Chapter 2: A Return to Adventure

[matt_s]

That's that then. concluded Stavard. Back to the surface? We can work out way outwards from where we are now, carefully watching for pitfalls and other hazards that lurk in places such as this.

Remember that bizarre sighting by the scouts? We've seen the dead walking here, I would not be surprised if there were more sources like that fell obelisk in this place.

[Powderhorn]

Summer, Day 6

Surviving what can only be described as a "near undeath experience," the group returns to the surface to retrieve some fresh air. However, reaching the opening of the tower, and more easily seen in the shadows of trees but still barely visible in the light, you all notice the same thing:

Ghosts. Ghosts everywhere. An entire city full of ghosts, now wandering the surface, going about their lives. You see ghosts seeming to hang laundry. You see ghosts walking what used to be streets. You see ghosts practicing swordplay and bow work.

In the moment, they either seem to not notice you, or not care about you. It is difficult to know which.

[8w_gremlin]

Brother Koji

Koji looks at the others and quietly whispers "let's not start shooting, we all know how that ended" he looks down at the rapidly healing arm from the ghost sheep attack.

"In fact, I think it should be a policy that there should be no pre-emptive shooting or attacking of any kind until we know their intentions..."

 

He looked over to the ghosts going on about their daily lives wondering if they are doomed to repeat it, and what could have caused them to all die and become ghosts like this. He watched and scrutinized to see if there were repeating patterns and to see if the Ghosts interacted with each other. "Fascinating..."

[matt_s]

Stavard stares wordlessly for a moment at the phantasms that trod the paths that ought to belong to the living and carried out routines that the oblivion of death itself should have expurgated.

By wind and tide, what have we done? What shall we do? he whispered in a stunned voice.

He dropped prone, head barely protruding from a stone that was comforting in its mundane sturdiness and collected himself breath by unsteady breath.

We ought to leave this place. Quietly, silently we must walk, and hope our passage goes unnoticed or else ignored.

[TheWhitefire]

The doctor looked around, awestruck by what he was seeing. Deeply fascinated, Harlan takes a few steps forwards before scratching notes down on his writing pad. "Gods above... look at this. Are they all... dead? Do they even know if they're dead or not?" He said, completely ignoring Stavard due to how engrossed he was in the spectacle before them. Harlan examined them, seeing if he could pick out a culture or language, anything that might be familiar. "An entire civilization, just over the sea, that has lived and died without us even knowing... how could that be possible?"

[SirLoganofGilead]

Oliver looked over the group of ghosts going about their business. "Maybe they aren't dead. Maybe they are trapped." He doesn't move towards the ghost, but he does pull the bit of stone from his pocket to see if it currently holds any power. He also casts his gaze about to see anything that may power these ghosts as the stone seemed to do to the last ones.

 

 

[Powderhorn]

Summer, Day 6

The fragment of stone does not seem to hold any power over these apparitions. Looking around, nothing appears to be different from your time down below, however you do recall seeing a sort of surge of energy coming from the stone when you shot it, and further bolts of energy escaping through the roof of the ceiling. Whether those two things are connected to what you currently see before you, well, who knows the inner workings of Oliver's brain better than Oliver?

[matt_s]

There's nothing else to it. I certainly don't want to be here after nightfall, and waiting isn't doing us any good, whispered Stavard. We must make for the jungle and see if these apparitions are keen to dissipate anytime soon. I hope that they will.

With a deep breath, he checks to make sure all his kit is secured on his person so that it will not rattle and throws a small rock as far as he can in one direction as a distraction and quietly makes for the forest in the other, picking out a route that seems less crowded than the others.

[Powderhorn]

Summer, Day 6

The rock is tossed, arcing high, and lands with a clatter in the distance. It seems not to disturb the ghosts. As Stavard makes towards the exit, he too seems to be entirely unremarked by the ghosts. They simply carry on in their routines, as if it were any day in the city's past.

[SirLoganofGilead]

Oliver shrugs a bit when the rock lands with nothing happening. He holds the rock out in front of him and makes his way towards one of the ghosts. “I think the best way we can tell what is going on is by trying things…right?” With this thought in mind Oliver reaches out with the black rock shard to touch one of the ghosts with it.

[Powderhorn]

Summer, Day 6 - Ghost City

While the ghosts seem to ignore the group, as soon as Oliver reaches out to touch one with the stone, as if as one, all the ghosts turn to him. With a movement that can only be described as malicious, they immediately rush him from all angles, ignoring and moving past the rest of the group. Unable to fend blows off from so many directions, Oliver falls slain before being able to react.

The ghosts go back to their original locations, again, ignoring the rest of the group.

 

[matt_s]

That's that then, muttered Stavard. Death was not something he was unfamiliar with, for the sea held many perils be they the depredations of pirates, the danger of a lee shore in a tempest, the slow debilitating necrosis of disease, or the treacherous pitching of the ship while aloft working the sails.

In a subdued voice, he added,

Grab his possessions, bury the body in the woods with a crude cairn or suchlike, and let's head back. This place is fell and foul with malevolent dwimmer-art all about, I tell yeah. The dead ought not to trod in life, for that is not their path.

[TheWhitefire]

"Gods be damned!" Harlan shouts, as the ghosts tear Oliver apart. It doesIsn't take a surgeon to tell the man is dead, but he rushes over and kneels next to the corpse regardless.

"Oh hell, Oliver, what in damn and blast were you thinking?" Harlan carefully tends to his body as best he can, hands shaking nervously as he examines the wounds trying to make sense of how ghosts could even do something like this.

Show this

Rolling Heal and Int for a quick field autopsy.

 

[8w_gremlin]

Brother Koji

"Did in not just say 'Let's not start shooting, we all know how that ended'" Koji moves over to the body wary of the ghosts, With Harlan looks over the body, "He is with the Father now, perhaps he will learn more there"

"Ghost touched, I've heard of such things in myths and legends, but never have seen it in person"

With the plan to lay Oliver out, and build a cairne, Brother Koji says a few words, a prayer, and blesses the body as best he can. making damn sure that his body is nowhere near the ghost city.

[Powderhorn]

Summer, Day 6 - Ghost City

The ghosts seem to ignore the rest of the group. Whichever thing Oliver had done to tip the scales to make them hostile does not appear to have extended to everyone else. They are able to move his body unmolested to a quieter, less ghostly place.

As for the field autopsy, wounds opened up where Harlan believes he remembers the ghosts striking him, lacerated as if by knives.

With the burial outside of what you think were city limits, Oliver is laid to rest and the group can return to what is slowly becoming "home."