Open All the World's a Stage

[Raylan Ramsey]

Raylan was a tactile man. He believed what he could feel.He particularly tended to trust to his interpretations and his belief when it came to matters of faith, religions, death, and how they affected the world around him. So, when a ghost tried to take him. His mind resisted it will all the strength of character that a somewhat well trained mentalist hypnotist could muster. Now acknowledging that ghost did exist and should be seen with caution. Raylan hardly believed in the gods until he literally saw The Voice in Ravok, and by proxy Rhysol when the one being spoke of the other. And believed in Inou simply because the whole city was the gods evidence.

Now, he knew he needed to pry into the Craven Spoons affairs. Ghost were a problem that he'd need to learn how to deal with. Those were his thoughts after he forced Hurik out, because he did not like the sensation of not being in control. Even for the slightest tick of a chime, he hated knowing that his fingers tightened against the bird without his consent.

But, that was a new adventure for another day. “Note to self, ghosts are a problem. Find way to kill a thing that is already dead.” He thought as he flexed his muscles, feeling a little sore. But since he knew how to massage himself to rid himself of those aches, he'd do so later.

It was then that he looked down at the falcon chick in his hands. He was now no longer amused by it. Aenisa was luck. extremely luck, that she was in the area. Because without the birds owner in the area, Raylan would have left it dead on the ground. So, he simply knelt down to place the still alive chick on the ground for its owner to obtain it.

He then quickly joined Madeira at the statue, standing behind her. A little to her left to listen to the Slander's answer. No one would know how deeply the statues words hurt him, how his facial features formed into an intense scowl beneath his mask. Why? Because every word the Idol Slander had said was true. He was a man who hadn't seen his own reflection, on purpose, in a long time. The words rocked him mentally for a moment. He closed his eyes to focus himself before opening them again. And forced himself to smile. Because smiles meant you were happy.

“I am happy. Be happy. Life is good.”

Foxface thought as he buried all those negative emotions deep. Stuffing them away to never be seen again. The side of his eye twitched as he then believed himself to be happy. Glancing down to look at his mandolin...

“Huh?”

He mused aloud once he noticed the trail of footprints.

“Look up.” He spoke aloud to the group, telling any person that hadn't seen the track bad advice for where to look.

Then started to follow the trails.

[Aenisa]

The question hadn’t been in the air for more than a moments time when she felt the frame of the slender ghostly woman hit her. It wasn’t as much a hit as it was a collision and it sent the tired, exhausted and panting Aenisa forwards and down. The twist in the air made for a somewhat softer landing than she had expected, feeling the frame of the other woman underneath like that of a cushion she had taken most of the fall, Aenisa rolling off her in the fall. For a moment Aenisa let herself lay on the ground, watching the skeletonised woman come up onto her feet, it struck Aenisa how odd it looked when she did this. As she was starting to speak, she was taking breaths between words, the woman had her hands on her knees and seemed almost ready to keel over. Aenisa lay still on the ground, catching her own breath as the adrenaline in her system started to fade, now that they had gotten to the end of their chase, fox mask had gotten his escape with her bird.

The words that the woman was trying to convey to her didn’t really matter to Aenisa. From where was it that she had emerged? It seemed to her that all had gone past in a blur during the chase, did the city have streets below the streets? A puzzled expression pushed its way onto her features as she lay on the ground, still. Darkness and people everywhere was something that she had time to process, now, had the buildings been bright? Had they been dark, too? Aenisa didn’t know, she wasn’t sure.

Rolling onto her side, she dug her hands into the ground and pushed herself up from the uncomfortable floor that became her landing zone. Just as she stood, she saw that the skeletonised woman had noticed something, pointing in the direction of the statue she showed Aenisa where the thief had gone. In what Aenisa perceived to be a violent manner, her control, her mind was throw out of the way and the mind which she had forgotten about took over to scold her out of all things. It was ridiculous to Aenisa how the ghost thought it appropriate to scold the owner of the vessel which she had borrowed. She was beginning to regret having agreed to having this ghost lady inside of her mind. Aenisa mocked the lady inside of her mind “Lady Renee Kelling”, repeating those words in a silly voice, what a stuck-up ghost, couldn’t she have had a fun ghost instead?

As fox mask came into view, so did the statue, the ghost headed for the statue in no particular hurry it seemed, Aenisa was seething on the inside as she was forced along. Aenisa could see something happening to the masked man which brought out laughter from “Lady Renee Kelling” and the statue, which weirdly, spoke. When Aenisa first was shocked at this, for some reason the ghost within had chosen to take this opportunity to do some acrobatics for the amusement of the statue or the masked man, Aenisa couldn’t tell. It didn’t end with good reviews from the statue who promptly insulted the ghost and by proxy, Aenisa. Something about Wind Reach followed, Aenisa wasn’t paying much attention, her focus was on the fact that the statue itself could talk and as she felt “Lady Renee Kelling” fading away from her, she spoke.

“You speak? What statue speak?”

Following the rather half-insulting commentary on the life of the statue, Aenisa huffed and puffed before she remembered her bird. Eyes shooting in every direction she saw that the masked man had put her down onto the street, what an idiot, the bird could get trampled to death! Hurrying over to the bird she was quick to palm it up with one hand, her thumb stroking the side of the confused and panicked bird. An angry look was all that Aenisa would spare the masked man, for now. Her backpack came off and into it the bird went, chirping and screaming still, clearly it hadn’t enjoyed the journey that the fox had offered. As darkness wrapped itself around the bird it gradually quieted down and eventually fell completely silent again. With the backpack, back on her back again, Aenisa headed back to the statue. The group was still there, still looking like a flock of wild geese trying to figure out where the food was at. No statue had ever held the answer to a mystery and neither would it today, it would be the labour of the group and nothing else that would guide them right.

“Huh?” Came from the fox masked man, Aenisa was quick to respond. “You can not come here, it is my bird. I got eye on you.” Her eyes like a pair of daggers, seething and plotting but knowing that in the square, with all the people, was not the time, nor the place. She was going to have to bide her time and so when the masked man told the rest to look up, Aenisa kept her eyes firmly on him, she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight. He was heading away from the statue, Aenisa followed.

“Lady Renee Kelling…” Aenisa said in a mocked, silly voice. “… what name are that? Is it important or something? You can’t be ghost woman or ReKe or…” Aenisa paused for a moment, she had never been one that was quick with her wit and so now she was trying to figure out how to best insult the woman. She failed. “… Laurie, huh?” Blast, she had wanted to say something about the fact that she was no longer alive, to annoy the ghost, she would have to do it next time the ghost was annoying. Aenisa now focused instead on the fox clad man that she was following, the bird theif, the one that the statue had insulted. The statue had insulted everyone it seemed, but the fox man was among them too. “Where you going now? To steal another bird? Hmm? I have no mask, you have mask. You hate you, why you hate you?” She poked him in the back of his shoulder with her nimble fingers, expecting him to half-respond and half-ignore her completely. Aenisa was not amused and she was going to get her revenge.

SPACER

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira breathed deep, held, and exhaled. The statue had loomed over the five of them with it's benign face and just told them their deepest insecurities. But worse than hearing aloud the things you only think about yourself, was knowing that these four complete strangers now knew them too.

Hurik is a poor imitation of the life he can't remember.

Poor dead Renee wanted to relive her glory days.

Anesia struggled with self worth.

Foxface struggled with self loathing.

Madeira was a disappointment to her powerful family.

The Spiritist looked at the hateful statue to avoid looking any of their motley group in the eye. Her cheeks were on fire with shame but her face was a carefully composed mask of indifference. Besides Hurik, she did not know (and did not need to know)that about any of them, and they certainly didn't need to know that about her.

The statue then barrelled into the worst advice she could have expected. The Inverted were 'right under their noses'. Madeira loved a good riddle as much as the next Avalad, but this was a cliché that could mean literally anything. The skinny teenage was puffing herself up to rip this unfazable stone a new orifice where he could stuff his absurd advice, when Foxface spoke:

"Look up."

And Madeira was one of the idiots who did. Her eyes flicked upward to the azure spring sky when the black coated man brushed by following the footprints. Quickly followed by the redhead who chattered to him in broken common. Cursing her gullibility, and eyes scanning the crowed to make sure Hurik was coming too, Madeira followed after them
and the mysterious footprints.

[Hurik]

3rd of Spring, 517 Av

Hurik heard the slanderer's words. They echoed in his brain, scrubbing away the nightmares and the fog. Despite his fatigue from his miserable possession attempt, and the harsh truth the statue spat at him, he felt more like himself again. And it was true, maybe it wasn't helpful to aspire to life when he was so clearly dead but...

Hurik raised his hands, splayed them, and admired the soulmist coursing through the gaps in his fingers, writhing and coiling about his amulet. He couldn't be just something dead, that was restless. There was such life yet, such vigour in his spirit! He had a reason to persist, to live on, and to not yet be flung into whatever oblivion or nothingness most certainly lay beyond the veil of death. Yes, no matter how much people might try to make me deny it, I can interact with the living, and am thus a part of their life. I am a kind of life, clinging to itself, yet longing to return to a greater whole...

As it so happened, Hurik was looking down and at this moment especially he was inclined to ignore anything Foxface might say, and so he saw the footsteps, and saw that Madeira saw them. He followed silently behind her, a rarity for him to be sure, but he was quietly awash with passionate revelry in his own self-discovery. He was alive! He was! He knew it in his mind, in his heart, and in his soul. Delusion? In the City of Illusion, Hurik mused, there is more truth in delusion than there is in right-mindedness.

Boxcode credit: Roselina.

[Chameleon]

There was a silence from the ghost, despite Aenisa's words. Her attention had fallen on the footsteps, and her ego was still a little bruised from the encounter with the statue. The quicker they got away from him, the better. Thankfully, her host moved quickly, distracted by Foxface who had problems of his own - both from the insults and from the angry red head who had had her bird stolen.

And so the group moved through the city, guided by the footprints. They led a clear trail, never fading against the floor, but occasionally blocked by a particularly large group of Alvadas who refused to budge, or didn't notice the group at the very least. Somehow, the two ghosts, the spiritist, the man in the mask and the woman who had her bird stolen were the only ones who could spot the trail, obvious from the strange glances they received with their stares at the empty space in the ground. Were they chosen ones - and chosen for what reason?

The trail led up the street, around a corner and past three houses that were practically identical, from the colour to the front door to the flowers in the pots outside of them. As the city moved around them, the footprints danced left and right, as they had actually been laid by a person moving through the busy streets. But who could it be? They looked too perfect to be real, surely?

Then they stopped, suddenly in the very centre of a street that stretched out far to either side. There was no indication of anything - no struggle, no change of direction - they simply vanished, and once the last of the group had reached the last footsteps, the ones from behind would disappear too, leaving a single pair of footprints in the middle of the street for them to congregate around.

That only left the question of what to do next. The murmur of the Inverted had almost disappeared from the streets, and what few people that they could see were busy with their daily lives, scurrying back and forth in a desperate attempt to actually get somewhere when they wanted to. No matter how hard they looked, the trail refused to reappear or pick up a little later, and the streets would always bend back to the same spot, the same footprints that were the only ones that were still visible.

There was clearly something about them that Ionu wanted them to see, or do, or something. But what was it? It was up to them to find out. After all, they were so close to finding the Inverted. All they had left to do was... well, find them! Of course, that was a lot easier said than done.

notejust to let you know, just because I say that walking around gets you nowhere, by the way, doesn't mean don't try it, if you want to. I just have to fill up my threads with something

[Aenisa]

As she had finished berating the fox-masked clad man she allowed her eyes to be more of a tool again and she noticed that the man was looking at something on the ground. Her eyes ventured down south and spotted the marks on the ground, she allowed one of her hands to scratch the side of her head. What was the marks that she had laid her eyes on? They seemed to be like tiny footprints of sorts and yet, did everyone see them? It seemed that everyone did indeed see them as they all followed them like a tiny train of adventurers.

Her head only raising to make sure that the rest of the group were with them once they had gotten a fair distance from the statue. They were all with them. Small and large groups dotted the streets as they were walking past and through these groups, some spared glances and others didn’t seem to give them any moment of their thoughts. It was odd, Aenisa thought, nobody else seemed to mind the prints that had been laid out for them all to follow, it was such an adventure and nobody wanted to go on it. As they moved along the streets and past a trio of houses that seemed strangely, suspiciously alike Aenisa couldn’t help but to think that the prints that they were following would lead to nothing. What if, she thought, the prints were nothing more than another illusion by Ionu to lead them into Darkness and out of care and view of the city.

Once they finally arrived at those last set of steps it seemed that her thoughts had been wrong and instead that they had been brought to a totally random location in the city. Aenisa sighed heavily and then she said aloud to everyone. “Nothing, where they go?” The footsteps had just disappeared from the ground and seemed to not really go anywhere any more. A frown and a disappointed expression was all that Aenisa offered. She squat down in front of the prints as she looked at them in wonder, they had to tell her something, right? They pointed in one direction, seemingly into another street, would they lead anywhere? She didn’t know.

A deep sigh and then Aenisa stood back up, she pointed towards the direction of where the prints seemed to lead as she said proudly, as if she had solved a mystery. “This is where they go.” Taking the lead, she quickly ventured in that direction, her eyes on the ground as she disappeared from the footsteps and into the side streets. It would not have taken long for the red-headed Inarta to appear back out onto the street, seemingly heavily focused on the non-existent footprints, trying to find a new pair, she was squinting and looking around the streets. Slowly she was getting closer to the one and only set of footsteps in the entire street.

“Ah-ha! Here!” Aenisa suddenly exclaimed as she came back to the previous footsteps in the street, it wasn’t until she looked up that she got a little suspicious, it looked very much like the previous street that they had been on. She didn’t mind that they might have been the same prints as she looked to see if the rest of the group was with her, if they had gone with her, she would be beaming, proud of what she had found. If the group already stood around the footprints she would give them a surprised look before she looked at them proudly as well. She seemed like a dog who just found a bone.

SPACER

[Madeira Dusk]

When the group found the last pair of prints, Madeira did not follow the red-head further. Instead she carefully superimposed her slippered feet on the last pair of footprints, then looked out across the street with her hands on her narrow hips. If this was the last place their mysterious traveller stood, what did he see?

People, buildings, madness. A tortoise made of marble soldiered by, a man on the other side of the street leapt onto a barrel to escape a pack of snarling, sentient books. A woman nearby leaned over a iron fence to smell a rose, only to sneeze violently and explode into flower petals. Madeira couldn't single out anything unusual that their
footprints might have lead to. Not in Alvadas, and certainly not that day.

Just then the Inarta came running back with a triumphant 'here!' on her tongue and a proud smile on her lips.

"Good job", Madeira supplied weakly, finding herself unable to damped the woman's enthusiasm at having found the exact same footprints.

Another thought hit her as their proud explorer returned. If Anesia could loop around and still not find anything, what if there was nothing left to follow? At least, not on the ground. Madeira’s suspicious eyes eyes trained upwards into the bright azure sky.

"You don't think our invisible man could have flown off, do you?" the Avalad asked the group with genuine concern.

[Hurik]

3rd of Spring, 517 AV

Hurik followed Madeira who was following the footprints. Then they stopped. Hurik's impression was just as clueless as Madeira's.

"Could be they flew away, or melted into thin air. Though without some other hint or clue, I doubt we'll be finding the Inverted. And at this point, that's something of a disappointment."

OOCI'll add more, but if people are waiting on me, I've got nothing to add. Chameleon? You got anything for us?

Boxcode credit: Roselina.

[Aenisa]

3rd of Spring - 517 AV

Aenisa stood dumbfounded by the prints where the rest of the group was currently at. For a moment it crossed her mind that she might have not been as quick as she suspected and that the rest of the group had taken another path. Looking around the small area she noticed that it all seemed very familiar though, as if they had all been there before. Surely it wasn’t that she had gone in a circle and returned to the same prints? Aenisa frowned as she tried to figure out what was truly going on.

The voice of the scrawny nobility woman was like a poisonous arrow, full of envy and jealousy, she was jealous. Aenisa knew this now. Stepping into the footsteps themselves she looked around the skies above the group, they weren’t chasing a bird, were they? It was some sort of theatrical group or another that they were chasing. “You think he is a bird? Maybe it is ghost and he went in ground? We look on roof?” Trying her hardest to be helpful, Aenisa pointed at a couple of nearby houses, none of which seemed to offer any access to their rooftops.

It seemed to be an impossible puzzle that the group had arrived at, footsteps but nothing leading away from where they ended. It was as if they had literally just disappeared. The steps which had led them to the spot was sure to have been a sign for them, a sign that they were the ones who were going to find the group, find the theatre and get to see their acrobatics. Now they stood confused as people wandered past, nobody cared much about them it seemed either. Aenisa scratched her head, she wanted badly to show the group now that she could be intelligent as well and not just come with some random comments here and there. “What if they be inside? A home?” She offered as well, her hand sweeping over the many houses nearby as a question.

With those few offerings of words, Aenisa started off towards a house that looked to offer a way up the side of the house onto the roof. “I will see better from top.” She said as she walked off towards the house. Reaching the side, she looked to see if anyone was following her onto the roof. A small wall met her first, carefully she put her hands onto the wall and pushed herself up onto it, she would have to do some balancing to reach the next lower roof over someone’s garden. Walking slowly on the tiny wall she was swaying from side to side, the bird in her backpack chirping somewhat nervously at the wavy motions.

SPACER

[Madeira Dusk]

"What if they be inside? A home?"

Madeira blinked and looked around them, noting the bubbling, party
atmosphere, the festive colours and abundance of street acts. If they
wanted to hide, well, it would be easy to here. They could very well
be in one of those houses.

Without any better ideas, Madeira followed the redhead to the wall.
Aenisa scaled the smooth surface like it was nothing, while Madeira
looked to the roof dubiously. She wasn't sure she had the upper body
strength or the balance needed for such feats. She opted to stay
firmly rooted to the ground and call encouragement's to the bold Inarta.

And while Aenisa navigated the skies, the Spiritist walked around to
the front of the house she was climbing on and knocked smartly on the door. There was nothing wrong with checking. Perhaps the Inverted
really were inside. And if that was the case, she was willing to knock
on every door in Alvadas to find them.