Solo Haunting of the Golden Hand

A spirit protects a disturbing secret aboard a merchant ship.

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Considered one of the most mysterious cities in Mizahar, Alvadas is called The City of Illusions. It is the home of Ionu and the notorious Inverted. This city sits on one of the main crossroads through The Region of Kalea.

Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 27th, 2017, 5:27 am

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8th of Winter, 516
13th Bell


Madeira arrived at the Golden Hand soaking wet and covered in glitter. The ship sat low and heavy in the Patchwork port, weathering a chill rain much more mild than anything a true winter could conjure. She held the rope railing with both hands as she scaled the gangplank, silently cursing the gods for giving her this job. While the port suffered the blustery rain outside the city, behind the stone walls Alvadas was enduring a different kind of storm. Great billowing clouds of glitter rained from the sky in the Sundavas portion of the city of illusions. It was one of the cities gentler tricks, and Madeira admired it out her window like the rest of the cityfolk. Until a harried courier stuffed a summons in her hands, and she found out just how awful it could be to be both blind and scratched raw by that gentle trick. Not to mention the people leaning out their windows throwing real glitter at people they suspected were not enjoying the experience to the fullest.
 
The Spiritist knocked hard on the captain’s door, struggling to keep her footing on the slick deck. water poured off the hood of the grey cloak pulled low over her face, and she shivered in her high leather boots. After way too much time, the wooden door opened on soundless hinges. A great barrel of a man stood on the other side. A portly, olive-skinned human who apparently still insisted on wearing silk in this weather. His deep brown eyes and wiry black hair marked him as a mongrel human, rather than Svefra.
 
"My name is Madeira Craven." she shouted. "I'm here about your haunting."
 
The man ushered her inside and slammed the door before the rain could reach its wet fingers into his warm and stuffy little haven. Hot coals were simmering in a brazer in the centre of the room, and lanterns hung on the walls, creating a halo of heat and light that prompted Madeira to immediately shed her cloak. Drops of water and flecks of glitter rained on the plush carpet.
 
"Miss Craven", the man spoke, looking with distaste upon the mess she was making on the carpet. He had a deep, booming voice coloured with a dozen different accents. "I am Captain Barsala. I appreciate your response, but I specifically requested Madara Craven. And I paid a reasonable sum to acquire her services." 
 
Madeira could imagine what kind of sum this man thought was reasonable. His ship was the biggest she'd ever seen. Some sort of big-bellied merchant ship. His cabin was decked with rich dark woods, with elegant furnishings lashed to the floor. On a desk in the back of the room was a wealth of maps, nautical tools and treasures from what looked to be every city on Miza.
 
"Madara felt I was better suited to the task." she lied smoothly, picking glitter out of her eyelashes. "I promise you are in good hands."
 
She wished her family would tell her when she was being used as a lackey. No doubt they collected the sum and rolled their eyes at the pompous merchant prince who had the audacity to think he could command the head of the Craven house by throwing money at her. So they sent their youngest, most untested ward instead. A clear message of what they thought of his summons, no doubt. They didn't send Madeira for her expertise. They sent her as a vehicle for their insult. And it hurt her heart to realize it.
 
"As you say." the merchant said testily, clearly unconvinced. He took her cloak from her and hung it on a hook by the door. Underneath, her white blouse and black pants seemed to have survived the worst of the rain and glitter storms. He motioned to a cozy seat in front of the desk for her to sit. He poured them both glasses of mulled wine from the kettle over the brazier, and handed the copper cup to her before settling his impressive bulk behind his desk. Madeira watched him do all this with bemused admiration. He did not spill one drop of wine, nor stumble on the waving floor. His movements were graceful for one so big.
Last edited by Madeira Dusk on February 27th, 2017, 5:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 27th, 2017, 5:32 am

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"When did your problems start?" she asked, keeping one hand carefully around her wine as she pulled a beaten and dog-eared book out of her pocket. She pulled an ink stick out of its binding and balanced the open book on her knees.
 
"Upon leaving Riverfall." the man answered gruffly. "My first mate was steering us out of port, when suddenly he took the helm and threw it all the way to starboard. Made the fisherman on the skip beside us shyke himself... Pardon the language." he retracted quickly. "The crew dragged Rorge away and we righted ourselves quick enough. But we didn't know what had happened at the time. Lookin' back, it seems that was the first glimpse of our unwelcome passenger."
 
"How long ago was this?"
 
"100 days, give or take."
 
"I didn't realize Riverfall was so far away."
 
"It's not. We could have made the journey in less than a season, but there were problems along the way." The dark turn to his voice gave her a clue to what the 'problems' might have been. “If not for this strange, mild Winter, we might not have made it at all.”
 
"Did you stop on the way?"
 
"No."
 
Madeira's ink stick scratched at the page, noting the captains name, name of the ship, the starting point and the destination.
 
"Tell me about these incidents. Have they happened in a specific place? Maybe to specific people?"
 
The man scratched his bearded chin and took a long draught of his wine. "Nah. It's been all over the ship. Got Rorge more than once. Crazy bastard threw himself overboard just as we finally got into port. He’s below spewing from both ends below saltwater poisoning now, poor bastard.  
 
The ship rocking suddenly took a deep dip, and Madeira's book suddenly gained a new ink and wine stain. Whoever Rorge was, she pitied him.
Last edited by Madeira Dusk on June 10th, 2017, 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 27th, 2017, 5:37 am

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"Nobody can get into the cargo hold anymore. Leslie got a nice big gash over her head, from the stacks of porcelain plates I'd planned to sell here." He said sourly. "And if it's not throwing my cargo, its turning people right around and marching them away like petch'n puppets." He gulped down the last of his wine and got up to refill his cup. She noticed that his courtesy and whatever good humour he had left was washing away the longer he explained his troubles, as did his posh accent. It amused her to see this self-styled merchant king start speaking like a common fisherman
 
"Can't bloody well do business when I cant get to my bloody cargo." he growled as he settled back into his chair. "But this thing has been making my crew mess with the rigging, its been pushing the booms, tearing the sails. We couldn't go one day without some sort of petching catastrophe."
 
Madeira paused her writing, stewing in a prickly sense of suspicion as the man muttered darkly into his second cup of wine.
 
"I have a question for you", she started, tapping the rim of her cup against her lip. "If a seaman wanted to stop this ship dead in the water, how would he do it? Hypothetically."
 
"Why would you possibly want to know that?" he snapped, immediately suspicious.
 
Madeira put up her hand in a pacifying gesture. "I'm saying, this ghost sounds like it was causing trouble to try and stop you from either leaving Syliras or arriving in Alvadas. But it sound like it was doing what I, a layman, would do to stop the ship. If this ghost used to be a fisherman, pirate or merchant you would still be stuck out at sea in the middle of winter. I can guarantee that."
 
"I suppose'" the man conceded. "But i'm not interested in knowing it's profession, I just want it off my ship."
 
"And I want to get it off your ship for you. I could charge after it and cut it to ghostly ribbons, but that not a permanent solution. It would eventually come back, because apparently theres something on this ship that it wants. But if i learn more about it, I can exorcize it properly. The process might get messy, but at least your problem will be gone for good. Now, I need you to work with me, ok? For your benefit."
 
He gave a grunt into his cup, with she took for an affirmative.
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on March 19th, 2017, 4:05 am

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"Thank you. Now, who has tried to communicate with the ghost?"
 
The Captain gave her a long, blank look.
 
"You... Haven't tried to talk to the ghost?" Madeira struggled to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She suspected her family wouldn't get half the jobs they did if people remembered that ghosts were sentient creatures, and could be reasoned with.
 
"Thats fine, don't worry about it." she cleared her throat with a sip of wine and tried a different tract. "Did you bring anything suspicious on board in Syliras? Or anything unusual at all? Maybe second hand or personal items. Or works of art. Anything you cant tell me the exact origin of."
 
The man shrugged his meaty shoulders. "Nothin' unusual. Some grain. Plenty of tobacco. ‘Couple of exotic furs come up from the south. I don’t know if any of the porcelain work has survived the trip. Got some raw silver, raw stones... I can bring you the manifest if you' want."
 
"Thats quite alright", Madeira refused, a little frown of thought settling between her brows. The Captain had told her nothing useful so far. This ghost has not been seen, has not tried to communicate, and does not hold a grudge against the crew. And if it is haunting an item aboard, then the item is completely inconspicuous and will be very difficult to locate. But one thing was clear, she would get no more information from the merchant prince.

Madeira tipped back the last of her wine and shut her book with a snap.

“I think it’s time I met your ghost.”
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on March 19th, 2017, 4:07 am

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Madeira descended into the belly of the ship with a borrowed storm lantern in one hand and the creaking rails of the steep wooden stairs in the other. Every hatch she opened brought a cold breath of salty air rising from the dark to ruffle her hair. The ship was alive, groaning and tossing in it's sleep, and she was crawling down it's throat. The captain refused to make the decent with her. And honestly, she was relived. The man looked to be more suited to negotiating with merchants over a strong cup of wine than negotiating with the dead in the dark.
 
The lowest level had no portholes. The only light came from the lantern that struggled to cut a swath of darkness out of the cavernous space. But even then the darkness just creeped behind the stacks of boxes and piles of waterproof sealskin bags lashed to the floor. Madeira had to descend into the darkness hand-over-hand down a cold metal ladder, and when she touched down there was a crunching under her boots. She lifted one to see the shattered remains of a porcelain plate. She lifted the lantern above her head and saw the floor glittering with more such scattered wealth. Jars and pottery had been smashed to pieces, a tipped box of old coins was bleeding it's wealth onto the wooden floor, and thumb-sized chunks of uncut gems skittered like rats with the rolling of the ship. It seemed she was looking at the ballistics of the resident ghost's rein of terror. Though she doubted most of this was aimed at the crew. The captain seemed to have figured out early on to stay away from the cargo hold. So did the ghost destroy these things for amusement, or possibly out of boredom?
 
A cold sigh passed over her skin, and across her scalp she could feel the air in the cargo hold gather itself. It was a static, whispering kind of feeling, like you feel just before a thunderstorm.
 
Madeira put the lantern down on a low stack of wooden crates and smoothed her hands over her blouse. The ghost was here.
 
"Hello!" she called into the darkness. "My name is Madeira and I'm here to-"
 
"GET OUT!"
 
A chunk of cloudy amethyst whipped itself across the floor and sailed past Madeira's ear. The Spiritist ducked just as the chest of leaking miza's beside her burst open with a bang, and a wave of gold cascaded over her boots.
 
"GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!"
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on June 10th, 2017, 5:50 am

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Crouched with her hands protectively over her head, Madeira weathered the worst of the tantrum. And it was a tantrum. There was a petulant whining in the shrieky voice. The bangs and rattles and crashed above her barely seemed to be aimed at her. This was the ghostly equivalent of punching walls, it had to be.

With an assumption that had more to do with guesswork than logic, the Spiritist decided that the ghost was female and a child. The voice was certainly high enough to be female, and it's probably only children who could overreact like this.

Gambling everything on this guess, Madeira stood to her full hight. Her hands hovered in front of her, ready to bat away whatever the spirt decided to throw next. She took a deep breath, expanding her chest to full capacity, and roared in her best imitation of a mother: "You stop this right now young lady!"

Silence.

The slithering coins and roll of loose stones became the only noise. Without the angry screech the hold seemed somehow bigger.

"This is not how a lady behaves", Madeira continued cautiously, lowering her hands. "Now go think about what you have done."

From deeper in the cavernous space came a tiny sniffle, and Madeira sucked in an astonished breath. Dear god, that actually worked. She fumbled for her blessedly undamaged lantern, and followed the sound that was slowly becoming a teary cry.
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on June 10th, 2017, 5:51 am

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After a couple of chimes exploring the twisting corridors of stacked wealth, Madeira found her. Over a lumpy sealskin bag a child with soft brown curls was weeping into her arms. Madeira was hit with something deep and maternal she wasn't even aware she had to see the ghost so broken. She cleared her throat quietly and spoke with the gentle, tilting kind of voice everyone seemed to use when speaking to children and small animals.

"Hey now, don't cry." Madeira approached and lowered herself gingerly an arms length away, braced for another tantrum. "My name is Madeira. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help."

"Go away!" The girl cried, angling her face away without lifting it out of her arms. "Raj will get you if you don't leave me alone!"

Madeira looked behind her spuriously, like she expected 'Raj' to come charging around the corner to protect the weeping ghost. But it was just the two of them in the hold.

"Well... Could I meet Raj? Maybe we can be friends instead?"

"No. He's my friend. And he's going to get you!" The sobbing became louder, and Madeira didn't miss the way the girl's incorporeal hands flattened protectively over the bundle her head rested on.

"Is this Raj?" Madeira reached over and gently patted the bundle. The girl finally lifted her head then, and Madeira's hand shrank back in shock. Her face and hands not covered by her nightdress were tight and swollen and an alarming shade of red. Clusters of puss filled sores leaked from the corners of her mouth and eyes and a thick yellowing fluid dripped steadily from both nostrils. Whatever diseases killed
her was not kind. She glared at Madeira with trembling lips, but didn't respond.
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on June 10th, 2017, 5:52 am

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Taking that for an affirmative, the Spiritist slowly reached over with both hands and undid the leather tie holding the skin together. She peeled away layer after layer of it's waterproof wrapping, keeping a watch for the girl’s reaction from the corner of her eye, until her hand brushed thick, bristly fur. Madeira snatched back her hand with a tight hiccup of noise, somehow expecting it to be some kind of live animal.

For the first time the girl made a wet giggling sound through her tears, and Madeira's heart was buoyed by the sound.

Shaking off her absurd nervousness, she unwound the last layer and discovered what 'Raj' really was.

"Huh." she muttered flatly, as she pulled a massive tiger skin out of its waterproof case. It was easily a meter and a half wide and twice as long, topped with a frighteningly lifelike taxidermy head. Glass eyes glittered in the flickering light of the lantern, and the snarling teeth threw an oily yellow cast.

She looked over at the girl, and noticed she had stopped crying. She was rocking back on her heels and was looking at the massive beast with tenderness. The look softened her bloodshot eyes and curved her bow lips, and Madeira could see that at one point the child had been beautiful.
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Madeira Dusk
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on June 10th, 2017, 5:52 am

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Madeira pulled the head into her lap, letting the rest of the skin slither to the floor. She pet the thing between its rounded ears.

"See? I think he likes me. Do you like me, Raj?" She spoke half the question to the creature in her lap, and from the corner of her eye she watched the girl give a tight little smile.

"He says yes. He likes it when I pet his ears."

Madeira dutifully changed her strokes to smooth over the tiger’s bristly ears.

"Hi Raj. I'm Madeira. And what's your name?" she asked the girl.

"Emma."

"Hi Emma. Did you two come here all the way from Riverfall?"

The girl nodded, her mouth twisting and her head lowered. She started picking at her skirt.

"But you didn't want to leave, did you? You were following Raj." The understanding hit her hard. The girl was messing with the ship to try and make them turn around. And she wouldn't let anyone into the cargo hold because she was protecting the skin. She was haunting the tiger skin. Suddenly the Emma pounded her fists against her thighs in
childish rage.

"They took him away! They took him away after I died! He's my bond mate and they took him away!" Tears squeezed out of the corner of her eyes again, and she seemed to be on the cusp of another fit, but Madeira didn't have the capacity to calm her down in that moment. She was looking down at the snarling head on her lap, her hand paused in the act of stoking it, with every point of contact between it and her suddenly prickling.

"Emma... Emma, sweetheart" Madeira forced some measure of calm in her voice. "Is Raj a Kelvic?"

Emma nodded, the heels of her swollen hands rubbing at her eyes, and Madeira fought the urge to fling the skin away from her.

For the love of the gods, they skinned a person. Her thoughts went to Phira, who once paraded around Alvadas with her on a wild goose chase. Then to Maro, who put everything on the line to help her save the ghost of the Eypharian tailor. She imagined someone holding the two Kelvics down and skinning them for their animal fur. The
thought crawled up her throat on a wave of bile, and she forced it down.
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Haunting of the Golden Hand

Postby Madeira Dusk on July 14th, 2017, 3:11 am

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"Tell me about Raj", Madeira threw the question at the girl as a desperate kind of distraction. She could nearly smell Emma's impending meltdown.

It seemed to be the right thing to say. The girl wiped at her nose with the back of her hand and hiccupped through a watery smile.

“He worked on the big ships at the dock, like my Papa does. And one day,” Madeira watched with curious affection as the ghost's swollen eyes lit up from within, "he bonded with me. I was five. And he’s so big and scary! He doesn't let anyone tease me, and I never get lost. He protects me from everything. And he's warm. He sleeps next to me every night."

“He sounds like a good friend."

"Better! The best!"

"Then what happened?"

"I got sick." Emma's voice dropped low and morose, and her gaze flicked over to the tiger's head. Madeira dutifully cupped her hands over its ears so Raj wouldn't hear. "He stayed beside me the whole time. When the sickness got to my head I would get really cold and I’d see things that weren't there. But he would roar until all the scary things went away."

"That's really brave of him."

"He told me not to be scared. That h-he would b-be with me f-f-forever!" She started to cry again. And it was the hopeless crying of a desperate child.

What did forever mean to a Kelvic? Madeira was aware of Kelvic bonds to a small degree, but never thought to look deeper. Did he mean he would be with her until she died and the bond severed? Or...

Could he have meant to follow his scared, dying bondmate into death?

She had so many questions. Did he commit suicide? Did he die of shock when his bond severed? Who skinned him? Surely the girl's family did not mutilate the corpse of their daughters dead bonded, did they?

Madeira closed her eyes and breathed hard through her nose, letting the questions leave her body on her breath. There were other things to worry about.

"Ok, Emma, this ship isn't going back to Riverfall. You've caused everyone a great deal of trouble and now they're stuck here until it’s all fixed. But why don't you and Raj come with me, and I'll make sure you two get back home together."

Emma gave a tiny nod and Madeira smiled reflexively in relief. She wasn't sure how she was going to ship the tiger back to Riverfall just yet (there was no way she was going to entrust the ghost to a courier) but any move forward was progress at that point.
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