Character Sheet: Gilbert Fullsham, aka Deep Sorrow Appearance Prelude Journal Entries:
Name: Gilbert Fullsham, aka Deep Sorrow Player: Mark Miller E-mail Address: n/a Chronicle: Santa Cruz/Wraith Nature: Martyr Demeanor: Fanatic Shadow: Deep Shadow (evil) Life: Coma Death: Old Age Regret: Not having lived a life ATTRIBUTES: Physical: Strength-3, Dexterity-2, Stamina-4 Social: Charisma-4, Manipulation-5, Appearance-1 Mental: Perception-2, Intelligence-2, Wits-2 ABILITIES Talents: Alertness-3, Awareness-3, Dodge-3, Intimidation-2, Subterfuge-2 Skills: Melee-2, Performance-3, Stealth-2 Knowledge: Computer-1, Enigmas-1, Investigation-1, Linguistics-1, Medicine-1, Occult-3, Science-1 ADVANTAGES: Backgrounds: Eidolan-4, Haunting-3 Passions: Anger-3, Faith-3, Guilt-4 Arcanos: Embody-3, Inhabit-2, Keening-5, Moliate-3 FETTERS: Deathbed-1, Grave-1, Parents' Tombstone-1, Mugger #1 -2, Mugger #2 -2, Revolver-3 Corpus-10 Willpower-5 Pathos-5 Appearance: Deep Sorrow looks like a very sick, old man, with thin white hair, bent and bony frame, and flesh that seems drawn and wasted. He stand near five feet high, though he may have been much taller once. Picture someone who has laid in a coma for a decade or so. His skin is waxen and translucent, with many spots and poorly healed bedsores. His finger and toe nails are loooonnng, yellow, dirty, and jagged at the ends. He usually wears layers of robes of various types, over jeans without shirt or shoes. Prelude: 1. The following is the character description for the wraith Deep Sorrow. Because of the way in which his shadow has been deluding him with false/other people's memories, he does not know/remember all of the data listed. 2. After reading further, the ability to unmake artifacts seems better suited to a variation of Moliate, rather than any other in the book. 3. Affiliation: Renegade (although he has little real memories of his own past, he thinks that at one time he had some connection to Stygia. He also thinks that at one point he was a member of a strong circle, but assumes that he is the last remaining member. The chance that either of these are true is slim.) 4. Nature: Martyr - "The entire underworld is flawed. To deal in soul coin is wrong. I must change the established order. I am the vessel chosen by fate to set things in order. No sacrifice is too great." The above represent the wraith's goals, but they are secret goals. He is the silent suffering type. 5. Demeanor: Fanatic - He must free enough enslaved souls to atone for his sins. He must help other wraiths free souls, or to learn to feel guilty for being greedy, or participants in the established order, which is so unjust and abusive to souls. 6. Player goals for this character: I intend this to be a Renegade intruder into local affairs. He is not taking sides or joining up with anybody, just seeking to achieve his personal goals. Although he is not adverse to helping others, he won't let this deter him too much from his cause. 7. Concept: Deep Sorrow is a renegade that is haunted by a rather strong shadow. Both the shadow and the wraith are driven by strong fanatical causes. The wraith has gotten it into his psyche that he was personally guilty for the suffering and death of thousands in his lifetime. He is driven to atone by freeing tormented souls in a few different ways. His shadow is also fanatical about making him suffer guilt for the death's he caused. The shadow does this in a few ways. It's nature is the Perfectionist, driving the wraith to atone for this huge debt of guilt. One way it has done this is to drain/borrow/steal guilt-causing memories from other wraiths and the living and transfer them to this wraith, actually benefiting them as a side effect as these memories are lost by the other. Another side effect is that the wraith has almost totally lost his grip on his real life, being unable to tell what memories have been added by his shadow. He knows some of his memories are not his, but he can not tell which ones. This has driven him rather mad in some ways, and has caused him to become very focused on his agenda. If he focuses on much outside his cause, he is overwhelmed by the inner chaos of the horrible memories of hundreds of others he has picked up along the way that seethe within. Life: Gilbert Fullsham was originally from Houston. He had an unhappy childhood filled with verbal and physical abuse and constantly fighting parents, who were alcoholics. At their death in a car accident, he was adopted by a family that was good to him, although they were rather cold and very strict Baptists. As a result of these events, he became an introvert, who buried himself in books and movies, vicariously living a life that was more sane and satisfying. Although not much above average intelligence, he did have a vivid imagination, and habitually lost himself in other fiction worlds. He walked through a dull and meaningless adulthood as a factory worker assembling furniture until the age of 43. He was religious, attending church and singing in the choir all his teen and adult life. He was fascinated by all matters spiritual, and read about religions and the occult. Death: It was then that he was found in a coma in the alley behind the apartment building with a severe gunshot wound to the back of his head. He had been mugged on the way home by a couple of local teens looking for extra cash. He survived the attack, but was moved after the attack into a mental hospital. He died seventeen years later in the same state mental institution. Although doctors were puzzled that he showed sporadic brain activity and some minor physical responses to external stimuli, he never awoke from the coma. Regret: He has many regrets at many levels. At a very basic level that he rarely faces, he regrets that he did nothing with his life. He regrets that he caused his parent to be angry and sad, have fights and then die. He regrets not being good enough to be loved by his foster parents. More commonly he regrets the nightmarish swirling storms of violence, vengeance and death that he vicariously lived through books, and constantly relived in the form of half-formed dreams during his seventeen year sleep. And he regrets all the murders and violence that his shadow has made him think he has committed. (Whew! Talk about one power guilt trip!) Thursday, June 1st, 1995 11:41 a.m. Deep Sorrow sat beneath a metallic sky, whose clouds careened above him like they were caught in a loop of time lapse photography. The way they passed so quickly was unreal, especially given the utter stillness of the air. Everything was grey in various shades, save for a few false touches of colour. The effect was flat and very much unreal, like old photographs that were tinted to achieve a colour that was not really there. Standing atop a hill, Deep Sorrow surveyed the landscape below him, the wreckage of men's minds now finding reality as the haunts and habits of the Shadowland. Another, dressed in flowing grey robes and whose eyes held a predatory look as he regarded Sorrow, approched him. "I am Antheus," the wraith told him. But Sorrow acted as if he did not hear.the wraith, his eyes following the course of the chromatic clouds above him. The wraith coughed, keeping to the affectations of life and continued. "I am Rector here in the domains of the League. Those to come to Branciforte must be found proper and must obey not only the Codes of Charon, but the laws of this place as well." Antheus watched the new wraith, but as he said nothing, it was obvious to Antheus that this wraith was near to insanity. He started to write down a description of the wraith with his pen. Such a one would be best fed to the lottery, leaving another more worthy wraith to continue its existence. Antheus started when he heard a mournful wail issue forth from the newcomer. Antheus felt indecisive and conflicted Though he feared that the newcomer had become a specter, even before his dead eyes, he started to retreat back down the hill, but his legs moved like lead. Sorrow was upon Antheus in only a few steps. Reaching out a hand, he touched Antheus' pen. The metal of its point dissolved into plasma and smoke, screaming like the damned as it died. The corpus of Antheus' pen was left as a smoking ruin. Looking at Sorrow, Antheus screamed and fled back down the hill. Sorrow followed in his wake and came into the town of Branciforte. (Thursday, June 1st, 1995 11:41 a.m.) I usually like the clouds. I can stare into their innocent, chaotic turmoil, and for a moment lose myself. But this morning they were just reminders of pain and guilt. I was travelling again. I could not quite remember when I had started wandering again, or even why. In looking back over the last few days, I could just remember bits and pieces of changing scenery, and a couple of encounters with....., with....... My head was hurting again. Whenever I tried to hard to open up memories of any kind, the headaches would start. It was as if all my sins lived as worms in my brain, and they would lie quietly as long as I kept the inner eye of consciousness focused outward on my deathquest. But when I focused on the past, and tried to put things in order, the doors of memories would creak open, letting out vital, animated, self-willed images that attacked me, seeking to tear my soul apart. Of all I had encountered on this side of death, it was these images that I feared most. They were the images from my life, images of atrocities that strove to overwhelm and engulf me. The faces and voices of victems.... Wails. Tears. Screams. The staring eyes of disbelief. NO! I knew I must focus. I knew I must attone! Through atonement there would be peace. Through atonement there could be hope. The dark stains on my soul could not be allowed to engulf me before I found the Point of Attonement. I had to free bound souls. I had to end torment for the damned in this twilight land of death. I glanced around, my reverie broken by the sensation of the presence of an abused soul. The feeling was not strong, but it was definite. I looked at the figure that stood some yards away. Perhaps he had been speaking to me. If he had I had not heard. I studied him for a moment, then in a flash I knew. I suddenly saw the object in his hands. He held a pen, and the pen was wrong. Whatever he was did not matter, but that pen did. It was wrong; it was evil. It was damnation and suffering incarnate. I felt the dark images that had begun to threaten me slide away, back to their dank, festering holes in my subconscious. I felt the fever of my cause, my purpose strong upon me. I focused on the pen. Nothing matered but the destruction of the pen. The souls that it held screamed their torment. My ears ached with the sounds of their wails. I raced forward and touched the pen. Inside I screamed from my soul. With my mind I reached out and rent the pen. And I could feel the release, both in the pen and within me. It was as if this was the only way to attack the shadows that tormented me from within. They kept in thir dark little hiding places wimpering like frieghtened puppies when I fought for the cause, when I fought to free those locked in static torment, those caught in frozen hell. Thursday, June 1st. 3:44 p.m. Elizabeth Barrington sheathed her sword, having hacked the arms from her quarry. Stuffing the extra bits of corpus into her soul sack to eat later, the Sellsword confronted her prey, regarding the wraith with contemptible amusement as it flailed about, trying to fend off her next blow with mere stumps. "Tell me," Elizabeth spoke for the first time to her victim. "Who were you in life?" Annia, feeling the anguish from her wounds, backed away, not answering. Elizabeth shrugged. She had merely curious. Pulling out her bits of Stygian wire to bind Annia, Elizabeth intended to take her back to the pits of the Mission. Annia was a fine prize and her corpus would make good quality metal. She even debated trying to sell her directly to the Acropolites, but she would catch hell if the Anacreons of the Mission found out. Still, Elizabeth was wary. As a Sellsword in League lands, the Hoplites would do the same to her or worse if they found her on this side of the river. Not only would she have to escape with her quarry, she would have to brave the gauntlet of the Rivermen to find her way back to her haunt. She couldn't cross in sight of the main bridges, so she would have to bear her prisoner, properly muzzled of course, several miles upstream, crossing at Paradise Park, where the river was narrow and shallow in the summer months. Sorrow, walking aimlessly up Portola, which was a mere field in the Shadowlands, came upon the two of them, attracted by the fierce scent of Annia's pain. Elizabeth drew her sword. The new wraith looked stupid and aimless, probably a new soul whose cowl had just been removed. It was a bonus to find such easy pickings, she thought, advancing upon Sorrow. "I am Deep Sorrow," he told her as she came up to him. She laughed and swung her sword at his arm. It was better to teach him a lesson right off so that he would be easier to manage later. Though the sword bit into Sorrow's corpus, its plasma bleeding outward (injured -2), Sorrow began to keen fear into Elizabeth, freezing her and as he reached out with his hand, stroking the Stygian blade, the sword began to unravel, its bits of bound souls smoking outward, rending the air with their insane fury. Elizabeth screamed, flinging herself backwards as bits of rent metal crawled toward her bent on revenge. Running back, she grabbed the wire that she had meant to bound Annia, and using it to whip the spectre fragments of her sword away, she advanced on Sorrow, ready to do battle, garroting him to a final death. Sorrow sang doubt into her and wrestled with her, and as he touched it, the wire melted in her hands. Helpless for the first time in a long long time, Elizabeth, a Sellsword without a weapon and without the means to defend herself against Hoplite or Riverman, fled into the territory of the League, now a helpless foe in the midst of enemies. The effect of Sorrow's song was carried deep within her. Sorrow, weak from the use of his power, sagged down to his knees. It was Annia who lifted him up with the stumps of her arms. Taking Barrington's soul sack, she carried Deep Sorrow and her sundered arms back toward Branciforte. Sorrow, whose gaze shifted back from the Shadowlands, viewing the ephemeral quick about their business, absently noted the the cars that sped down Portola, oblivious to their passing. (Thursday, June 1st. 3:44 p.m.) I lost track of things for awhile after that, but later I was staring at those clouds again when I again sensed something invading my reverie. Someone near me was using a strong soulmade artifact. They were using it to torment. I could feel the artifact, and I could smell the terror in the air. The presence of the artifact stirred something in me much akin to hunger. I never have been able to describe it very well, but suddenly there was something I wanted very much. I followed the scent of pain, and the feeling of trapped horror. I found two figures that had been fighting. I spent a moment trying to digest the scene. Someone was on the ground, someone standing over her. But I could barely see them. "I am Deep Sorrow." The words fell past my lips. My attention was riveted to the sword the standing one held. It was the item of torment, both the object and the subject of horror. I guessed that the attacker was harvesting souls for the forge, and that the one on the ground was her intended harvest. An excitement built within me. I screamed at my internal demons, the memories that tormented me. "You see! The cause can be served! Freedom!" It wasn't until the sword bit into me that I again focused on the two before me. I realized she wished to harvest me! The realization broke upon me, birthing a wild rage. I reached down, within, out, and beyond. And I screamed. And I fought. Everything became a whirling cloud of chaotic, irrational images. Thursday, June 1st 8:09 p.m. Annia had taken Sorrow back to her haunt in the old Victorian at the corner of Cayuga and Broadway. It was an immense house, now subdivided into apartments and filled mostly with students. During the summer, it went half empty, which suited the wraiths that made it home just fine. One of these, Piotor Cajorski, watched intently as the Townsman, a former Masquer, reshaped Annia's arms, joining what had been sundered by Stygian steel back together again. The new one, who called himself Deep Sorrow, sat absently staring out the window, watching the quick walk their dogs or take their children for a stroll in the sunset light of summer. Piotor and the others hadn't wanted to let Sorrow stay in their haunt, but Annia told them all how he had saved her from the Sellsword, and certain enslavement, or worse. So, in gratitude for Annia, they put their suspicions aside and made the stranger welcome. Thursday, June 1st 8:09 p.m. It wasn't until later that the world settled down into some kind of sensible pattern. I found myself sitting in a room with a woman. I thought her name was Anne, or Annia, or something like that. I remembered that she had been hacked with the sword, but in looking at her, I could not see where she had been hurt. I could feel about me the fear and distrust of the others in her abode. I could sense that I was unwelcome and for some reason it bothered me. Perhaps because it detracted from the act of saving one from the harvest. Their friend and companion had been saved. They should be happy. They should be glad. God knows that there is little enough in the lands of the shadow to be happy about. It weighed heavily on me for some unknown reason that their happiness should be marred by distrust of me. I felt a song well up from within. Their trust and faith in one another was strong, but not as strong as it could be. I gave the song voice, and without having decided to do so, I poured myself into it. Keening was like that for me sometimes. Once I started on a song I would become driven my a creative fury. In the room of this large Victorian house I was driven to foster the bonds of positive emotion that held this band together. I could almost see the emotional net that held them together. It flickered like a fire that needed fuel. I found myself putting everything I could pull from the depths into a ballad of the circle, a ballad of love, faith, dedication, trust. I was not of the circle, so I would only benefit indirectly, but At that moment I just knew that I wanted to sing them a song of the circle. Then I rested. Friday, June 2nd 9:43 a.m. I stirred from my slumbers sometime later. My host, Annia, had had the others leave me alone while I rested. This is a luxery for a drifter in the Underworld. How many times had I been awoken by someone seeking to harrass or consume me..... I glanced around. The room was large. I looked out the window for a moment, and lost myself amongst the living. Walking. Talking. Playing. All without a care in the world. That is what happens. We don't pay enough attention as we sweep through life, then spend eternity making up for our slothfulness..... I felt a hand at my shoulder. It was Annie. "Your up." "I was thinking about the people." I wanted to tell her about the people.... the ones out there that would so soon join us in the Underworld. So many of them would come, just to suffer and be consumed..... "Did you hear me? Are you O.K.?" She had been talking to me and I had not heard. Too much suffering.... The souls would come, and be harvested. They would be frozen by the flames of the forges into tiny, static fragments of Hell. Trapped in soul cages..... "You do not hear very well, do you?" She had a puzzled look on her face. "I hear fine. It's just that... Well, I just...." It was always hard to explain. "I am just busy inside. I am focused on things inside. Inside my head. Inside my soul. There is this order to the universe, and the mission. The souls. We all must realize. Freedom. Trapped. The cause. Atonement. All the sins. The stains...." As I talked I could see the look of puzzlement grow on her face. I was not making any sense. Of course this wasn't new. "I just get distracted sometimes. " Keep it simple. "Well, anyway. Thanks for the help. I was...." She was expressing gratitude. That was nice. It reminded me of the time when I was alive and.... No! Not that. Memories from the past swept out of the dark recesses of my mind, and overwhelmed me for a moment. For an instant I was back in the past reliving one of those hated scenes. Then another followed. And another. Then two intertwined... No. Stop. "STOP!" It was a moment before I realized I had shouted aloud. "Annia had taken a step back, and looked starteled. "No. Sorry. Not you. I was just thinking. Just remembering.... Sorry. I need some air. Do you want to take a walk. Is there somewhere calm around here, maybe where I can see the sky? Or maybe a park or a church? A movie theater?" Annia led me downstairs and outside. I followed quietly. Once outside we walked for awhile. If she had a goal in mind, she did not mention it to me. Or if she did mention it, I was not paying attention. I find that I miss somethings that go on around me. I was like that in life also. I would be at work, or at the library, and someone would be talking to me..... I stopped in my tracks. I made myself think about my surroundings. Thinking about my past would bring on the headaches. I don't know why it was so hard to remember that. It was as if something inside wanted me to suffer, to unleash the swarming chaos of unpleasant memories. I looked at Annia and she was staring at me. Glancing around it looked like we were on some city street, and it did not appear that we had arrived whereever Annia had in mind. I noticed a couple of wraiths that were watching us from across the street. Something about them seemed to indicate that they were irritated, or hungry for diversion. Annia seemed slightly wary of them, although she showed no strong reaction. I was enjoying our walk, and did not want it interupted. I did not know what the two toughs intentions were, but it seemed an appropriate time for an ounce of prevention. I knew the art of Moliation, and found it very useful in many situations. One item I had done before that had a fair success rate of disuading simple trouble makers was a simple sculpting trick. I focused for a moment, then allowed my lower face to swell. I flashed them a grim grin, that continued to get larger and larger, as my jaw grew wider and my teeth longer and sharper. I froze my face for a moment, then reversed the distortion, until I was back to normal. Occasionally that would instigate trouble, but then it had the desired effects. Although it had surprised Annia, it had also caught the toughs across the street off guard. They walked away pretending to ignore us. Annia pulled me by the arm and urged me onward. I still did not know what destination she had in mind. For all I knew or cared, we were just walking around and around the same block. I focused on the sky. It was the same broiling, dark metalic grey clouds that I often found there. If I stared at them, I would begin to see patterns and shapes. Sometimes colors would appear, and if I stared long enough then the voices would begin to whisper, and then talk. I found comfort in those voices. Sometimes they would be rehersing old movie dialogs, and I could almost see the old images from the screen in the clouds. Other times the voices would be discussing things that did not make much sense, but I would be quiet and listen, like a child in the presence of adults deep in conversation. Occasionaly the voices would talk to me. That was sometimes exciting, sometimes frightning. Annia brought me to a stop. Either we had arrived (whereever we were heading) or our journey had been interupted. At that point however, I was focused on the clouds intently. The voices had just started whispering, and that usually meant something important, or at least interesting. Friday, June 2nd, 1995 12:55 p.m. Deep Sorrow sat immersed in the images playing across the screen. The movie, the real movie, was "Batman Forever", but before it had started, Sorrow, for the past several hours, more than half a day, had been watching the fleeting shreds of images that only the dead could see. Countless bits of movies and shorts had flickered there, caught forever in time, captured by the passions of the living audience that had kept them. Even in the seats, Sorrow and Annia could feel the passions of former patrons, even some who were now dead themselves, soaked in the cushions and now permeating the air with a spiritual aroma of emotion and catharsis. It was like a skinride, only less tangible, more ephemeral. Other wraiths had come to watch the "deadshow", but had left with the advent of the first matinee audience. Their presence before shows always made the darkened interior of the theatre a creepy place which the ushers preferred to avoid. This avoidance left the state of things in much disrepair and the floors were sticky with spilled drinks and rotting food. The cleaning crews also, it seemed, felt ill at ease in the place and only stayed long enough to do the most minimal of work. Annia and Sorrow were the only wraiths who had stayed to watch the film. It had been playing for a while and most of the dead community had tired of it. One of the peculiar quirks of the division of the Shadowlands into two camps was that movies that appeared on one side usually could not be viewed by wraiths from the other, except by negotiation and payment for safe passage. Either that or hang around video stores, or television sets months or years later, hoping to catch a view of what they had missed. Theatres like the Rio, where Sorrow currently sat, the Capitola Theatre, Aptos Twin, Skyview Drive-in, 41st Avenue Playhouse, and Scotts Valley Cinema all sat in the lands of the Branciforte League. However, the Mission was not without its cinema holdings and places like the Del Mar, Nickelodeon, the Movies 1&2, Sash Mill Theatre and Riverfront Cinemas entertained audiences on the other side of the river. Still, it was always a source of consternation when an eagerly sought film was awarded to a theatre from the other side. Much soulcoin had traded dead hands when Jurassic Park had come to the Rio. Now, with the addition of the new Santa Cruz Six where the Gottshalks store had been before the earthquake, the Mission seemed to be sucking in more of the new releases. Tensions were building and it could be a cause for war. "Have you ever been to the other side?" Annia asked Sorrow, as quick, trying to get past them to the snack stand, inexplicably turned around and went the long way, angering many theatre goers. Sorrow, immersed in the movie, only nodded. "I've seen it, but only from across the river," she told him. "It's a terrible place. They whip the lines of thralls heading up to the forges at the old quarries, or to be boarded on ghostships, heading for Stygia. This seemed to at last draw Sorrow's attention. He looked at her, his eyes inconsolable pits. "I guess I'm just trying to say, thank you. Without you, I would have ended up there." Sorrow continued to stare. "Are you alright?" Her face took on the look of concern. It might have even been genuine, but it was hard to tell with the dead. Sorrow didn't answer but got up and began to walk out of the theatre. Several people jumped out of his way, though they didn't know why. One even spilled soda on an empty seat. Annia followed as best as she could. "Where are you going?" she asked. "We've been waiting here all this time. I thought you would want to see the movie. And didn't you like the deadshow?" But Sorrow didn't answer. When the door swung open, he walked out, avoiding the quick latecomer and then waiting once again at the glass entrance doors, he went out into the blinding mid-day sun, walking down Soquel Avenue, toward Branciforte. "Where are you going?" Annia again demanded. Sorrow refused or couldn't answer, but continued to walk down the sidewalk, the few quick who walked the broad avenue, skirting out of his way. As several blocks passed, the old Victorians of Branciforte and Ocean View Avenue could be seen In the living lands, much of this area was occupied by a shopping complex, mostly a large parking lot with a Thrifty's, Lucky's and a laundromat and pizza parlor among others, in the Shadowlands, this area was still home to many of the clapboard houses that had stood there up until the 1920's. Especially along Branciforte and even on parallel streets like Ocean View and Caledonia, there were still standing clapboards and Victorians. These precious houses were haunts and they conglomerated in this area. This was the hub of the wheel that turned around the League lands. Here was where the lottery was held and here was the social center of the dead who dwelt in the Shadowlands Branciforte. As they walked up to Branciforte, Annia still dogging at Sorrow's heels, several wraiths looked out of their haunts, eyeing the stranger in their midst. Branciforte wasn't a large metropolis like San Francisco or even San Jose or Monterey. When a new wraith appeared, it was a cause for curiosity and a diversion from small town boredom, much as it had been with Santa Cruz back at the turn of the century. It was a chance to catch up with news from outside since the Midnight Express stopped in Branciforte infrequently and with no set schedule. Though he was the object of curiosity, no one accosted him until a frantic voice could be heard crying out. "THAT'S HIM!" The voice seemed rather surprised. Looking over, Annia saw that it was Antheus, the League scribe. Antheus was still shrieking. "That's him. He's the one! He's the one who attacked me!" Antheus was following a League hoplite up, pointing out to Deep Sorrow. Several other wraiths followed as well, forming a respectful circle around Sorrow and Annia. "I asked him his name and he attacked me. He's insane I tell you. He's practically a specter. You can see it in his eyes." Sorrow's being named a specter caused the crowd to withdraw a bit farther. Annia came to Sorrow's aid. "That's a lie! He saved me from a sellsword from the Mission. I would have been cut up and fed to the forges if it wasn't forforfor my friend here." Annia was trying to think. She thought he had once said his name was Deeping Sorrows, but she wasn't sure as she had been occupied at the time. It didn't seem like a name, but looking at her new friend, it did seem to fit. "You'd better come with me," the hoplite laid a hand on Sorrow's shoulder. "Don't you have better things to do?" Annia pushed in front of Sorrow to glare at the hoplite. "He saved my existence. Where were you and your hoplites when he was fighting for my soul, eh?" This last caused some mumbling from the crowd. Accusations of "eating soulcakes" or "drunk on spirit wine" could be heard. "You'd better stay out of this," Antheus warned, laying a hand on Annia's arm and trying to pull her back. "Interfering with a League official is a punishable offence. You could receive black marks. Who knows, you could be given to the lottery as already chosen." Though he said this as a warning, an interjected cry from the crowd spoiled his effect. "How you gonna write those black marks, Antheus? Don't happen to have a pen, do you?" There was laughter from many in the crowd. The scribe appeared to be getting angry. "What are you waiting for?" he yelled to the hoplite. "Bind him and bring him before the Archons." "Come along now," the hoplite grabbed Sorrow. In all of this, Deep Sorrow had not said a word. Instead, he had fixed his gaze on the hoplite's spear. It pulsed with torment. He could feel it. There must've been bits of over twenty souls in that one object. He reached out his hand and the spear started to smoke, spectral shards flying out to attack the crowd, the scribe, Annia and even Deep Sorrow himself. The crowd reacted by screaming and running away. "What the?" the hoplite, seeing his spear vanish before his eyes, drew his sword, only to find Sorrow, grappling with him for it. The sword writhed as if living and then smoked and vanished as had the spear before it. Though the hoplite tried to vanish, Sorrow was upon him, knocking him down, he straddled the hoplite and ran his hands like caresses over the hoplite's breastplate and grieves. The hoplite screamed as spectral shards, tormented bits of souls, attacked him as they disipated. Even Deep Sorrow's hands and body were showing the signs of being attacked, though he continued to ignore his own pain. Weaponless, without the marks of status and substance, the hoplite ran screaming off down Branciforte, Antheus quick behind him. Sorrow, fixed on the hoplite's abandoned shield, was reaching for it when Annia grabbed from behind. "LEAVE IT!" she screamed. Not taking no for an answer, she dragged him along, forcing him to run. He did run, though he could not say why, save that it seemed to please Annia and that he was tired after his work. The hoplite's gear had been very strong, much stronger than any he had worked with before. Annia brought him down to the river's edge. "They'll bring out the barghests soon," she told him. "We must flee." Sorrow followed her up the river. Saturday, June 3rd, 1995 1:51 a.m. They had run many hours, not tiring as fast as a quick would have. Passing by the Mystery Spot, Annia had cast fearful glances in that direction, they had followed the river down from the bluffs and had followed that as well, now and then chancing a dip in the soul stream to throw off the track of any barghests. Every now and then, a skeletal arm or head appeared from the water, beckoning to them with an obscene cry. Annia ignored the rivermen and continued to lead Sorrow up towards Felton. "You'll have to go to the Mission lands until things quiet down here," she had told him. "If you can, fashion yourself a new face." They passed Paradise Park. There had been promising crossings there, but Annia had been warned that rivermen had taken to lie in wait there. Instead, they had progressed further up the river, until, walking along its broad stoney bed, they came into Cowell Redwoods State Park. The object of Annia's quest lay in sight some few miles inside the park. It was an old railroad trestle bridge, still in use by the Roaring Camp Railroad, the tourist line operating out of Felton. It wouldn't be used now and only a single hoplite could be seen guarding the span. It was Annia's plan that Sorrow cross the bridge while Annia distracted the hoplite. Though carnal pleasures were denied to the dead, there were unspoken things that still gave pleasure and Annia was still judged beautiful, even on this side of the veil. However, her intended sacrifice proved unnecessary as, even as they watched, the hoplite was attacked by five other wraiths, also in armour. "Legionnaires!" Annia hissed, putting her hand over Sorrow's mouth lest he should take that time to keen. The Legionnaires made short work of the hoplite, loosing one of their own in the fracas. Both wraiths, their heads cut off, lay smoking, their dissolving corpuses dripping into the river below where they would reform as sundered spectral souls, trapped in its waters - the rivermen. The ambush accomplished, the Legionnaires whistled and several more, perhaps thirty in all, ran forward from cover on the other side. It was a major foray into Branciforte. One Legionnaire remained behind to guard the bridge and the armour of the fallen. "Go now, darling sad one," Annia lifted her hand from Sorrow's mouth and, giving him a quick kiss that felt more like the tickle of a feather, ran off. Soon, he saw the Legionnaire give a shout and, after drawing his sword, then run off, chasing something in the woods. Overhead, the clouds rolled by in a quiet storm. Saturday, June 3rd, 1995 2:06 a.m. "Change your face. Go now. Flee. Go to the mission lands." Annia's words echoed in his mind. Deep Sorrow seldom found compassionate souls. Annia had seemed genuinly interested in his well being. That was a rare treat. He would try hard to remember her. Perhaps he would see her again. He felt good about having been able to help her. He felt irritated. He could vaguely sense that he was in danger. It hung about him like a cloud of gnats. He did not want to think about the task at hand. He would rather have stared at the clouds. But Annia had seemed to think things were serious. He concentrated on his face for a moment. She had said he needed a new one. He had no skinmask, and no one was in sight, so he searched his memeory for a clear image of a face. Having just left Batman Forever, one face suggested itself. Well, not one, but rather two. Two-face. He focused, and one side of his face bulged, melted, and turned mutihued purple. The other side caught that nervous grin that had adorned the actor's face at peak moments of self-indulgence. What else had she said to do? Oh...the mission lands. The bridge was still empty. Now seemed a good time to move. He approached the bridge. The smoking bodies of the fallen wraiths were gone, but some of their gear remained. A breastplate and a chain rested on the bridge. The legionnaires had taken the weapons. Although he knew Annia would have urged him to hurry, he also felt the need to stop, and address the needs of those souls trapped within the items. He grabbed the chain in one hand and raised it to shoulder level. He swung it above his head and focused on it. Like the other artifacts he had held recently, it began to dissolve into dark, animated shards, that sailed out in a wide arc. Some near his hand attacked his fingers and palm. But he continued to swing it until nothing remained. He reached out with the same hand and grabbed the breastplate. It radiated a stronger aura of trapped vitality. He threw himself into rending the metal, attacking it with his will. It resisted his efforts for a brief moment, but this just urged him on. It began to smoke and disolve. He was happy. For a moment the inherent pall and terror of existance beyond the grave was blocked out. For a moment he almost felt capable of experiencing the gratifying sensations of a strenuous physical task well executed, which in reality were reserved for the quick. "I must atone. I can atone. I have purpose." As the breastplate dripped angry black soul fragments, Deep Sorrow tilted his head back and stared at the clouds. They rolled on above him. The clouds were powerful. And a sound, though faint, was begining to emerge from the broiling grey masses of mists. Before the last bits of the plate were gone the sound had become a chorus. He would have forgotten all about Annia's advice and moving off the bridge, if it had not been for the nature of the song from the clouds. It was a type of song he called travelling music. It had a pulsing, dominant beat. It was the kind of music he often heard when he was wandering in desolated areas, and he was accustomed to moving swifty to its rythms. The music seemed to combine with Annia's words. The voices took up her words in a overbearing chorus. "The missionlands...flee...go now...the missionlands..." Without stopping to debate, he began his journey anew, driven to find the mission lands. He was not sure where they were, but followed the direction Annia had indicated. Onward, acompanied by the voices, he headed forth. He would find the missionlands. He had to find the mission lands. Onward. Saturday, June 3rd, 1995 2:15 a.m. Deep Sorrow hurried forward. The chorus from the clouds was strong in his ears. It drove him onward. Annia's advice had become intwined in the ethreal rythm of the music. Although much of what had happened to him in the last few hours rapidly slipped from his memory, the drive to find safety stayed with him. He found himself running quickly through unknown territory. He paid little attention to his surroundings. Suddenly a figure appeared in his path. Deep Sorrow was not sure if the robed figure had been there all along and had just escaped his notice, or if the figure had simply materialized there. Deep Sorrow did not want to stop. He was caught up in his race to safety, so caught up in fact that the race was becoming much more important than the safety. Stopping to interact with this figure meant slowing his driven run, and that was an unwanted interuption to the order of the moment. He moved to go around the figure, but it stepped sideways into his path. Deep Sorrow stopped, suddenly angry at this intrusion into his mindless run. He stared hard into the face beneath the robes hood. Just as suddenly as it had appeared, his anger drained from him. "Peace Deep Sorrow. Calm your soul." The voice was familiar. Deep Sorrow knew the voice, and he knew the face, although he was having to struggle for a moment to place the person. The figure spoke again. "Remeber me Deep Sorrow? From Dallas? From New Orleans? From Memphis? Remember singing traveling songs with me? Remember Henry?" Some memories stirred within Deep Sorrow, but such were his mental afflictions that the memories had already shifted, twisted and dissolved to the point where the wraith before him bore little resemblance to the wraith he remembered. But this being the norm, Deep Sorrow adjusted rather quickly to the confusing input. "Henry? Yes I remember you, I think. It has been a long time." "I am sure for you it seems like it has been, Deep Sorrow. I heard rumors about a strange wraith in the city, and they sounded similar to stories from other cities that I have found you in. Where are you headed? Why are you running wild through Santa Cruz?" "I am headed for... I am headed for...." The distraction had driven his intended destination from his mind. "I am headed for safety. A friend sent me to find safety. She said to get a new face and to run to safety..." Suddenly a rare bit of clear rational thinking caused Deep Sorrow to stop. "Say, how did you know me as Deep Sorrow? I have a new face." A bit of suscpion crept in to his voice. Henry chuckled. "It was not hard. First, you have a rather distictive singing voice, as bass as it is. And you have that disquieting habit of singing just about all the time. Second, I have seen you with many faces, and as wrapped up in movies as you are, you often seem to pick faces from the screen. Two-face? I guess it as good as any. And the most important clue is that bathrobe you are wearing. I have never seen another one like it. Red, blue, and green penstripes on a white background. Sharp." Henry reached out and tugged on the thick terrycloth robe. A memory or two clicked more sharply into place for Deep Sorrow. This was a friend. A friend that had helped him several times in the past. He could not place much other information about him, but Deep Sorrow remembered that he was also a traveller. Deep Sorrow could not remember much more about the wraith. He recalled that the man could sing, and that his voice had a bit of power. And he knew Henry was a master at traveling in the terrain of the afterlife. He did remember that Henry had taken him for a ride on the Midnight Express, but the details were hard to pin down. And he seemed to recall that Henry had a knack for making contacts, for finding the right people at the right time when he needed to. Henry laughed, "That new face won't do you any good dressed in that robe. What do you have on under it?" Henry reached out, grabbing the front of the robe, and folded back the lapels. "I should haver known....another robe...no, two...three...four robes! You are a strange one. Let me have that top one. At least the one underneath is considerable different in appearence. What is that, silk? And a blaring, colorful, print at that. I guess that works out well for you." Henry took the bulky bathrobe. "I'll wear this for awhile. Maybe it will confuse things for anybody that is looking for you. You remembered yet where you were headed?" "The...the mission I think. But I don't know where that is." Henry raised his arm. "That way. But why there? How do you know that is safe territory? Listening to those voices in the clouds again?" Henry's voice held a hint of both good natured teasing and a hint of respect. He had learned that the voices Deep Sorrow heard, although perhaps a delusion, could still be useful. "Annia said it would be safe. I helped her and she helped me. And then others were talking and they chased us and the soldiers killed the wraiths and ran away. And the pal for redemption is continuing..." Deep Sorrow started to ramble. Henry stopped him. "Enough for now. Well, you continue on to the Mission. Probably safe for a short time at least. And if not they will have their hands full with you. Where can I find this Annia? No, forget that. Your directions are always a waste of time. I'll just back track, and see if I can find her. She can probably tell me what kind of mischief you have been up to, and other things about how things are going in this town." Henry turned Deep Sorrow by the shoulders, aimed him in the direction of the mission, and gave him a gentle shove. Henry called out as he himself turned to go "Be careful. I'll catch up. Later." Saturday, June 3rd, 1995 2:06 p.m. Deep Sorrow walked his lonely way down the road, staring mournfully at the quick in their cars, as they sped down the highway to and from the meaningless destinations in their meaningless, and all too brief, lives. What would they think, he wondered, to know that some of them were destined for a eternal nightmare of death, a part of and apart from all that they had held worthy in their lives? Wearing the visage of Two-Face, Deep Sorrow walked down, balancing his corpus on the median between the two directions, two lanes with their flow of metal and flesh. Had he fallen off of the thin concrete divider, he would have been crushed by the oblivious quick in their cars. Not that he would've died. He was dead already but such would be agony to any wraith foolish enough to have it happen to him. Such a hapless ghost would have its corpus crushed and flattened a number of times until traffic died down enough to allow the corpus to reform. It would be torture. And as such, it held a fascination for Sorrow, whose dead eyes ventured down onto the dirty black asphalt, each passing car promising a visceral damnation of pain, and in pain, oblivion. Deep Sorrow shook his head. Henry's face came back into his thoughts. Henry? Somehow, that ghost seemed an anchor, a link to the thoughts and cares he had had when alive. What had he been called then? Deep Sorrow tried to remember. Gilbert? It seemed both strange and familiar to think on that name. Fleeting flickers of memory passed by him, punctuated by sounds of sorrow and torment. Had life been so like death that the two worlds were merely one? The flickering images of life passed by like a deadshow, only he had been there. The images, the faces, the feelings, they were all his own. I was born to die, he thought in a moment of revelation. Was life merely just to prepare me for this? Sorrow held his hands up to the sun, a bare bleak orb dimly illuminating Sorrow's world. Perched like a fool on the edge of a cliff, teetering, Sorrow keened. He was alone and unheard save perhaps as a whistling wind that bit at the quick in their cars and gave them a taste of the winter of their lives still yet to come. Saturday, June 3rd 2:45 p.m. "Please, my dear, have a seat." Amarynd bowed as she entered. Looking around, she noted that seven other wraiths were in attendance to the Chief Anacreon. Six of these she knew, but the seventh wore a masque and his guise and trappings were unknown to her. He might have been disguised, but Amarynd doubted that. De la Marcha didn't care for disguises and the reworking of one's true face. Ever a conservative, he felt it was a mark of one's shadow, and also in poor taste. She wondered who this wraith was to flaunt De la Marcha's tastes as to dress so openly. "As Anacreon Umber has still not returned from his journey to Stygia, his most able assistant, the Lady Amarynd will perform as acting Anacreon is his absence," De la Marcha addressed the assemblage. Amarynd bowed graciously to the smiles and nods that nevertheless covered looks of fear and suspicion. De la Marcha went on to voice the thoughts of most everyone there. "No doubt, you are all wondering who our guest is here. I want to introduce Lord Armagnac of Colma." There was a total silence in the room. Had they been able, the assembled Anacreons in the room would have turned to birds and flown away out of fear. As it was, they all turned their dead eyes downward, a mark of submission and respect to the great personage who sat in their midst. Only their Chief Anacreon of the Mission, Carlos de la Marcha, refused to be bowed. This was his fief, and however frightened or ill at ease he might feel in the presence of one of Colma's Anacreons, still he did not show it. To do so would have been to show weakness and lay himself open to the attacks of the wolves and jackals seated around him. He continued. "Lord Armagnac, who you know in life was Comte de Alençon, has come here to bring us important news. He has stated that he wished to address you all, thus the reason for our coming together here. I wish to thank you all for giving up time from your busy schedules." De la Marcha's reference to the Colma Anacreon's noble station in life was mere flattery. Having been important in life was mere fluff in the world of the dead. Wraiths who dwelt too much on their lives often found themselves shackled for the soul forges. It was a ghost eat ghost world and only the best and most ruthless would rise to the top. However, having in a life been already immersed into the world of political intrigue was a bonus when dead. Amarynd's thoughts were interrupted when Lord Armagnac got up to address the assemblage after De la Marcha's winded introduction. "My esteemed colleagues," he said, also to flatter since in no sense could even an Anacreon of Santa Cruz be considered an equal to a counterpart from Colma, "I am well met by your fine hospitality. It has been too long since I have visited you and drunk of your spirit wine, which I must say is of the finest I have ever tasted." Amarynd looked over at the forged decanter. She imagined the mass of shredded and liquefied plasm that lay within it, writhing in agony. Wraiths not deemed suitable for forging were often rendered into cakes and wine, and thus imbibed by other wraiths. Such cannibalistic treats served to dull the mind from the torment of being dead. Strangely the taste of another wraith's agony allowed one for a brief moment to feel alive again. Obviously such treats were rare and only the most powerful enjoyed them routinely. "Sadly, I have come here not to pleasure myself, but as ever, as we all are, a reluctant servant to the needs of our beloved dead subjects." The assembled Anacreons nodded, smiling at such a benevolent and entirely untruthful picture of themselves. "We have learned that a great danger now threatens our vassalage, and we believe that this danger is even now somewhere within your subject lands." Armagnac's words once again captured everyone's attention. "Though this is not generally known, there is a freak who exists with a terrible curse. This evil renegade has in the past scourged the Necropoli of Dallas, Vicksburg, Memphis, Denver, Phoenix among many others, working his way west. Wherever he went, he left great devastation and ruin. Fortunately, his visits in any one place have never been overly long so the Hierarchy has always been able to recover itself. We had thought him to be hiding somewhere in the City of Angels, but new evidence makes it quite sure that he is now here." "What is this wraith's terrible power?" Armagnac looked around at the Anacreons, measuring each with his gaze. At her turn, Amarynd felt stripped to her soul and was fearful for it. "This abomination, for that is what it is, has the power to unforge soul artifice, namely stygian metals and soulstone with but a touch. The effects of his visitations, as you can imagine, have left great ruin in his wake. Though large Necropoli in cities were able to recover, smaller towns were destroyed en masse, their entire physical structure released as spectral energy. Think of it, our fortresses, metals, chairs, what have you, reverted once more to free plasm, but now charged with insane spectral darkness, this plasm flies out attacking those dead around it and even destroying a few who fall to it." The Anacreons looked with dread down the chairs, even the very spectral stone around them. Then they looked at each. It was as if Armagnac was announcing the end of their existence. De la Marcha, having already been informed of Armagnac's information, continued for the Comte. "Our spies across the river tell us of a strange wraith, newly come into their land, who attacked their hoplites. The weapons and armour of the hoplites were rendered ineffective and to quote the words of one of our spies, `dissolved into a malevolent and vicious plasm that at once attacked all wraiths assembled, injuring several badly, including those to whom the destroyed metal had once belonged.'" "Did you say this wraith is in rebel territory?" Anacreon Cher Welty asked. It was Armagnac who answered. "Yes, and I think you can visualize the danger of what could happen if this wraith is captured by those across the river. If they can, they will use him to attack our own forces. Even the most mighty fortress will be useless against the monster's ability. Can you imagine the result if this entire fortress around us, not to mention objects, armour, weapons, masques, was converted at once back into the shredded bits of plasm from which it was forged? It would be like having released a million insane fiends. It would be like another Maelstrom." "Bring in the prisoner," De la Marcha commanded to his secretary. The robed wraith disappeared and reappeared. Behind her walked two legionnaires, each carrying the arm of a shackled wraith. The shackles bit deeply into the wraith's arms and legs and Amarynd could see that she was slowly bleeding plasma from her wounded corpus. A barghest accompanying one of the Legionnaires licked away at her spillage as it slicked the floor. "Speak! What is your name and what did you see across the river?" De la Marcha asked in a demanding tone. As the wraith turned her face up, Amarynd could see that her corpus was slashed and scarred. She had recently been in a fight. By the looks of the wounds, Amarynd guessed that this wraith had met one or more Rivermen and had barely escaped. Weak from her torment, the wraith did not answer so De la Marcha signalled to one of the guards. A Stygian lash played out against the wraith's back and crying out, the prisoner at last found a voice. "Your Story!" De la Marcha screamed. "My name is Elizabeth Barrington. I am a Sellsword, loyal to the Hierarchy. I swear it! I have served faithfully for all my years of death, more than nine decades of service!" "Tell us about what you saw across the river," De la Marcha's voice had become gentle and soothing. He stroked the Sellsword's face, giving her some comfort. "Here, would you like some spirit wine?" He poured her a screaming glass and Barrington gulped it down. It seemed to ease her pain. "Now," De la Marcha's voice rumbled, his kind face disappearing into a scowl, "tell us what you witnessed." Her wits retrieved by the spirit wine, Barrington blurted out, "I was harvesting souls in the rebel lands when a strange wraith came upon me. At first, I thought he was insane, close to becoming a Specter or perhaps in the thrall of his shadow. As I attempted to apprehend him, he grappled with me. As soon as his hands touched my weapons, they disappeared, and I was attacked by bits of spectral demons. Fortunately, I was able to escape before he could do more harm. Without my weapons, I was unable to defend myself from the Rivermen when I crossed. Fortunately, only one was in a position to attack me and I got away. I immediately came here to bring you this news. I am loyal, oh great ones! Please, spare me!" "Regrettably," De la Marcha pointed at the trembling wraith, Barrington, "the ineptitude of this one allowed our quarry to escape. He may even now be in the hands of the enemy. We must make plans, even if it leads to open war!" "Please," Barrington whimpered, kissing the Chief Anacreon's feet. "Please don't hurt me!" "Take this unworthy filth away to the pits," De la Marcha ordered. "We'll deal with her later." Barrington was screaming as she was led out. Not normally one to pity Sellswords, Amarynd couldn't envy Barrington's future. She was destined for the forges. "I wish to tell you all," Armagnac resumed, "that not only Colma, but the eyes of Stygia itself are upon you all now. Do well in this, and you shall all be rewarded. I don't have to tell you what will happen if you fail." "We shall not fail you," Anacreon Lalo promised. This statement was followed by promises and voiced assent. "But one thing," Armagnac added, "Colma wants this freak captured alive. The Deathlords themselves have commanded it." "But, to capture one with such a power will be terribly dangerous. Especially if he is in league with the rebels." "Nevertheless, it is to be done," Armagnac said calmly. Amarynd had no trouble envisioning why. With such a power at their disposal, the Hierarchy would sweep all before it. Such a wraith could lay any fortress of their enemies bare to attack. If such a talent could be learned, then all the kingdoms of the dead would fall to the Lords of Charon. Stygia would be triumphant. Sunday June 4th, 1995 12:01 a.m. "I have been dead for over five hundred years!" the wraith, having had a little too much spirit wine, boasted to the assembled crowd. Though Lulu Carpenter's had been destroyed in the quake of 06, the bar still found itself a popular gathering spot in the Shadowlands. Assembled wraiths nibbling bits of half-obole cakes or sipping their cheap spirit wine, distilled from poor quality wraiths, swapped tall tales of life and sad tales of death. Friendships were forged that would have been impossible in life while tallies and dues were kept as the dead sought to bring order into their continued existence. Deep Sorrow, having walked all the way from Felton, entered the bar at the top of the Pacific Garden Mall. This was a sundered place, where the activities of the quick couldn't bother them. However, a peculiar quality true of all sundered places was that Deep Sorrow could have by thinking of it, entered instead the Coffee Shop that now stood where Lulu Carpenter's had once stood, watching quick dodge out of his way in the crowded aromatic watering hole of the living. But like all dead, he was rather drawn to the world of Shadows. "Hi! I'm Jennie Rae. What's your name?" Deep Sorrow looked around. The ghost of a very young woman smiled at him. Her open throat forming as it did a second mouth, "smiled" at him also. Though she had obviously been a murder victim, she seemed friendly enough. Some wraiths it seemed, were more forgiving and less bitter about the way their deaths had come to them. "You got a name hon?" she asked persistently. Sorrow stated at her, then at all the bits of torn corpus around him. Lulu dispensed these bits of wrecked death, taking in oboles in trade. A lively business was going on. "You O.K. hon?" the murdered girl insisted on accosting him. "Gilbert," he said in reply, in a tone that suggested that he was unsure of his answer. "Well Gilbert," Jennie Rae asked, "would you care to buy a girl a drink and make some conversation?" Jennie Rae was hopeful of the drink, but she wasn't sure if conversation was a likely prospect. "Drink?" Deep Sorrow looked at the bits of finely distilled plasma poured into cups proffered. Many wraiths, too poor to own cups, used their cupped hands instead. "Don't you have any money?" Jennie Rae asked, sympathetically. A dark frown crossed Shadow's mind as he looked at the activity around him. "Hey Lulu," Jennie Rae called out. Jennie Rae tossed the barkeep a small coin and Lulu handed over a square piece of plasm. It quivered in Jennie Rae's hand and as she tore it in two, Sorrow thought he heard it scream. "Here you go, hon," Jennie Rae offered him the bit of soulcake. "You eat this. It'll fix you up right." She handed him the cake and Deep Sorrow stared at it as it quivered in his hand. "Go ahead, hon. Say, how long have you been dead, Gilbert?" she asked, certain that Sorrow was a Larva, fresh from the grave. "Say, were you murdered too? Your face looks awful messed up," she said cheerfully, hoping to find something in common with the stranger. Hearing his name spoken, Sorrow was stunned. With one hand, he touched his face, the mockery of the strange movie character he had seen. Cupping his hand around the square of soulcake, Sorrow felt it melt away, biting his corpus as it did so. There was a rending sound in the air as the spectral bit of plasm sped away. Every sound in the tavern vanished as wraiths looked fearfully around them. "Wha tha hell wern'tha?" someone asked. "Maelstom!" another, younger voice cried out. "Oh shut up!" Lulu screeched. "When you see a Maelstrom, you'll know it. There's no mistaking it. That sounded more like a Specter to me." Suspicious eyes looked all around. Several pairs settled on Sorrow. Sunday June 4th, 1995 12:10 a.m. Deep Sorrow felt sick. All about him were bits and pieces of soul, trapped in false forms, frozen in perpetual suffering. Usually this would stimulate him to anger, to indignation, to action. But at least for the moment a swirling, nausiating disorientation was dulling his emotions, preventing any sort of rage from building. Perhaps his shadow was exerting some control, or perhaps the lack of any direct threat from those around him was a calming influence. Regardless of the reason, Deep Sorrow was not focused on the artifacts, or even on the wraiths around him. He was struggling with the internal confusion and turmoil. It was like this sometimes, although he usually gave it very little thought. Sometimes he found himself driven to establish some continuity, some sense of internal order. Even when he was successful, such structured thought never seemed to last long...days at best, but sometimes only minutes. He addressed Jennie Rae. "What did I tell you... Gilbert? Yes. Gilbert. I am Gilbert. Or I was... I was..." Things began to grow foggy again. His grip on the edges of his own identity faltered. He lost his focus. That growing fog, more than anything else at the moment, angered him....taunted him....attacked him. His rage skyrocketed, focused on the fragility of his own identity, the fluidity of his own ego. At that moment, to be nothing definite, to be nothing but the residue of a formless, shapeless, faceless, meaningless life was an attack that pierced every psychic defense he had developed in life, and since. "Damnation!" The emotion and power behind his shout caused most in the place to draw back a bit. "Damn every dark lord and power of death and beyond. Damn every maggot souled scum from the Stygian pits to the Onyx Tower!" His curses continued, and as they did a madness over took him that blotted out every consideration, other than satisfying the urge that was emerging from deep within his soul. Those about him stood transfixed, held by the first strains of keening present in his every more resonating voice. Beyond all reason he was drawing on every ounce of available power, damning the cost and the consequences along with every other part of his anguished existance that came to mind. He reached out, taking what power was to be had from shadow and surroundings. He beseeched all the powers that listened for power. He reached deep ripping, tearing, ravaging his own essence of every bit of pathos that could be had, ignoring the pain like a dusthead on PCP. He funneled the flood of energy into his gifts...his talents... his body....his voice. Moliation! Move, shift, change.... Hands, legs, mouth, throat, arms, lips.... The changes were both radical and subtle. His body morphed in a heartbeat. He had to have drums, but there were none here. So his thighs balooned, opening at the back, and the skin in front flattened and thinned. His lungs swelled and the chest wall thined, forming a base drum. His forearms split in two between the bones, then his fingers joined and extended, with knobby growths of exposed bone at the end. Simultaneously the mouth became grossly exxagerated, and his vocal cords became more numerous, longer, and thicker. His voice became inhumanly base, yet kept an ever increasing volume, driven by hugely enlarged lungs. Songs flew through his mind. Bits and pieces of hymns and ballads of power. Theme songs from movies of heroic fantasy, glory and war. Songs of personal freedom and anarchistic, glorious self-assertion. His mind focused on one group, and then one song, though his voice still raged his tantrum of invectives. "All this dark pain, this obscene demented decay, is nothing but the decadent hunger of sick and insane deathlords who were impotent in life. They died and became nothing but the echos and distorted reflections of the ungratified desires of their petty existances. Damn their meaninless and worthless souls!" Though the patrons around him were both shocked and fearful of his words, the power in his voice held them in place. Many wanted to flee. Damning the rulers of the factions of the dead was simply not done. Ever. "The dreams we had in life are real. The hopes and images. They had value and meaning. They had purpose. They were real! There we had freewill. We were alive in a sea of destiny. Here all is false. All is shadow. All is a mockery of life, a charade, a game without chance, a play scripted by insanly chaotic minds!" "The dreams we had in life are real. This is illusion. The freewill we had in life is substance! This decay about us is shadow. And we can have freewill still! We can be free! I choose freedom! I choose freewill!" His voice by this time was exerting as much power as he could focus into it. He focused and projected. Then he sang. He sang long, loud, deep, far, fast and clear. He ripped across the drumheads he had made of his chest and legs with his four improvised drumstick-hands. He hammered and pummeled, articulated and projected. He choose the song he had liked in life, "Freewill" by the rock group Rush. In his head he could hear every note of the song he had listened to repeatedly in life. He focused on the gnawing hunger deep within him, and focused every bit of energy left at his disposal towards satiating that hunger, the hunger to be alive, to feel alive, to feel flush with excitement of potential, to feel infused with the power and heddy rush of new growth and attainment. His life, and the lives of those of all the deathlands, were chained by fear, limited by everpresent oblivion and the threat of new levels of torturous, meaningless, yet painful existance. He wanted nothing so great as to recapture that feeling of vibrance and animation and excitment that was the moment-to-moment, ever-present background for the living. And he wanted everyone to feel it with him, to revel in the memory of life, of power, of choice, of freewill! He was singing a ballad of sheer bliss, of pure joy, of the antithesis of the terror of death that haunted every moment of the dead. He sang for all those who walked deadlands as he did. He sang for all those as far away as his voice could reach. He sang for the lost ones whose soul fragments formed chairs and cups, cakes and bricks, wine and steel. He sang for friend and foe, near and far. Feel! And He sang for the living, those only a failed heartbeat away from sharing the tormenting darkness with the damned. Feel alive! Be aware! He knew that he was already beyond the point of exhaustion, but for him at that moment, feeling the remembered joy of simple life, and projecting it as far and as powerfully as possible outweighed all other considerations. Self preservation was forgotten. His health was forgotten. His struggle to maintain control over his shadow was forgotten. "I will choose freewill!" He continued to perform even after his control of the power pouring through him began to wane, and his own talents began to rend small wounds in his own flesh. He continued past the point where the schism between the feeling of being alive and the reality of being dead began doing further, serious psychic damage to his already seriously unbalanced mind. Only when his control over his moliated form began to threaten the effect he had sought in himself and others, did he cease. Then he stopped abruptly. Suddenly. Always the artist, the purist, the song most end on a proper note. No sour ending should rob the song of its touch. Silence. And then the price that he had ignored for overextending himself hit him. It ripped him. Every part of his being was wounded, and the pain was indescribable. If he had been a living being, he would have sunk into the darkness and silence of oblivion in shock from the pain. But that was a privledge reserved for the living. As it was he sank to the ground, suffering in quivering agony. His legs and arms thrashed and jerked uncontrollably. The reaction of those around him was lost to him, focused as he was on the internal world. But on his lips was a smile, a radiant smile that denied every sign of torment betrayed by the rest of his body. Deep down inside a hunger was quieted, a hunger that was a devourer, a tormentor, a personal demon. Come what may, that constant voice of internal disharmony had been stilled, at least for a moment. And on his lips was a smile. 6:30 a.m. June 4 Deep Sorrow awoke. He did not regain consciousness quickly, but rather over a long drawn out period of time. But at some point his awareness extended to include his awareness, and the fact that being aware and awake was a change in status. He glanced around. A cave. At least the walls were of rock. They were slick with algea. There was the slightest bit of light, coming from a small opening above him, a few meters away. To his wraith senses, the light was bright enough for him to estimate the diminsions of the cave, but he new any living person would have considered the place pitch black. Then something darted toward him, circled about his head, then darted out the opening. A fish. He realized that he was underwater. But what did that matter to the dead. He started to rise, then realized that he was devoid of strength. His body ached, and he was exhausted. He could not stand. Questions arose within, but as quickly as they formed, they dissapated. After keening and moliating like he had, his ability to focus his thoughts was nonexistant. For a moment he wandered where he was, but in the next, he forgot that he did not know. A voice broke through the haze in which he was floating. "Deep Sorrow? You awake?" Deep Sorrow swung his head towards the sound. There, kneeling by the small pool, was a man. No name came to Deep Sorrows mind, and he could not really claim to recognize the face, but something inside said, " ..friend..." and Deep Sorrow accepted it as fact. "You are in bad shape. I have not seen you spaz like that in quite awhile. You sure stirred up quite a commotion in that dive you were in. I was across town, but could not mistake that wail of yours. It was pretty faint at that distance, but I knew that if I could hear it, then so could those that might be looking for you." Deep Sorrow did not answer. He was so empty inside that it hurt. Like a junkie a few days too long without a fix, he craved the energy that was the life's blood of a wraith. He had spent it all, exhausted himself with his burst of singing. "Good thing I showed up, too. When I used argos to pop in and check things out, I could feel the presence of strong, dark beings gathering near. I should be used to it with you around." "Well I grabbed you and took you out of there. At first, I just popped a few miles away. But I soon realized that something was following your scent." Deep Sorrow just stared at him. He could not remember any of the events the man was talking about. He could barly remember anything. At this point, the emptiness inside was blocking out almosty everything. "You gettin' any of this? Well, I started popping all over the place. Was not as easy having to drag you with me, but I have had to scamper through the shadowlands like that before. We hit some places in the sea of shadow that most people with any sense avoid. Bet you do not remember, punching up through the deep umbra to the vibrant umbra? Not many have done that, but I have a few times, and I needed to this time to shake those on your trail. Whoever they were, they were persistant. I never got a good lock on them but I could feel there hunger and there anger. You sure have somebody mad this time." Deep Sorrow was feeling the slightest bit better, but still had little energy to spend on anything. Even a question at this point was a monumental task. So he sat, and stared and listened. "You should be safe here. We are not far from where we started, but I do not think they will be able to sense your presence. The only connection between this cave and the outside wolrd lies through that opening, and a fair amount of water. These waters are the Pacific. All around you is rock, and from what I can tell it has a certain amount of spiritual energy of its own. Maybe there is an old graveyard above, or something. Whatever, the energies should mask what the rock and water do not. Like I said, you should be safe. I'll stay some, but I do want to check and see what kind of mischief you have been up to. The man droned on for what seemed like hours, or maybe days. Deep Sorrow drifted in and out of awareness, always awake but drifting in to and out of a delirious state of jumbled sensations and irrational images. Most of the time the man was there. Other times he was alone. Sometimes the chamber was darker, but that did not matter. Deep Sorrow continued to grow stronger, but it was a slow process. Time unknown.... Deep Sorrow looked around. He was in a cave. An underwater cave. He felt awake and aware, but could not quite place any of the events of the recent past. Why was he here? How long? These questions went unanswered, and did not seem very important to him. "Annia..." A name came floating through his awareness, from some unknown recess of memory. "Annia..." He could not resist the need to focus on the name. Who was Annia? He forced himself to think for a moment, and suddenly a face was attached to the name, and with the face, a feeling of warmth. This was someone who had been kind. Why was she on his mind? He could not find a satisfying answer. But she was there. And it was a point of focus. He was suddenly tired of being here, in this watery place. He thought of following the faint light coming through the crevice above to the surface, but on a whim decided to arrow upwards through the rock. Someone (who?) had said that this was a place of odd powers. Maybe something was in this land, these rocks. And Deep Sorrow found himself drawn to the unusual, the out of place. It somehow made him feel a bit more at home in an alien world. He angled up through the rock. His mind focused on Annia. He would seek her out. Perhaps she needed him. Perhaps she had gotten in trouble for being his friend. Perhaps she was calling him, or just thinking about him. Perhaps she had even forgotten him, or had already been harvested by the Stygian pawns. This last thought sparked a quiet anger in him, that hastened him along. And as he traveled, he dwelt upon the possibilities that evil had befallen her, perhaps because she had helped him. And the anger within him grew, feeding on itself, spiriling upwards toward the surface of his being just as he was rising towards the surface of the earth. By the time he rose above the moist earth near the waves crashing against the rocks, a storm of anger had taken hold of his soul. The emotions stirred by imagined horrors broiled fearfully within. He focused on the lights that could be seen in the distance. Then he started covering the distance between himself and a friend, his anger evident in his every move, his every step. Far out in the Sea of Shadows lies an isle that none seek voluntarily. The lord of the isle is not the most powerful of beings to inhabit the dark lands, but he is one of the most ancient. And with the passing of each milineium, the lord of that isle grows ever more focused on his one goal, his one purpose, the destruction of order. His hatred of order had surpassed obsession thousands of years ago. His every thought focused on the promotion of mindless discord. And although he caused manifestations of his mad love for chaos in the skinlands, and elsewhere, it was the shadow lands to which he devoted most of his attention. His own form mirrored this devotion to disorder, changinging from moment to moment. In fact, it did not stop there, but infused the isle itself, with every feature existing in a constant flux, slipping from one form to another, morphing from one location to another, in a nonrational dance that rarly slowed and never ended. Although his enemies had a name for him, he rejected any such tag as an acknowledgement of order. His servants, when he allowed himself such inconvenient luxeries, where only of the most instable types themselves, and there service often ended in destruction at the whim of the lord of the isle, who grew angry at the constance of their loyalty, the static nature of their relationship to him. The most common beings to be found in his service were banes, and even they avoided him whenever possible. Perhaps the most accurate phrase ever attached to him by his enemies was that of Wyrmspawn, for although in the cosmic order he was of little importance, few beings reflected the basic nature of the Wyrm so well. His isle was often deserted, although a bane that sought refuge from some power might dare to hide amongst the madness of his isle. His servants ventured there only when bidden. Such was the case when Deep Shadow found himself kneeling before Wyrmspawn. "I am not pleased, bane." Even Wymspawn's voice betrayed his chaotic nature changing in the span of a few words in tone, octave, and gender. Deep Shadow remained silent. Argument was futile. He had learned that quickly. There was no mind behind that face with which one could communicate. One came when bidden, listened, then went and did as commanded. That or oblivion. "Through a twist of fate, a tool was created. At the moment when you were seeking to eat your way into the soul of a flesh freak, and become a fomri, the meat had a bullet put in his brain. You should have been able to have left to find other prey. Or to exert yourself and begin his physical transformation. As it was, you were trapped within the meat, until he recovered or died. He never recovered, and death was very slow, from the meat perspective. Seventeen years it lay in a coma, yes?" Deep Shadow did not answer. There was no point. "What was it like residing in dead, yet living meat, a comatose vegetable rotting away in a nursinghome bed year after year. After you consumed and replaced his shadow, what was it like being able to do nothing but torment one lone sole year after year. The amazing thing is that he did resist you, and although you trashed his mind, his spirit remained resistant and unconquered." "I have yet to understand the exact nature of this flesh freak, in that he was able to resist you so, trapping you as he did. He is special in some way, as is evidenced by the things I have been able to do by funneling power through you, and hence through him." "But I am not pleased with your progress. Granted he is causing unrest and social instability in all those he encounters, but such effects are minor. I want CHAOS!" Deep Shadow felt bits of his corpus quiver and rip as Wyrmspawn shouted the word. But still he remained silent. "I want wraiths to doubt the hierarchy. I want them to question the traditional order, to revolt against the stagnant forces that have held power in the Shadowlands for much too long. I want anarchy, disorder, fear, mass delusions. I want CHAOS." Again a wave of destructive energy swept over Deep Shadow. "You. You have been too cautious, moved to slow. I sense the powers that are threatened by this wraith are focusing on him, moving against him. "I want him to cause panic, mass fear. Perhaps I am risking ruining the tool by pushing harder and faster. But he must leave his mark before he is disabled or caught by the others. Hence I am widening the channel, increasing the power available to you. It may change him or his powers. It may destroy him, and perhaps you. But I want what I want, and I will get it from you." There was no dismissal, just a lingering threat. Deep Shadow fled from the isle, rushing across the Sea of Shadows, and found Deep Sorrow in the Shadowlands. (Well, the two characters had a wild run through the Shadowlands, and the Umbra. They were being chased by something that wanted to get its (their?) hands (teeth?) on Deep Shadow. They managed to loose their pursuer(s) and are hiding in an underwater cave on the coast. Deep Sorrow will stay until he recovers his spent strength. His companion will snoop around, trying to find out what kind of trouble Deep Sorrow has been causing.) {Option 1 -------- In general what I have in mind is having someone show up after Deep Sorrow Keens his face off, grab him, and start running with him to get him away from the area. No matter what the effect of his keening, there will be at least a few to whom it will have sounded like a dinner bell. And perhaps one or two who are looking for him will show up to investigate the source of the keening. Sorrow's friend is a master of Argos, so I was thinking of having him playing the fox to the hounds of the Hierarchy in a fast paced mad dash through the tempest, the skin lands, and other parts of the spirit world. In the end they would end up in some obscure little known corner of the deep umbra, and hide for awhile to let Deep Sorrow recover his strength. Option 2 -------- If you want to introduce Deep Sorrow's shadow at this point, it would make sense. His defenses are absolutly exhausted. You could create the shadow, and send it to me, or you could give me an idea of the general nature of his shadow and let me create him. Or you could leave the design up to me and see what other weird kind of character I could throw together to be Deep Sorrow's "dark" side. (Face it. Most wraithes are convinced that Deep Sorrow is the shadow side of the wraith's personality within a few seconds of laying eyes on Deep Sorrow. His dark side has got to be something bizare, with sinister depth to explain Deep Sorrow's eccentric dementia and radical nature.) Regardless of who creates it, letting me run it (at least at first) would have the advantage of giving me more room to run, pushing the story along. And it would save you the work. If you go with the second option, I will just pick up the narration with his shadow taking over. The shadow (named Deep Shadow???) will stand up, and then proceed to accomplish his own set of goals in his own unique style. Whatever way you want to play this, just let me know.} Sunday June 4th, 1995 7:27 a.m. Deep Sorrow woke as if from a dream. There was one moment, on the edge of consciousness, that he looked and saw a twisted image of himself staring back at him. This wraith's image, though it had the face he once wore in life, was twisted with contempt, hatred and self loathing. But there was one thing more. This other was afraid, so afraid that despite the bitterness he felt, he longed to touch it and ease it's suffering. This very pity landed like blows so that drove the other wraith away, though where it went, Deep Sorrow couldn't see or remember. As he came to, he heard a thunderous voice, like chanting. He was in a cave, but what a cave it was. "Well, I never saw a wraith who could sleep. I've been very tired, drained of energy, where I had to rest. Certainly I would have liked to have slept." Deep Sorrow looked over to the side of the cave. It was another wraith, taking refuge there. His voice pierced the sonorous chanting, cutting through the echoes like a dolphin pierces the waves. "My name is Maloli," the other wraith said. Deep Sorrow ignored him. Had he really been asleep? Had he been dreaming? It was like that, he thought - sleeping, dreaming. For a while, he'd been away, though to where, he couldn't say. There was something uncomfortable in trying to remember though and if it truly had been a dream, maybe it hadn't been a good one. Deep Sorrow sat up, looking around him. The cave they were in was set back, a small gap revealing a stretch of wet sand that separated the cave from the gentle rolling of the surf. It was daylight, but not the normal grey dimness of the Shadowlands, but a day like he might have seen when alive, full of warmth and brightness. Sorrow realized that the light was not coming from outside as much as it seemed to emanate from the polished green rock around him. It was as though the rock was drawing in the natural light, amplifying it and projecting it with so much life and warmth that even he, dead as he was, could feel and be affected by it. There were others there as well, Deep Sorrow noted. Four naked bodies lay dead, resting upon small biers of driftwood. The bodies were covered by flowers and laurel leaves. Two were of men, one was a large doglike creature that looked like a wolf, and the last was a cross between the two, impossibly huge and possessing wolf features sculpted into a man's bipedal form. Another one, this time alive, was there, tending the dead. She was one of the man-wolf hybrids and she was chanting something in a litany, whose words gave no meaning to the wraiths. It was this werewolf's voice that continued to ring like thunder throughout the cave. It was possibly not so loud in the living world, but it cut into the spirit world, full of angst and power. Deep Sorrow saw that Maloli was looking outside the cave at the beach. "The tide's dropping," he noted, not speaking directly to Deep Sorrow, but still looking at the beach. "We'll be able to leave now." But Sorrow did not want to leave. The powerful voice of the werewolf shaman was soothing. The werewolf continued to chant, either oblivious or uncaring about the two dead human spirits bearing witness to its sorrow. "What happened?" Sorrow asked, speaking to the werewolf. She couldn't hear him. Thinking the question had been directed at him, it was Maloli who answered. "They were killed when some human magi came here. This is a werewolf holy place. The magi were trying to steal power." Sorrow looked and saw that the smooth translucent green stone of the cave was broken and marred in places. There were jagged black edges that didn't reflect any light but rather stared back at Sorrow with a blackness that seemed to pull him towards it. Within his corpus, something stirred. Sorrow turned away from the blackness, his eyes drifting back towards the gentle green light. This same light bathed the werewolf dead. As the litany increased in volume, fingers of incense curling around the corpses coalesced into smoky forms that began to take shape in forms that perhaps only the dead could see. The werewolf spirits had left their bodies. All four werewolf spirits, appearing in the man-wolf form, stood observing the two wraiths. There was anger in their eyes, perhaps a vestige of their violent deaths. Two walked toward Maloli, who shrank and cried out in fear. Two others circled around Deep Sorrow. The two with Maloli raised terrible clawed hands and slashed at him, shredding his corpus. Bits of the wraith dripped of their claws in screaming shreds. Maloli screamed and held up his arms in supplication, but the werewolf spirits showed no mercy. The two with Deep Sorrow raised their claws, intending to do the same. Sorrow looked at them with uncaring eyes. Seeing the hurt look in their faces, he sought merely to ease their own pain. He had a sympathy for those in pain. So he sang to the werewolf spirits. He sang a song of ease. All four werewolves stopped in motion, listening to the song. Even the shaman paused in her own chanting, as if sensing that someone was there. She cocked her head as if she too could hear. The werewolves, their eyes expressing a soft gentleness now, lowered their arms, and continued to listen to Sorrow's song. The far end of the cave glowed in a green brightness that seemed to pull all the dead in the cave toward it. All six spirits walked toward the light, but only the werewolves entered it. One of these, a white furred wolf who had been nearest to Sorrow, paused before entering the light, looking back one last time. It's glance flickered between that of Sorrow and the shaman but then it too, as if sensing the time had come, passed into the light. Though he wanted to follow, Sorrow could not. The peace he felt with that powerful portal was not meant for him. The shaman, sensing the passing of her dead, stopped her litany and left. The dead bodies, now empty, were left in peace until the time would come for their funeral. Sorrow returned to where Maloli was gathering the slashed shreds of his corpus, reingesting them back into himself. "Well, that was impressive," Henry commented upon returning. Sorrow looked at this new wraith with but a mere flicker of recognition. "I'm glad to see you can take care of yourself," Henry told Sorrow. "I'm sorry that I left you here. Not the best refuge but you can see now why the Legionnaires are reluctant to come here." He said this, observing Maloli gathering the last bits of his own corpus from the sandy floor. "Who's your friend?" Henry asked. "I'm Maloli. I was here when you brought your friend here. I was hiding in the back." "Who were you hiding from, Maloli?" Henry asked him. "I don't have to answer that. But I suspect, it might be from the same ghosts. Do you have a name, Stranger?" Henry nodded. "But not one that I'll share with you." Turning back to Sorrow, he said, "Well Gilbert, I think for a time, it might be better to take you back across the river into the Rebel lands. There's been a lot of searches going around. The Anacreaons are looking for someone. I'm thinking the someone might be you. How do you feel about that?" Sorrow just looked at Henry. "Annia," was his only statement. "Annia? Who or what is Annia?" Henry asked. When Sorrow didn't answer, Henry looked to Maloli, who only shrugged that he too didn't know. "Well, come on," Henry said. "I've got a pass that will get you across the river." "How about me?" Maloli asked. "I mean, I certainly don't want to get your friend in trouble, but if I'm caught, who knows what they'll wring out of me." Henry scowled. "Alright. You can come along, but after we get you across, you get lost, alright? You've never seen us?" "Believe me," Maloli said, "I have a feeling that I'm going to wish that was true." Henry snorted. "Cmon." He and Maloli led Sorrow out of the cave. On the way, Sorrow resculpted his face, letting it resume the visage he once wore in life. All of his activities on this side of the river had been done looking like Two-Face. Perhaps, his own face would be as good a disguise as any. As they left it's entrance, Sorrow could see that the bright living light was fading the farther they got until only a few steps away, they were once again bathed in the queer dead light of the Shadowlands. Above them, clouds rolled by like in a time lapsed loop. Looking at the rolling surf, Sorrow could see what had frightened Maloli and had kept him in the cave at high tide. Spectral dead, sailors, victims of tidal waves, and such drowned wraiths lay rolling in the surf, hoping like the Rivermen, to snare any unwary wraith and shred their plasm in a cannibalistic feast. Maloli held himself, looking at the surf, as if he felt a chill. Then the three of them walked on, hoping to look as nonchalant as possible. Sunday June 4th 8:26 a.m. The streets of Santa Cruz were crowded. Wraiths selling soulcakes or cheap spirit wine hauled their wares while merchants sitting in stalls offered crafted bits of Stygian metal, hoping to pry loose a few oboles here and there from the cautious dead of Santa Cruz. Henry's eye drifted over a Stygian sword, but knowing of Gilbert's abhorrence of such objects, didn't linger overly long. All three of them noted that the awnings stretched over the merchants were made of wraiths, pressed flat and stretched out to form a bit of shade against the gloom of the dim Shadowlands sun. The crowd was heavy. Many were reading a large list tacked up against a wall. The latest lottery results were being posted. As they walked toward the Laurel Street Bridge, the trio of wraiths happened to walk past the slave market. There, unfortunate ghosts were being divided up into categories that best suited their characters. The most fortunate would become slaves, shackled for work or dangerous tasks. Most of these would ultimately end up in the second category, that of wraiths bound to be turned into soul metal or soul stone, the substances which formed the very physical existence of the Shadowlands. The very last category consisted of wraiths, both those too feeble to make good quality metal and then those whose quality of life would make the very best distillates. These last would be shredded or distilled into the soulcakes and spirit wine that the populace so dearly loved, the better quality of course being destined for the Anacreons. Eating or drinking the corpus of another was enough to remove the pain of death from a wrath, if only for a while. Sorrow stared in horrified fascination at the despair and cruelty around him. The germ of a song formed itself on the tips of his lips, but Henry, keeping a close eye on him, jostled him, letting him know that any such action in such a public place would doom them all. They continued on, past the wraiths destined for the soul forges. A shackled pair of hands reached out and grabbed Sorrow's feet. "Please," the woman begged him. Sorrow looked down. There was something vaguely familiar in the dead woman's face. Her face was scarred, and gouged. She seemed weak but a fearful brightness burned in her eyes. Henry tried to yank her off of Sorrow, but she clung on, digging her fingers into Sorrow's corporal feet. The pain helped Sorrow to focus. Others in the marketplace were looking over. They were starting to attract attention. "Please!" the wraith at his feet pleaded. "Please save me! I know you can!" Sorrow looked down at her. He realized now where he had seen her before. The wraith had a beautiful face, but then it had been touched by cruelty, now desperate fear. It was the same wraith that had attacked Annia, and who had tried to attack him, over across the river. Elizabeth Barrington, recognizing Deep Sorrow, knew that he was her last chance to be saved before the forges. Desperately, she clung to his feet, looking up into his blank eyes and begging for mercy. "Please!" she begged him, weeping corporal tears, so strong was her fear of final agony. "I'll do anything," she promised. "Anything. Just save me." Elizabeth lay draped around Sorrow's feet, crying. The gathering crowd was beginning to be quite large. Sunday, June 4th, 8:28 Gilbert hurt. The pain in his leg from the digging grasp of the woman was real, but it was only the catalyst. Only hours ago, he had broken under the weight of the pain and suffering he had seen about him, and had exploded in a fit of rage as intense as any he had ever felt. This had been followed as always by comparitive calm, with so much of his energy drained away. But unlike the many times before (and although he could not really remember them, he knew there had been many times, many fits of rage) Just a few hours later, he could feel the surge of pathos, his soul's groundswell of chaotic rage. The sight of suffering, the insanity of being beseeched for aid from an agent of the suffering, the calloused souls surrounding him seeking to ease their own suffering at the cost of hellish torment for others. Henry could not pull the woman free. He glanced at Gilbert's face, starting to ask him for his help, but stopped. "Damn." Maloli glanced nervously around. "Let's leave. This is not the place to become the center of attention." Henry reached out and slapped Gilbert, but his hand met little resistance. The face was fluid, shifting away, and then back into place rapidly. "He is blitzed again. Where does he get the damned energy to do this! Gilbert listen to me. Not here. Not now. Not..." Henry knew he was not making a connection. The mind was gone, off somewhere listening to voices far away. Recently, when Gilbert had been in danger, Henry had whisked him away on a wild run through the shadowlands, shaking of pursuit. But that was with a powerless passive passenger in tow. Gilbert in a rage would not willingly follow such a plan in a fit of blind rage. And such an effort might even be dangerous. Henry shoved Maloli away. "Run. Get out of here. Don't keep running for a long time, and hide somewhere deep and dark." With those words, Henry himself took off for the edges of the crowd. He would not go too far, but there was little he could do at the moment for Gilbert. What would happen, would happen. Maybe then, or later, he could help Gilbert pick up the pieces, or escape, or whatever. Now was a good time to be somewhere else. Meanwhile the woman at Gilbert's feet continued her cries for help. The crowd continued to grow. And Gilbert's rage continued to feed upon itself, redoubling again and again. It had happened with him so many times before. The volcano within erupts, spewing his insane rage at those around him, those that were the agents of suffering. He would change things he would make the world as it should. He would rip at the world with rending hands and powered voice. He would..... Then in an instant it all changed. Something was different, inside, deep inside. Although the anger continued to swell, continued to engulf his reason, there were new feelings. It felt as if something had broken within, as if perhaps the internal vessle of his anger that so often overflowed, this time had shattered beneath the wait. And along side the growing anger and confusion was a new brand of fear. So much was different in an instant, that he was stunned for a moment with soul numbing confusion, his being aswirl with new sensations, dizzying sensations. It was too much. His arms and legs began to quiver with tremors. The girl, although not releasing him, pulled back, and looked up at him. Then he lost it, literally in her direction. Had he been alive he would have thrown up his lunch. But as a wraith, he heaved a shot of his own corpus. It spewed forth from his mouth and nose showering the girl and others in front of him. The girl was drenched. The girl let him go, and the others drew back. He was wracked by fear, gut wrenching fear. He began to run through the crowd. Behind him the wretches in chains, stood in shock for a moment, then realized that regardless of the circumstances, the delge was pure, fresh corpus, and as such was a consumable. The girl realized this about the same time, and stared in new horror as the wraiths around her crowded towards her with a hungry frenzy growing in their eyes. Deep Sorrow ran, stumbled, and fell. He picked himself up and rushed forward again. The crowd made a path for him. Soon he was stumbling in a blind panic down side streets and allyways. All the conflicting feelings within continued to grow and intensify. He hated and hurt, feared and fumed. He was gibbering like an idiot, although he did not realize it. "Damn them all to hell! It's funny. Why? I'm sick. Screw them. Rip them! Ha, ha, ha..." Something new was happening, some new entity or force was coursing through him, ripping through him. Something that had been dormant perhaps was breaking out from deep within. And it was not being gentle. It was riding his anger, growing wildly suffusing his being. And yet it was not totally alien. Something about it had the slightest hint of familiarity. Sunday, June 4th, 9:12 He stumbled out into a busy street, and turned to follow the contour of the buildings. He felt like an enraged bull and a frightened rabbit at the same time. He was at a total loss as to what to do and where to go. He ran along the street, hugging his gut, fearing that he would again loose his essence, his own essence, that burned within him like old bile. He cried tears of panic, droplets of corpus streaking and stinging his cheeks. "Where do I go? What do I do? What is happening?" He screamed the words at no one, while bumping and bouncing down the street. Then without having seen, he knew the building he was passing was special. A theater! It beckoned to him. He felt a genuine twist of passion flash through him. It held out a glimmer of hope that all this would pass. He forced himself to slow his pace. He entered the building through the glass doors, entering the lobby. To have entered otherwise would have been disrectful to this, the shrine of his glories past. He entered the theater proper, and stumbled like a drunken man to his favorite seat. He collapsed into the chair, drew his legs up into his chest, and withdrew far, far into himself. And even then, the violent storm of conflicting emotions and sensations continued to intensify and break over him uncontrollably. He sat and suffered through it in the fetal position, staring into space silently. Sunday June 4th, 1995 9:58 a.m. Gilbert sat alone in the theatre. It wasn't opened yet. He tried to collect himself. He felt weak and sick, as if his insides had been shredded (Because of Gilbert's deep psychic and physical purging, he takes 1 point of aggravated damage). Where were the others? he thought. Were were Henry and the other one, Maloli? He looked up, expecting to see them nearby. There were others there after all, but no one that he recognized. "Is that him? Is that the one?" the Legionnaire asked. The wraith, who Gilbert knew as the Sellsword who had accosted him earlier pointed at him. "Yes, that's him! That's the one," Barrington said, her deep sunken eyes staring out in triumph as she exposed Gilbert. To reemphasize this, she said it again. "That's the one the Anacreons are searching for. Take him, Centurion, and they will reward you with slaves and oboles for he is wanted by Colma. I heard it said." The Centurion regarded Barrington's words as if they were fictional fancy. "Is this true?" he asked Gilbert, as if Gilbert would somehow be willing to damn himself. Gilbert/Sorrow remained quiet. "Take him!" the Centurion ordered. Two other Legionnaires moves forward. "And her as well!" he said, pointing to Barrington. "We shall take them before Anacreon de la Marcha. If you're lying to me, bitch!" the Centurion swore to Barrington, "I'll eat you myself!" Gilbert retreated but saw that another Legionnaire, who'd been guarding the door, was approaching him from the rear. Sunday June 4th, 1995 10:08 a.m. Gilbert was accosted by waves of sensations in rapid succession. In a situation such as this, he had for so long simply lost himself in a volitile storm of irrational emotions, letting rage and all its children guide him unchecked. But now something was different. A thousand thoughts flew through Gilbert's mind. This in and of itself was almost as overwhelming as the numbing clouds of dull confusion to which he was accustomed. Although he still felt little control over the storm raging within him, this time it was an articulated storm. He could discern ideas and images, motives and emotions, hopes, dreams, plans, and strategies. Each was distinct, although incomplete, and for the first time in ages, perhaps ever, he was aware of his own madness, able to see his own image, as a fractured and twisted caricature of the memory of some unknown man. But these awarenesses quickly faded into the background, as the threat of capture engulfed him. Plans flashed through his mind, and even as he searched among them for some action he could take, he saw at a new level how insane some of the plans that came to mind were. "Sing my own death song? Something quaint? Explode in a rapture of violence? Tap dance to distract them? Close my eyes and hope they go away?" He couldn't help but laugh. The Legionnaires stopped and stared at him. Laughing was not the reaction they usually encountered from their prey. The woman spoke, "See. I told you that he is crazy. But he is dangerous!" She almost shouted this last word, driven by fear of Deep Shadow, and of her probable future at the hands of the Legionnaires. But her words helped Deep Sorrow focus. He felt detached from his own swelling rage, another difference in his mental state. Usually rage permeated his awareness, defined it. Now he existed apart from it. "Yes I am perhaps the slightest bit dangerous. Perhaps there are those who wish my capture. Perhaps I am wanted, and wanted badly." The words were sweet in his mouth. How long since he had strung so many words together. Had he done so since his death? He could not remember. What was happening to him? He did not know. "But in all honesty, I can not say. But I can say that I am ANGRY!" With this word he connected with emotions for an instant, and almost felt carried away, lost within the internal storm. He fought for control. Suddenly he was again detached. His voice gained the slightest tonal oddities. He was deliberatly and slowly weaving his thoughts into a keening. "You serve the great devourers. You are tools of the maws of eternal hunger. You are agents of those who have capitalized on the very fabric of this hell, and have made it WORSE! They have magnified the evil, the terror, the pain. They have multiplied the sorrow, the torment, the horror. In the midst of the coruption of the grave, they are the Greater Coruption! And you are their dogs, their slaves, their willing fingers." "For that you MUST BE D E S T R O Y E D !!!!" At this last word the damn broke within, and his anger and rage, his disgust at the very nature of his existance, wrested control of his being and he attacked! He attacked with voice dripping terror, and moliated claws rending corpus. He had no pity, no hesitation. He held nothing back. This was his place of refuge, a theater. How dare they attack him here. Here where decades of men's effort had twisted reality into visions with heart, passion, and compelling patterns of order. How dare they show disrespect for this place. His place. Sunday June 4th, 1995 10:15 a.m. Gilbert lunged for the nearest Legionnaire, who was slower to react than Gilbert. But, even as Gilbert attacked this ghostly soldier, the Legionnaire behind him attacked Gilbert as well. {As you didn't specify, I'll assume that Gilbert/Sorrow will throw a standard punch. As he's unarmed, brawling is his only option. (1+0=1 roll, = 1 success. This however is soaked by the Legionnaire)}. (Legionnaire #3, behind Gilbert, attacks at the same time Gilbert does. He hits, 3 successes - 0 soak =3. Gilbert has now taken 3 hits. The other two Legionnaires, 1&2, attack. Both hit. #2 does 3 damage - 3 soak = no damage. #1 does 2 hits - 3 soak = no damage.) Gilbert, though full of rage, was an ineffectual fighter. His clumsy attack was easily shrugged aside by the surprised Legionnaire. However, the sword of the Legionnaire behind Gilbert bit deep into Gilbert's corpus. Gilbert felt his himself melt away as his body became more insubstantial. Perhaps because they were surprised by Gilbert's sudden attack, the defensive attacks of the Legionnaires facing Gilbert were as in effectual as had been his own. "DAMN YOU FOOLS! I want him taken - UNHARMED!" the Centurion bellowed. "Give me a weapon!" Barrington pleaded. "I'll bring him down for you!" The Centurion ignored her. Instead, he spoke to Gilbert. "Fool! My Legionnaires will cut you to pieces. Yield or be destroyed!" A voice inside of Gilbert spoke to him then, saying, "My Brother! Hear me! I am your friend, your very conscience. Yield to ME, Brother and I will destroy these annoyances before you. They are not worthy of your attentions. I will take care of them for you. Just give up you consciousness to me and I will see it done for you, I swear it!" (Legionnaire #1 reacts by withdrawing and sheathing her sword. It is now Gilbert's turn to act.) Deep Sorrow felt a deep shock settling over him. Why did he think he could fight? Just another insane inconsistancy in his fractured little world. But it was different this time, because of the new realization of his own lunacy. The voice from within caught his attention, and he recognized it. For what seemed like a fog shrouded eternity that voice had been with him, coaxing, suggesting, teaching, demanding, whispering, shouting. It was a voice that was as much a part of his identity as his emotions. "Yield to me," it said, and the words struck at Deep Sorrow. How odd to have the voice within ask permission for anything. For so long it had pushed and pulled, told and demanded, that Deep Sorrow was at a loss as to how to respond to its diplomatic request. Perhaps it was another sign of the change that had overtaken him. Be that as it may, he was faced at the moment with a dilema, a point that required decisions, and he felt overwhelmed. He debated with himself. "Should he yield to the voice? Should he renew his attack? Should he submit to the Legionaires?" This last question sent him spinning off into a suddenly renewed rage. Submit to them? The Legionaires? That was abhorrent. The idea drove him toward his accustomed frenzy. In this state he answered the voice within. "I yield. Destroy. Do all that you can. Define my anger by action." Monday June 5th, 1995 6:52 a.m. Sorrow woke to the Shadowlands, not as if from a dream, but like from a mere thought. It was as if, one moment he'd been fighting with the Legionnaires in the theatre, and then, pausing for a reflective fraction of time, he now found himself standing in the middle of a field, dead grasses underfoot and grown high all around him. One moment he was hurt, and now he was whole and substantial, as if nothing had happened. In this patch of barrenness, under the streaming race of shadow clouds above him, he thought, I recognize this place, though he really couldn't. A remembered image of it formed a half-thought in the back of his mind. Flexing his hands, which had - wasn't it just a moment ago? - been fighting with minions of the Hierarchy, he felt something cold and wet that his fingers were gripped around. But before he had a chance to look, someone spoke to him, not from the cover of the dead dryness around him, but from within, as if from his own conscience. "I have saved you, Brother," it told him. "As I said I would. And I do keep my promises. I thought of holding on to our body a little bit longer, but then I said to myself, what's the fun of that? I mean, I would like my efforts to be appreciated. I'll be back though, and that's a promise." Deep Sorrow thought he could feel laughter, not joyous, but cold and cruel such that he felt the coldness emanate through him. It was a terrible feeling. "Oh," the voice said as an afterthought, before fading, "I should tell you that your friends - well, maybe not friends - anymore that is, might not be very happy to see you again. I repaired your body, but they didn't appreciate my efforts the way I knew you would. And they thought that I was you, and it seemed easier to let them. I didn't want to spoil it all. Have fun my Brother. Be with you again - SOON." Deep Sorrow looked down to see what it was he was holding. It was wet and slippery. Turning it around, he saw that it was a skin masque, such as some wraiths used to disguise themselves in the form of others. Of course, it had once been the real face of another wraith. It would have had to come from some other poor soul, whose face had been ripped off its corpus, a terrifying act. Sorrow turned the masque around, to see it's features. He recognized it at once. It was Annia! Looking around, he now recognized the field. It was the very place that he'd saved Annia from the Sellsword, not so long ago. His Shadow had brought him here. From deep inside him, the thought he could feel the faintest echoes of laughter. Monday June 5th, 1995 7:05 a.m. The laughter from within tore at him. It bubbled up from the depths, and burst from him in a loud long peel. It consumed him, and shook him. Another act of violence to account for...another sin in need of atonement. He hurt with the guilt, the pangs of regret at his own existance. Why had he always left a trail of pain and destruction behind him, when his greatest passion was to bring hope? Why was sorrow his trademark when he sought to create joy? The contradictions between reality and his fractured, dreamlike visions of his own existance tore at his sense of internal balance. He laughed, holding his sides, dropping to the ground, rolling from side to side, for several minutes. He wanted so badly to be swallowed up in his own confused misery, just as had happened so many times in the past. But again, he was reminded that a change had taken place, by the fact that he remained in contact with his own condition. How comforting it would have been just to forget the skin mask still tightly held in his fist, and to drift in the pretend worlds of madness. Then, as if a bucket of cold water had been cast upon him, his mad mirth lifted, and he was focused on the world about him. He cast glances in every direction, but saw no one close. Was this the south? Was he in Texas? "Where am I? How did I get here? Someone was after me. I need to get to somewhere safe. Maybe I can find friends..." He stopped his internal discourse in mid sentence. He glanced down at the skinmask in his hand. He had FORGOTTEN already! He stopped an stared at the mask, and then the clouds for a long time. He groped internally for some path to sanity, some plan to act rationally, and got lost in his own reverie. After a long time, he relized that he was still aware of himself. He spoke aloud to himself. "Well, whatever the change, I am still clearly a basket case. What can I do? I wish Henry was here." He looked again at the corpus in his hand. "Wonder if he is still alive. If so I think he would help me, no matter what I did. He seems to understand who and what I am better than I do. Damn, A LOT better than I do." He continued to sit and think, contemplating all the posibilities. He stared at the clouds, and remained painfully aware of his own inadequacies. 12:00 noon (12.00) on Tuesday, June 6th, 1995. Deep Sorrow stared at the clouds. He had been doing so for a long time, and was aware that this was an odd thing to do with so much of his time. But the fact that it was an odd thing concerned him little. Over and over he had been reviewing the events of his life and his existance in the shadowlands, as well as he could remember them. Of course much was lost in a fog of forgetfulness, and much was only a jumble of nonsensical images. But of the memories which he could recall with some sense of rationality, he had spent hours upon hours trying to make sense of his existance. It was like trying to work a jigsaw puzzle, with his fractured memories as the pieces. He grinned a bit in spite of the psychic discomfort he was feeling at picturing himself sitting on the ground, surrounded with movie magazines and pictures of the shadowlands, with a pair of scissors in hand, cutting and pasteing pictures into a collage on a posterboard in the shape of a man. He held his hands out, as if using scissors, and spoke aloud to himself. "I need a bit more bravado here... a picture of Steve McQueen should help...and some depth of character...how about Hanks? Yes, and a bit of Robbin Williams over here to shake the whole picture up a bit...." He shook himself from his farcical train of thought. His left hand still held the skin mask, the trinket from recent events that still wracked his new found sense of identity with disorientation and pain. He was at a loss as to how to proceed. Within he formulated many plans over the last few hours, but eventually realized that they were all the products of a torn and fractured mind. Even if they were good in many respects, he feared that all of them held massive flaws that would lead to tragic results. This knowledge held him immobilized. The only thing he could see himself doing that had a serious hope of success was to find a group that was in sympathy with his ultimate goals, a group that had a strong sense of direction, committment, and purpose, and that might be willing to tolerate his presence, and the danger he represented. This seemed his best hope, even if it might be a path of danger. The first image that came to mind in thinking of such a group was the werewolves that he had seen. The cave had had such a feel of vibrance and purity. The fact that it had been defiled by an attack of some kind engendered a pure anger within him. The chant of the quick werewolf had been a sweet song, one from which he had derived great delight. He wanted to connect with that group, or perhaps through them connect with a group that a pure, spiritually sweet sense of focus and purpose. "Isn't that what I lack? Isn't that what I need? Perhaps I can find the healing I need amongst such spiritually driven beings. Perhaps such healing can be found by connecting to such a group of the quick, the living." Suddenly the decision was made, and he began looking around him, trying to gain his bearings, in an attempt to find the cave. Then reality crashed down around him again, as it seemed to do in such an agonizingly repetive cycle. He had no real idea of where he himself was, let alone the cave. "It would probably help if I led a sequential, linear existance, rather than a internal cyclone of randomly accessed fractured phantasies." He thought a bit more, again staring at the clouds, and an idea came to mind. It seemed worth the effort, and the more he thought about it, the more excited he grew about the chances that a plan he came up with might actually work. He thought back to the cave, and focused on the voice of the chanter. The song had been sweet, and he replayed it over and over in his mind, listening to every subtle change, every nuance of voice. Though he understood little of the words, he studied it like some singers study songs in languages they do not know. And in the one area of music his memory had always been sharp, extraordinarily so, both before and after his death. For long minutes, then hours, he went over and over the song. It was easy to devote such time to it, because it had meant so much to him, and he had enjoyed it so much the first time he had heard it. Then, when he thought he had the song down as well as he could, he focused on his own being for a moment. This would take some effort, but he could think of no other way to follow his recently devised plan of action. Perhaps even this plan was insane, but one had to do what one could with what one had, and with what one was. He focused on his own being, and adjusted this and that within himself. He materialized, his ghoslly form visible in the Skinlands as an itangible, translucent figure hovering just inches off the ground. Then he focused on his voice. He bagan singing the chant of the werewolf, mimicing the voice, the tone the rate of speach, everything that he could recall. He sang softly at first, but knew that his goal was to have the song heard far and wide. He knew that if he pushed his voice to a CRESCENDO he could call out to wraiths far and wide over long distances in the Shadowlands. He was hoping that embodied as he was with his newly realized ability, he would be able to sing his song in such a way that it would carry far to the ears of all in the Skinlands. It made sense to him, but he knew how little that could mean. He let the volume and power in his voice slowly and steadily build. And he concentrated on that hard to identify element of the werewolf's song that had attracted him so, the part that seemed to call out to powers spiritually sweet, clean, and wholey pure. It was reminicent of a sense of wholeness he half remembered from his short stay in the Umbra. His voice rang out loud and clear, and then raged forth, with everything he could muster. He felt himself wrapped in the tones of poigant death, battle, and many other images driven by the song. Finally, after a time whose length he could not measure, he tired. But reluctant to totally end the song, he simply dropped his voice to a whisper. He sank down, and rested as best he could while letting his voice drone on. He thaought he dissappeared from view, but was too tired to really care. He watched the horizon in every dierection, hoping to see some stirring that might be a response of some type. He knew that he might attract friend as weel as foe with his effort. But again, one does what seems best at the time. And this to him seemed a shot at connecting to the world of the quick, something that he knew instinctually was his only hope of any degree of healing. So he whispered... And he watched.... And he waited.... (I think I can manage this, but am trying to do so in a way that fits within his story. So it may take me a turn or to to reorient Deep Sorrow. Let me bounce a few ideas and possibilities off you, and see what you like and do not like. I see the character at this point as a newly awakened wraith in some ways. Even though he has functioned physically as a wraith for a long time, he did so in a mental fog, a cloud of irrational dreams. A change has occurred similar to a living person coming out of a long coma. He is still as irrational as ever, but he now has a coherent sense of identity. This will be a worsening of his condition in the sense that the mental fog protected him from the horror of both his own fractured mental state, and the horror of the world of the wraith. Now he can't sink into the protection of forgetfulness. But he is still the mental case, insane, unable to grasp and hold the details of his existance together in a rational whole. As a newly awakened ego, he is searching for connections with the Skinlands. This is in essence what you need for me to do with his passions. Looking at his recent history, I see a few details that can be woven together to give him a drive to interact with the real world. 1) In his wild ride through the shadowlands to avoid pursuit with the assistance of Henry, he spent some time resting and recuperating in the umbra. Henry had a favorite hiding place just above the deep umbra that few from the deep umbra could find. If the umbra has a scent, or feel to it that is different than the deep umbra, then Gilbert might have liked that difference, that feeling of vibrance and vitality. Henry and Gilbert might have had a visitor at that point, which could be backwritten. 2) When Gilbert awoke, he found himself in the midst of a werewolve death ritual of some kind, and in a werewolf holy place that had been violated, presumably by mages. In his "newly aware" state, he may have found in the werewolves' ritual and vitality, even in death, an anchor point. 3) In witnessing some of the dead enter what appears to have been a peaceful afterlife, as happened with the dead werewolves, he may be drawn by that hope and the power of such an occurance.) Wednesday June 7th, 1995 12:02 p.m. Gilbert wandered back toward the Mission lands. He had worn out his welcome it seemed, on both sides of the river. Perhaps he decided, remembering the vague memories of Deep Sorrow, he had better take the opportunity to leave and try elsewhere. He would head north, he decided, and see the sights of the great necropoli of Colma and the Skinland realm of San Francisco. But first, he had had to breach the barrier presented to him by armed Legionnaires and Hoplites staring at each other across the Broadway Bridge. Finding no obvious approach, he opted for the way that Annia had shown him - that of sneaking across the San Lorenzo way upriver, hoping that no Riverman accosted him. Fortune (the dice) were with him and he crossed, not far from where Annia had led him the first time. Thinking about her, Gilbert's thoughts drifted down to the skinmasque he carried with him - her face as his Shadow had ripped from her poor corpus. What terror she must have faced, Gilbert realized. How could she have known that it was not him who was destroying her. But it was him, he realized. His Shadow was part of him and everything that his darker half did, he would have to atone for - somehow. Cutting inland and avoiding the highway, Gilbert walked through the dark brooding forest. It was a moody place in the Skinlands. Now and then, he would come upon sundered places, empty bark huts and longhouses that had long crumbled in the real world, but which existed in the dead Shadowlands. However, the Indian wraiths who had built them were nowhere. Those poor souls of the Mission Indians, it was said, had long ago fed the soul forges, or had been turned into the ghastly barghests that walked beside Mission Legionnaires, sniffing out hapless souls for torment. Quickly shunning the strange huts, Gilbert kept them in his memory nonetheless. Perhaps, such would be a good place of refuge for the times when he had to hide. Perhaps he would not have to flee Santa Cruz after all. More than anything, Gilbert desired someplace he could rest. Wandering was hard on the souls of the dead, and he longed for a haunt of his own. He did now know where he was at first, but as he ventured closer to the Mission necropolis, he came upon a series of buildings which he could only just discern through the shroud which was strong here. He guessed the buildings were new and had little memory associated with them. Paths, largely empty, wound their way through the forest while scattered buildings, which at first confused him, became apparent as regarding their use. He was on the University, which in itself was a cause for alarm. The lower university lands were the domain of the secretive and dreaded Acropolites, of whom he had heard hushed whispers of when, as Deep Sorrow, he had waited awhile at Lulu Carpenter's. There beyond the trees, on the broad meadow were the old buildings of Cowell Ranch, where in real life were lime kilns, were in the Shadowlands soul forges, rending helpless wraiths into spectral slag that was used to build anything from soulmetal to distilled spirit wine. Sensing the air, Gilbert could almost feel the dread of the wraiths as their existence was tormented and their corpi shredded. Though immune to feeling, a cold came over him nonetheless. Wandering the university campus, Gilbert sought out an easy path whereby he might skirt by the soul pits of the Acropolites. Wandering the paths, Gilbert espied another, one of the quick, who also seemed to be searching for something. With the infinite patience of the dead, Gilbert followed this man for a time, curious as to what he might be searching for. It was obvious he was searching for the man's gaze looked everywhere, not only into buildings, but into stands of trees. And everywhere he went, the man's nose twitched like that of a rabbit's, as if by scent he could fathom the mysteries around him. So unlike any other of the quick he had seen, Gilbert followed this man in a strange fascination, noting everything about him. The man was obviously searching for something and Gilbert found himself forgetting everything else, determined to find out what the mystery of the man's search could be. It was almost fun. Finally, in a place labeled Stevenson College, the man, having wandered the large empty yet open buildings of a sleepy university in summertime, existed the College by the way of its front, facing the parking lot. In doing so, he walked by a coffee shop and then stopped. Turning, the stranger observed ten men and women sitting around the table. These people were looking at the man having obviously noted him. No, Gilbert realized, they weren't looking at the man - they were looking at Gilbert. In fact, one of the men seated at the table, wearing glasses, looked right at Gilbert, as if he could see him. All at once, Gilbert felt naked and vulnerable. But still, there was no proof that he could be seen, so he just stayed alongside the man. One of the ten got up and approached the man. She was a woman of medium height, with long black hair and grey-green eyes. "Welcome to the Sept of the Dancing Lights, brother. Won't you join us?" Gilbert wasn't sure if she was saying this to the man, or to him. The man replied, " I thank you for your kind invitation but I'm not sure your friends would feel safe if I was too stay around." The young man's voice changed to a slighty sarcastic tone. "After all, they don't know what a kind trustful individual I am. " His head dropped slightly, and he always kept his eyes towards the table and the tone drops to a lower more concilliatory level. " They are right, however. Security must be safeguarded, especially with the charcoal offering left down on Noble, but I also know that we need to talk, NOW. I am Erin, and I bring you greetings from your cousins in San Jose. I mean no harm to anyone here as long as the same holds for them. I trust that it does!? Would you like me to wait whilst you finish your meeting?" "I am Serena Starwater," the young lady nodded her head. "And no, I think it would be best if you joined us." "Thank you." Erin said "My friends are curious to know who treads on their soil. Are you from Ancient Voices?" Before Erin could answer, he looked to see one of the seated men looking around. This man had youthful features and complexion coupled with a balding head, whose thinning hair probably made him seem older than he was. Upon his face, he wore thick glasses with gold frames. Serena turned to regard this man. "What's the matter, Lalo?" Lalo replied still looking around the table as if watching something. "That energy matrix is dancing around us now," he replied as if fascinated. "Tell me," he said, turning to Erin, "Who's your friend?" Wanting to test the hypothesis of whether Gilbert was visible, he seperated himself from the man, and headed to the table. He circled it, staying several feet from the people at the table, then returned to the two that were speaking. "I don't know, I wasn't aware I had a companion," Erin said looking at where Lalo was looking. "It could well be a friend keeping a tab on me, but I don't know. Did it come in with me? If it did then it's probably friendly. Anything more to add?" he said, indicating to the rest of the table. None of the others spoke, leaving it for Serena to say whatever needed saying. Erin turned back to Serena and slightly relaxed. "As I was about to say. No, I am not from the Ancient Voices. I'm from San Jose. I'll say no more in the present situation. How far do you trust your friends here? " he said indicating the non-garou at the table. "They are our sept mates," came Serena's reply, as we are member of what they call a cabal. Now that you know that, you know perhaps more than you should. But you will not escape us until we are satisfied of who you are and why you've come." "I'd appreciate knowing the reason for this meeting and who everyone is? After all, I've given you my name," Erin said "You seem to think that your name is worth much and you demand much for it. For the gift of your name, you shall know ours. You know that I am Serena, and that that is Lalo there. The others are Sandra, Yvonne, Leland, Corwain, Hank and Ciaran." As an afterthought Erin said," You do have some knowledge about what happened down on Noble yesterday, don't you?" Serena scowled. "We know a version of truth. Perhaps you would care to enlighten us further? A satisfactory answer would a long way towards seeing that you live to see another day." Before Erin could react or reply to this unveiled threat, Gilbert appeared, visible to anyone, translucent, hovering several feet from the table, and a few inches above the ground. He was sure the sight of him was not a pretty one, but whether he was more freightening or pathetic was hard to judge. He suspected that it depended mostly on the viewer's nature. His image was that of an old man, shrunken and wasted as if by both age and illness. Although details were lost in the hazy natury of his visage, his skin was rough with lesions or sores of some kind. He wore a tattered bathrobe of oriental design, hanging open, over a pair of tattered jeans, without shirt or shoes. Everything about his image spoke of disorder. At the appearance of Gilbert's apparition, several people in the Coffee shop screamed. Most ran away, a couple fainted. Two stared at the thing in abject fascination while the assembled group at the center table continued to view both Erin and Gilbert with a mixture of curiosity and hostilile distrust. "...Damn I hurt! Security? Why can you see me? No safety in friends. What is this Inn of the Swinging Lights? I can see death strong on some of you. Where are we? Are you of the Heirarchy? Who are you? Renegades? Heretics? " Gilbert's voice was incongruous with the image, rich deep and smooth, although perhaps it seemed a bit distant. The questions and comments tumbled from him, without pause, until he suddenly stoped, apparently waiting a reply. Serena laughed, speaking of Gilbert without speaking to him.. "A simple minded spirit of madness - one of the dead vesitges of a human soul. How pathetic he seems and how tragic. Tell me," she said, turning to Erin, why is he here with you? And why does he reveal himself now? Is it the fact that Lalo saw him here with you that you feel you must NOW inform us of this - thing?" "What? I take it back. I don't know who that is talking," Erin said backing away from the table right hand fingering something inside his denim jacket. Gilbert added, "Uhhhh.....you can see me? Are you... are you... what are you? I am g.... I am Deep Shadow. I can hear and see and sense you, but that is as always. Why can you see me? There is no safety anywhere. What are ancient voices? ...." The voice was a distant whisper, always fading in an out.. The questions and comments tumbled from the old specter, without pause, until he suddenly stopped, again apparently waiting a reply. Erin pulled something from inside his jacket, dropping it and his hand into his body to hide it from sight. In a loud growling tone Erin shouted " This is your security? What the hell is that! And what the hell is he talking about?" Erin then turned his comments towards the shade " "Uhhhh, seems like I've forgotten the social graces of the Skinlands. I used to be... Anyway, I'm pretty harmless, at least at the moment. But there are times... Just surprised that... Poor Anna, and the others.... It's not my fault.... I'll be good...." The image of the old man shook his head, as if forcing himself to focus, then he glanced around. "Ya'll really can see me, huh? Not used to that. Just to dealing with the unending landscape of sorrow and decay. My name is... My name is Gilbert. What the hell am I? An unwilling resident of Hell, I guess. But they didn't ask if I wanted reservations for this place. I'm just here. Death sucks. Royally." Erin continued to back away from the table till he hit the wall. He seemed to be looking around to see what everyone else was doing. "Yeah, and I'm O. J. Simpson. What are you really and why are you here? There's only here and there, Hell doesn't exist. If anywhere is Hell on earth it's L.A. and I don't think you came from there." Gilbert chuckled. "You don't believe... You think... You got me on that one. Maybe I am not dead? You know that never really occured to me. I've been mucking around this god forsaken cesspool of pain, torture, suffering, anguish, and unlimited insanity for what, months? Years? Decades? Maybe its just a dream, maybe..." Gilbert lifted his clenched fist. It held something that looked like a rubber mask. "....maybe this is just a prop in some bad 'B' movie. Maybe I'm in a coma, or in a drug induced dementia somewhere. Maybe the soul trade is an illusion, or the black-hearted Stygian... " Gilbert's voice betrayed rising emotion. One would have almost suspected a rising hysteria hiding behind his forced composure. Then it stopped, and stood for a few seconds with clenched fists at his side. Erin edged around to beside his 'host'." Serena, can you do something about him?" he said pointing at Gilbert. "So, you claim this thing is not with you? Then, let us wait and see what it has to say to us. Words can sometimes be revealing. I would recommend that you hand me that gun you're hiding. I think Sandra there is planning something very nasty for you if you don't." Erin produced a gun and silently handed it over. Serena looked it over and then handed it to Lalo, who examined it with his strange spectacles, occasionally looking back up at the wraith. Erin turned to Serena. "Which Tribe are you from and what was the meeting about? I reckon you'll have to reconvene this meeting elsewhere." "Glasswalker," as are you I suspect." Serena looked around. The remaining humans were being cleared away by two campus policemen who'd just arrived. One of these then sat down with the rest at the assembled table. "Good to see you, Phillip," Serena smiled and the cop smiled back. Turning once again back to Erin, she said, "I think for the moment that we shall be alright here." Gilbert continued, seeming oblivious to those around him. "No....no....focus. Control. I don't know. Maybe your right. Maybe I am from L. A. or something. Doesn't matter anyway. Just doesn't matter. Whatever I am, I aint your friend. No such damn thing. Least not here." The figure of the old man looked smaller and more wasted for a moment, then he sort of drew himself up, standing taller, although the effect was rather less than spectacular. "Well I think I am dead, for whatever that's worth. But you know, your right. What ever I am you should not trust me. Never trust the dead. Those that don't have a dark side pass on to whatever comes next. Its us that hide monsters in our hearts that get stuck here in the twilight. Even the best of us here in the Shadowlands are dangerously twisted, ravanous for the touch of sustanance, the feel of life. No, never trust the dead. Never." "Take me for instance. I really want to be helpful...you know Topper, Casper, Ghost, etc... The whole hollywood schtick all over again. But if you let me try to help you, I'll probaly doom you all to certain, horrible deaths. Here everything starts, exists, and ends in death, decay, and ruin. Nothings gets better. Nothings helps. Nothing turns out right. You should not trust me. There are things that live in the dark recesses of the hearts of men while they breath, that do not aquire shape or substance, form or power, until freed by the passage through the shroud." The figure rambled on. Those present got the impression that he was lost in his own thoughts. His words grew less coherent, less meaningful. "I tried... I wish they would quit hunting me. I know I am insane, but they are evil. Which is worse? But I have to keep trying. There is so much to atone for... so much to be forgiven. And yet they judge me? They eat and drink souls with smiles on their lips, and they judge me? Where is the path to atonement? They smelt souls like tin and they judge me and find me wanting? They use torn and ripped souls as their only currency, and they judge me?!?" Again those who listened heard the rising hysteria behind the words. Comprehension seemed to dawn on Erin and he drew Gilbert's attention. "Yo, you're a Wraith, aren't you?" To test out this out he flicked a coin through the figure. "I've a friend who said the same things about you. So what are you doing here if your not a friend? What did you mean earlier that death is strong on some of us? Who?" Gilbert seemed startled that he had been spoken to. He turned to the speaker. "uhmm, yes? Oh we were talking weren't we?" Erin nodded, "Yeah, I was talking to you and you were talking at right angles." The flood of emotion was gone. Gilbert was calm, if not collected. "Yeah, I guess I am a wraith, a ghost or something like that. It's not all cut and dried, here. I mean there aren't handbooks or stuff like that, at least none that I've seen. You just are. Of course the dead talk, and discuss such things, but not many talk much with me...." "You asked me a question or something, didn't you? About being a friend? I would be, but can not. I will be happy to help, to answer any questions I can. Not much you can do after death that is much help to anyone here. We are all sorta past hope, just trying to postpone terror another day, or slow the inevitable increase of suffering. I don't know much about this place you live in. When I was living, I lived elsewhere, I think. But what I can tell you I will. Or if there is something I could do, perhaps... "You can tell us what you're doing here?" Erin replied, adding, "What did you mean earlier about death is strong on some of us? Who? And also, where's the worst places for us within this area from your point of view? Any ideas?" A sudden look of pain crossed Gilbert's old face. "But I meant what I said. Don't trust the dead. We are bastards, all of us, demons and monsters. Although I hunger for contact with the real world, and need badly to interact with the living, I can't let you make yourselves vulnerable to the thing I might become, probably will become later... God please damn the phantom beasts that hide in the hearts of men! Sin stained shadows that... that... " Gilbert's transparent image shook, then wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Anyway, you let me ramble. You asked something... What can I tell you? What can I do for you?" The wraith turned his attention to the others gathered. "Or any of you? Are ya'll friends? Enemies? Whatever, does anybody wanna chance talking with a spineless, nobody like me?" "By the way, you don't know, well a priest, or a preacher, minister, or anything like that do you? Damn. I guess I'd settle for a buddhist monk, a shaman, or a medium at this point. It might sound odd, but like everybody, I have some questions about death, but they are no longer just speculative. Like which way to the pearly gates? Sometimes I think that I am dying proof that God has a sense of humor, and that he is not afraid to use it." Erin shook his head. "Sorry, not off the top of my head but I'm sure someone could find one to talk to you. Can you tell us what you're doing here?" Gilbert seemed to sigh. "Well, Ive been wandering around this town... Santa Cruz, isn't it? ...for about, ...for about... well, for a few weeks maybe. At first I was just wandering, but there seems to be those who take exception to some things I have done here. They have been hunting me. A few of them, centurians or legioners, or something like that, cornered me in a building. They stabbed me, and were going to take me, for smelting I think. I tried to fight them, but I ain't much of a fighter. But I got mad and the... the darkness came, and I think I killed them. I don't remember that part, but I must have, cause somehow I got away. Now I guess I am just trying to outrun them, and figure out something to do. Something useful, productive. Something good, to help balance out somehow the unending corruption of this place." "Sounds like we should try not to get you angry!" Erin said. "I'm sure between us we can find something good for you to do." Gilbert went on. "Where are the places that are good and bad for you? I don't guess I have any real idea. First, I don't have a clue about you and your friends there. But that might be for the best, considering... well just considering. Don't tell me nothing you don't have to, that's my advice. At least not anything specific about you that I might be able to use against you." A weird look flitted accross the images face. "Sounds sort of like a bad cop drama, doesn't it? 'You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, can and will be used against you in the court of the dead.'" The figure emmited a weird, sick snorting kind of sound, as if it had just said something funny and was trying to laugh. But is sounded more like he was choking on flem. "Well, I guess you have been Mirandized." More gurgling, wheezing laughter issued from him. Turning to Serena, Erin softly whispered," The more I hear, the less I like your uninvited guest. He gives me the spooks. Won't more Campus security be appearing here soon?" "No, we shall be left undisturbed, at least for the moment," was her reply to him. Gilbert - "But give me a second to think. I don't have much of a memory anymore, specially for places. And it don't help none that the city, the buildings, everything is different for the dead than for you. Example, you look around and see things as they are for the living. Things this side are like based on something else. Some buildings you see as burned down, torn down, vacant are still standing here, still occupied. You ever seen one of them 3-D movies or comics, except without wearing them old glasses with one green lense, and one red? It's sorta like that. One image over another, and they are significantly different from one another." "There's the mission, and the river of course. Then I saw this sort of werewolf holy place, with the corpses of werewolves. And the market where they auction souls. It's all sorta a blur for me sometimes, but I do not know what might have any meaning for you. Give me a minute..... Think, damn it, Gilbert. Think. Erin's attention seemed to fully return to the spectre with the comment and his voice took on an edge of awe. " Werewolves. Actual werewolves! Tell me about that place. Amazing! Focus on what you saw and where it is here. Describe them. Was there anything unusual or any details you can remember?" In a whisper, "Serena, does this sort of thing make any sense to you? Who or where might that be? None of us can afford that to happen now." Serena seemed to be concentrating on the spirit so Erin added some volume to his voice. " Are you ok? You looked like you were in a trance." Gilbert ignored the last question. "Well, a cave. Signs of maybe a battle or something. One was chanting a death chant. Sweet chant that. The bodies were laid out, and the chanter chanted. The spirits were released, and they passed on. Lucky that. They did not stay here, but passed on to whatever comes next. They were warriors in spirit though. The cave was near the shore, and I think it was near a burial ground or cemetary...maybe under it." Gilbert's old face seemed twisted in thought, as if the act of remembering was a difficut task. "Wow, that's great. Can you tell us anything about the way they looked or anything unusual about the others? Any features nearby? Hills, forests lakes, rivers, roads?" Erin urged the wraith on, seeming to grow more comfortable with him now that he seemed to be imparting exciting news. "Well, let me think.... There was a small sand beach... was not very wide... and the cave had this sort of green stone in it that glowed... well it glowed to me but like I said, things look different from this side.... maybe it does not glow to those in the skinlands..." "I'm pretty sure that it was on the coast, and not a river or something... someone said something about the rising tide. And it was a place of power..." "There was another wraith... Maloli... I think. He would know. I found him there, and then we left. And Henry would know, but I have not seen him, not since my last blackout. If he is still alive, he would be of great help. Navigating the Shadowlands and the Skinlands is what he does best." "He took me to a place, he called it the umbra I think, when we were fleeing from those that hunt me. It was a bit like the sea in the Shadowlands, the place were the darkest of things dwell, but it was different, foreign, sweet." "In the cave there were four naked bodies, covered by flowers and laurel leaves. Two were of men, one was a wolf, and the last was a cross between the two, possessing wolf features sculpted into a man's form. And there was another one tending to them.. the dead. She was also a half wolf." "It wasn't until the tide dropped that a clear path from the cave was present, so the cave may be at a spot that has no beach at high tide, and a small one at low tide." "The one I was with said that the dead had been killed when some human magi came there. He said it was a werewolf holy place. He said the magi were trying to steal power." Erin's eyes blinked open in surprise and he put his arms behind his back. His face showed pain as he stared at the others around the table. "I'm not sure, but I think that it was near a burial ground or cemetary. Like I said, maybe even below it, so maybe you can find it that way. I'm not sure of that, since it might have been an old burial ground nolonger remembered by the living, but it might help." "She sang a song, that one did in the cave, the woman half wolf. It had no meaning for me, but it was powerful and beautiful. I could sing it for you if you wanted. My memory is better for songs and music. It won't be exactly the same, but maybe the words in the song would contain some clue?" The old figure floated. "I am very curious about the skinlands," Gilbert continued. Like I said, don't tell me things that are private and specific, but can you tell me general things about this city and its workings. Things that relate, I guess, to beings of power, spirit, and magic would be most helpful. Being trapped here is like trying to solve a hundred sided Rubrik's Cube. Take the soul-slave trade. The slave market down somewhere by the Laural Street Bridge is a horrible place. But so many souls flow through that place, and none of them to places of happiness and contentment." "I think maybe those here that hate me and hunt me do so because I do not turn a blind eye to the torment inherent in the social order that has developed over time. But I guess it is part of human nature that follows us into the grave, that organizations for good or ill are self-perpetuating. Even if they loose there purpose, and become horribly twisted shadows of what they were meant to be, they fight to retain their power and their structure. I guess that makes me a rebel. But there is so much to rebel against." "Do you realize that here every ounce of food and drink is rendered from the fabric of human souls? Every stone and every nail of every building is forged from the souls of those trapped in this segment of death. And all this is Unnecesary!" Gilbert's face was twisting in rage. Obviously his wandering mind had hit upon a topic that evoked within him anger and rage. "If what the movies, books and legends say about evil creatures and monsters are true, then perhaps vampires are the darkest of beings. Dark and damned by their very nature. But at least they feed for sustanance. They feed to survive." "But what evil is there in the foulest of vampire lords that is not present in the idle whims of a child wraith, caught here in this limbo of death, denied access to oblivion. Wraiths feed upon one another to meet no physical need, but only to gratify their empty appetites for pleasure or power. How damned and dark and dismal the world of death. " "If I devour a thousand souls, I am no stronger than before. If I own a thousand coins, made from soul-flesh, I control vast wealth, but I have made myself no better, no purer, no more spiritual. I have then only increased my ability to manipulate others, and perhaps prevent my own torment. It's as if in death we are nothing but fish crowded in the sea, feeding upon one another, and feeding not because we must, but because we are habitual consumers, hunters, killers." "Do we need buildings in death? NO! Do we need food or drink? NO! Damn our hollow hides. Here we are nothing but the echos of appetites we had in life! It is all insane. What need is there of demons when we so well torment ourselves. The worst of demons are the appetites that survive the grave! Damn the crushing, cutting press of cursed karma!" "There in lies THE CAUSE, the path to atonement and redemption. The order, the hierarchy, the archaic and corrupted patterns of power must be fought and resisted! Down with the old powers that gloat over and feed upon their fellows as if they were sheep! Even the seas of chaos and the ravishing winds of the maelstrom are better than this!!!" Then suddenly, instantly, the rage was gone, and the old one's features showed calm and serene. "We were talking about something. Oh yeah, this city and stuff. Well, there is a house that had a bunch of wraiths in it. It was on the corner of Bellway or Boardway or something, and Cowangu or Cawyougo, something like that. It was a big victorian place, and the wraiths there were friendly, but I don't think I repaid there kindness very well. I think I went there during my last blackout, and I attacked them. Hell, I may have killed them all or drove them all away. I don't remember." Gilbert's face had taken on an obviously pained and tormented look. He raised his hand, and stared at the rubbery mask-thing in his hand. "One of them was a friend. Anna, I think her name was. But that was before... before the blackout. I went there I guess. Now she walks faceless, and it is my fault.... My fault.... My fault.... My fault.... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault... My fault..." Erin raised his head. He'd been growling along with the Gilbert's lamentation saying, "Four dead...Four dead...Four dead...Four dead...Four dead...Four dead...Four dead...Four dead...Four dead....Four dead." Wednesday June 7th, 1995 12:59 p.m. The assembled group of werewolves and magi left the coffeshop and escorted the one called Erin away. Curious, Gilbert followed them. Every now and then, the one called Lalo would look back - look right at Gilbert as if checking to see that he was following. Gilbert felt somehow that they wanted him to follow them, and happy for this acceptance, he did. Leading Erin and him past Cowell College, Gilbert noted that this part of the Skinlands didn't seem to have a strong shadow presence in the Shadowlands, as it the life force of the land around him were strong, shielding it from the touch of death. Gilbert didn't have time to muse too strongly on this as the group passed the Baytree Bookstore and walking through a parking lot, passed a sign saying "Quarry." Here, there was a broad amphitheatre, wide terraces supporting redwood benches while below them, red and tan stone had been crafted into a stage of some sort. The assembled group had already passed the stage and Gilbert hurried to follow them as they entered a canyon. The canyon turned back again as it descended, at a hairpin turn. At the end was a cave. The one called Erin hesitated to enter, but Serena pushed him inside. Gilbert followed, pausing at the entrance. He couldn't make out what was inside and for the first time in many years of death, he found that he was afraid. What is there to fear? he asked himself. "I'm dead already," he sighed. Walking through the entrance, he found himself in a wondrous place of electric lights and strange machines whose purpose escaped him. Others were there also and they were talking to Erin, their voices low so that Gilbert had to come closer to hear. "just about in the right spot. The pattern assimilator is being booted now. There!" Gilbert looked around him. Then, he was inside a glass, looking at them from somewhere else. They had transported him somehow! He could also hear their voices, as plain as day, from inside the glass envelope. Touching it, he found that it burned him and forced him back. He was trapped! "What are you going to do to it?" Erin asked them. "We're going to decorporalize it," Lalo told him. "We'll render it down into it's natural elements of negative substance and then convert that into energy that we can use to other ends." "Won't that kill it?" Erin asked. "You can't kill it," Serena reminded him. "It's already dead. We're just going to put it out of its misery and glean a little energy in the process." A tall stranger who'd been talking to Erin came up to him. "From what we know of the realm of human dead, it's a terrible place full of tormented souls who have lost their way to Ascension. We merely help them end their torment." "You don't object, do you?" Hank, asked Erin. "You said you had nothing to do with it." "I don't," Erin agreed. "Then, prove it," Serena said. She led Erin to the console beside Lalo. Taking his hand, she placed it on a button, unmarked and innocuous beside so many others. "Push the button. You'll send the poor wretch on its way." Erin seemed to hesitate as if unsure of what to do. Wednesday June 7th, 1995 1:16 p.m. Gilbert watched as Erin touched his finger to the shiny surface of the button, surprising himself with his own casual attitude about his last few moments of existence. Then, he saw Erin pull his hand back. "I can't," Erin protested. There has to be another way. I only have your word that this is a good thing. He doesn't seem pleased about it," he said pointing at Gilbert. "There has to be another way to deal with this other than erasing him." Erin seemed to think for a moment. "Why can't you just leave it in the container? If it can't get out then there aren't any problems." Erin paused, then added, "No, that would probably be worse than erasing him. I'll not stop you doing it because I couldn't stop you but I'll have nothing to do with it. I understand your need for security, probably better than you do, but if you're paranoid enough to discorporate him because he knows where you are then surely I'll be next. You'll never be able to let me leave to go back to my pack and I would manage it!" Erin looked around him, but the others didn't respond. But they seemed disappointed in his choice. Just do it, Gilbert thought. Maybe it would be better for me, or at least an end of some sorts. "With all this technology can't you tell if I'm lying or not?" Erin asked them. "Ask me what I'm doing here! For fuck sake, there must be another way." Looking back to Gilbert, Erin pointed at him. "Isn't it a complete waste of resources to just use him as energy. Couldn't he be useful as a scout for you and surely your interested in what he has to say about his land. You must be able to do something else." Erin seemed to be getting very angry, almost to the point of uncontrolable rage. "You're a disgrace to all Garou and your friends have confirmed what the Colonel told me of Magi. Come on kill me. Do what you have to!" Erin began to transform. She shifted, his clothes shredding, into a form that was half man - half beast. Then he began to swell, taking on bulk and hideous features of a mouth full of razor sharp teeth and terrible clawed hands. It was the same form that Gilbert had witnessed in the sea cave as the werewolf dead entered into what Gilbert had guessed was Transcendence. Erin backed off from the others. Those of them that were werewolves answered his challenge by transforming also. The Magi retreated behind this screen but Gilbert didn't doubt that they too were planning something. Lalo, the one who wore the strange glasses, jumped to a terminal and began punching away at a keyboard. Gilbert felt a strange sensation around him. He touched the wall of the chamber he was trapped in. Instead of the fierce electric burning he had felt earlier, his hand was only pushed back, by a force of energy that felt weaker even as Gilbert pushed against it. Outside, Erin danced away, wincing in pain as a laser beam cut into his arm. From his vantage, Gilbert realized that the oncoming garou, aided by the Magi and their machinery, were herding Erin toward the horn like device that had sucked Gilbert into the chamber he was in. They planned to trap Erin too. Reaching out, Gilbert could feel that enough energy had been drained from his capsule that he could now escape. But could he leave Erin to face them alone when Erin was in the predicament he was in for trying to help Gilbert? Gilbert, feeling the flow of positive energy towards the top of his capsule tried to imagine himself discorporeating, like when he walked through a wall in the Skinlands. He reached upward and then Caught in a ribbon of electric fire, being swept along in electron flow but feeling no discomfort for it, Gilbert jumped clear of the streaming ribbon, hiding behind a strange glowing cube that presented itself. He was in the Shadowlands - but no, that wasn't true. It was a spirit world of some sort, but like nothing he had ever witnessed in death - or had he lived more, in life either he speculated. Weird patterns danced around him, as if from glowing paths that appeared and disappeared in an instant. Whirling edifices and even signs appeared around him, as he floated and explored a way to aid Erin, back in the Skinlands. Gilbert realized that he had entered the energy matrix of the Virtual Adepts. Thinking about them, he flowed through the maze of possibilities until he realized that he wasn't alone. It seemed by sheer force of will, he'd navigated through the infinite roads, paths and possibilities to be dumped in a narrow corridor. Ahead of him was a face he recognized. Lalo, appearing in some sort of electronic armour was there as well, though Gilbert speculated that the mage was also present where Gilbert had last seen him in the Skinlands. His suit was tapped into a wall and he manipulated several glowing orbs that appeared in the wall. Gilbert approached and saw through a transparent portion that Erin was trapped behind the wall. Lalo was imprisoning Erin, at the same time, sucking him dry of lifeforce, much as he had intended to do to Gilbert. Gilbert looked at Lalo, even while his hand transformed itself into a sword, attached to Gilbert at the wrist. Lalo, as if finally sensing that he wasn't alone turned but it was too late. But Gilbert's blow had no effect, merely bouncing off a blue shield of energy that interposed itself between Gilbert's swordarm and Lalo's armor. Gilbert realized that he was out of his element in this new world. Thinking fast, he made a feint and instead of trying to stab a rather surprised Lalo once more, he instead, severed the cord that linked Lalo to the panel. Lalo's armour began to shift and in places fade out altogether. Lalo reacted by punching, unleashing a force of energy. But Gilbert easily disassociated himself from his corporeal form and Lalo's energy fist passed through him. It should have left Gilbert unscathed, but instead, Gilbert winced in pain and sagged down the ground of the corridor as his corpus reformed, protesting the savage shredding it had just taken. Distracted, Lalo wasn't prepared for the behemoth which crashed through the energy matrix behind him. Erin, who'd transformed to Crinos had broken through the data wall which had imprisoned him. Lalo, now surrounded, reacted by touching a button on what remained of his suit. He disappeared in a wink of light. Erin took one look at Gilbert. Instead of offering his thanks, he shouted, "Cmon! Before he comes back with reinforcements." Erin added, " Watch out for anything. This is their home ground and Gaia knows what they can do here. How did you make that sword out of your arm?" Gilbert replied, "I can shape my body in different ways, but it takes energy, and I am...tired." He was tired. It was a strange feeling and had he time, Gilbert would have liked to explore it. "What do you use for energy? Anything you can get around here? How did you get out of their cells?" Erin asked slowly in low staccato growling at Gilbert while he loped along. "I need to interact with the living, I think...They need to...They need to value what they have. They need to see how precious their life is....How...how..." Gilbert trailed off, his thoughts becoming unfocused again. He was forgetting who he was. The numb vastly empty bit of work that was Deep Sorrow was all that would be left. Gilbert struggled to keep conscious, trying to focus on the werewolf who chatted beside him, trying to find a way out of their predicament. The werewolf looked at Gilbert with a strange look and emitted a low strangled growl. "You make no sense." When Gilbert didn't answer, the werewolf added, "Any idea where we're going? I haven't any idea how we get out of here." "I do not fathom this place. Some wraiths I think understand machines like these...", Gilbert said simply. "I understand a little more than you seem to but it doesn't seem to help. I haven't any idea how to get out." Stopping for a second Erin put his clawed hand in front of the Wraith. "If you get out I want you to find the other garou, up past the University and tell them about this place, but nobody else. If you speak to anyone else about it I'll be sure to come back and haunt you. This is a garou matter and will be dealt with as such. I never thought I'd die at the hands of my own tribe but I'll make sure they remember my name." "Garou....tell garou...about this place. I can do that. I will remember to tell garou about this place..." Gilbert nodded. "Yes. Only the garou above the University unless you can get to San Jose. Then tell the Garou there. You must tell no-one else." Erin shook his head. "I trusted them...stupid again. Damn." Erin cursed himself." "Are Garou the evil among the living? I felt that garou were of life, vibrant with living energy. Who revers life?" Gilbert asked. "No, most Garou are Gaia's warriors, the saviours of this world from the ravages of the Wyrm. If we do not win then this world will die. I think that my tribemates here have gone to extremes. In fact, they look to now follow the Wyld to the exclusion of Gaia's will. Maybe their life has been so hard that they have had to join these mages to survive and they have probably beguiled them or taken them over. Mages are evil though, or perhaps just care little for this earth. They raid our caerns and kill us so they can drain our caerns. We do not look to fight them but they make themselves our enemies." "I want out of this place, back to the Skinlands, or the Shadowlands. This place is too.... too...." "Strange..." Erin finished for Gilbert. Refocusing towards the matter at hand, Gilbert said to Erin, "I will find your Garou if I can and tell them. But what garou family, or tribe, or club, or whatever, are you?" "I told you. They're not my tribe but they will do. The Garou hunting us are my tribemates, but I don't come from Santa Cruz. It's a world of difference between the Glasswalkers here and over in San Jose. There we have honour!" But maybe you can tell them," Gilbert insisted. "Let's just work on getting out of here. Erin's growl got lower and more difficult to hear. "I hope so. I don't relish dying whilst there is so much left undone, especially like this." A bit later in their search for an exit Erin became more questioning " So, what are you Wriath? Did you die or are you something else? Do you belong to anything or anyone? Where do you live and what's it like? What caused you to be in the University when we had our meeting!" But Gilbert didn't answer, falling back into himself. Perhaps it was a fault with the way he'd been - transformed - what had Lalo called it? - Encrypted. Somehow, he felt like he was melting away. Time indeterminate Gilbert and Erin had wandered for what seemed like days through the twisting corridors of the Virtual Adepts' data fortress. Vast conduits of energy branched off in streaming corridors, only to lead to dead ends or worse, siphoning off through filters that would do who knew what to the encrypted werewolf and ghost. "Fortunately, we're trying to escape," Erin said to Gilbert, as they walked along passed sealed doors that represented coded files. It would be a lot harder trying to break into this place, but from what I've heard, Data Forts are meant to keep someone out and not in." "Still, it's quite a maze," Gilbert commented. Erin simply nodded. He maintained that he would take Gilbert to his own - what did he call it? - sept? Whatever that was, Erin seemed to think it a place of refuge - and someplace that might be found in this digital world they were now in. Ahead of them, the corridor was blocked by a stream of data that whizzed past them, forming a wall. As they got closer, the ones and zeros that made up the barrier that flowed up from the ground started to glow. Both Gilbert and Erin were aware of a marked increase in the temperature of the corridor. They tensely approached more closely and the data wall burst into a surreal flame that singed them nonetheless. "Hmmm, could that have been a data flow? " Erin said out loud to no-one in particular. "That's strange," Gilbert commented. "I shouldn't be affected by the fire." "You're encrypted," Erin warned him. "You've been transformed into data. You're now as part of this world as anything here, including myself. We can be hurt, killed - whatever by anything we find here until we can escape." Erin had no sooner finished say this when the data wall started to move down the hall toward them. Erin commented, "Hell, that could probably be anything they wanted it to be." They turned to flee but their escape was blocked as well. Two werewolves in Crinos form were growling at them. It was Serena and Hank. "Well, interloper, I'll feast on your entrails," Hank vowed. Serena moved forward, her eyes glowing red. "Mages got your tongue, Serena?, Erin taunted. "There won't be enough of your two patterns to make up a kilobyte when I'm done with you," Erin growled back. Behind them, their backs started to burn from the approaching firestorm. Erin looked at the wraith and said, "I'll try to draw their attack. Help me if you can. If you can get away do it. If you get out find some other Garou and tell them of this place. It's been nice knowing you, even if you are a wraith!" Moving forward ahead of the wall Erin brought his claws up to face the pair. "Why are you doing this? Acting as these mages' puppets. Are you that scared of the wyrm that you sell out your own kind to them? You'd let Lalo clone me and then kill me rather than kill me yourself! Have you no honour? Your more corrupted than most Formori. Technology has a place in connection to Gaia not replacing it. What happens when he decides to clone you to add to your numbers and just makes a few minor changes to your personalities. You no longer become necessary or worth having around. Are you both so stupid that you can't see it? Where's "Webcaller"? Did she disagree with it? Well, I've had enough of you. Come on, I'll make sure that there's not enough for him to put together his perfect copies." Time indeterminate Just as Erin was readying himself for the attack of the two digitilized werewolves, Gilbert noticed that the pattern of a portion of wall near to where they were standing was shifting in and out as if vanishing and reforming. Focusing this thoughts onto this spot of emptiness, Gilbert was able to eventually recognize a hold or tunnel of some sort. In fact, the more he focused his thoughts on the existence of this tunnel, the more real it became. He quickly tapped Erin on the shoulder and pointed towards the hole. Erin blinked in surprise. However, the unexpected appearance of the hole prompted Erin to make the most surprising of maneuvers - that of jumping into it. He called for Gilbert, who was himself already jumping into the hole just behind Erin. The corridor vanished and they found themselves racing along a path of electric light while raging storms of colour and flashing patterns erupted around them. Like some torrential river, the light path surged with incredible speed, hurtling them on to somewhere, yet with no apparent sense of motion beyond that perceived by what their electronic bodies used for eyes. Gilbert was surprised to find that he was feeling somewhat dizzy and not a little ill. Then they arrived. Time indeterminate They were in a huge room filled with a crowd of beings. Gilbert wouldn't have stretched the point by calling them people. Some did appear quite human, others mostly human. Others were totally alien, or even appeared as portions of bodies or floating symbols. Yet Gilbert sensed that each representation or image actually represented a being, perhaps visitors like himself or actual inhabitants of the digital realm. Beings as varied as a giant disembodied head or dull metallic robots glided or clanked past them. At a nearby table, a small elegantly dressed man, otherwise normal except for his turquoise skin and six-inch height sat engaged in a seemingly focused conversation with something or someone that looked like a burning bush, straight out of the Bible. From everywhere, sounds of a piano, bass and drums playing jazz played at the edges of their consciousness, while after taking a few steps, the music shifted to a Schubert piano trio and then later to hip-hop. "What do you make of all this?" Erin asked him. Gilbert couldn't answer, merely shaking his head. The pair of them, still trying to comprehend how they had arrived at this fantastic tavern or social club - whatever - wandered around, gliding effortlessly up huge winding staircases leading to other seemingly endless galleries where large multi-vidscreens flashed two-dimensional images from television, movies and bits of text, only some of which they could read. "I don't know where in the Umbra we are," Erin commented. "What we need is information." Erin seemed to scan the crowd, looking for a likely source. "What is it that you need to know?" a disembodied voice replied to Erin's whisper. The voice was neither male, nor female and it had a hollow yet musical sound as if it's voice were created by a chorus of chimes sounding. "What? Who said that?" Erin looked around and then looked at Gilbert, who simply shrugged to indicate that it hadn't been him. "I am the one speaking," the omniscient voice replied. "Who are you?" Gilbert asked. "I am Information. You did say you needed me." Gilbert and Erin exchanged glances. Erin, looking a bit wary, began. "Pleased to meet you, Information. I am Erin of the Glasswalkers. My companion here is Gilbert." There was no reply. "Could you tell us where we are?" Erin asked. "Yes," the voice replied. "But other than confirm my ability to inform you, I suppose you mean 'would' I tell you where you are. You are in the 'Spy's Demise.'" "And what is that?" Gilbert asked. "The 'Spy's Demise' is a social club lying at a point of nexus to almost all terminals and conduits running within and through the Net. It functions as a neutral ground that gives Cybernauts a chance to meet and interact safely. No combat is allowed or tolerated within the 'Spy's Demise.'" Gilbert looked around. "These people - 'Cybernauts' around us - what are they?" Gilbert looked at something that looked like a pair of walking eyeglasses passing by. "What you are seeing," the voice explained, "is a representative icon that the Cybernaut chooses when first entering the Net. This is only a symbol and may or may not represent the Cybernaut's true appearance to those outside of Netspace. These icons can be changed at will. Those you see here are mostly awakened beings who you probably know as Magi. Others are werewolves, again mostly of the Glasswalker tribe file while a few of our guests are actually other types of beings - faeries and other assorted pre-Net spirits, vampires and a few gifted humans." "Did you say vampires?" Erin asked. "Yes," Information confirmed. "They call themselves Malkavians and almost all vampires we see are from that file category." "Who owns or runs this place?" Erin asked. "The Keeper." Erin continued to question the voice. "And who is the Keeper?" "The Keeper is the Keeper. Just as I am Information, that which governs the function of this place is the Keeper. However, the Keeper employs many Cybernauts and digital constructs to both manage and serve the clientele." "Why did the Keeper build this place? What does he-she-it get out of running such an establishment?" Erin asked. "The Keeper did not create the 'Spy's Demise.' Rather, the Keeper manages its operation. And as for why, the 'Spy's Demise' exists because there was a need for it to exist." "You said there are vampires here," Gilbert said. "Are there others like me here as well?" "'Ghosts in the Machine?' Sometimes, though such aberrations are usually short lived or maintain themselves on the edge of Netspace, often maintaining their program within a single human terminal." "So, you know what I am?" Gilbert asked, not surprised, but wanting confirmation. "Of course," the voice replied. Gilbert saw many people being served glasses of drinks. Other patrons were handed coloured blocks which stuck to their icons, shrinking gradually, or handed what looked like perfume mist bottles, which puffed a iridescent steam in the direction of the patron taking it. "What are those things that the staff is serving?" "Those are bits of tass - quintessence - gleaned from the dreams of those who visit here. It is distributed free to all who come here, though I doubt either of you could make much use of it." As if in accompaniment to this declaration, a tall metallic skinned man, devoid of hair or skin texture yet dressed in a black formal suit appeared carrying a tray with two glasses of green liquid which he handed to both Gilbert and Erin. The glasses were tall fluted clear crystals whose bottoms ended simply in a formed ball at the glasses pointed tip. It would have been impossible for these glasses to stand upright, but when taken, they hovered with no effort above both Erin's and Gilbert's palms. "And when we leave this place, where are we?" Gilbert asked while the metallic servant left after bowing. "What are some of the places we will find in this Netspace?" "THAT I cannot answer you," Information curtly replied. "I can give you freely of myself for all matters that deal with this place and the the general information of any file icon within here, but as for matters outside, I am not at liberty to divulge. Inside the 'Spy's Demise', I am free to be at your service. Outside, I become a commodity - a unit of exchange - to be bartered and traded, used and altered." "What Information is saying," Erin explained, "is that outside this club, information itself becomes of value." "It is the very substance of the Net," Information said, confirming Erin's summation. Erin sipped the liquid and his demeanor seemed to brighten. Gilbert's own sip seemed to be less satisfying. In fact, he was able to taste nothing at all. Looking down, he noticed that the liquid had dripped right threw him, puddling on the floor. The metallic butler at once appeared and was busy wiping up the green liquid from the parquet flooring. Ignoring the spill, Erin turned to Gilbert. "You know, I was thinking, I wonder if those Santa Cruz Glasswalkers are actually altered versions of their original selves. Since they seemed to be willing to let Lalo alter me, perhaps such a change had already been done to them. If so, there are some Virtual Adepts who are going to wish they never heard of the Glasswalkers when word of this gets around Silicon Valley." Gilbert didn't reply. Tapping Erin on the shoulder, he pointed toward a nearby foyer. Lalo, once again in electronic battledress, waited alongside Serena and Hank, the two glasswalkers they had just escaped from. "They're like vultures," Erin snarled. "They're just waiting for us to leave." "Yes, and unlike us, they can't be destroyed. We've been totally digitilized. I've learned enough to understand that they are just electric shadows, or manifestations of will. If we kill them in the Net, they just reform and come back after us. Whereas, if they destroy us, we are gone. I find that, for myself, I am rather curious as to where that will lead - being dead already." "I hope its a question that won't be answered - for myself anyway," Erin quipped. "We have to get back to my own sept. Maybe they could figure out a way to reconstitute us." "But if we leave" Gilbert pointed out. "Yes I know," Erin said. "They'll be right on our tails." Erin took another sip of his quintessence, while Gilbert, unable to make use of it, poured his glass into Erin's. In the distance, Lalo raised his own glass in toast, smiling as if taunting them to step 'outside' wherever that was. Gilbert scanned around. "What are you looking for?" Erin asked. "A chair to sit down on. We might be here a long long time if not forever." Servants instantly appeared, carrying a small round table and two chairs. Erin and Gilbert seated themselves waiting for what might happen next. Time indeterminate Gilbert's mind began to whirl with possibilities. He knew some of the ideas were ridiculus, simply because many of his ideas were always ridiculus. But he also thought that Erin could help him pick out a good one. "Erin, I think you might be able to at least make those vultures unhappy, even if you can't kill them from in here." "Think about it. You are in a safehouse, a place of free information. We are surrounded by icons that are connected to real beings, in someways the icons are real beings." Erin nodded. "Yes, I had been thinking the same thing myself. Mind you, that still assumes we are here and not back in that Lab in Santa Cruz. I don't suppose we have much choice but to live this out as if it is real and hope it is." "You want to make them uncomfortable....dump everything you know about them and their troublemaking out in the open here. Since combat is prohibited, I don't see how they can stop you. And at least one pair of ears here should be friendly enough to get your data back to your tribe. And you should not have to tell anything you don't want to tell." "They hopefully can't stop me," Erin voiced, "but I'm not willing to just dump everything I know to just anyone. If Information can tell me who among these people are the Glasswalkers and where they come from I might be able to pass along the information to so many people that it'll be impossible for Lalo and the others to stop it." "As for me, I do not have to leave here any time soon. But I am hungry, weaker than I would like. I think I should be able to feed here, even if this liquid they serve is of no use to me. I seem to feed on emotional response, like some kind of emotional vampire. But if these icons are connected to real beings then i should be able to generate an emotional response by stimulating their icons. At least it sounds good, and I do not know what else to try. I seem to have heard of wraiths that could manipulate and navigate such places as this, but that is not part of my skill set." "Any skills as an entertainer? Musician? Singer? Comedian? I was thinking that we could actually do some schtick here. It would draw an audience, you could dump your data, I can try to generate some blasted feelings so that I can feed, and we might just be able to upset those smug thugs waiting to destroy us." "My skills are impressions, dark comedy, music and singing. For my purposes singing and or music would allow me to try my thing. Are you the bard type? Want to compose a song/poem telling all about those jerks? I'll be vocal/instrumental backup...." "Maybe, but perhaps if you used your skills to create a diversion as I talk to people in order to make it harder for them to watch me that might help. And no, I couldn't write a poem about that bunch if my life depends on it, and it might do!" Gilbert turned aside for a moment. "Information? Information? Are you still there? I have some questions for you..." "Yes, I am still here," Information answered Gilbert. "I am always here while you are in the 'Spy's Demise'." "Good, I have a few questions for you too!" Erin added. "Would it be possible for you to tell me or show me who the Glasswalkers here are and where they might come from? Also, is it possible to leave messages here for people or send messages out from here? And how easy would it be for someone to stop or trace them?" The voice answered so fast that the answers seem to almost be part of Erin's spoken sentances, save for the change in voice. "No, I cannot reveal identities. You may leave messages with other patrons or contacts. That is between you and them. As for intercepting messages - anything is possible given skill and effort." "Information.... is there any direct exit from the Net, from this room?" Gilber asked. "Yes," the voice confirmed. "The 'Spy's Demise touches the Net at an almost infinite number of points." "You know what I am, a ghost in the machine. In my current state, is there any way straight out to the skinlands?" Gilbert asked. "Your question has no meaning for me," came Information's reply. Undaunted, Gilbert continued. "Also, I am thinking of trying to generate emotions in these icon representaions so that I can feed. Will it work? And will the Keeper allow it?" "I cannot answer your first question. And as I am not the Keeper, I cannot answer your second question either." Taking this in, Gilbert went on. "You seem so hospitable here.... there are some things I want. First, if my friend decides that the entertainment idea isn't absolutly crazy, we will need a small stage, couple of stools, a microphone, amp and speakers, drums, a bass guitar, and a hat to put out for change." "Also, unrelated, I could sure use cable access and a tv or two, or five, or ten. Hell, a whole bank of them. I used to like to watch movies, and I REALLY miss them." "These things will not represent a problem. You could create them yourself if you were sufficiently versed." "You have mentioned yourself and the Keeper. Are there any other entities such as yourselves here? Entities that live here at this club, this place? Is there a 'Help?'" "Yes, there are others here. And far as what you mean by a 'Help' function, I probably fill the role you are thinking of." "Is there anyone who can help me call out from here? A phone system of sorts? To the skinlands or the deep umbra?" Gilbert asked. "I am not allowed to divulge of myself where it concerns matters outside of the 'Spy's Demise.'" "Does Gaia ever have an icon here? Are there any other ghosts here now?" the ghost asked, perhaps a bit hopefully. "I cannot answer these questions. To violate our patrons anonymity without their persmission goes against one of the founding principles of this place." "What is the penealty for combat, and how would one fight in this realm or this club anyway? I've got a dark side, and if it gets out, it will probably cause trouble." "If you cause or cause to happen any dispruption or annoyance to the clientele of this place, the Keeper will simply have you removed - and you may or may not be allowed in at a later interval." "You were right of course. This liquid served here is of no use to me. Is there anything on the menu that I can consume?" Gilbert asked. "It seems unlikely, given the way your software is written." "I am pretty fried. My memory is like vapor. Please tell me all you can access and divulge about who and what I am?" "You are a cybernaut. That is all I am allowed to divulge to anyone," Information assured Gilbert. "And finally, those over there are waiting for us like vultures. Given the nature of this place, this must be a common scenerio. beings hiding from pursuit, hoping to shake them here. Any suggestions?" "I am not allowed to make suggestion." "Is there anything like a freedom train set up to help, or something?" "You would have to define 'Freedom Train.'" "What have you seen others try that seemed to work.?" "Again, you are assuming that I can offer you more of myself than is allowed," Information corrected Gilbert. In the Net, Time: whenever Gilbert tossed about within himself for ideas. Nothing seemed like a good idea. He felt despair, depression, growing. Then he stopped himself, smiled, and shook his head. Gilbert talked to Erin. "I have been worrying about all this too much. I am dead... a damned ghost! Of course I feel despair over this. Damned silly if you think about. As a wraith, I'd probably feel depressed about a personal invitation to heaven. I am going to think through some things, and ask some people (if I can connect with them) some questions. Erin nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Go ahead and ask but I'm getting more paranoid by the minute." Gilbert agreed. "Listen in and watch, and let me know if any of it sounds good or gives you any ideas. Also let me know if I can assist you in any way." "Ok, will do." Gilbert looks up and says "Information. Thanks." He continued, "Help? Help? Is there a Mr. Online Help in here? If so, I need a tutorial in manipulating this reality." "There's none available," came the terse response from Information. Apprently, Information was the only one to respond to Gilbert's querries to the keeper. "Keeper? Keeper? I wanted you to know that I am a novice user. It is not my intent to generate any disruption to your system. However, I need to attempt an activity or two. Being a novice, I have a low confidence level on how it will affect this node. I invite you to examine my software, and monitor my online actions, (which I assume you are doing anyway.)" There was no response to this statement from Gilbert. "Keeper, a few requests. I know some of them may be ridiculus or impossible, but again I am a novice user. First, can you store backup copies of the icon Erin and myself for automatic retrieval at a future time?" "No." "Good, thank fuck for that!" Erin sighed. Gilbert turned to Erin. "I was thinking that if Keeper could have created backups, then maybe we could have made a run for it, turn on our pursuers, fight it out, and then either live or die. If we lived, we returned here and canceled the order for recalling the backups. If we died, then the vultures would have gone away, thinking us dead, and then we could have started again from the point that our backups were activated." Erin shrugged. "Nice idea, but that's only a step short of what Lalo was planning to do and you know how much I didn't enjoy that prospect." "Keeper: Second, I was wondering if you have a virus checker. I have afeeling that my software is contaminated (but again I assume you already know that) with a dormant virus. Anyway you can delete it from my programing without activating it?" "That is not the Keeper's function," Information patiently explained. Aside to Erin, Gilbert said "It would have been nice to get rid of my darkside, but I guess it wasn't quite that easy." "Things you want badly to happen never are!" "Keeper: third, I was hoping that I could make a special request as a novice user, here not by design, but forced here by circumstances beyond my control. If you have to throw me out of this place, or dump my out, or whatever, can you set it up that you eject me into the skinlands, deep umbra, or the umbra. If this makes no sense, then could you at least set it up that I am dumped in an untracable fashion far from this place in the net, so that those who search for me will find it very difficult to find me." "I'm afraid that the Keeper will not respond to you directly. But being familiar with his thoughts, I can tell you that he will not aid you in any way. You must govern your own actions," Information told Gilbert. "Keeper: forth, are you taking applications? Although I am rather inexperienced, I do not have any engagements that are real pressing at the moment, and I do have some rather unique skills. Also, I learn fast." "I will forward your request." There was a pause. "The Keeper says you may stay here as an entertainer, if that is your wish." Gilbert bowed, still not accepting the offer. "Keeper: thank you for the hospitality shown so far. Of course there are those who believe that everyone has an angle, and that someone providing a service such as yours must be getting something from it (like access to incredible amounts of data as users flock to and through this place.) But regardless of whether you are saint, sinner, or something in-between, we are benefitting greatly from your hospitality. Of course what we need most at the moment is escape from those who wish to terminate our programs, and in our current state that means our existance. If your hospitality could extend in any way to aiding us in safe flight, of course our appreciation for your hospitality would be increased many fold. "Again, the Keeper will not aid you." "Keeper: and lastly....In my current state, I derive sustanance from the emotions I am able to generate in others. I need to attempt this, as I am rather weak at the moment. I do not know if it will work here, but I need to try. Again it is not my intent to cause any disruption in your place, and I am hoping that this won't. What I intend on doing is attracting the attention of your patrons, and then performing for them. In doing so I will be activating special parts of my programming that will allow me (hopefully) to generate emotional responses in the users through their connections to their icons, and draw back along that same connection emotional energy." "You might ask 'What's in this for me?' Intelligent question m'lord. What I get out of it is obvious....continued survival. But for you the opportunity is even greater. You can monitor and record the processes involved in this little experiment, and study them. (Since you would probably be doing so anyway, I thought I would be magnanamous and invite you to participate in my little game.) If this is successful, then you would have a new way of drawing a marketable commodity into the net directly from the real world. It probably won't work, but the potential for profit if it does makes it a rather worethwhile venture. Of course this may be something you already know how to do, but if so, then I figured you would already be doing it, and such sustanence would be available here, like the other things you already provide so freely." There was only silence to these words. "Thanks Keeper. We remain respectful and humble guests." Gilbert bowed. Gilbert turned to Erin. "What ya' think?" "Lots of ideas, but not much help really, I think. See if you can work on feeling better as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. In the meantime, I'd like to put an idea to you. If you were Lalo setting things up to extract information, whilst he still had our bodies on ice, then wouldn't this be the perfect way to do it? After all, the 'Spies Demise'? Strange name for a cyberbar don't you think? They think we're spies and if we stay here much longer this is going to be our demise. Hell, Lalo's probably the keeper of this place. It doesn't make much difference as we're stuck here but if that is what's going on then we'll keep playing this charade until their satisfied. If not, we play to win anyway." "Anyway, right or wrong, I'll try to find some of my tribemates in here and get the information back to my friends in San Jose. With any luck, this is real and I can sort things out. If you want you can see if you can find some of my tribemates too by talking to some of the others." Erin then headed towards the table he'd picked out. He was seen talking to a weird group sitting at the large round table. On a whim, Gilbert focused on thin air one more time. But this time he reached inside and attempted to pull some of the energy that was himself out. He tried to take that energy, and weave it into words, phrases, then short, intense sentences. "Gaia! Help us! And if not us, then Erin! Get him home, safe amongst his own!" Gilbert rocked back a bit, tired. He turned to Erin. "I don't know who this Gaia being is, but the name is sure powerful, sweet, filled with the flavor of vibrant life. Believe me, I know. That flavor, smell, whatever... of life is the defining essence of what is missing amongst the dead. Everytime I hear that name, or speak it, I think back to the few moments of vibrant life that marked my existance. Gilbert began to set up a stage area, requesting drums, bass guitars, speakers, etc... He set it up so that the bank of TV's provided were behind the stage, facing the audience. He continued watching the sets, and attempted to modify what was being shown on them, but to no avail. And he attempted to learn as much as he could about his new environment, doing as much as he could for himself, before seeking assistance from those who seem to work in the place. Gilbert continued his efforts to set up a stage area. He tried to get a wide mix of childrens programming on the different TV screens. Barney on one, Sesame Street on another. Cartoons here, puppet/muppet stuff there. His goal was to fill the screens with a wide array of icons from childhood. He will then took his first shot at his little experiment of generating emotions, through keening, and then feeding. He composed a song, heavy metal, angst rock style, and pictured the bold strong style of the Group Queen. He used a base drum, base guitar, and microphone that were provided. Then he starts practicing his new song. scream mother scream i was born tripping balls echoes and images bouncing off the walls mother's screams coloring my infant night dad had always slipped away again mother stayed high on prescription gin things were always brewing for another fight REFRAIN------------------------------- scream mother scream it helps me pretend it's all a dream even at two I know this much horror can't be real why don't you hit one of us again it might ease the pain of your hidden sin keep groping in your terror for a way to heal --------------------------------------- mom had a knife to sister's chest telling her she'd better do her best i could hear it all from behind the bars of my crib sister was in the kitchen on the floor at age seven she'd learned to whore and i was afraid mom'ld get bloodstains on my bib mother what happened so long ago in that place where you can't go when your father and his flock abused you so I wish that we all could know the terrible face of the hidden foe so we could find someway to stop this horror show death was waiting in the yard breathing fast and staring hard attracted by the insane pitch of my mother's screams dad just sat and took it in bound and gagged by his own dark sin and death haunted my home my heart and my dreams mom searched the sky for UFO's why she did this no one knows dad was selling bomb shelters in the neighborhood uncle was recovering from some twisted sin auntie had had her skull bashed in i was looking for some compass that pointed to good death came racing down our street hit me hard knocked me off my feet playing games with the mind of a terrified child there were UFO's above but in our house god where was the love why was i born into a storm of terror gone wild born sharing an emotional cage with a family filled with rage the chaos of terror was the first home I ever knew now i walk the path of life stained by pain and fear and strife seeking a path leading onward upward straight and true The nearby patrons sat in stunned silence. Then, starting with a group in the upper gallery, they started to stand up roaring their approval and showering Gilbert with praise and adulation. Sadly for Gilbert, he found that he could not feed off of any of the emotional bounty that was provided. On the Net, Sometime. Deep Sorrow felt tired after the show. He poured much of himself into the performance, hoping to gain some sustanance. But his efforts proved fruitless. A little bitter, a little frustrated, he turns all the tv screens to movies, old dramas, action films, comedies. Just as in life, his current frustration was eating away at him from within. He was desperatly seeking some diversion, some escape to distract him from the emptiness. A bitter smile flicked across his features, as the thought hit that in some ways, life was not much better than death. But soon, he was absorbed in a barrage of old Hollywood fantasy. His smile lost its edge, and he drifted away to the inner world of dreams, where hope wasn't just an empty, painful illusion. Time indeterminate "That was very interesting," someone told him. Looking up, Gilbert saw that a silvery coloured humanoid was speaking to him. The speaker's high pitched voice and androgynous shape gave not hint at the speaker's sex but the iridescent hue of the body was hypnotically pleasing - so much so that Gilbert found himself staring into it's milky depths, loosing himself to Sorrow. "I can't help feeling that you were intending something by your performance. Is that the case?" "That was very interesting," someone told him. Looking up, Gilbert saw that a silvery coloured humanoid was speaking to him. The speaker's high pitched voice and androgynous shape gave not hint at the speaker's sex but the iridescent hue of the body was hypnotically pleasing - so much so that Gilbert found himself staring into it's milky depths, loosing himself to Sorrow. "I can't help feeling that you were intending something by your performance. Is that the case?" Gilbert slowly faded back in to his imediate surroundings. He had lost himself in the images flickering across the many screens in front of him. Those images, movies from long ago, when he had been living, were comforting for him. he had been drifting amongst them, lost among them, floating in the faded memories of empty fantasies. Now someone was calling him back from that comfort, empty though it was. He stared at the silver figure for a moment, struggling to connet with it, and his surroundings. After a few moments his head had cleared somewhat, at least enough to remember that he was traveling with someone, that they were in a computer or something, and that they were being hunted by someone or something. Who had he been traveling with? Irving? Irwing? No, that wasn't quite right. Erin! He felt a brief elation at having remembered something concrete for a change. But the brief flash of elation was suddenly followed by a wave of surging, conflicting emotions. Hunger, fatigue, depression, fear, anger, frustration, bitterness. The wave hit him, swirled about him, tore at him. "Erin", Gilbert shouted, ignoring the silvery figure for a moment. "Erin?! Damn this... Not now... Erin!" He looked up at the silver being. "What do you want? Yeah, I was trying to do something. I'm hungry. Damn hungry!" Suddenly Gilbert grimaced, grabbed his head with both hands, and doubled over. He shouted, but only with his mind. No one there could hear his next words. "You! Dark thing in my soul! Deep Sorrow! What do you want? Why are you grieving me now? Can you get me out of this or what? I've never negotiated with you before, but damn I'm tired of this gnawing hunger." Gilbert broke off the internal monolog, shifting his attention to the beings around him. He tried to see what they were doing. He looked to see if the silver thing was still there. He sought Erin. He could feel things inside building to an explosion, and he felt his control, little by little, slipping. "It seems that existence in the Net doesn't agree with you. Tell me, you're not a Tradition Mage, are you? If not, then what are you?" Gilbert felt bad. The events of the past few...the past few whatevers flashed through his mind. Fears, frustrations, disillusions, delusions, panic, anger.... Suddenly a fury of raw negative emotions were raging within him. In the past this had often been the precursor to the emergence of his dark side. But this time, he felt differently. He would not just humbly step aside and let the terror lash out from within. Perhaps he could not restrain his shadow, but he could sure as hell try. He would fight like hell this time to retain control. He felt the new resolve strong within him, battling with the bitter darkness that was his shadow. "A mage? I am not a mage. I am a ghost, a boogey man, a dead thing from beyond. And although this ain't so bad a place, I am tired as hell of having those two cretin's over there hunting me. You want mages? Go chew the fat with those boys." "I am tired of being hungry. Nothing here to feed own...nothing of substance. This is just some soulless fiction, woven from lifeless and deathless electrons. I am tired of being hungry. I am tired of being dead. I am tired of the shadowlands, the skinlands, my own face, and yours." Gilbert was starting to feel sick inside, deep inside where he rarely felt anything. Whatever was happening, it was new, and he did not like it. Something had to change. "You a mage? You want to suck my spiritual brains out like the last mages I ran into?" Gilbert twisted his attention inward, and directed his thoughts at his own shadow. "And what about you?" He yelled with his mind. "Splinter of a dark lie, son of some long forgotten secret, illusion, figment, foolish, empty phantom. How long have you plagued me? How much longer do you think I will let you rule?" Gilbert again turned his attention outward. "I want out of here, Silverfish, or what ever your face is. But ain't nobody to trust. Can't even trust myself. Ain't that the rat's hind leg. Sure can't trust you...you ain't even a real thing." "I can see you're troubled," the silvery being replied calmly. "Perhaps I should leave you to your own thoughts." With that, the silvery icon left him, seeming to walk away on the iridescent floor. An icon appearing nothing more than like a bust of Augustus Ceaser floated over to Gilbert. "Hello," the icon addressed him, the lips of the bust moving as if it were alive. "My name is Augie. I'm kind of glad you didn't go with the Techno there. I don't think she had good intentions. Did I hear you say you were a dead spirit?" Gilbert nodded. "Hmm, interesting. I'd love to do a digital scan of your matrix. But right now, I guess you'd like to get out of here and back to your own world. Am I right?" Again, Gilbert nodded. "Right. Well, I can guide you. In return, maybe you could do a favor for me sometime?" Gilbert shrugged. "How would you find me?" Gilbert asked him. "I don't even know you." "Well, where are you from out in the wetworld?" "Hmm? Oh, I haunt around Santa Cruz. No fixed locations." Gilbert thought a bit. "You know, you could go to Lulu Carpenter's. It's a bar - or was a bar. Now it's a coffeeshop." "And what do I do when I get there?" "Just talk out loud. Normally, your voice won't exist except as background noise, but I'm sure one or two spooks might hear you. Hopefully word would get to me somehow. It's the best I can offer you I'm afraid." The bust hovered, immobile. "Alright. You're on. So, is it a deal?" Gilbert thought a bit more. "Well..... two things. First, I have a friend here, and he needs out too. Can you manage that? If so, talk to him. That's him, over there." "Second, I really don't have any reason to trust you, so we have a deal only so far as things seem kosher. Don't shock me with any fancy surprises, or I might get the wrong the idea. But beyond that, yeah, I'ld like to get out of here, and if you can manage to get me out of here I might be up to trusting you. And if you do get me out of here, I'll do what I can to pay you back." The bust, it's features frozen oncemore hovered for a few seconds. "Alright," Augie said, his icon's lips moving once again. "But we do it on my terms and I'll agree to dumping your friend back out into the wetworld too. My main concern is that I dump you someplace remote from my crib. I don't want any attention being drawn to me. Can you give me a geo so I can zoom in on a good spot?" How about a local television station, or a theater? Or some place where they perform music, like a rock concert, or the symphony? Or I seem to remember an old mission that used to have a big bell, but now has electric chimes or some such. If you can really pin point a location, inside that bell tower might be a place I can rest and hide for a while. If you have to dump us at the same place, then I'll follow my friend there. He probably knows a safe place. The icon interjected at this point, "Whoa! I need a geo first. What city? That's the flat locale? After that, it depends. I'll have to use locally inadequte circuitry to zoom yooz in. Any like colleges or universities nearby? I could maybe make use of their stuff." "Santa Cruz, California, USA. They have a University, but I was near there when all this stuff started happening. I do not think that I want to end up there again. What about the TV newstation angle? Or even a public library? Or ask my friend over there. But I've been thinking.... You can dump me other places where they have high tech connections to the web? If you dumped me some where, could you get me back into the web? I just sorta got this hairbrained idea while you were talking, and although it sounds absolutly insane, that seems about par for the course for me lately. Any way you can dump me in an orbiting comm satilite? It sounds risky, but there might be some unusual payoffs in it for me. I've never been there. I've been looking for a place to lay low for awhile. And You never know who you might meet in orbit, on the other side of death. If you are able, I'ld like to give that a try. Of course you can't dump my friend there, cuz like the vacuum thing..air water...food, that whole skinland schtick. What ya' think?" The icon hovered for a bit, as if it's owner were thinking. "Well, this is all theoretical on my part. I should tell you I THINK I can do it, but there are no guarantees. As for dumping you on a Satellite, that shouldn't be a problem, but that's Tech territory and Digitalis help you if they get a hold of you. Reprocessing you's a problem. But if someone else did it, I should be able to recreate the effect - but that could take time. I want to warn you. Who knows how long you could be stuck up there." I guess it's one of those all or nothing kind of gambles, huh? I've been dead long enough to learn that things can always get worse. But at least being in orbit would be different, and right now, different sounds great. And I seem to have a knack for making enemies, and maybe it will take them a while to find me there. So lets shoot for the moon.... well not literally, but almost. What do I need to do? "I'll need to take you back to my crib. There I can examine your pattern better for reinsertion into the wetworld. Also, I'll need to find a suitable satellite. What about your friend?" Time Indeterminate Gilbert looked at Erin, talking to Lalo and his cohorts while screened by a number of other magi. He half had a thought that now would be a good time to leave him. It was only a whimsical thought, but the moment it took shape, Gilbert found himself whisked away to a strange chamber. C.R.T.'s glimmered in ghostly darkness, illuminating Augie's icon, but only making Gilbert seem even more insubstantial. Augie was looking at one of the screen. "Ah, you've just be digitilized. You're code is not even encrypted. Reintegrating you should be a piece of cake," he told Gilbert. "But, what about Erin?" Gilbert asked. "I thought you wanted to leave him?" Augie said. "I never said that," Gilbert said, wondering if he had given voice to his thoughts. He decided he hadn't when Augie cut in once more. "You said it as plain as day." Inside himself, Gilbert could hear a mocking laughter, barely a shadow of mirth. "There, you're on your way." Augie pointed something at him and all of a sudden, Gilbert was part oncemore of a river of light. When he came to, their were stars all around him. Monday, June 26th, 1995 8:03 a.m. Gilbert flew through heaven at an insane speed, but to him, bereft of relative signs to point at the rapidity of his flight, he had no way of telling. Indeed, the world, far far below him, seemed strangely poised as if fixed in place; the sun, moon, and planets whirling around the one stationary spot in the universe. The globe below him was regularly cast through a few intervals of light and dark while the sky was speckled with billions of stars. Gilbert half fancied a notion to count them all. Once having arrived, Gilbert found that he could not interact with the communications satellite Augie had left him on. He could only ride as a passenger. He wasn't sure how he was going to get off, or if he was even going to get off. Unless Augie came back to retrieve him for a favor, he was on his own. He supposed he might try to disable the satellite, but it might be years before someone came to trace it. And he felt strangely weak, as if this place too disagreed with him, as had the digital bar. Sunday, July 2nd, 1995 2:25 p.m. Deep Sorrow spent hours then days exploring his new little piece of the world. When the idea had first occurred to him, it had seemed impossible, but had quickly become an obsession. To find a corner of the Universe that was almost impossibly remote. No other wraiths to remind him of his own horror, no other wraiths seeking his non-flesh for the unholy smelting, no other non-wraiths to fall victim to his darker side. Self imposed exile was the closest thing to heaven that he could conceive of, steeped in the misery and decay of prolonged death as he had been for so long. No one to hurt, and no one to hurt him. Haunting a space satellite. A space hermit. The thought made him slightly giddy. At first he had been afraid that the satellite would not be remote beyond the veil of death, but as hours turned into days, he was reassured by the utter absence of otherworldly beings. He could also sense the absence of death in this place; although he could see the satellite as the abandoned, cold hunk of metal it would someday become, there was no real death here, for there had never been life here. He had also been afraid that there was some easy way down from the satellite, but after spending his time and all his energy searching for a way to activate an opening down in every way he could imagine, he became confident that he had locked himself away in a truly remote prison. There was much about his own nature as a wraith that he did not understand, but the few things he did think he understood had led to the formulation of his current plan. He had found the greatest horror of the Shadowlands and existence as a ghost to be his own Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde nature. His darker side, always ready to taunt his mind, haunt his heart. His darker side, always ready to rip, tear, kill and destroy anything in an effort to cause pain and suffering. He felt confident that as a wraith, he could only gain strength through affecting the living directly, and there were no living ones here. He had tried it remotely, via the net, and had found that he could not feed or recharge that way. And he felt confident that his darker side was in essence just another face of himself...it fed from the same reserves that he held within. Since he was already weak when he came here, and sense he had used all the mystical energy from within that he could muster in checking to see if his prison was escape proof, he felt reasonably certain that even if his shadow took control here, it would be unable to do any better than he in seeking escape. It would also be exhausted. He knew that he was condemning himself to an unbearably cold and lonely hell, but in all his questing, he had seen no opportunity for any true escape from that fate. This undeath was hell, and no action made it more acceptable. His time here, staring out into space would probably be unbearable. He would probably loose what little grip on sanity that he had. He would probably drift off into dementia, and lunacy. But that was OK. He had been there before, and the prospect of loosing himself in unreal images, and self-designed fantasies even seemed attractive in some ways. At least he was taking what looked as his best shot at not hurting people in the real world anymore. So for what he hoped was very long time he just settled in and studied the stars. Yes, counting them was an idea. He could count the stars. He could do it a few dozen times just to make sure that he had the number right, and then he could start making up names and mythical identities for each one. There were a billion stories to be made up out there in that night sky. But first one, two, three, four...
Back to the Wraith Page
Back to the World of Darkness
Back to Main Page
Back to Top