Price took the man's hand and shook it, a polite, yet curious half smirk growing on his face. "Pleased to meet you Chorvic, and yes, I certainly hope my meeting with Mr. Arubak went well. Forgive me though, you seem to have me at a disadvantage. How do you know of me? I assume you're an associate of Arubak's?"

Richard smirked slightly before taking a seat adjacent from Cannonade, hearing out what they had to say, but not feeling overly convinced by some of what was said. "We might be his investment, but I'm not so sure about him eyeing up money. Or the 'superhero world'. I know next to nothing about him, but, unless you two had a different experience, he hasn't put any paperwork in front of me yet." He gave a slight shrug as he continued with is coffee.

"But whatever he wants, hopefully that includes wanting my neck being safe." He chuckled slightly. "Lot of you... Well, lot of the folks around here I mean, seem kind of... On edge? A few of them, were at the dinner that was attacked by those terrorists. Everyone seemed weird about it, like some kind of 6th sense. Granted, I don't really trust George, I mean he is a bit of an enigma. But truth be told? It's that mystery, that not knowing, that for some reason makes me feel less guarded."

Richard gave a slight nod over to Klaus. "Used to be it was better the devil you knew, wasn't it?" He grinned, pleased that, while still something of a stranger, Klaus was at least a familiar face.

Before he had time to hear anything in response, the girl known as 'Jemma' appeared in the kitchen. Now, if Richard was being perfectly honest with himself, he'd seen a bit of what she could do, and it truthfully had managed to put him on edge. Still, she hadn't tried to kill him (yet), and seemed to be a pretty skilled super. If he was going to make a habit out of trusting mysteries, it seemed he couldn't make an exception for her.

"Oh, the politics of superheroing and all that. That and pizza." He indicated to the box Cannonade had been offering. "And our older, wealthy benefactor. What's your take on him... Jemma was it?"

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wayland shrugged slightly. "Well... I mean you saw most of what I was meant to investigate. A strange swamp in rural Massachusetts. People in the area had noticed disappearances in the area, but they didn't stay disappeared for long. Eventually the bodies were showing up, but covered in strange growths, or decayed to unrecognizable states. Some people had noted a building was there on the swamp as well, but... It hadn't been the same as it was before. Before it was just some derelict shack, collapsing in on itself. But when I found it, it had to be at least 3 or 4 stories tall. And there was the rumors of strange lights in the area as well..."

He paused as he took notice of other spirits close by, and the strange energy that seemed to hang in the air. Wayland looked back to Akiko, an eyebrow cocked in slight confusion. "Who... Are these other spirits? I don't believe I saw them in the fight... Indeed I don't think I saw them after the fight either."

Wayland looked to Henry, a slight smirk on his face as he took in what the larger super said. He turned his gaze back to Akiko, flourishing his hand to indicate to his ghostly form. "I didn't survive. I suppose they didn't make an attempt to kill me, but... I was already dead before I arrived. The monster from the beach saw to that. As for how to fight them." He sighed, giving a heavy shrug of his shoulders.


"Unfortunately, there's nothing I can really offer there. I saw you all fight back with incredibly power I couldn't have imagined before. Even some of the tools we used in our fight against the forces of darkness, my brothers and sisters in arms never produced such destructive ability. All I can really suggest is that you investigate this further. Search for more information on them. There may be dark, arcane corners of your world, as there were in mine. They may contain the secrets you need, but... I cannot promise that, and I don't wish to give you false hope..."


Sasha's comment brought on another pause for Wayland. He released his grip entirely from the sand, which remained still, and pressed his fingers together before his lips. "I don't know. I remember entering some accursed, derelict home in the swamp I was investigating... It was a tower of some sort, had a strange, green glow emanating from within. I remember entering it, and the whole place erupting around me. I think that's when I came face to face with the monster from the beach, but then it all gets a bit foggy after that. And as for how to get back there... Well I also can't offer much in the way of a suggestion there."


He looked back to Akiko for another moment, churning something over in his mind. "Your friends want to fight this... Evil in its own home? I can't be sure of how to do any of that, or even if the place I stood in was a home to it. All I know is what I saw... And didn't see.... But I could feel... There was a presence there. Just a presence, not something I could really describe to you."

Wayland sat down on the sands, facing towards the ocean, and planting his ethereal fingers into the sand. The grains remained unmoved by the ghost. "It... It wasn't someone... Where I stood, there was a vast, foreign sky above me. It was black, like our own night sky, but all encompassing, and filled with planets, big and bright and colorful. Some as big as the moon, some bigger! And there were vast colorful clouds that stretched out above me too, like a distant fog of light."


He was quiet another moment before continuing. "The ground on which I stood was... I think the only word I can use is Unholy. Jagged, unnatural rocks. Glowing veins impressed in the stone. Flesh, blood, and bone growing out of the ground as though it were alive, or dead, or... both. There was foul plant life, putrid waters and liquids... An unimaginable patchwork of what I could only call destruction and creation brought together."


The ghost looked back up to Akiko, eyes narrowed in contemplation as he struggled to find the words to describe his experience. "There were spaces in front of me, where monsters did not stand, that were had nothing there except the ground, the sky, and empty air between. Please understand, what I am telling you now is to be taken in the most literal sense. I saw things appear out of thin air. Where there was nothing standing before me before, I could see things begin to appear. Now all at once, but slowly, bit by bit, like condensation or steam forming. But they were of flesh and blood, or of other strange substances. But little by little, they begin to... Appear into existence."


He looked back out across the waters, eyes wavering across the tides that ebbed and flowed. "They didn't exist moments before, and then... They simply started to exist. I say creation because I believe what I saw was these horrors being born in front of me. But... I hesitate to say 'someone' created them. I feel it was something... Or some things..."


Akiko's final comment took a little less time for Wayland to process, but he took a brief moment to allow himself to regain composure. "Where I came from, strange horrors did exist. We didn't know where they came from, but me and my associates worked to try and destroy them. However, I now believe it is possible that the strange place I was sent to may be where these things came from. As for my afterlife... It's so strange to think that. Being dead I mean. Well, as for right now, I have not been attacked. Since that monster 'died', everything here has been quiet. I... Don't know what it can do to the dead."


A realization occurred, and Wayland took another look around the beach again. "I just realized... The man that flew into the monster's eye, I haven't seen his ghost here. I don't know if all spirits linger, but his has not."

The man in tweed gave a slightly amused smirk and nod "Ah, apologies, everything has been quite strange these past few days. My name is Wayland Philips, I was a detective with the Sandringham's Detective Agency in New England. Though... I'm not sure if that ever existed here. Some things sound out of place."


At Akiko's next question, any semblance of joy was erased from his face. Live or dead, Wayland knew something.


That Humanity had seen only a glimpse of what lurked beyond strange, unseen veils.


"A beast? You're referring to the thing from the beach... I don't know how to truly describe what I saw miss. The thing, or things... They were so... So much worse. There were... Millions of them. They were in so many shapes and sizes. I saw... Lakes of blood that ate whatever fell into it... I saw strange, alien beings, and their natural, symmetrical bodies, torn apart from the inside out as strange monstrosities burst forth. Some of these monsters were as small as insects, or as big as mountains. They had no uniformity, no set shape..."


His face went dark, somber, gaunt. A stranger look to see on a ghost, who should have nothing more to fear...


"What you saw here today was... An infant in comparison to what waits. It's... It's not even the size of these things. You cannot begin to fathom what they are capable of. But this thing.... I think it's a creation of something much, much worse."