Skulking Mists [Open]

[Lyratai]

Season of Winter, Day 34, 511 AV

Lyratai watched as the shadows lengthened, impatiently awaiting the night. She had always hated the day, and even if she could no longer feel the unbearable heat she felt that the sun could not have taken longer to set. As she waited the spiders and other vermin that she shared the ruined building began to slowly skitter away from the place she ‘stood’. The ghost did not notice.

When night finally approached, she went to the ‘door’ of her abode, which was simply a large enough crack to function as an entryway. The way to the city was long, and the journey would take longer still as she painstakingly traveled, careful to avoid other people for as long as possible. She had not been spotted yet, but she was not sure how long such luck would last. Could ghosts be slaves? Lyratai was certain the Eypharians would stop at nothing to try.

She avoided places of revelry, knowing that the indulgent race would gravitate to the nearest den of excess as soon as they could. The richer areas would be guarded by however many swordsmen the rich merchants could afford, and apparently plenty were willing to offer their lives for coin. Lyratai always traveled in the poorer districts, hoping that the laborers would be too exhausted from hard work and attempting to ape the extravagance of their social betters to spend time on the streets.

She knew what her goal was, but could never steel herself to complete the journey. Every time she had encountered someone and slipped away into the night, fleeing. Perhaps this night would be different, but Lyratai did not believe so. Perhaps she would spend eternity simply traveling the streets at night. It would not be a glorious fate, she thought, but it would be a better one then her lot in life.

[Lyratai]

She mused that the city did indeed look better in the night, the feeble light of lanterns muting the garish colors that the Eypharians were so pointlessly enamored of. It was just as idle thought, momentary and fleeting, if dangerous pondering. She chided herself for thinking such things when she needed to concentrate lest she be seen in the crowded city, her lips mutely whispering the words, too lost in her own embarrassment to remember that she could not speak without effort.

Her body dissipated into mists and reformed quickly as she stopped in a dead end
that she had never seen before. As she had admired how much more splendid the city looked in the night she had moronically gotten herself lost. She was on streets she had never traveled before, and did not take the time to memorize landmarks. Her ghostly feet no longer hovered above the ground, as her body became even more indistinct at her rage at her own stupidity.