the world for the first time to reach into the Void. In fact, at home away from his mentor's watchful eye, he had experimented at creating a portal with no assistance but his own will. The result had been a pathetic and fitful portal, but a portal none the less.

He felt a pang of guilt at the thought. Vauthor had made the conditions of his teaching plain from the start. Seidaku was only to practice with magic while supervised until his teacher felt him ready to study without a chaperone. The guilt was washed away in pride though, he could already create a steady portal that would last for over a minute without his direct oversight. And with his practice every night, even on days when Vauthor did not teach him, his skill could do nothing but improve.

As he walked, he focused again on the flows of Djed around his hand, tracing their invisible currents with a finger that followed the surprisingly delicate swirls of ink on his hand and arm. He even thought he saw a way that he could improve that flow, by altering the angles of the lines spiraling around his forearm to provide a steadier passageway.

Into the night shrouded streets he went, still blocks from home and oblivious to his surroundings as he studied the flows of Djed swirling through their symbolic channels.

[Gloria]

Having been a peaceful and friendly resident of Alvadas for some time now, Gloria was getting increasingly irritated by the everchanging paths and, in general, highly intellectual, strongminded people that roam these acursed roads. Her soulmist was flaring high and fiercely in all directions, she needed a prey, a toy, a victim. But above all, she needed to feed, feed her urge for blowing out lifeflames of foolish little creatures. Creatures who try to make themselves feel better by acting empathic and symphatetic, even with total strangers. The mere idea of it made her laugh, empathy ... it's just a fancy word for acting. No human, dead or alive, doesn't take care of themselves before thinking about others. She does the same, she takes care of herself. She needs to feed afterall, even if its on the pain and suffering of others. Nah, I'm making it sound more poetic and melodramatic than it really is. She's just a sadistic bitch, vengeful and stopping at nothing to make others feel what she felt. Over, and over, and over again. She takes pleasure in it really, there's no higher cause, no sense of justice or righteousness in her mind. She does it for her pleasure, she knows it's wrong, she does it anyway. She just doesn't care about others, or maybe she does, she cares in an opposite way. The more they hurt, the better. The less they hurt, the more she will work to change that into a hurt so dire that they wish they were already dead. So in a way, she cares. She was floating slowly through the streets when she turned a corner and faced a very long, straight road. Between the location she was at and the actual road, was a small square with some benches, a tree and a drinkingpond for birds. And lo' and behold, a man approached from the distance. She couldn't tell if he had seen her or not, it was too dark and too far away. ' Now is as good a chance as any other. ' She thought. She waited, with her back turned towards the incoming man, for the opportune moment to let out a heavy, heartfelt sigh. Hopefully it would be one of those fools, the empathic ones who can't let a damsel in distress be. Dead or alive. She awaited the footsteps of the man closing in as she stared back at her reflection in the drinkingpond. A mischevious smile adorned her face and her eyes were cheerful. Fortunately for her she was able to switch between that face and a deeply troubled face in the blink of an eye. The footsteps started to resound louder and louder, once she felt he was within striking distance, she let out the most pained, heaviest and sorrowful sigh she could muster and whispered 'to nobody': " why? "

[Seidaku]

Caught up in his study of the symbols painted onto his skin, Seidaku failed to notice as Alvadas pressed night more firmly into the streets. The stars seemed to dim, and the entire street was plunged into a truly oppressive darkness. There was an almost tangible weight to the air, as though the dark were a physical object laying across the streets and buildings of the city.

His steps had slowed almost to the point of stopping, his journey home finally confounded by the deepening of the night in a manner that would be unnaturally abrupt anywhere outside of the City of Illusions. The darkness was enough that he gave up on studing the Glyphs painting his arms and focused instead on not tripping over the low benches that now liberally dotted his path.

Seidaku was still peering through the darkness and shuffling through the now obstructed road when the silence of the night was shattered first by a mournful sigh and the sound of whispering, and then by a sound that Seidaku would fervently deny had been anything similar to a frightened shriek.

With his heart beating hard enough from the shock that he could feel his pulse behind his eyes, Seidaku looked around for the source of the sigh. He blinked rapidly in surprise and started back when he realized that the sounds came from a young woman standing little more than an arm's length away.

There was something... off about the girl. Something that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and told him that this was not a place for him to be. Against all of his better judgement's warning though, he took a step closer to the girl and asked, "Are you, ah, okay? Miss?"