Devika Ward's Story

Night had fallen and the locals had commissioned the priest to once-again look over the ruins. The locals hated the place and the dozens of priests before hand hadn't been able to clear it, and despite Sam's faith in Ahuma he doubted he would be able to set the spirits to rest either.

Brother Sam was alone, holding up a beaded necklace adorned with the sign of his god and in his other he carried a small package of salt he'd picked up from the nearby town.

Sam felt eyes upon them, and whipped around to face whoever... or whatever owned them.

"What, gonna piss your pants or somethin'? God Almighty, blessed be his name."

A young girl stood behind the man, hands placed sassily on her hips. She could almost be called an odd one, dressed in the orange robes of a monk, but obviously not abiding well by the practice with her full head of flaxen hair. It clashed oddly with her caramel skin. Across her shoulder hung a small satchel. "Go back to town if you wanna change!" she teased, talking past him. "I know I can be intimidating sometimes."

Brother Sam made a choking sound. The young girl had a foul mouth on her, and he gave her a piercing look. "A believer of Ahuma does not piss their pants at the first sign of trouble, girl." The priest spat back, the venom barely contained in his voice. "Unlike your mother, when she saw your face." Sam added, turning around and trying to transfix her with a serious gaze.

"And don't you ever take his fucking name in vain again or I'll gag you, Ahuma be witness or not." Sam hissed, whipping around in a furl of crimson and gold robes and advancing upon the ruins, his beaded necklace burning with a brighter light, fueled by the priests righteous anger.

"Now come on before he strikes you down for being an ungrateful curse upon my life."

Being a brother had it's frills...

The girl abruptly turn around to look at Brother Sam with her jaw hitting the floor.

"... did you just... you... you're a priest or something, aren't you!?" she yelled, pointing at him accusingly. "Priests shouldn't be saying things like that!"

As if she had room to talk.

She turned around with a flourish and a pout, folding her arms. "Yeah, yeah, whoever this Ahuma is! I'm not exactly, y'know, shaking in my boots!" She turned around with her tongue sticking out at him. "But if you're here for the same reason I am, I guess I can't complain! It'll make my job a whole lot easier!"

"Ahuma will forgive me." The man replied, looking placid as he advanced into the ruins, casting the glowing beads's glow across the dry, dark and dusty columns. There was a loud hiss and shadowy figures formed above them, accentuated by the glow seemed to look down upon them.

Sam would point at them, but as he did, they vanished into the shadows. "Can you see them?"

"I'm sure he will-" If he exists.

The young woman took a gander at the walls, at the darting visions at the side of her eyes that always stayed out of her direct vision. She nodded. "I see them, alright. Spooky. You think we'll be able to take them on?" She bit her lip. "Are they even what we're facing, here?"

"The town complained about the spirits visiting them. These don't seem to be the trouble making type." Sam made a thinking noise, lowering his necklace and putting it back around his neck. "More like they're... lost. I met a lost spirit once." It was only a few weeks ago too, an adventurer with a horrible sense of fashion.

"What'd they tell you?"

"Ah, nah. No one asked me for help. No one alive, anyway," she said, reaching into her bag. "I felt like I needed to come. Kinda lame, but you know how it goes, right? Visions and dreams and all that hullabaloo." As they passed the columns the shadows danced across their faces like a slideshow going dark before the next, too-bright slide. "I wonder why the spirits have been visiting them. I bet they've been here a while. It'd be funny for them to start getting restless now."

"Things get restless over time, who wouldn't grow weary of a place like this? Wouldn't you?" The priest asked, keeping his interest in her visions, dreams and hullabaloo a secret for now. Ahuma had never seen fit to gift him such things, and it secretly made him a little jealous, but as a priest, he probably wasn't allowed to feel that.

"Are you as skilled an exorcist as you are a heathen?"

"Oh, you must get all the ladies with that one," replied the woman flatly. "Let's hope you can banish a demon faster than you can think of some awful comebacks.

"I've been exorcising spirits for years now, even though I'm young. I was told that that monks used to reside here, so I was pretty sure that I could pick up on whatever residual energy they had from years of worship and use it against whatever decided to crawl in here instead. It's why I've got the outfit on and everything."

"And here I just thought you had a bad sense of fashion." Sam grunted, moving deeper into the ruins and wiping the dust from the the broken door of the main tower, booting it open with his left foot and stepping inside. "Can you feel the energy the monks used yet?" Sam asked, legitimately curious this time around.

The priest begun to unpack his backpack, pulling out a selection of crimson candles.

Eadhelm stood stone still near the back of the room, shrouded now in darkness. He had heard voices moments ago, two people conversing as they moved through the ruins. He hadn't heard much but he had heard the word ''curse''. A word like that tended to antagonize a person for Eadhelm, and so he had put out his torch to get the drop on whoever was coming.

If necessary of course.

The tip of his greatsword on the ground and his hands on the pommel, Eadhelm waited, not moving an inch even as the door was slammed in. He knew already that the light from outside would not reach, leaving the trespassers unaware of his presence till they truly entered.

"Long time ago, buddy," said Devika, taking prayer beads out of the bag. She held them in one hand and began to rattle them, opening her lips to speak.

When the door slammed, she let out a wail, speaking swiftly in a tongue that was foreign to most people.

"Nômaku sanmanda bazaradan senda makaroshada sowataya un tarata kanman!" An old Bhuddist mantra. She repeated it again and again and again, as loudly as she could.

Brother Sam hummed a tune of his own, keeping a hand ahead of him as he clutched around the darkness of the inner ruin. "We need to lure the spirits out, keep your light low." The priest whispered, closing the door behind them as quietly as he could. The tattoos on the back of his head glittered brightly in the moonlight.

The priest couldn't make out anything in the shrouded darkness.

Dropping her chants to a whisper, Devika took in a breath and relaxed her shoulders. "You're right... I... also don't have a light. At all." She gave him a meek smile as he closed the door. She could feel the shadows close in on her. "Ah, well, that's not reassuring. There might be something else down here other than the restless spirits. This place is old as sin, y'know."

The ruins were haunted but it wasn't haunted by phantom housecleaners as the place had an unhealthy coat of dust on everything, not to mention the smell was like an old wardrobe. The priest ran his hands across a nearby wall, using it to guide him along the room, hoping to Ahuma that he didn't collide with something.

"The villagers told me that a group of monks used to live here, maybe we should check the altar first, who knows what kind of god they worshiped." Brother Sam hissed, turning around to wipe the dust he'd picked up on his fingers on the wall on his clothes and to check that Devika was still following him. "Where do you think it'd be?"

Devika patted along, occasionally stubbing her toe with a yelp. "I better not break any toes! I don't have health insurance!" she scowled. She was about to scurry past Brother Sam, but unable to see a thing, she faceplanted his back. It was not enough to bowl either of them over, but it was a hefty smack.

"Oof! You watch where you're going!" the monk-lady spat. "It'll... probably be further down and deeper into the building. It has to be the center since it's important."

Brother Sam whipped around, his eyes screaming bloody murder. "I have back problems there, you slight." The missionary hissed, rubbing his back, he'd like to see her use a warhammer like he did and not suffer from a sore back every once and a while. The priest pulled a handful of salt from the pouch by his belt and threw it behind them, eyeing the clumsy Devika.

The salt would hopefully sealing the spirits into the ruin while they did their cleansing work. "You do this work without health insurance? I AM MY OWN HEALTH INSURANCE. HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL?" Sam almost shouted, barely managing to keep his voice down and alerting the (maybe) flesh-tearing spirits from coming up to sort out the intruders.

"Hmph! Blumbering degenerate old men shouldn't be out in the field if he's gonna be complainin' about his achey bones!" Devika blew him a raspberry, all while giving a sassy shake of her hips. Not that he could see.

Out of her little bag she took out a cross, holding it up in the air. She closed her eyes and spoke slowly, summoning up the belief she needed.

"Let there be light."

The cross began to illuminate a bright white, giving them a few feet of visibility. Devika looked back at Brother Sam with the smuggest of grins. "Don't got neat little tricks like that, now, do you, old man?"

You could see the abandoned funeral chapel, iron doors padlocked, ivy on the sides of the spire a small tree growing out of the guttering at roof level.
You could see stones and tombs and vaults and memorial plaques. You could see the occasional dash and scuttle of a rabbit or a vole or a weasel as it slipped out of the undergrowth and across the path.
And if you had the eyes for it, you would see a boy walk through the wall of a tomb.
Nobody flops on the grass underneath him, his blue eyes looking at the starry sky; the gate around him looked well kept. The Graveyard and Cemetery look to well kept, but not used in a long time. This was his home, where he had lived for all his life, well for all his life that he can remember. Most of the ghosts he is friends with are already asleep for the night. In fact he is supposed to be asleep as well; he looks at the tomb behind him the only word recognizable on it is the last name ‘Knoes’ on it. “I don’t want to sleep…” he mutters to himself. He knew he was safe in the graveyard, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to go out. He wanted to explore the world! He knew People could not see him here, well most. It wasn’t likely anyone came out here either…most people had forgotten about this place.
“I could sneak out…but…Silas would get angry at me…and I am being hunted, or so Silas says…and Silas hasn’t lied to me before.” He mutters as he looks at the night sky, pondering what to do. “I…could stay Faded, or at least half…that way people won’t pay attention to me…well unless I do something to stand out…” he mutters as he pulls on his oversized black coat, pulling the sleeves a bit as they cover his hands and arms. “…Silas is away at the moment so it isn’t like he will know…” he mutters as he looks at the locked gate, it would be such a simple thing to do…just to walk on over and walk through the gate. And then say he was practicing…but Silas always knew when he was lying. He hated to disappoint and lie to Silas, and he would hate to see him angry. “But…he doesn’t have to know he won’t be back for a bit…but Miss Lupescu is going to be here tomorrow and I promised to stay here…” he murmurs having an internal conflict. He wants to explore the world, but he hated to break promises and to disappoint his friends and family. He walks to the gate of the Graveyard peering out of it as if to look for any signs of life out there.

And life he would find.

Walking to the graveyard was a young lady clad in very bright clothing, robes of gold and orange, that came just to her ankles, and didn't drag on the ground. Though she had caramel skin, her hair was sunflower blonde, and her eyes a cherry brown. A racial hiccup if there ever was one.

She was holding a bell in one hand, and not the one she normally carried. An old carnie necromancer had given it to her days prior to her visit to the graveyard, telling her it allowed the dead to talk.

"... you better be right old man," grumbled the young woman as she approached the gate, closing her eyes. It was as though she hadn't even seen Nobody yet. Well, until she rang the bell.

"Dyrim," she whispered. "Maiṁ apanē gā'iḍa hūṁ, bōlō," she continued, in badly translated Hindi. "Speak, as I am your guide to heaven."

She opened her eyes. Once she did, she screamed.

Nobody blinks as he spies the girl, "Hello?" he asks and then she screams. He covers his ears with his hands as he puts a finger to his lips. "Shhh, you will wake the others!" he scolds her. "And they don't like being waken..." he remarks, "Hey..wait are you a Live One?!" he asks happily. "Or..are you just another dead? But...if you are a dead one, a ghost...then why are you out of the graveyard? Ghosts can't leave the graveyard they are buried on." he says with a frown.

His hair was honey gold and shaggy and looking like it need a trim, his blue gray eyes looking at her curiously. "So...that leaves eight other types... well Seven, you don't look like a Ghoul after all..." he mutters as he tilts his head curiously. "And how did you see me anyway? Your not supposed to be able to see me in the Graveyard."

The young girl slapped a hand over her mouth, still holding the bell in the other hand. If she wasn't already so dark, she would have visibly paled from the drainage of blood from her face. She took in a big breath, and let it go slowly.

"... others?" she whispered, hand shaking. She did her best to steady it as she looked past the young man, then switched her gaze to look into his eyes. "Y-you weren't there b'fore you know," she gulped. "You, um. I. I'm alive. Is that bad? I can see you. I'm a... a... an exorcist. And stuff. A spiritual. My name is Devika."

She came a little closer to the gate, closer to the young man.

"You're... a ghost?"

Nobody nods, “Yes the other residents here, they are asleep right now.” He explains as if that should be obvious. “And some don’t like being waken up.” He says as he looks where she is looking, spying nothing. “They are sleep right now so you can’t see them…though most can’t see them anyway cause they are ghosts.” He explains. “Well I was in my home before and then walked out of it…” When she says she is a Live One his eyes widen, “No that is wonderful! I mean I haven’t talked to a live one in a very long time.” He explains. “An…Exorcist? What is that?” he asks as he furrows his brows.

Nobody laughs as she asks if he was a ghost, “Nope I am like you, a Live one.” He offers her, “I haven’t died yet, but why are you here? And why do you have a bell Miss Devika?” he asks before he remembers he forgot to introduce himself. “Oh! I am Nobody Knoes.” He says with an old fashioned bow, his name sounding like ‘nobody knows.’

"Wait, you're alive? If you're alive, how come I wouldn't be able to see you in the graveyard?" asked Devika, one hand on her hip. She gave give a sassy frown, one eyebrow raised, lips pursed. "And, ah, an exorcist-" She raised her fist to her mouth, clearing her throat three times exactly, "- is one of those people who help ghosts, ah... pass on? To there-" She pointed up. "Or down there." She pointed down.

"Or, you know, wherever. If there even is an afterlife place thing. There's probably, like, fifty million of them." She put her hand up in the air and wiggled it to gesture to everyplace.

"So... nobody knows your name?"