‘Sister’ Aathryl follows Daniel and the guard, looking at the detritus of interrupted renovations and the chairs that Daniel indicates. She glancing to the guard at Daniel’s question nodding to the reply and smiling as he self-censors his commentary.
Smiling, she interjects quickly. “Relax–” there is a pause as she peers at the tag on his chest, “–Isaac, I have seen and heard enough in this … umm … occupation … to not be offended by some fruitful language.”
Noting the slight change in Daniel’s attention, she glances in the direction he was looking but fails to see anything. At Isaac’s comment she looks between him and Daniel.
Daniel ignores the guard’s remark, laser-focused on the room he saw the shape duck into. He unbuckles the 4th and 5th bells on his bandolier, holding one in either hand and pointedly holding the clapper of the larger one down with his fingers. “You wanted t’know about th’bells… Dyrim, the Speaker–it allows speech or gets th’Dead t’shut up, as needed. Bigger boy Belgaer is th’Thinker, restorin’ memories or erasin’ as needed. I use these two t’start things, though Belgaer likes t’ring on its own so I gotta keep it in check.”
Isaac’s expression turns neutral, which in Daniel’s experience means that he’s trying very hard to hide the fact that the guard thinks his guest is cuckoo for Coco Puffs. Entirely understandable–that would’ve been Daniel’s opinion not too long ago.
Daniel rings each bell once, their tones cascading into the empty room. Dyrim echoes an almost musical tone through the area, akin to a church handbell at Christmas mass; Belgaer has a curious warbling sound, seeming to shift its tone at random like a radio operator searching for a frequency.
Daniel waits until their sound fades before trapping the clappers again. “I saw you earlier an’ I know ya’here, so there’s no point in bein’ coy. C’mon out.”
Isaac rolls his eyes again, this clearly not being the first time he’s heard a ‘professional’ say something like that. His attitude shifts in a heartbeat when a nearby door squeaks shut, the doorknob latching into place. It’s a futile gesture, as the wall to the left of the door has been knocked open, but still…
The burly man draws and turns on a flashlight the size of a small club, gripping it in a way to use it as such should he need to. “Like he said, I know you’re in there. You’re not in trouble, just make this easy on us.”
Daniel holds back, letting the security guard do his job–in his experience, they get a bit antsy when the visitors try to bull-rush what might be a vagrant. They wait in silence for a minute, the door still shut tight. Isaac carefully approaches with his club/light and tests the doorknob. Finding it unlocked, he calls out again. “Get back from the door, I’m coming in!”
Daniel half-expects the burly to kick it open, but Isaac merely opens it, scanning around with his flashlight. The beam follows his line of sight as he holds the light over his shoulder, and his eyes go wider and wider as he clears the room. “It’s … it’s empty. You saw it close, right?”
Thryl’s attention quickly settles on Daniel as she notes his change in demeanour and starts to unsheathe two of his bells. Listening closely as he explains the bells and why he’s trapped the clapper of the larger bell from the get-go.
Trying to keep her face neutral at Isaac’s interjection and expression but she can’t keep the smile from her face at his loudly rolled eyes following the tolling of the bells. She had definitely felt the unfamiliar power as they chimed.
Under other circumstances, unrecognized magic would have had her become very defensive. However, she’d come to trust Daniel, so she just stood there allowing the scenario to play itself out. Despite her earlier briefing, she was uncertain of what it was she was going to experience.
She nods in answer to Isaac’s question.
“Eeyup,” Daniel, says. That is all the confirmation he has time to offer as a whisper draws their attention back to the doorframe. It’s faint–so faint and so quick that the confirmation almost overrides the whisper, even though it echoes clear and cold as day. Three simple words that send chills up the spines of all present.
“Where is she?”
Thryl gives a slight shudder and absentmindedly takes a half pace closer to Daniel at the barely audible whisper.
She looks first to Daniel and then to Isaac, signalling the later to return to them. Forcing herself to remain ‘neutral’, fighting off the urge to draw her pistols she looks to Daniel again, for guidance.
It wasn’t just the disembodied voice, there was a different feeling to the room. The feeling of unfamiliar power intensified. There was a distinct drop in temperature.
Biting her lower lip lightly, she realized she wasn’t so much afraid as … excited.
Daniel curses under his breath, his mind racing. There’s too much activity for this to be a latent haunting–essentially, a ‘recording’ of a spirit, looping the same actions over and over. There’s an intelligence here, though what it is…
The three of them jump as a chair scrapes against the ground, as if someone had bumped into it walking past. Isaac nearly clocks Daniel with the butt end of his flashlight by accident as he whips around to face it.
“Jeezus bro, easy!” he says, almost losing his glasses as he whips his head back.
“Easy for you to say!” Isaac barks, half-braced to club the chair if it comes any closer. “This is a construction zone, I do NOT need a circular saw flying at me!”
“It’s here because it’s got unfinished business,” Dan says, privately finding it hard to argue the point. “We help it finish that business, it’s gone.” He’s reluctant to ring the bells a third time; the number 3 has big significance in magical circles according to Aunt Karrin’s journal, but he’s wary of shorting out their light supply.
He decides to split it both ways, putting The Speaker away before ringing the Thinker again in the hopes of prompting better conversation. The Speaker had done its job, and depending on how long this place has been haunted, the spirit’s old memories could well have faded over time, a bit like magnetic tape. (God, THERE’S an outdated metaphor…) “I’ll ask again, who are you–”
The flashlight’s beam wavers with the bell’s intonation, then fizzles out altogether.
Pandemonium erupts. The chair slides forward again, this time at the speed of a bicyclist, and barely misses the trio. Isaac dodges away, but the door closes behind them before he can make an escape. He leans against it, shielding his face as papers, dust, and discarded goggles and gloves fill the air as a vortex erupts around them What started as a whisper becomes a scream, a long, breathless wail of pure emotion repeating the same words over and over again.
*"Where is she?! WHERE IS SHE?! WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE?!"
The three of them are relatively bunched up when the chair moves and they all jump … She can’t help herself when Daniel makes his exclamation, “Language Daniel … That‘s the Lord’s name, not a curse.” Her grin has widened, and it could be said that she was enjoying herself way too much.
*Glancing at Isaac a little surprised with his reply to Daniel, *“I hadn’t thought of that … “ Then comes the warbling toll of Belgaer … The associated power dampens the spell she’d caste on the flashlight and it’s extinguished. Momentarily forgetting her disguise, she accompanies this occurrence with a heartfelt “F^<K!”
Mirroring Isaacs move, she shields her face from the flying building site detritus and doesn’t even register the chair flies past her at speed, she does hear the screech of wood as it’s dragged across the floor.
Forced to momentarily cover her ears as the whispered “Where is she?!” rapidly becomes a very raw emotionally charged scream. Exactly what that emotion is, is difficult to determine. Certainly, there is anger and frustration … But is there also fear, or longing.
“Who the f^<k is ‘she’?! Any idea who its searching for?! Its acting like one of the kids throwing a tantrum!”
“What?!” Daniel yells, barely catching Thryl’s question. His distraction costs him, and one of the swirling bits of detritus takes him full in the face. Thankfully it’s only a couch cushion, but the impact is enough to to make him flinch and drop the bells.
Daniel half-falls, half-rolls back, growling. Despite his glasses, something from that cushion had gotten into his eye thanks to the impact, and the gods alone know how many arses had sat on it before renovation began.
The prospect of cursed Pink Eye aside, this was escalating far beyond what he was used to. While he shields his eyes with an arm, his free hand traces over his bandolier, checking twice to make sure he settles on the second-to-largest bell before drawing it. It peals out with an authoritative clang, not unlike a schoolmarm’s bell signaling the start of class.
“STOP IT!”
The maelstrom dies away as if a switch had been flipped, all manner of objects dropping to the ground at once. Isaac yelps as a hard hat clatters on top of his foot, though more out of shock than pain. After a brief rustling, Daniel removes a glow stick from his jacket, cracking it and then shaking it to illuminate the room in a teal hue. After making sure everyone’s all right, he nods to Thryl. “Saraneth–the Binder. It’s the ‘I’m not askin’ anymore’ bell when th’Dead don’t wanna listen. I try t’reason with 'em first, but–”
He pauses as a shrill keening starts to sound from the middle of the empty room and rings the bell again.
“NO!” he barks. “No more of that–manifest!”
The bell’s intonation lends a weight to the command that all present can feel, one even the spirit seems to sense. Yet … its reply is unexpected.
“I don’t know what that means!”
Daniel blinks, caught flat-footed for the first time in a while.
He shakes his head and rings the bell a third time. "It means ‘Show yourself’! Now show ya’self, quit playin’ games, an’ tell me who you’re f^<kin’ lookin’ for!"
The figure of an emaciated young girl in a hospital gown manifests, her form mutedly visible in the half-light of the glow stick. A ghostly stuffed rabbit dangles from her right fist. The distortion of the spirit’s voice fades as it takes shape, coalescing into a despairing, panicked noise as she throws her head back and wails.
“MY MOMMY!” the dead thing screams. “It’s dark and scary and everything’s wrong and I can’t find her! I was tired and the doctor said I needed to go to sleep, and she said she’d be here when I woke up but she wasn’t and I don’t know where she is! Where’s Mommy?! Where is she where is she WHERE IS SHEEEE?!”