What Kind of Treasure Hunt is This? (Richard)

[Amilyn]

26th of Winter 515AV
Outskirts of Sunberth

Amilyn eased open the door to the abandoned house, wincing as a loud creak echoed through the quiet afternoon air, and quickly slipped inside. She left the door half-open behind her; with how noisy it had been just opening it wide enough for her to slip through, she'd likely hear if someone else came poking around, though she didn't know why anyone else would want to come out here. The outskirts of Sunberth had long been stripped of anything of worth, from what she understood.

Which begged the question, why would a thief like herself be poking around somewhere with such a low chance of reward?

The single-roomed building looked like it had been a mess, even before its owner had left it for other locales. Tankards and bottles littered the floor, alongside piles of dry leaves and dirt. The bunk was gray and stained, though she barely spared a thought as to why. Better not to think of it unless she had to and she certainly didn't have to right now. The chair, chest, and table had all seen better days, but they'd all somehow managed to remain in one piece over the years.

As she wandered over towards the table, she noticed that the remains of many, many pieces of paper lay scattered on top of it. That was a bit of a surprise; Amilyn thought all the paper would've rotted away or been torn to shreds by now, considering how carefully her father always was with his pieces. Even with her mother Shielding them, he kept them all stored on the higher shelves of his office, which had some sort of preservation spell on it that kept the paper flexible and the ink dark, far out of the hands of his children. Probably work for particularly important clients or rare scripts or something like that, considering the fact that he would occasionally do his work while keeping an eye on the four of them.

Curious, she looked them over, catching odd phrases and weird lines here and there. Shifting them around caused her to blink rapidly as dust swirled in the air, a sneeze catching her off guard and jolting her entire body. She sneezed again, and then a third time before she could stop herself, but several still beats passed with no other sound reaching her ears. She turned back to the papers, squinting at the faded and fading ink, not entirely sure what any of it was for. The diagrams might be the parts of some sort of map, with the arrows and numbers scribbled on the sides, but she could find no sense to them.

With a shrug, she collected up the pieces of the diagrams and placed them in a pocket, turning to check out the chest next. There was a sudden gust of cold wind at her back, accompanied by the smell of musty earth, and she shivered, glancing around warily for the cause. While she'd heard the stories of haunted houses and ghosts prowling the streets, she hadn't yet experienced it for herself. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to.

When nothing out of the ordinary met her sweep of the room, she turned back to the chest and carefully lifted the lid, frowning thoughtfully as the sight of more paper met her gaze. They too were covered with cryptic scribblings and odd-looking diagrams, though these seemed to make more sense, at least. She picked out one particular map that looked almost coherent and gingerly placed it into the same pocket as the scraps. As she was replacing the lid of the chest, though, all the hairs on her body prickled and she was struck with the sudden certainty that she wasn't alone.

She dropped the chest lid out of her hands and spun to face the door, where a translucent figure stood illuminated by the afternoon light. Though she couldn't see it all that clearly, she could tell it was furious and she reflexively reached for her daggers, despite their likely uselessness. Shyke! How was she supposed to fight a, a ghost?

"I won't let you get it! It's supposed to be MINE! It's mine, it's mineit'smineit'sMINE!"

The ghost momentarily disappeared and then reappeared, covering about a quarter of the distance from the door to where Amilyn stood. Its face was contorted in fury and it looked like it wanted to strangle her. At about the same time, she started to panic because she was not prepared for this at all!

The second time it blinked out, it covered another quarter of the room and Amilyn tried to circle around it, keeping to the sides of the room as much as she could without tripping over the debris on the ground or losing sight of it. The third time it disappeared, it reappeared well within arm's reach and she freaked, swiping at the air in front of her and shoving djed out of her hand to try to cut it off. Her shield was flimsy at best and only covered the one side, but she only needed to stall it for a heartbeat so she could bolt out of here. However, she'd barely taken two steps when it appeared right in front of her and there was no way she could stop. Amilyn braced herself and passed right through it with an odd chilling sensation, coming to an abrupt stop another two steps later.

The tension in the air was dissipating, but all Amilyn could feel was confused. The ghost seemed to have disappeared, despite its evident fury at her presence, which was what? She tried to look around the room for it, but her head resisted the movement, instead turning to look down at her hands, which were turning over as though they were being looked over. Weirded out, she tried to push them back down to her side and look for the ghost, only to see her hands shakingly turn into fists, as her neck, once again, resisted her control.

What in Sahova is going on?, she tried to say, but she didn't hear the question aloud.

Instead, she heard "You're not getting it. I'm not gonna le'chu." Her body jerkily turned towards the door. "I'm gonna make sure y'can't get yer greedy hands on it 'cuz it's mine." She got a flash of the Dust Bed, of being lost in the tunnels. Of never seeing the sun or feeling the wind again. Of choking on dirt and stone and notenoughairIcan'tbreathe--

She fought back. Flailed and threw things and stabbed sharpened daggers at the ghost that'd possessed her. Yelled and screamed and threw herself at the entity to try to make him let go. Shoved and pulled and demanded that her body move in the opposite direction, but it only made her movements jerky and clumsy, as the ghost tried to clamp down on her attempts to scream or yell for help.

And she slowly approached the entrance to the old mines...

"Common" | Grassland Sign | "Nari" | Thoughts

[Richard Blow]

"So she was like, 'What's it do?'" Richard said unevenly as he rocked on a rickety outdoor stool, twisting clouds of blue haze almost completely obscuring Big Steve from view, the trash fire between them bathing them and the mouth of the tunnel they were smoking at in bright orange light. Richard took a long pull from the lumpy blunt between his middle and index finger before continuing, tendrils of smoke leaking from his mouth and nose as he spoke. " 'N I was like... 'You ask too many questions.' So then we popped a pill apiece." "An' then?" the glossy-eyed, shirtless blonde bear of a man opposite Richard urged, staring at him like the Spiritist was about to lay down the revelations of Lhex. "Man, shyke w's nex' level..." Richard slurred, reaching forward to tap his cigar's cinders off over the fire. "Th'world turned into like... An egg made of rainbows. N' there were hookers in it." "Hookers?" Big Steve gasped, mouth agape. "Yeah man. Glossy men in leather. Like... Twelve 'f 'em. N' she totally petched three at once. N' then I think I might've joined in." "Wait, Richard, you didn'..." "I'unno man! Next day I'd woken up in some dude's house, we was surrounded by money (I'unno where from), something'd bit my arm, an' there was a dead body on the floor." "Man, that's weak Rich." Big Steve said irritably as he took a puff from his own cigar. "Now, las' time I got hammered-" Richard cut off his friend with a terse "Sh!" and an outstretched arm. Like a rat who'd detected the delicious aroma of cheese, the stoned Spiritist sniffed the air, bolting upright as if snagged by a massive fish hook. "... Soulmist." he hissed under his breath, eyes narrowing asymmetrically. "Soulmis'? Wha's tha' mean Richard?" Big Steve asked dimly, but Richard didn't hear him. He was scanning the area like a groundhog for something out of the ordinary. Sure enough, in two ticks he spotted what looked like a woman moving like she was made of wood. Without preamble he strode towards her, the end of his blunt glowing bright orange as he took another puff from it. The Spiritist struggled to get the gears in his Blue Vision-addled brain working as he hailed the woman with a whistle and several snaps of the fingers. He didn't have any Soulmist, so he couldn't ghost-punch anything, but it didn't look like the young lady would wait for him to go grab some bread and cucumbers. He blinked unevenly a couple times as he strained to think of what his tools were. "Jacket, no. Belt, no. Shoes, no. Safe Zone, n- Safe Zone..." Richard's fingers wrapped around the necklace of beads and his own hair and started unfolding it as he caught up to mystery wood-lady, holding his cigar between his teeth as he tried to speak to her. "Shcush me," he managed as he wheeled in front of Amilyn. "Gotta get her distracted..." "Y'ever petched a wishzard? 'Cause lemme tell you, the ladies at Brega's house call me the Black Beast." "Genius." The instant wood-lady paused to turn such an utterance over in her head Richard threw the necklace over Amilyn's head, the iron beads thudding dully on the dusty ground around the two of them. He then grabbed her by the collar and tried to shove her out of the circle before hauling her back in. If all went well, they'd both end up inside the safe zone while the ghost would be forced outside as if it had walked into a brick wall.

[Amilyn]

In the part of her mind that wasn't currently trying to tear at the ghost in some intangible way, Amilyn was actually kind of surprised that her body had managed to walk as far as it did without attracting all that much attention. Then again, this was an area of Sunberth where few people ventured, so maybe it wasn't that much of a surprise. The main problem she was having, though, was that she had no idea how you fought a ghost that had taken over your body, which was irritating and frustrating when she wasn't worrying about what happened when you died. At the rate things were going, she'd find that out before she found out how to get rid of it.

They were just entering the area where many of the mine entrances were when she distantly caught the sounds of someone approaching, though she barely paid it any attention over her attempts to claw at the ghost and wrench it out of her body. The whistle and snapping caught her focus and she paused in confusion, mentally snarling at the ghost as it took advantage of her distraction to shove them further along. Were they trying to hail her...?

A dark-skinned man wheeled into sight, bringing them abruptly to a halt as the ghost took a moment to register the sudden interference. There was a cigar leaking blue smoke in his mouth, he had long, dark hair, and he was, oddly enough, holding a necklace of beads in his hand. Then, he started speaking and Amilyn's thoughts abruptly fell off a cliff.

"Y'ever petched a wishzard? 'Cause lemme tell you, the ladies at Brega's house call me the Black Beast."

She could only blink in mystified confusion at the question, though she was aware that the ghost's grip on her body had lightened in its bewilderment. That meant her reactions were slowed down immensely when the man threw the necklace over her head, grabbed her by her collar, and shoved her out of the circle of beads that were now on the ground. She stumbled, tripping over her own feet that weren't moving properly (damn this petching ghost to Sahova and back), and didn't quite manage to get her feet under her when he yanked her back in. Thankfully, she managed to keep herself from falling into him as her limbs finally responded properly to her commands.

It took her a moment longer to realize that the ghost was fuming on the outside of the ring of beads, glaring furiously at the both of them, and outside of her body. She looked between the ghost and the beads on the ground, watching how it carefully stayed on the outside of the ring, and then looked up at the man with his blue-smoke cigar.

She meant to ask him for an explanation, or maybe a name. Possibly what the catch was for his help. Instead, the words got lost somewhere on the way to her mouth and what she actually said was, "Is that a question you normally ask people who pass by? Seems kinda...dangerous."

"Common" | Grassland Sign | "Nari" | Thoughts | Auristics