[The Beneath] When Souls Depart II

[Luther]

3rd - Cylus - 719
(continued from here)

With hurried step and bated breath, Luther near-ran through the imprint of a city whose name eluded him; though right now the last thing on his mind was the title of a place he had never visited in life. No, he had a better mystery to unravel right here in his hands. He could feel the warmth come off in waves, the sun-ray shine of the hexcore in his hands gleaming out between his fingertips. Giddy with excitement, which was an emotion that Luther could not remember possessing since his refusal of Vri's hand, the echo tore across the afterimage of a cobble path and away from where prying eyes might see his golden secret. John Sharp was a strange phantom, and it was stranger still to Luther that he would gift him something so valuable after a single conversation.

The phantom's final words before Judgement still rang in Luther's ears. Heretic. The word felt so heavy in the ghost's brain that he couldn't begin to summon it to his tongue. Was that what he was becoming? Was asking, no, demanding ownership over one's own soul so contrary to the purpose of the Immortals that he would be considered an apostate? An infidel? A heretic? Eyes narrowed in thought, Luther looked down at the sphere in his hand as he walked a steady pace away from the city. What if this was Sharp's final trick, a trapped hexcore to lure a dissenting mind into madness in order to gain final favor with those who would be gods? Possible. However, Luther didn't think it likely. Sharp seemed so defeated with his time in the Beneath that he consigned himself to damnation, a fate the echo considered far worse than any melancholy brought about by these ghostlands. It was only Luther's ironclad imperative that seemed to shake the shadow of a man from his mania, so what point or purpose would handing him a trapped hexcore serve?

None, Luther decided. Sharp seemed crazy enough at times to do it regardless of reason, but for some reason the echo trusted the man's final act before Judgement. There was a poetry to it, something so secretive, so rebellious, so distinctly mortal that Luther could not allow his skepticism to reign over his actions.

Out of the city now, he turned to look back at the spot where he found that phantom. No more blinding light shot from its center, and no more thunderous din shook the eerie peace of the Beneath. Once again, Luther was a lone soul caught in a thick atmosphere of melancholy. Finding a secluded spot underneath the protective branches of a withered oak, Luther sat and stared at the slightly glowing orb in his hand.

Pity that Sharp didn't dean to tell the echo how to open the damned thing.

[Luther]

Burned and blackened fingernails scratched against the peerless surface of the orb, trying to find purchase on golden surface of the sphere. Nothing. Placing the tips of his fingers on opposite sides, Luther attempted to twist open the shining mystery that lay betwixt his fingers. Still, nothing. He growled, a sound dry and dark like coal, and place the hexcore between his teeth, clamping down and trying to force the sphere open with the strength of his jaw. Nothing!

Sighing in defeat, Luther looked down at the still peerless surface of the hexcore in his hands. The object was, even with the echo’s increasingly aggressive attempts to open it, without fault. The golden gleam that brightened the dull gray of the Beneath was undoubtedly beautiful, but to Luther it looked as if its light glared up at him with defiant, mocking intent. The slow burn of anger pumping through his veins, the ghost was half-tempted to smash the hexcore against the withered tree he sat under, but somehow he figured the oak would dent before the sphere broke.

He didn’t understand. Why would Sharp give him something so valuable among ghosts, and not explain how it worked before he left? As manic as the man had been, he seemed sincere before he left for judgement. What was he missing?

Luther settled in against the weathered bark of the deadwood he sat against, mentally reviewing where he had gone wrong. The hexcore couldn’t be opened via brute force, he had established that thoroughly. So if the physical had failed, what was left? Or, more aptly, what was left that a creature like Sharp would utilize?

He nearly laughed as the realization came to him. Sharp had an endless hunger to him, Luther had seen and heard as much when he talked with the phantom, and there was only one real way that any ghost could feed. Syphon.

Luther had only seen the skill once, and even that was enough to send a shiver down his spine. A phantom feasting on an echo and Luther watching in the background, too weak and new to intervene but too horrified and mystified to look away.

Pushing the memory out of his mind, he once again turned his gaze down towards the hexcore in his hands. Knowing what to do with the sphere didn’t make performing the action any easier, and Luther wasn’t sure where to start. Furrowing his brow, the ghost focused hard into the orb in his hand. He willed the hexcore to meld with him, demanding that it open.

Nothing happened.

With an audible grunt of infuriation, Luther raised his hand as if to throw the ball of gold back into the gray depths of the Beneath. Arm tensing with action, he felt the urge to throw the object fade as quickly as it came. He couldn’t give up, not yet.

Breathing in, soft and slow, Luther held the hexcore loosely in his hand. He didn’t need the breath, but it felt comfortable to at least simulate the behavior. Demanding the sphere to open for him didn’t work, but perhaps the opposite would prove otherwise. He stopped forcing the issue, stopped trying to bend the thing to his will and instead simply let his walls down. The edges of his soul began to unravel, and his exposed self bloomed forward. Pushing his ectoplasm into the effort, his soul reached outward towards the hexcore with grasping threads of being. With a shudder of pleasure, Luther felt the golden sphere merge with his essence. Its ectoplasm became his and his ectoplasm became its. They were one, inseparable through the symphony of syphon.

Luther’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and the world went dark.

[Luther]

Luther awoke to the sound of singing. He could feel the familiar rough grain of tavern floorboards scrape against his head as he rolled over on his sides. For the first time in Ralaith-knows how long, he felt truly and unapologetically drunk. His vision wobbled as he struggled to pick himself off of the beer-stained wood, falling back down with a shocked laugh as he realized something extremely peculiar.

Luther could feel. Absurd, excited laughter bubbled out of him as scraped his palms against the tavern floor. He could really, truly feel. Air thick with the stench of alcohol filled his lungs, but he didn’t care about the smell. What mattered was that he could taste that heat of it on his tongue and that he could feel the swell of his chest as it pooled within him. So enrapt with an ability he thought was long beyond him, he sat on his hands and knees panting on the floor like an tired dog; not caring if he was causing a scene for the locals.

Maybe it had all been a drunk dream? His death, his family’s death, the fire, the betrayal, all of it just a fabrication of a few too many glasses of whiskey at a festival? It had to be, it just had to be! He was alive! His family was alive!

A foot stepped through his kneeling form, shattering his frantic delusions. The image of his body regained its spectral appearance as the stranger continued to walk through, and it took no small amount of willpower from Luther to keep from collapsing in on himself.

He was still dead. Whatever he felt in here was an afterimage of a memory. A memory that wasn’t even his, but belonged to a phantom called Johnny Sharp. He remembered now, he remembered all of it.

Pounding a fist into the faded floor, Luther attempted to right himself. He felt woozy from the effects of his first syphon, but he was primarily mad at himself for falling so quickly for delusions of his own making. Thrown off by the sudden wave of sensation, both emotional and physical, after being deprived of them for so long, Luther stood slowly and carefully. He cast his cautious gaze to the room he found himself in, reminded of the reason he had even attempted to open the man's hexcore in the first place. Sharp had said something in here would help Luther master his own soul. The only thing to do now was figure out what the man had meant for him to find.

The memory was of a tavern, but he couldn't see Sharp anywhere with its walls. It was crowded, more than two dozen bustling bodies crammed into a tight room and pumped full of enough alcohol to to make seasoned Empire soldier look like a lightweight in comparison. Wherever he was, these people liked their drinks strong and their parties loud. It was almost overstimulating, Luther having been so used to the grey quiet of the Beneath for so long that he had nearly forgotten the sound of song and cheer. He would have loved to just stand there among the many patrons, drowning himself in rapturous noise in an attempt to abandoned the endless silence he had consigned himself to. But no, Luther had made his choice to live an afterlife absent of color in pursuit of truth. He would not abandon that journey just for the ease of excess. Drinking deep of the sound around him once more, Luther let go of the pleasure and pressed onward into the crowd. There was something for him in Sharp's memory. and he would be distracted no longer.

Luther found he could observe in the hexcore, but he couldn't interact or change the things that were. People passed through with ease, and the echo found it more than a little ironic that he was even more of a ghost here than in the Beneath. He caught snippets of conversation as he phased through patrons, but still he found no sign of Sharp as he approached the bar. Whatever gift the phantom had planted in this memory wasn't plainly observable. Sighing in frustration, he was about to turn back into the crowd for another passing search when he spotted a small child draped in a brown cloak dart up the stairs to an upper part of the tavern.

It couldn't be...could it?

Chewing on his cheek, Luther looked back and forth between the crowd and the staircase. He hadn't considered that perhaps Sharp's memory wasn't of the celebration itself, but of something that occurred around the same time and in the same area. Cutting through the crowd of rowdy drunks with a quick step, Luther chased after where the child had disappeared up the steps. Anything in this memory could be of importance, and the echo would leave no stone unturned until he found what the phantom had left behind.

[Luther]

An echo chasing a child-shaped shadow, Luther moved through the patrons which crowded the base of the stairs with an ethereal ease. His shoes clipped against the steps, soft as a whisper, and the human couldn’t resist running an idle hand against the splintered wooden railing as he raced up after the child. After arcs of absence, any feeling of the living world was welcome against the rough calluses of his hands. Even the pain of poorly sanded would breaking off under his skin. Especially the pain.

Drunk on sensation, Luther could see how easy it was to get lost in these memories. Everything in here felt so real. The sound of raucous, off-key singing. The smell of sweat and beer rolling off bar patrons. The taste of electric excitement in the air. If Sharp had the ability to create such vivid recreations of his memories, Luther wondered why the man would ever leave them? This figment was a far better reality from the ambient, unending gray of the Beneath.

But then, it wasn't reality was it? No, he decided, just a beautiful lie built from the fading memories of a fractured man. These hexcores were dangerous, perhaps the most dangerous things found in undeath. If one was trapped in the past, then they would never have a future to build. No life after this one, no paradise of any making. Simple, false bliss. A honey trap for wayward spirits, Luther was suddenly acutely aware of how long he had spent inside a memory that was not his own. He needed to find what was worth finding quickly, lest he was suckered into this sweet illusion.

Quiet crying twisted through the cracks of Luther's concentration, drawing him further away from the promise of pleasure that this memory offered. He had a mission, and he would not allow himself to be distracted any further. Reaching the top of the staircase, the ghost saw a long hallway stretch out before him with many doors closed off and abandoned in favor of the party downstairs. One door, however, remained ajar; candlelight casting dancing shadows with its flickering flame as quiet sobbing crawled through the only opening. Brows furrowed in curiosity, Luther hurried towards the sound, slipping between the crack in the door like smoke through a ceiling. A boy, not more than six arcs old by Luther's guess, lay with his head on a woman's lap, his crying muffled by the fabric of the woman's dress. He was clutching a small, iron-wrought jar to his chest so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

"M-m-momma, why did h-h-he go away?" the child's voice cut through the sound of his own sobs, wet and broken. It was young and raw with tears, but not so different that Luther could not place it. This boy was Sharp, and this moment was the reason he had given the echo his hexcore.

"Oh darlin', your father isn't really gone. None of us are really 'gone' when we pass," she smiled down sadly at the trembling boy crying hot tears into her lap. Luther could tell she had demons of her own to face, but such was strength of a mother to put aside her woes in order to help her child. She placed a finger under Sharp's chin, drawing his head upwards so he could meet her kind, loving gaze. "You remember what the clergyman said at the funeral? You remember the lines he read from that book of his?"

Sharp nodded slightly, but with confusion in his young eyes. "Yeah," he started, before shaking his head. "B-bits of it I guess."

The woman laughed at this, a quiet, hollow thing in the face of tragedy. She ruffled the boy's hair affectionately before picking him up and placing him in her lap. Drawing him close, she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. "Well, it was a long one. I remember it though. Would you like for me to say for you?"

He didn't respond, and the mother simply hugged him tightly and rested her chin atop his head. She hummed quietly at the boy, and eventually he nodded for her to continue.

"When Souls Departs Flesh And Bone
Swaddled In Deed
The Scales Shall Judge Each
According To Their Lives
The Guide
Thou Wicked Hand
Thou Gentle Grasp
Shall Lead Each Step Farther
To Worlds Beyond Worlds
Emean Caverns Bright
Wounds Deep As Time
Masarvva, Oh Silent City
Colegut, Oh Ashen Tunnels
Olamanelle, Oh Silver Sky
Beware, Oh Souls, The False Lantern
To Lead Thee Astray
And Lay You Down In Torment
All The Days That Remain."

Sharp looked curiously up at his mother, and Luther had to admit he was perplexed as well. For as devout as his family had been, he had never heard a litany such as this in any of the religious rites of the Empire. Masarvva? Colegut? The False Lantern? So many of the words sounded foreign to him that the echo couldn't make heads or tails of what the mother had just said. Sharp looked to share his confusion, and though the boy may have been familiar with the words, he didn't show that it connected with him now of all times.

"Momma, I don't get it," the boy shared before burying his head into his mother's chest. His small form shook, and he looked liable to start crying again.

"Sweetie, it means your father is in a better place now. His soul will not touch Masarvva or Colegut, but be guided into paradise. Do you know why, my love?" The boy still held tight against his mother's body, the young Sharp shook his head in ignorance. "Because he was a good man, a devout and kind man who spoke nothing but truth. Only the evil, the deceivers, the killers, and the blasphemers, end up in Torment. Your father was none of these, and neither are you. Everyone has their time on Idalos my love, even us, but one day we will join him in paradise and be a family once again. Do you understand?"

Luther didn't stay in the memory long enough to hear Sharp's answer.

[Luther]

His mind left the tavern of Sharp's past, and re-entered the Remnant of present.

Once again, he was sitting in contemplative silence underneath the wilting deadwood of an oak tree. He had found what Sharp had left for him in the hexcore, and the memory ended as soon as he had heard it. It was that litany, that old poem of the afterlife which he had never heard before in the borders of the Empire. There was still much to dissect from it, but Luther understood why Sharp had left him that hymn before his departure to Judgement. It was a outline of the afterlife, and it was a warning to where he would end up if he continued questioning the Immortals and their follower's judgment.

Torment and Damnation.

Rising from where he sat, Luther turned back towards the lightning-stained city which quaked with unanswered thunder. His stride became imperious, determined. For a moment Luther wondered if this was what if felt like when his grandfather had marched off to war. His fight, however, took a different form from the legions of soldiers that razed resistance in the name of the Emperor. He fought not for god nor country, but for his soul. He'd lay siege against Famula and her legion of lanterns, he'd tear through Emea and Masarvva and Colegut and Olamanelle, he would ravage the sacred Halls of Judgement if it meant he would finally have truth.

He couldn't trust the Immortals to do that for him, he knew that much from his death. He couldn't trust their followers either, sheep who willingly give themselves to the slaughter would do nothing but bleat at him in ignorance. The words of the saved and the saviors would be nothing but divine lies disguised as providence. The oppressors could hardly be called upon to give a fair judgement of their failings, so he needed to speak to the oppressed. The Forsaken, the Fallen, and the Damned. When the faithful lit false lanterns to lead the innocent astray, Luther could only trust the word of those tossed down into Judgement by that holy hymn. Pagans, heretics, apostates, and heathens. Company he could only find in Damnation.

But if that was where he would find answers, then Luther would lower himself into the deepest trenches of Torment to find truth.

[Aegis]

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Thread Review

I absolutely loved this thread, and I'm glad I got to read the one before it as well for the context. I love the raw emotion and curiosity you put into this character. Well done ghostie!

Word Count: 3,446
Review Request Link: viewtopic.php?f=242&t=16103&start=200#p110608

Luther

• Skill Points - 10 (Ghost Skills only)
• Renown - 0
• Skill Knowledges
  1. Hex: A hexcore can only be opened by Syphon
  2. Hex: Hexcores hold memories
  3. Hex: Memories feel too real
  4. Syphon: The opening of one's soul
  5. Syphon: Drains ectoplasm
  6. Discipline: Refusing to lose oneself in a memory
• Non-Skill Knowledges
  1. Afterlife: The Hymn of Judgement
  2. Afterlife: Masarvva, the Silent City
  3. Afterlife: Colegut, the Ashen Tunnels
  4. Afterlife: Olamanelle, the Silver Sky
  5. Afterlife: Emea, the Bright Caverns
  6. The False Lantern: A title to investigate
  7. Torment and Damnation: What awaits blasphemers
• Items and Other Rewards

Player 2

• Skill Points -
• Renown -
• Skill Knowledges
• Non-Skill Knowledges
• Items and Other Rewards

Final Notes

If you have any questions, please PM me.

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