paradisalogs | Now I know what a ghost is

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Now I know what a ghost is

Who: Felix and anyone
What: Ghost shenanigans + start of his death loss
When: August 26th and part of the 27th (Paranatural days 6 & 7)
Where: Anywhere in the castle
Rating: pg-13 for dead people

After as many times as he's encountered them, Felix somehow isn't surprised that he's somehow wound up a ghost himself. Which isn't to say that the experience was deeply alarming in a number of ways, starting with the fact that he remembers every second of bleeding to death, then seeing that eyeless woman in front of him just before he did, and ending in the various disturbing sensation of being incorporeal. Including, it turned out, the abilities that came with it. When he first came to in his room, if 'coming to' where the correct term in this situation, his shock inadvertently made the lights flicker and the books fly from his shelves until he could calm down enough to think.

Eventually he came to the conclusion that his state was for some reason, and that it would not stop him from attempt to end this chain of death. He left his room and headed back to the library, although the process itself was a trial. He walked awkwardly, as if on eggshells, due to the fact that he could not feel where he was walking and the subtle vertigo this created.

He'd often thought of himself haunting the stacks, although this was darkly literal for his tastes. Never the less, the wizard did his best to pick up where he'd left off. The simple matter of picking up books and turning pages turned out to be a learning process, and more than once he sent books tumbling by accident in his anger.

As a ghost, he doesn't have much use for sleep or food, but he does intermittently to keep an eye on the things in the halls, hoping maybe to catch a glimpse of the creatures.

It's early the next day when he abruptly wakes up again, but this time there is sensation and a shuddering, pained breath to go with it. Dying feels more real now that he remember those last few moments of crushing doubt and guilt. He puts a hand over his mouth as he sits up. He's still covered in blood, which is second to the fact that the moment he puts his feet on the floor he feels wetness and looks down. Nothing but water. It wasn't as if the room was slightly flooded, but more as if the floor had simply been replaced by and endless depth of dark water. He can't even help it, and the hand over his mouth does nothing to hold back the sound - he screams. Screams and yanks his feet back onto the bed, registering vaguely that his pants are not even wet at all, but he's still shaking in terror.

How was he going to get out of here?

((OOC: Feel free to run into him on any day! Feel free to encounter him as a ghost anywhere between the library and his room, or to hear his shout of alarm when he wakes up on Wednesday morning. Just specify time and place in subject))

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Danny had just been out on his way to get breakfast. The last thing he was expecting was to suddenly feel his ghost sense go off. He looks around warily and transforms into his ghost side before going off in search of the ghost. They couldn't be too far away.

And sure enough he nearly flies right into Felix in a corridor near the library. Danny just stares.

Felix is just as startled, but that has more to do with his own state rather than the sight of another ghost. Could other ghosts see each other, he wondered. His distress is enough that, near him, a few pictures rattle.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down there, okay?"

Danny makes reassuring gestures with his hands.

"How long have you been a ghost?"

He'd be hyperventilating if he had any breath at all. The question brings another bout of emotion, as he automatically thinks back to dying, and the lights flicker slightly.

Why was he a ghost? It made no sense.

"A few...a few hours..."

"Okay, just calm down. Um, think happy thoughts? Ghosts are all about emotion, right? So... you lose control of emotions you lose control of yourself."

Danny grins awkwardly. "And being a ghost isn't all bad? There's flying? And really awesome pranking opportunities?"

Happy thought? Happy thoughts?!

"People are dying!" he shouted, swiping at one of mirrors that had been the cause of his own out of pure impulse. Instead of passing through it, the mirror toppled off the fall and shattered on to the floor.

Danny crosses his arms and stares pointedly at the broken mirror.

"And you think you'll be able to help anyone if you keep pulling things like that? Look, dude, I'm telling you this because when I became a ghost it took me a month to figure out how to stay solid all the time. I'm thinking we don't have that kind of time here."

Felix stares down at the mirror as well. It hadn't solved anything, but it had made him feel just a tiny bit better.

But Danny's words remind him there are larger issues than his own issues. Something else to focus on other than rage, which was a tempting emotion to fall into. But it never ended well.

"No, we likely don't. I just don't understand why..."

Why he was a ghost, mostly, and he stared at the floor through his own hand. He'd have felt ill if he could.

"Why what?"

"Why am I ghost? When people die here, they simply revive in a few weeks time. Unless...unless this happens every time and we simply weren't aware..." he raises a mildly alarmed stare at Danny as he trails off a second time.

"I don't know?" Danny shrugs awkwardly. "I was already a ghost before I arrived here. I can say that the only ghosts I've ever sensed here before now were those castle ghosts that used to be here. They were terrible conversationalists, by the way. Never got a word out of them."

He didn't think that was very funny, although it was certainly true. He'd never been able to speak to them either. Of course, Felix was also never sure they were ghosts at all, but that was moot at the moment.

"You could just have easily said no," he returned with a flat voice.

"But if you can sense other ghosts, you haven't seen one haunting these mirrors? I was sure I saw her." Before he died.

"They have to be close," he says thoughtfully. "And I've never been able to sense overshadowing ghosts well. She might be doing something similar."

"I'd be willing to wager she moves about inside them. Unfortunately there are so many..." he swallowed, reflexively, since that was mostly another useless and pointless gesture without a body.

I guess I could start breaking mirrors.

[He wonders how many years of bad luck that would be. ]

"She's not our only problem. Have other people...has there been other deaths?" he said, crossing his own arms anxiously. The lights around them flickered again, but only a tiny bit.

"You're the first one I've run into. But others have died," Danny said bleakly.

"I was afraid of that." He sounds rather distant when he says it, trying to sort out the lingering feeling of failing all of them and the shock of his current state.

"Then there might still be something we can do." Maybe that's why he's this way.

Like Felix, April is currently a ghost. Unlike Felix, she's a lot less... rational about it. She died early on and has been unspooling progressively more and more each day, and by this point, she's a big ball of rage, hatred, and not much else. Nothing is free from her anger-- even other people who suffered similar fates.

When she sees him in the library, there's no actual thought process behind her actions. She just flies at him, snarling, fingers out and prepared to scratch wildly.

Felix isn't always rational, but what saves him from becoming like April in this case is the fact that he's also entirely stubborn.

He catches the movement out of the corner of his eyes, his attention distracted by another pile of tomes, and flings his arms out in a blind defensive gesture that also results in a strong pulse of telekinetic energy whenever his emotions do get the best of him.

She flies backwards, skidding to a stop ten-plus feet from where she'd started. That doesn't do much to slow her down, though-- she lunges again, this time adding a telekinetic attack of her own. Several of the shelves near her start to shake, a few books falling off of the closest one.

That would have been a problem were he solid, but it seems like April either doesn't know about that or doesn't care. He is, however, shoved back a few feet before he simply tries dropping to the ground to avoid her.

"Who are you?!" he shouts, alarmed by the humanness of her appearance more than anything.

Somehow staying in the library felt oddly comfortable, even if Duke was fairly sure he ought to have an aversion to the spot where he died. Maybe it was due to this whole mess - or maybe because his pets were particularly unhappy with him staying about.

The awkward part is that he still can't see. Maybe that's why he's in the library - knowing how long it usually takes him to make his way from his room to the library is easy. Knowing what is in the library isn't - which is why he is sitting half in a book shelf. So his knowledge of where everything is happens to be off due to the remodel. Oh well.

Even as a ghost, finding Duke here in the same state is not easy to digest, especially when he was colliding with the scenery like he was.

"Duke," he's only able to say at first, voice obviously fraught. He had hoped it wouldn't come to this. He had hoped another of them wouldn't die.

He wouldn't collide with things if he knew where they were. Unfortunately, his shins don't tell him were things are anymore.

"Felix." Duke recognizes that the other mage is upset, but isn't sure how to continue. Its false that everything is okay, mostly due to the obvious state of being dead. Hmn.

He'd have to agree with that statement. Being dead got rid of the extra guilt but there was plenty of that to be had without the influence of the spirit that killed him.

"I had hoped I was the only one..."

"... Only one to be a ghost? Or only one to die of Chimera?" Both, he is fairly sure, are false already. "... or some combination?" That one might also be false. He's not too sure anymore.

"Does it matter?" he answered moodily. It was everything Duke had said and more, though some weighed more heavily than others. His history with ghosts, for example, had made him suspicious that this torment was made for him especially. Little surprised him.

"... No." Duke sort of shrugs.

"... Although human ghosts are new. I have known of those who are only visible due to mirrors, but they were not human to begin with." ... So its a bit interesting.

And again, Felix finds it interesting as well.

"Mirrors?"

Monsters on Terca Lumiries are weird, didn't he mention.

"The variety of monsters on an abandoned ship couldn't be seen until they attacked you." He shrugs a little. "to prevent them from sneaking up on you, you spotted them in mirrors. ... Anchorgeists and Poltergeists, I think."

"Not quite the same as our current situation then," he said, mulling that over whilst looking at the bookstack through his own hand.

"I've heard of a poultergeist, but what is an anchorgeist?"

"A poltergeist that appears to be made of fish-hooks and anchors."

Never said the names for monsters were creative ones.

Felix frowns at him, because, to be honest, that sounds ridiculous.

"Ghosts of sailors?" he asks, tentatively hoping that it would make some sense. Something here has to.

... He thinks on that.

"Could be. Although I have not heard of humans becoming... monsters of this sort, before." He tilts his head for a second.

".... I wonder if this sort of ghost can teleport." Duke no.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Though he's never heard of ghosts being a separate entity from the humans that spawned them before.

"The Anchor and Poltergeists could. As well as Hysteric Purple, but those are less likely to be potentially from humans." He stops after that. "... Or it is possible yet. Tarqaron used to be a city."

Really, he just had a thought jump, that was the only bit that this topic had to do with the previous. He couldn't normally manage what could be called teleportation, the ghosts he was used to could, so... curiosity.

"... if this sort can't, perhaps its a difference between... 'monster' ghosts and human ones?"

Felix has a trouble with Duke's thought processes more than he'd like to admit, so most of that goes well over his head until the last part.

"I...would imagine so. Though I've noticed...some unintentional effects of my state."

It doesn't help that the names of the creatures he's saying are a bit.. odd.

"What sort of effects?" Is it nerd time? It probably is. Wait he thinks he might know.

"The chair tipping over sort?"

Translating that into plain speak...

"Yes. Pushing objects. And flickering lights." The second one is the one that might be a surprise to Duke, obviously.

Yep a bit of a surprise. Lights are changing? Really?

"The lights?" He thinks on that. "... Any sort of light? Or just the ones that are part of the castle?"

"Electric ones?" Felix ventured, obviously unsure of the answer, given that well...were they really electric given that everything actually ran on magic?

"Yes those. Is it just those, or do flame lightsources flicker... more, as well?" Because candles weren't really steady light sources to begin with. "... Or is there a difference between those hand-held electric light sources and ones in the walls?"

"Powers, Duke, I have no idea. The mob hasn't arrived to drive us off with torches and pitchforks, so I'm not really sure. It's just been the ones on the castle walls." He was clearly annoyed, though the mood was only half because of the other mage's searching questions.

Duke stays silent for a bit after that, thinking.

"Focusing on other things doesn't help you, I am guessing." Because he can't really tell if there is anything else that would cause that reaction.

"It's fine as long as I can stay calm," he says, more tersely than he means to because he's having a little trouble doing that.

"Ah." Duke goes silent again.

"What would you like to focus on then?" Because his focusing isn't helping Felix at all.

Nothing probably will for long, considering the state of their mortality at the moment.

"Research. If I can move things, I might still be able to look through these books to find the cause of all this."

Ah, a thing that Duke probably won't be much help with.

"Tip over a stack and see what falls open?" He makes a 'shove it over' hand movement, but he's not in a spot where it does much. Probably has to do with the side of the shelves he's half in.

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Now I know what a ghost is

Day 6

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Day 6

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I definitely wrote up a reply to this; idk why it didn't go through!

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late day six- (GUESS WHAT I HAD LEFT OPEN AND THOUGHT I SENT)

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YOU SAW NOTHING

XD

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