Completed Nice to Haunt You

[Alice Weaver]

Time Stamp: Fall 24, 520 Drifting amongst the winding, dilapidated streets of Sunberth was a thin, shorter woman with bright red hair and a long flowing black dress. She seemed to not belong, not only sticking out as an outsider but as no longer alive, with her mostly solid form flickered at intervals and a haze clung to her edges. The few people within the nest of back streets made an effort to avoid her, casting suspicious gazes and steering clear of the dead. Yet the woman seemed not to care that her materialization wasn’t perfect or that few stares she was getting, too focused on the dilapidated and patchwork structures that made up the city of Sunberth. Her head on a constant swivel as she takes in the sights, a roof that seemed to have loose cloth thrown over a hole or a wall that was sagging, held up only by a few weak strands of rope that were creaking under the weight of the wall. “Quaint. It seems so...lived in.” She mumbles under her breath while following the winding streets further away from the main thoroughfare and escaping from a few people’s gazes. As soon as she was behind a beaten and crumbling wall did she let out a sigh, relaxing her shoulders as her body was run through with a web of cracks, pieces falling off in chunks, turning into a misty white substance before they hit the ground as she released her hold on her soulmist, dematerializing and becoming translucent. “What a pain.” As her face twisted into one of displeasure, nose upturning slightly, “I lasted longer but not long enough. Besides, it seems to attract more attention with my body flickering like a torch. But no matter, I’ve come here to improve and how do ghosts improve?” She leaves that hang in the air before responding to her own question, “They haunt.” A smile crawling over her pale, freckled face, grey eyes flashing with a sense of excitement as she drifts down the streets, black flowing dress billowing along the ground, looking for a place to pass the time. The search took her back to a busier street in the early morning, a few merchants setting out their goods with a hand on their dagger, head on a swivel, looking for troublemakers. Ghosting back a few houses from the street Alice began looking for a haunting ground, a place for some light fun. After a handful of chimes, she crosses by a low slung house, barely qualifying as two stories, but looking to be in a good state, relative to the surrounding buildings of course. The structure in question lacked a patchwork roof and appeared to have a fresh coat of paint or whitewash over recent repairs. The general good state of the building was what drew Alice’s attention to it but what sealed the deal was the lack of sound coming from inside the building and the lack of smoke from a cooking fire. A sleeping household being a perfect ground to stage a nice haunt.

[Alice Weaver]

Drifting silently up to the scored wooden door Alice allowed herself another wide smile because whereas before a wooden door would have been a firm stopping block it was no longer in her current state. With but a thought of being here but also there, her form spun in on itself, blinking with nay a sound to the interior of the house. Taking a second to orient herself, still not entirely comfortable with the rapid changing of positions, Alice cast her gaze around the house. Taking in the larger details of a stout table that dominates the center of the room, a bookshelf that sat twenty feet back not filled with books but small nicknacks and a few shiny objects, to her left rested a large cooking pot suspended over a cold fire pit. Coasting to the center of the room, she takes a quick note of the heavy pot weakly suspended, something that should make a hell of a bang if...accidentally dislodged. And, with that note filed away for later use, she looks up at the ceiling above her, deciding to not use the stairs as she once again thinks about being here but also there, breaking the soulmist of her body apart and moving with a blazing speed as she blinks to the upper floor. Her eyes widening as she realized she blinked into an occupied room with a small boy, who looked to be less than seven summers, sleeping peacefully, bundled in thin sheets. For fear of waking the boy, Alice held her breath even though the logical side told her she no longer had to breathe. Drifting forward in the eerie quiet ghost possess she ran a finger over the sheets, coating the object with a web of soulmist, and gently pulling the sheet up to the boy’s chin, before recalling the soulmist and beating a hasty retreat out of their room. Appearing on the other side of the child’s door Alice was greeted by a short hallway with one other beat wooden door at the end. “That must be his parents, let go give them a lovely wake-up call.” She spoke as she floated just above the rough wooden floor, making way towards the assumed parent’s room. Blinking past the offending door she saw two humans resting peacefully in a bed, a man and women, both with darker skin and black hair. The man sprawled half out of the bed, hand resting on the floor, was Alice’s first target. Approaching the man she unspooled a sheet resting on the floor with a touch and net of soulmist, making it dance through the air before threading around the man’s wrist, twisting it behind one of the bed legs, then back up and wrapped around his leg that was also sticking out from under the covers. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that monsters would take your foot if it stuck out? She mused in her thoughts, giving the twisted sheet a few plucks with the soulmist still wrapped around it, testing the strength of her knots. I never was a good knotter and the lack of hands doesn’t make this easier! But nevertheless, she pressed on, stepping back to survey her handiwork before freezing as the man let out a grumble stretching against the binding but thankfully not waking up. Deciding that this family was on the verge of waking Alice decided to leave the women sleeping peacefully and retreated out of the room, deciding to take the stairs as blinking without seeing a destination was a bit of a mixed bag, to say the least. This whole haunting could have been ruined if she blinked in and the kid was awake! No blinking without seeing a target first...at least not without reason. She promised herself as she drifted down the stairs, remerging to the heavy pot, the shelf of nick nacks and the stout table.

[Alice Weaver]

Making her way over to the pot she took a moment to look it over. A standard, large, cooking pot suspended on a small hook set into the stone. Flashing back briefly to when she was alive Alice always bumped the darn thing and always accidentally knocked them off their hook. If she could do that on accident it should be a cakewalk to do it on purpose right? But it turns out she took for granted how heavy those pots were as wrapping it in her soulmist yielded no results and felt akin to pushing against a massive boulder. After giving up on that avenue of attack and having a wash of lethargy washed over her Alice realize that her time was growing short to trigger her plan and had she to improvise. Abandoning her ghostly powers in favor of a very mortal way of communication...screaming your head off! And since her form required no air one can scream for as long and as loud as their willpower lets them. The shriek traveled throughout the house only cutting off in a fit of giggles as she heard a string of swearing before an extra loud thud of a body hitting the ground resonated throughout the house, her bindings having slammed the man who sprung up back into the floorboards. The house was now exploding into motion as Alice called up. “Good morning and have a wonderful day! Not my best performance but gooday!” Still giggling as she blinked out of the house and onto the streets of Sunberth.