Solo Behind the Doorway

[Ennisa]

81st Autumn 519 AV
"speech"
"others"

Ennisa was awoken by the banging of the open window and the warmth of the sunshine on her face when morning reared its ugly head. For several moments, her utter confusion consumed her, but as she squinted and massaged her temple, once she had taken a swig of the stale water lying in the pitcher to the side, she felt a little better. Indeed, when she stretched, yawned, and shoved a bit of bread down her throat, she regained a semblance of normalcy. She had been awake for approximately fifteen chimes before she was slipping into her boots and leaving the room, rucksack looped over her shoulder, ready to face the blonde stranger.

It was only the day before that she had seen Itzi and the man together. All season, her best friend in the whole wide world had been acting strangely. To find out that her weird behaviour was being triggered by a shyke boyfriend both saddened and angered her. Today, she would give him an ultimatum. Leave, or... Well, she didn't know what would follow leave, but whatever it was wouldn't be good. For him.

She patted her waist, where at her belt dangled a dagger. She was reassured to feel it there, secure as ever, though she didn't admit to herself that she had barely used the thing in any real fight. Nevertheless, what she didn't have in skill, she made up for in bravado. Ennisa double-checked the notes she'd jotted to remember where the man's house was, and set off.

Her face and arms were still red from the sunburn she had managed to pick up yesterday, so as she walked from her home, she kept a look-out for somewhere to buy a hat or something similar. As she was already on Zintia, she decided to stop by the Azure Market, figuring that would be the best place to find such a thing. The detour was short enough. After all, it was important that she was comfortable. After yesterday, she had learnt that stake-outs were mainly boring affairs.

The entrance to the Azure Market never failed to make Ennisa smile. The overwhelming theme of blue was soothing, to say the least, and the gently sloping streets of shops, stalls, and salesmen bustled with cheerful industry. She wandered up through the market, looking for an appropriate shop, and was pleased to find a small location selling hats and other fashionable accessories. She pushed open the wooden door and stepped inside.

The shopkeeper was a short-ish woman with a tangle of scarves looped around her bird-like neck. Ennisa was enthusiastically greeted with a jolly, "Hello, is there anything I can help you with?", but she had already spotted a simple black hat that interested her, and headed straight for it. She picked it up and searched for the price tag, squeaked to herself at what she considered the crazy price of 12 kina, but then proceeded to try it on her head anyway.

"How does this look on me?" She turned to the shopkeeper, who tilted her head and considered - to be polite and get the sale, or brutally honest? Madam shopkeeper didn't much like black, as she considered it to be rather boring and stifling, but she stocked it just in case. She grinned. "Looks lovely, very fetching dear!", she lied. "That one's a bargain, at just 12 kina. Fabulous felted material. Great in the winter. If we get one, that is."

Ennisa raised an eyebrow, but was pleased to hear the shopkeeper's verdict. She checked herself in the small polished mirror, and made a snap decision that she loved it, mostly because it made her look mysterious, and that was always fun. She began to rummage in her backpack, and withdrew the aforementioned amount to hand over to the delighted storesperson. "There you go. Thanks!" The shopkeeper nodded and put the kina in the till. "Come again!", she cheerfully called as Ennisa stepped out into the bright sun.

WC : 662

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

With the bright sharpness of the sunshine streaming down, and the gentle gradients of blue suffusing every facade, Ennisa expected to feel cheerful as she made her way out of the Azure Market, new hat placed on her head. Yet, her stomach was clenched, and though she did her best to smile as she usually did, the gesture seemed forced. Yesterday's events played through her head, with a million questions clamouring for her attention. Was she being too hasty? How could she think to assume her friend's thoughts and wishes? Maybe Itzi was happy, after all, and would be terribly upset that Ennisa planned to barge into her private life.

She shook her head a few times, and brought her hand up to her face to wipe the tiredness from her eyes. No. All season - all season Itzi had been unhappy. Ennisa knew it. The sinking feeling that nothing was as it should be had been eating her slowly all throughout the autumn. She couldn't imagine what Itzi was feeling, deep inside. The way she acted as if their friendship was dead, the vulnerability she'd spotted on her face, only to be confronted with the blonde man's peculiar attitude...

Her walk grew more resolute as she talked herself into the task ahead. As she approached the street, she checked the landmarks she had noted previously, and took the next left turn. The black-doored house was two thirds of the way down this section of street. Outside the front there was a small section of public garden, which had a low wall running around it. Within this section, Ennisa had hidden, to avoid detection, but it would surely look suspicious in the extreme to hunker down there again, especially to the neighbours that would be able to clearly see her.

Instead, she decided to be a little more brazen, in the hopes that she would be harder to recognise with the hat and the cloak she'd picked up from home too. She calmly walked up to the wall, and hopped up onto it so that she could rest her back against a modestly-sized tree. She swung her legs around so one was stretched out across the top of the wall, and the other dangled down the side. With the cloak she wore, and the hat, she looked a little like an untidy pile of cloth, but she was comfortable. As an added benefit, from her angle and from underneath the brim of the hat, she was afforded a decent view of the frontage of the house.

She scanned across the tiny windows, and the black door, but saw nothing. It was dark inside the house, and still, not a flicker of movement. What was odd was that even in the uncharacteristic heat that Lhavit was experiencing, the windows were firmly closed. From what she could tell, none seemed to be open, not even a little bit. The inside of the house must be stiflingly close, she mused, and settled back to watch.

She waited a long time. People came and went. Couples, groups, singular persons all busy about their daily routines. She became an accessory to the fabric of Lhavit, just another person barely worth noticing. Ennisa found the isolation comforting. It gave her a buffer, and it gave her focus. The chimes passed by. Her unease was beginning to grow. Every so often, she thought she saw a flicker at the window, yet every time that she went to look further, there was nothing to be seen, only the pale folds of the closed curtains. It truly felt like she was being watched, yet it was clear there was nobody home.

WC : 611

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

Creeping unease was difficult to fight. Theoretically, she knew she had nothing to fear from a gods-forsaken house, after all. It was just that she remembered seeing something similar yesterday too, and she had dismissed it due to her extreme tiredness. Admittedly, she was still quite tired, but the phenomenon had happened a few times now. Each time, a flicker at the window that left her frantically scanning the tiny, cramped windows of the rest of the house, searching for whatever was causing the disturbances. Each time, she saw nothing except extreme stillness. It wasn't even as if there was a breeze to disturb the curtains, and she couldn't blame tiredness every time.

She shivered, even though she was scorching within the folds of her cold-weather cloak. Was she cracking up, or was there actually something in the house that she just couldn't see? Yet, what could that be? If it was a person, it was a peculiarly quick person. It could be an animal, but her mind began to race as she imagined what kind of creature it could be... Resolutely, she shook herself. There was no point getting spooked, so she put the weird flickering as far out of her mind as she could and resumed her patient watch. Then before she could even get settled, to her surprise the front door began to open and down the steps came walking Itzi's boyfriend.

Ennisa began to gather her things before realising that her movement would probably draw his attention. Now that the moment had come, the desire to confront him seemed a little overblown, especially when he hadn't even had chance to leave the house. She wouldn't admit it, but she was also unnerved by the looming presence of the house, and so she decided to follow him once more and see what he got up to.

Nevertheless, her sudden movement had seemed to draw his attention a little, and she cringed as he looked over curiously. His blonde curls were dank and unruly on the top of his head, but it was his cold, unwavering eyes that made her flinch. Yet, thankfully, rather than investigating her further, he turned away and began to wrestle with something still partially within the house. Now that she had been spotted, she knew she would have to be more careful. Nevertheless, she sat upright and poised to hop off the wall, but she couldn't help but peer at frequent intervals as he and an as of yet unseen individual manoeuvred a small cart out of the house.

Ennisa was startled (though really she shouldn't have been) when it turned out that Itzi was helping him, but thankfully the small, red-head didn't spare a glance in her direction. When the duo finally got the cart onto the street they began walking, with Itzi seemingly volunteering to pull the clunky thing. They were silent, but the blonde man once again had his arm wrapped, snake-like, around her shoulders. Ennisa followed at a fair distance, having already shoved the cloak into her backpack. She was certain if Itzi saw it, she would recognise her, and besides she was glad to have the air on her bare skin.

WC : 533

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

"We'll stop here, Lacretzia." Clement motioned a spot adjacent to the perimeter of Surya Plaza, and Itzi pulled the cart to a stop. She clasped her hands together in front of her to quell the residual tremble. Clement stood in front of her. Although the plaza was busy with people, the space between them seemed silent and cold. He regarded her for a moment, appraisingly. "Good girl." He silently reached a hand and touched her hair. His hand was cool and firm on her red tresses, and she could feel his fingernails pressing into her skull, yet she didn't push him away. "Tonight, Laure and I will teach you a little more, would you like that?" Itzi nodded, two slow bobs of her head. Her eyes were tired, her hair flat and dull, her lips quietly shut. The picture of submission. Clement smiled, but the expression didn't reach his eyes. "Good girl," he repeated, and her abruptly withdrew his hand. He turned, ignored her completely, and began to set up the cart.

Ennisa lurked nearby and suspiciously watched as the blonde man fiddled about, as she wondered what he was up to. The cart was sealed shut with small brass buckles, but with each one he undid, wooden sections flapped down to reveal a miniature pantry. Several sharp knives were strapped to the middle section, as well as other strange cooking equipment. Ennisa, who knew very little about the art of food preparation, could only look at the implements and question their purpose. The blonde man knelt on the ground and revealed the final part of the cart as he opened a small door at the base and removed a large parcel wrapped in wax paper.

Clement heaved the parcel onto the preparation surface. It landed with a solid thump. He beckoned Itzi. "Lacretzia, come here." The woman walked closer as he bid her to, and stood loose-limbed beside him. She had yet to say a word, but Clement either didn't notice or didn't care. "Hold this paper down for me." He carefully selected a knife from the centre rack. He ran a thumb down the sharp, polished iron, and sighed with satisfaction at the sharpness, then cut the ties loose. With each movement, Itzi couldn't help but flinch. The reaction was so small that neither Clement nor Ennisa noticed, but she had become twitchy recently, and the flash of the iron knife set her on edge.

The parcel was still warm to the touch from where it had been in the oven, back at the house, and as he cut into the many folds of paper, juice began to leak out. It dripped onto the scarred wooden surface and splattered onto the man's apron in dark patches. Itzi held the paper as asked, but the grease from the cooked inside was unavoidable, and dark stains from the oil seeped into her long sleeves. The work was messy and involved, especially in such cramped circumstances.

Clement grinned with satisfaction as he cut the remaining paper and cord away from the lump of meat. He was proud of the cut he'd got from the butcher. Most people seemed to think that a pig's head didn't make good eating, but Clement had always enjoyed the gristle and cartilage and the soft parts. It was a certain challenge, to cook such a thing. He planned to carve off sections of the cheek for his patrons today, and serve with a generous slice of black pudding and bread. Before Itzi could react, the man popped his fingers into the liquid eyes of the pig and pushed one of the gelatinous orbs into her mouth. "Have a treat, my dear. I insist. It'll take your mind off your silly little worries." He turned to look at her, his fingers pressed to her lips, and silently dared her to protest.

WC : 644

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

Ennisa cringed at the grisly sight of the severed pig's head, and wrinkled her nose with revulsion when the blonde haired man pushed the eyeball into her friend's mouth. She expected Itzi to spit it out, or throw it back at the man, but the woman merely let the thing sit in her mouth. The cook said something to her, and like a dog, she obediently swallowed then once more stood silently by whilst the man prepared himself. With each interaction the two shared, her frustration at Itzi's lack of fight, and anger at the man for his hold over her friend, grew until she couldn't help but finally walk over to the stall, her knuckles clenched tight.

By this time, it had been about a bell since they'd set up at the Surya Plaza. Business had been disappointingly slow, which sent Clement into a vicious mood. He snapped at Itzi and treated her as if she was nothing but a slave. When Ennisa started to walk over, his initial reaction was one of pleasure, thinking that she was a potential patron. When Itzi stiffened beside him, he leaned over to her and asked, "What is it, sweet?" Itzi could only mumble through her lips. "That... that's Ennisa. My... my friend."

Ennisa strode over and cut straight to the point. She no longer cared whether Itzi would be upset with her. At this stage, she wasn't even sure if Itzi's was thinking clearly, and thus it was her responsibility to care for her. She would be failing as a friend if she did nothing. It was clear, after seeing the morning's worth of shyke she'd just seen, that she needed to do something. It was with anger colouring her voice that she stopped in front of the blonde-haired cook, and spoke. "What is your problem? You're treating my friend like shyke. Leave her alone, else..-"

Before she could finish her sentence, and truly she didn't know how she was supposed to finish the sentence anyway, the man gently moved Itzi aside and squared off against Ennisa. Nearby, a couple of people nervously eyed the exchange as Clement outright scoffed. "Or else what, woman? I don't think you even know what you're going to say, do you? Did you even stop to ask Lacretzia what she thinks? We're in love. I don't know how you can form an opinion of us just like that," he stabbed the carving knife down into the block, and Ennisa recoiled at the sudden violence of the action. "But from where I'm standing, it sounds as if you're a jealous little girl who misses her bestest friend in the whole wide world." This last part he lisped and tossed his head side to side, a mocking grin curling on his lips.

Ennisa wildly gestured at her friend. Indignation and anger boiled within her, and she stepped closer. She was smaller than Clement, but she stood tall and ramrod straight, a pillar of barely withheld frustration. "How dare you. I care about Itzi, I've known her for years and years, and you... you obviously don't care, otherwise you wouldn't make her feel like that!" They both turned to look at Itzi. She was stood to one side, her body held in a cramped position as if she was in pain. On her pale face, Ennisa was shocked to see a singular silvery streak of a tear.

When she spoke, her voice was a crushed whisper that Ennisa had to strain to hear. "Please don't fight, just... go away, Ennisa. I... I... love him. I love my Clement, just as he loves me. I don't... I don't need you any more." She turned away, and brushed her greasy hand to her cheek to dash the tear away. When she looked back at the stricken Ennisa, a streak of filth lay across her usually clean and cared for skin. A spot of colour had formed high on her cheekbones, and she bit her lip. With a little more defiance, but bleak eyes, she spoke. "Don't ever come back, Ennisa, I mean it."

WC : 683

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

Clement burst out laughing. His laughter was high-pitched and didn't match his voice. The effect was unsettling, especially if you looked into his eyes, where no mirth had touched for a very long time. The creases in his face collected the shadows as he let out a few further peals of laughter. "You tell her, Lacretzia! Hahaha!" Ennisa's fists were curled even tighter, and her fingernails dug deep into the flesh of her palms. The laughter was an onslaught, but she couldn't turn away yet as he eyes desperately scanned Itzi's blank expression, searching for some semblance of the woman she knew.

Clement curled a sinewy arm around Itzi. The woman stood still and let her gaze drift over Ennisa, but she soon turned her cheek and pressed herself against Clement's chest. The pure look of victory that spread across his smug, smug face pierced her deeply. He began to stroke her hair as if she was some kind of animal. "That's right, listen to my love, you need to leave now. You wouldn't want to upset her, would you?"

Ennisa's throat closed. She was powerless. Her fingers reached for the dagger at her waist, but even if she was to grab it and plunge it into his self-satisfied chest, the nearby presence of the Shinya and the handful of other people who all stood close by prevented her from doing such a foolhardy act. What could she do? Whatever she did only seemed to make things worse, but there was no way that she could let this relationship continue as it was. She tried words in a last-ditch attempt to convince the man to reason.

"You might love her, and she might love you, but... Can't you see she's not happy? Just, let her have some alone time. Let her breathe a bit, can't you?" Clement cocked his head, and considered her for a moment. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he looked past her into thin air. Ennisa waited with bated breath at the expression she assumed was a look of consideration. To prompt him, she pleaded softly, trying to quell the anger she felt towards him for Itzi's sake. "If you truly love each other, a bit of time to take a step back and..-"

She shivered and stopped talking as a feeling of sudden cold encroached upon her. Several things then happened at once. Clement's hands, previously held still at his sides, possessively crept up onto Itzi's body with true and sudden passion. Itzi rapidly straightened as if she had frozen on the spot, though her face was still buried in Clement's chest, then relaxed into the man's touch. "Just go!" The callous, soft words that emanated from Itzi's mouth chilled Ennisa, for almost without understanding what had just happened, she knew with dead certainty that the woman that had just spoken was not Itzi.

WC : 478

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

"What... what was that?," Ennisa croaked out. She didn't understand. She didn't understand any of it. How her friend could have been so stupid to have fallen in love with this man. How she had just been so damned sure that Itzi hadn't spoken those words, even though it had been her voice, but... But she had just sounded so different. Confused, harried, and upset, Ennisa took a few steps back and wiped her face with her hands in an attempt to clear her head. It didn't work. She gazed at Clement's face, then noted absently that his hands were once more down by his sides. She brought her gaze up when he laughed once more, though this was more of a sinister chuckle.

"You heard the woman. Scram." Itzi didn't move or respond, though she seemed to have curled deeper into the man, as if hiding from the world. Ennisa attempted to speak, but to her shame, her eyes began to sting with tears and so she turned on her heel and paced away, her head filled with buzzing smoke. She couldn't think clearly.

For a few moments, she just walked and tried to clear her head. Tears forced their way past her furrowed determination to force them down, and her face began to redden. She was an ugly crier. Ennisa rubbed her fingers into her eyes with sheer frustration and sighed a great hfff that made a passer-by turn in her direction. What the petch was she going to do? She felt stuck in a corner. Nothing made sense! She was almost certain now that some kind of magic was going on, but she knew it would only be for nefarious gain. Besides, she was not skilled to cope with magic users. To her dismay, the magnitude of living in a magical city suddenly dawned upon her, and she looked at her current set of skills with disappointment and dissatisfaction. Without realising it, she began walking back to the man's house.

She was planless and aimless now, but there were a few things that she wanted to know. The first was that she was sure that something strange was going on in the house, and she wanted to know what that was. Then there was the thing that had just happened. Why had she felt that peculiar chill in the air? Why had Itzi spoken in that way? Ennisa's natural scepticism was beginning to kick and she was starting to convince herself that she had been imagining things, but the weird chill and the strange energy between the pair left her burning with curiosity. She felt that if she learnt the house's secrets, and understood what had gone on earlier, then she might be able to convince Itzi to leave him.

At the moment, she only had a few pieces of the puzzle. All she needed now was a way to get into the black doored house. She smiled grimly when she arrived there. It was now about midday, and the street was a little quieter than earlier. There was hardly a breeze at all, and the air had taken on a particularly cloying stillness that was stifling in Lhavit's heat. Ennisa held the brim of her hat and gazed up at the frontage of the building, then round the side, trying to figure out if there was a way for her to sneak in. Yet, to her disappointment, the thing was sheer and unbreachable. She placed a hand on her hip as she considered her next move.

Whilst she was thinking, her gaze caught on the front door. To her utter surprise, now that she looked closer, the door wasn't even shut properly. Her stomach jolted as she wondered, was that open before? Yet, it was best to take advantage of the situation at hand. With a brief glance around, and a pause to pretend as if she had a right to do so, she steadily walked up the front steps and entered the house. She softly closed the door behind her, and lifted her gaze to look around.

WC : 682

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

It was quiet inside the house. All noise from outside - birds, people, city noise - all faded to nothing. Ennisa held her breath to keep herself quiet too, and listened intently to try and make out if there was someone else in the house. Someone who might have left the door open. All she could hear was a soft sound, like water dripping, coming from somewhere further in. She let her breath out, and gingerly crept forwards. Despite not hearing anything in specific, she couldn't help the feeling of being watched, and as she was already trespassing in someone else's house, that feeling was strong.

As she trod softly forwards, she looked around with wide eyes, trying to absorb everything she could see. The house was eerily quiet, but what heightened that was the state of disarray and neglect that permeated through the fabric of the building. She gingerly turned over a dusty long coat that lay on the floor, expecting to find dead things underneath it, but was relieved to find nothing but a gigantic dust ball that drifted like a cloud across the old floorboards.

Her footsteps creaked on the floor. Each long creeaak made her wince, but there wasn't anything that she could do about that, could she? Ennisa slowed until she could carefully test each footstep, just in case. The feeling grew stronger, but she ignored it, believing it only to be superstition. As she made her way along the corridor towards the dripping sound, she began to think about the kinds of evidence she could bring to Itzi to convince her. The woman obviously had been to this house before, but had she ever had a look through every part of it? Judging from the possessive way Clement seemed to treat her, she somehow doubted that she was allowed out of his steely gaze.

She had made her way to a narrow doorway from where the sound of dripping came from. There was a peculiar light from within, that flickered on the tiled walls and the shadowy ceiling. She peered within the room and stepped inside cautiously. The house, so far, had been nondescript, without challenge or deception. Ennisa hadn't exactly strained herself in the investigation department yet, but then, nothing had leaped out at her.

Her heart jumped a few times when she took a good look into the room. Just beyond the pots and pans scattered across the table top, and the bulbous shapes of a couple of gourds lying melancholic besides a deep sink, was a door ajar. And for the briefest of moments, Ennisa was convinced there had been a woman standing there. A dark-haired, flickering woman. She rested a hand on her collarbone in an effort to calm herself, and mentally slapped herelf. "Get a petching hold of yourself, woman," she chided out-loud.

Then, humming through the air in a low, insidious voice, came her own words, parroted back at her, [color=#9991a8]"Get a hold of yourself, woman." Ennisa whipped around, her hand darting to her knife, and tried not to sound to afraid as she said, "Who's there?" There was silence for a moment. She scanned the room. Her eyes kept getting drawn to the door, propped ajar, for from within that adjacent room the flickering light emanated. "Who..-," before she could finish the sentence, she was forced into a stagger by the pressure of a cold, cold touch on her back that shoved her in the direction of the room.

The voice thrummed into her ear, so close that the hairs on her neck stood on end and a deep shiver ran down her spine, making her straighten and her eyes widen. "In you go, trespasser, in you go." Ennisa whirled, her dagger now held firmly in her sweating grip, but there was no-one there. "Petch it!" She cursed and swatted around, but could only hear sardonic laughter from within the lit room.

With trepidation mounting, Ennisa approached and pushed the door open. There was no sinister creaking this time, only well-oiled silence. Yet, the sight that befell her made her yelp as a headless pig's carcass hung from a beam, dripping a dark pool of blood onto a metal tray. Ennisa's hand lay by her side, the weapon there forgotten for the moment. Her eyes were drawn to the reflection of candlelight in the pool of dark, stinking blood, and she slowly dragged her eyes from the grisly body to the source of the light. Again, she couldn't hide the shock that drained the colour from her cheeks. A pumpkin, carved into a lantern, illuminated a clumsy portrait of a face. Dead, close-set eyes stared out with candle glow, whilst a curved mouth allowed Ennisa to see the tallow candle flickering and ashy within the lantern. A few other candles and a bowl filled with some horrible, chewed up mixture lay nearby.

WC : 815

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

It was hideous. The carving grinned without true feeling, and the smell of singed pumpkin flesh combined with the iron stink of the dripping blood left her feeling ill and disorientated. She stumbled backwards in an attempt to exit the pantry in which she had stepped into, but another freezing touch pricked between her shoulder blades, and this stopped her in her tracks.

Ennisa knew, deep in her soul, that she was strong-willed, but when the cold touch didn't stop and continued to dig into her, she lost sense of that strength. The feeling grew inside her, a feeling of betrayal by her own body as something foreign, alien and sickening, did its level-best to worm its way into her subconscious. She was lost in a sea of strangeness. The pig's torso seemed to sway though there was no wind, and its absurd trotters made some part of her want to give in to hysterical laughter. Something twisted around the muscles in her legs and tried to force her to walk towards the burning candles and the laughing pumpkin, but Ennisa did not want to do this. She fought, her teeth gritted, whilst the presence burrowing into her clung onto her core.

The possession, for that was what it was, felt utterly disorientating, but Ennisa was not some sick, helpless woman. She didn't understand what was going on, nor did she really know how to combat it. All she could do was attempt to do what her body naturally wanted her to do - get the thing out. Though it hurt her mind, thinking and pushing as hard as she could, after a short struggle, she managed to eject the invading spirit. Nevertheless, the act left her feeling breathless, and she rested her hand on the doorframe as she drew her strength back.

"Leave this house, woman. Leave now. Do not come back. Do not even think to harm me, or my beloved. Do not interfere with our business. Or I will do that to you again, only worse, and you won't resist me this time." The ethereal voice came from elsewhere. Ennisa looked around, intent on finding and identifying the source of the voice, convinced that this woman, for it was a woman's voice speaking, would provide some kind of answer to her questions. All she could see was a faint shadowy smudge hanging in the air.

She lurched forwards and attempted to grab the air, but it was of course in vain. The ghost laughed, the mirth very clear in the ringing peals of laughter that echoed off the tiled kitchen. Ennisa growled with frustration, but what could she do against a ghost? The woman was nothing but thin air. "Leave, woman. My Clement will be back very soon, and I have been merciful to you today. He may not be so merciful, considering what he told you earlier." As she was talking, the ghostly woman began to solidify slightly. Ennisa gawked at the emerging figure of the woman, and her stomach turned as her eyes were inevitably drawn to the blood-soaked dress she wore.

Her dark eyes held no joy, only dead swirling anger hidden only superficially by malevolent mirth. Her mouth curled into a smile. "What was that? Oh, yes." The woman disappeared. Ennisa gripped the dagger in her hand so tight she could feel her nails digging into her palm. Her heart beat faster. Then, that cold voice pressed against her ear. "S c r a m."

Ennisa, to her shame, did as the woman bid, and walked as measuredly and calmly as she could towards the exit. Fear left her smelling of sweat, for of course, she knew nothing of ghosts and this particular one's strengths and/or weaknesses. For all she knew, this ghost could kill her, and she would not risk that. From behind her came eerie laughter, but she ignored it to the best of her ability and, holding her breath, she pulled the door open and stepped out into the searing daylight of normality.

WC : 633
TOTAL : 5781

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request!

Ennisa

Skills

• Planning: 3xp
• Socialization: 1xp
• Observation: 5xp
• Land Navigation: 1xp
• Stealth: 2xp
• Intimidation: 1xp
• Rhetoric: 1xp
• Persuasion: 1xp
• Investigation: 2xp
• Spiritism: 1xp

Lores

• Stakeouts: boring affairs
• Land Navigation: navigating by familiar landmarks
• Itzi: is in trouble?
• Stealth: finding an advantageous spying position
• Stealth: sudden movements give you away
• Intimidation: tall and square body language
• Persuasion: pleading
• Itzi: is not herself
• Investigation: breaking and entering
• Spiritism: possession
• Lore of ghostly presence

Awards & Retribution

+broad brim hat, felt, dyed: -12ki

Notes
Another out-of-order grade, but I had to know what happened next! It was another fantastic read. Those last two posts really spooked me. I cant wait to see more of this mystery unraveled!

PS: Remember to list your purchased items (with any modifiers!) at the bottom of your posts. Failure to comply will result in stern finger wagging.