Private Tales Wandering our Old Haunts (Ha-ha)

[Razputin Demetrius Teak]

Razputin stood across the street from their intended destination, breathing slowly inward in a sorry attempt to regulate himself. A rather rich person had come to the college to request someone exorcise his house, which he believed had a ghost residing within its walls. Thinking this assignment of no challenge, given how uncommon some of the stronger ghosts and spirits were, the job was assigned to a college assistant named Aldrae, who was rumored to have storm based magic, and himself.

The young man had never encountered ghosts other than his friends before, and he was getting a little bit scared to come face to face with a ghost not on their side. Even worse, he had to make a good impression to (what he thought was) his glorified chaperone, because despite the sting of not being trusted to handle something simple she was a member of the college's staff.

It was not so much that he was bothered by the idea, but instead knew that his reverence of those trusted enough to become employed by the college would self-inflict a serious case of needing to meet expectations, and he tended to flub that part a bit when under pressure. He could only imagine the power of someone teaching alongside the teachers, and thought to himself how truly dreadful it would be to return to school and viewed as nothing but a burden in the field.

Finally, he took the quest not just because it was a chance to prove he wasn't just a crazy kid with big dreams, but because the house they were asked to visit had to do with him. His family had actually lived there during his childhood, and they were all still there when his mom took her final gasps of life, as the disease those who study life might call cancer took it away and closed her story. If her ghost was wandering the halls, unable to peacefully rest in the next world, he wanted...no, needed to help her.

Turning around, he would find his ghostly friends watching him. Their faces were unable to hide a glimmer of playful amusement, even from someone as steely as Ridionus or as quiet as Dentoine, and he scowled at them all with an added eyebrow raise. This did not do anything to quell their enthusiasm, and Refia stepped forward as he began to get a little annoyed. Though the lady ghost was in fact intangible, he could almost swear he felt a calming touch on his shoulder.

He gave an appreciative look to his first friend ever and once again calmed. "Well. This should be fun. I'm only going to probably be banishing my mom to the spiritual planes today." To this he would receive a tired look as Refia rolled her eyes. Though she loved her unofficial ward like a son, a connection none of the others could claim to have, he could be incredibly over-dramatic when it came to proving things to others. Most of all, she wished he would stop looking down upon himself for his former status as an urchin on the streets, and assumed the others did as well.

"It's going to be fine, Razpy. I think what you should worry about more is looking presentable." She'd smirk at this comment, giving him a teasing look at his oversize wizard hat clunked to one side in an odd fashion. "What do you mean by that? I'm not a wreck at all." He'd say this with good-humored sarcasm, looking around for his companion on the misadventure surely brewing. "I wonder where they are...am I early?" Checking the time sheet he had been given by the assigning professor, both he and Refia spoke, one genuinely grinning and the other trying to choke down a grimace:

"Yep."

Aldrae

 

[Razputin Demetrius Teak]

Razputin turned to the out of breath woman and raised an eyebrow. "Um, are you-" He'd try to say, sounding concerned before quickly shutting up as she collected herself with similar speed. As she mentioned Professor Wonsin, he shivered a little bit. He also knew the professor of spirits and such, but only because she kept him after class due to her fascination with his friends. Her attitude was refreshing and she had interesting theories but even he, who was known for often being long-winded, feared getting caught and having to suffer through many minutes of rambling.

"I do not blame you at all. You are Aldrae, I believe? I myself have been subjected to her lectures, so there are most definitely no hard feelings." This line would be delivered along with a small, rueful chuckle, another indication of his understanding.

At the mention of the house, he gave it a once over, noting just how large and imposing it was. When he had lived there, it was nothing more than a simple house, bigger than a shack and livable but nothing like the mansion that now stood there. His mother had been buried behind the house, and it now seemed like the building covered that area as well. He stopped thinking about it, worried that his idle speculations of who they might find haunting the place would clash with his will to do a good job. He had to do a good job in front of her, just had to. This day, he would continue his record of proving that the street-raised orphan was more than just some smart urchin who got to be special for a second.

"Y-yeah." He'd snap out of his musing at the assistant's question, looking side to side for carriages before crossing the paved street in a hurry. He had always hated crossing the street, even as a kid having to do so in order to survive. Putting yourself in danger of getting crushed by wheels and hooves never appealed to him, but even then, he had known these emotions were simply a byproduct of his oddly intense will to survive and escape the hell of poverty he had even up until then known. "Byron Stone is our employer, I believe. I heard he's a bit prickly, but an advocate for the college within High Society."

Speaking of, it seemed the very person in question was briskly making his way to the door. A carriage rolled up behind the pair, and Razputin could only guess it was for Stone. Suddenly, the door would slam open as the house's owner gasped and gaped in shock at the rapidly moving door which slammed to a stop. It appeared the poor man was nervous, and did not intend to use such force. "Ma'am and Sir, you have full access to the house. It does cost me money to maintain, so please fix this as soon as possible so I might continue getting my money's worth."

Razputin would listen closely as the man chattered on, really only collecting one or two concrete statements: "My dog is dead and I don't know why." and "I'm not crazy, I swear." With that, he walked past them and into the carriage, supposedly for an unplanned vacation of some sort. After their client had set off, Razputin gingerly approached the door and opened it to a sight of unimaginable luxury, marble counters and gold walls and quartz pillars galore. This was only the first room, as well. "I used to live here." These words would slip out involuntarily, so shocked was he.

Aldrae

 

[Razputin Demetrius Teak]

She was similarly stunned by the house's interior as they entered. In her mind it looked like a scene from pretty much every romance story ever written, sans the dramatic servants hiding out in the garden doing scandalous things. Somehow she had been expecting something... spookier. Spiderwebs or candles guttering out for no apparent reason.

I really ought to get out of the library more often.

Noting the young lady's reaction to the inside the mansion, he chuckled slightly. He had never been inside such a grandiose structure before, and felt good that they were both on about the same page. Still, he had expected it to be a bit spookier. He would then mentally facepalm, telling himself that such a thought was stupid because mansions that were maybe being haunted were still at one point made to look opulent and prestigious.

"Really?" she asked, glancing around the empty foyer. Not even a butler there to glower disdainfully at them. "It's a very lovely home, that's for sure. So you know something about this place's history, then?"

"Well, not here exactly. This land the mansion is built on once had a much smaller building erected upon it. That was our- my residence. I fear the only bit left of it, probably foundation of some sort, now lies somewhere under the floor. As for the area in general, what I remember is a bit personal, so I hope you don't mind I keep it to myself unless absolutely necessary." Indeed, the reason he knew about this place was due to a painful memory and none of the assistant's business, so unless his mother was stalking them through the halls, he wasn't going to force himself to relive the moment of her untimely death.

He made his way to the center of the room, where he noticed something he had been to mesmerized to see before: The dead dog was lying still as a stone on the cruelly cold marble floor, eyes rolled back in it's head. The dogs eyes weren't the only ones rolling though, as Raz checked the name and realized the dog was also named Byron. More worrying though, was the chilly feeling of the dog's fur, and he quickly forgot about the name. It felt frosty, as if touching ice, and the dog seemed to look scared, even in death.

He turned to speak with Aldrae, and something extraordinary happened. As though the ghost decided it wanted to play a game, all lights inside went out at once, as though blown out simultaneously. Obviously, this was less than comforting. He would begin to whisper a spell, becoming infinitesimally more calm as two orbs of light began orbiting around his head and illuminating the area. "I'm beginning to think something rather grave, Miss. I'm starting to believe the crazy little fast-talker that left us this place for the week had reason to be afraid." He would visibly, involuntarily shiver at the thought.

Aldrae

 

[Razputin Demetrius Teak]

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. It might be a display, a threat, or a call for attention from a spirit. Or it might be something else entirely. An upset in the local leylines, a magical anomaly..." Mainly she was hoping to keep both of them calm; if there was some sort of malevolent presence in this house, she suspected that showing fear would only make it bolder.

"It's definitely not normal. Usually, dogs die of many things, but there are no wounds or anything. This dog was pretty young, it looks like, and I can't see any immediately evident diseases. What I am fully aware of is a cold spot right here, and the fur where I sense it is standing on end, even though the dog is dead and no longer able to realistically have this sort of instinctual reaction." He'd consult the book Aldrae had handed to him, mentally thanking her for putting in the effort to plan ahead. There were lots of interesting spirits and ghouls in the tome, but he remembered something himself, that the only ghost he was told could do such a thing was the one known as a Frost...something, a type of spirit formed when someone died on an incredibly cold day.

He himself got a chill, remembering how cold the snowstorm had been, but also recalled that they had buried her anyway. Finally, he got to the section of F and snapped back to reality, looking through the profiles with Frost in them. Frost spirit, no. Frost Elemental, no. Both of them did not feel vengeance like that nor match the situation. Frost ghoul, no, probably not. It had started with an R...Resomething. Suddenly, he would flip to a page that looked scarier than the others, more negative words and of more urgent tone. He would stare, taking in the name. It was a variant of one of the more violent ghosts, a-

Revenant. A Frost Revenant, the type that can kill you with a touch. They do it by touching your soul, instantly freezing it and therefore ending your life. Scary as fuck, those monsters are. His expression would curdle into a grimace at this thought, deciding to frown instead of freeze. This reaction may have been what saved the mission entirely, given that the amount of danger this task now posed was impossibly higher than before when they knew nothing. He would retreat back to his associate on the job and hold out the open book, having placed his finger on the page where his suspect laid completely still. Oh, he would think, such creatures were so much less scary just resting on the page.

Still, he couldn't just return home with his tail between his legs. Neither him nor the assistant were quite as qualified to take on something so dangerous, or at least he assumed so on the part of Aldrae. It wasn't that he doubted her prowess, but instead had a unshakable sense of caution. Professor Wonsin would have known what to do, and for the first time, he wished he had stuck around and actually paid attention to the Ghosts and Spirits teacher.

"I'm not sure what we do. I'm a magic historian, not a ghost-buster. Wait, gh-" He would facepalm, realizing he had within reach a great source of information on how to deal with other ghosts. "Come out, all five of you. Try to make yourselves as visible as possible so Aldrae doesn't think I've cracked." With that, five apparitions emerged from Raz's shadow, all looking a bit worried. He had known facing a Frost was a big deal, given all the danger, but if even the unshakable Rid was worried...well, it wasn't a good thing. "Tell me what you know about banishing ghosts. Eolian, this seems like something mystical, which I'm hoping you have experience with."