The old house wasn’t a mansion, thankfully, but it had a fence with a broken gate and a fairly spacious yard.  The yard was overgrown with dead brown weeds and wilted flowers.  The fence itself was wrought iron and rusted looking.  Naturally, as I stepped closer, the broken gate managed to sway without the presence of wind and made a mournful squeal.

I pushed through the gate, eliciting a more painful screech and looked back as I felt Bia’s sudden absence.  She stood beyond the fence with her staff planted.  My pulse began to pound in my throat and I quietly cleared my throat.

“Is something wrong, Bia Keres?” I asked, carefully calling her by her preferred name.

“I will wait here, my Lord,” she responded quietly, eyes downcast.

So, that must be it. This would be a test. I merely nodded to show that I understood and turned back to the building. I took another steadying breath and stepped up to the front door. For whatever reason, perhaps just whimsy, I clapped the bronze door knocker three times. To my surprise, I heard a faint but clear invitation, although the sound seemed to rise from the walls and whisper off the weathered wood in a way that proved it was no living voice. Part of me was thoroughly wishing I could run for my life and I felt the spike of adrenaline of a potentially dangerous situation, but for all that my mind remained more cool and analytical than I would ever have managed in my previous life. I could only assume it must be a perk of this new body.

I pushed open the door, which groaned with the sincere feeling of true misery. As I stepped into the foyer of the home, I saw a staircase running up the leftmost wall along with doorways to other parts of the house in front to both sides. My eyes were drawn to the top of the staircase where I saw an ephemeral woman dressed in the kind of transparent nightgown saved for lovers and husbands. She rushed out through the closed door on the left of the second floor balcony and we locked eyes. Her face lit up with a sincere smile and I felt like a thief, standing in someone else’s spotlight.

“..honey, your ho-“

As she spoke, she darted forward, but her foot turned as she reached first step. With a forlorn cry, her body began a slow dive down the stairs. I forgot entirely that this was the remnant of someone already gone and instead felt the horror of watching tragic death in motion. I struggled to rush forward against a sudden miasma of dread that strove to lock me in place. Her body tumbled in slow motion, bouncing once in the middle of the staircase.  My body refused to move any faster as I too seemingly swam through dark jellied haze, desperate to save here from the final fatal landing. Against the constraints of history and inevitability, I reached the base of the stair and she fell into my arms, like a beautiful broken angel.

“…home…” she whispered - or the walls did.  Her eyes locked with mine and her hand touched my face. Helplessly, I let her kiss me as the last glow of life faded from her eyes. I felt the chill of death on my lips and cheek as my tattoos began to pulse. She smiled as she faded from sight.

Soul Gained: Samantha

Second SightYou have learned to see the souls of the departed who linger in the mortal realm.  They can interact with you and you with them.

Passive

Mana Cost: 0

“Dammit, not now,” I muttered, shaking my head to drive away the unwanted blue boxes.  I saw that the girl’s, Samantha’s, soul was pooled in my hand like a puddle of silvery moonlight.  As I watched, she faded away and the glow of the tattoos on my arm intensified.

You have gained an innocent soul.

“Like I didn’t know that,” I muttered. I brushed away the blue window, this time with merely a thought. She was gone and many of the feelings of dread and horror lightened. I suppose only someone like me who could interact with the spirits in their realm could have rescued her from eternally repeating her death, although maybe burning the house down would do the trick. Actually, that still sounded like a pretty good idea, but unlike most horror movies, I still had a good reason to stay in here before I improved the real estate values in the neighborhood.

I headed toward the center of the malaise overlaying the house, a mix of death, grief, and horror. The very air seemed hard to breath and hard to move through. Simply climbing the staircase had me breathing hard, which once again caused me to question the nature of my body. The door at the top of the stair dripped… tears, not blood as I first suspected. I tasted one and it was distinctly salty. Still, they trickled down the door in distinct tear tracks, in no way similar to simple condensation. I touched the handle of the door and it was so cold it burned. I tightened my grip and cranked the reluctant knob around until I felt the latch stop, then I put my shoulder into the door and shoved the reluctant thing open.

You have taken 3 cold damage.

“Yes, and my hand is numb, little blue screen,” I growled.

Your right hand has been numbed due to cold and suffers -80% flexibility and strength.

I just grunted as I mentally flicked that window away as well.

The room beyond was crying. Tears wept from the walls and dripped from the ceiling while the floor squelched under my footsteps, but the air was bone dry like the crisp frozen air of the north. In fact, my senses were telling me this room should be too cold for flowing water.  In the center of the room, a desiccated corpse hung from the rafter overhead and tears still sprang from its eyes to drip down its sunken cheeks and drop from its chin.

I wasn’t surprised when I felt a wave of energy sweep over the room.  The door behind me swung violently closed and locked itself, while a spirit rose from the bed, as though rising from sleep. It was the spirit of a young man, indistinct in its features, aside from the awful and permanent grief etched into its face and the steady tear drops that fell from its eyes. I watched as it walked across the room and began to pen a letter.

“I’m sorry sorry..........”

The word sorry continued to echo and repeat, bouncing around the room until it sounded like the massive roar of the ocean, though still distinct enough to hear the word repeat. The rest of his words barely managed to rise above the tide of apology.

“I should have caught you that night.  I went out drinking with my friends, even though I knew you were waiting for me. I wanted to share my new happiness with everyone I knew.  I thought we would be together forever. If I had been sober, I’d have reached the bottom of the stair before you landed, my love.  Since I’ve killed you, I can’t live anymore.  Rather than this waking death, I will come to you.”

The spirit put down it’s quill and stepped over to the noose. He climbed onto the end table, although the end table lay fallen already.

“Stop,” I whispered.  I realized my eyes were wet and part of me wanted a noose of my own right now.  The spirit simply looked at me and smiled as he slipped the ready noose over his head.

“Sorry,” he mouthed, but the word was lost in the background regret.

“Stop!” I yelled more forcefully and managed to take another squelching step forward, but the spirit merely smiled as it kicked away the end table under its feet.  I heard the audible snap as his neck broke from the sudden drop and the sound seemed to startle the babble into stillness.  Part of me was grateful that he knew how to tie a noose correctly, instead of choking to death slowly.  Tears ran down the spirits face and merged into the still weeping corpse as it faded away.

I felt the energy of the room shift and the spirit rose again from its bed and walked over to the desk.  I felt the first stirrings of terror as the cycle repeated anew.  I screamed at him to stop. His neck snapped.  He rose again from his bed.  I begged him to stop.  His neck snapped.  I blocked his path.  He simply stepped through me.  His neck snapped.  I tried the door.

You have taken 3 cold damage.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Your left hand has been numbed due to cold and suffers -80% flexibility and strength.

Now both hands were too numb to grip the door knob, or I would have tried again anyway, despite my rapidly failing health. I refused to watch the tragedy play through repeatedly, but the voices regretting and apologizing seemed to burrow into my head and the scene played out in my mind’s eye right up the final crack when his neck snapped. Almost any escape was starting to look good. I turned around and watched the spirit walk past to the desk, but my gaze was locked on the noose. Almost any escape…

“STOP!” I screamed, but the vignette played out, unstoppable, like a broken record, only it was a broken life stuck going around and around, punishing himself for the death of his wife, forever.

“Make it stop,” I whimpered, shielding my eyes with my hands.  The unnatural glow of my tattoos brought back some semblance of my control. There was one person who could make this stop. There was one person who could convince him of his innocence, and only one.

“Samantha,” I called, remembering the name from the blue window I’d read in passing.  I held my right arm up, palm forward.  “Samantha,” I called strongly, “tell him to stop.”

I felt the stirrings of that new soul, wherever it was I was keeping them. I called to it, inviting it forward.  I showed it the scene playing out, again, before my eyes.

“Samantha,” I called so soft the words were lost even to my own ears as voices of regret banged around the room like the clatter of broken dreams.

A white silhouette flowed out of my palm and stepped forward, taking shape as the woman I had caught at the staircase.  She slid forward, above the tears, seemingly cushioned on the air itself and as the man kicked away the end table, she caught him in her arms and held him, safe.  Both spirits faded to tendrils of liquid black and silver that flowed back into my palm and sank into me.

Soul Gained: Eric

You have saved the soul of a suicide from torment.

+5 Reputation

+1 Luck

+1 Leadership

You have learned the skill “Manifest”.

ManifestAs the necromancer you can request or command the souls of the dead you own to manifest in the mortal realm as semi-physical ghostly apparitions.  While manifested, they can talk, act, and speak according to the abilities they have gained in life and death.

Activated

Mana Cost: 2 per second

A wave of windows assaulted me, as the tears slowed and stopped on the walls and the miasma of despair and sadness faded away from overpowering to simply unnatural. I sank down against the door breathing hard, like I’d just finished a four minute mile. The tears soaking the carpet soaked me too, but I didn’t care at the moment. Even the corpse, hanging in the center of the room was something I could forget.

After a few minutes, I read the messages before I shoved myself back up to my feet. For the first time, I explored deeper into the room. On the desk, I found a sheet of parchment, bone dry, except for the still wet droplets of recent tears which blurred some of the words out. I knew the contents by heart, but I lived in hope of forgetting them. Also on the desk, I found a heavily rusted key. I picked that up, assuming it would be something I needed. This was all a test, after all.

There didn’t seem to be anything else in the room. I wasn’t even sure if I’d needed to come in here. As I thought that, I felt an immense wave of gratitude from Samantha and for the first time in what felt like eternity, a sincere smile spread across my face. In that case, I suppose I’m glad I did. I updated the mental note to figure out how to communicate more easily with the souls I found without having to go to sleep first.

I stepped back onto the landing and reached out with my senses, as I was becoming accustomed to doing. It seemed that without these two, the house was bleeding off excess emotional energy at a great rate, but in the cellar, I sensed a different kind of death energy. It felt… foreign to this house. I had a feeling that’s what I was here for.

In short order, I navigated through the, now, merely creepy house. The cellar was in the dusty kitchen, accessed through a trap door. Sure enough, there was a large iron padlock with a key hole I could practically put my finger in. I inserted the key and put a little muscle into it to get it to click open. With some trepidation, I descended the ladder.

The cellar, thankfully, was simply a small room with mostly empty shelves. Although it was dark, I was finding more and more that my eyes really didn’t care. Heck, I was pretty sure they were glowing, so maybe I made my own light somehow? Dead center of the middle shelf balanced on a kind of sword stand was a sword.

I stepped forward cautiously, wary of some kind of final trap or test, but nothing happened as I picked it up. It was a beautiful piece of work, although rather plain. I carried it out into the kitchen where the light of day filtering through the grimy windows allowed me to identify colors. The Scabbard was pitch black, possibly ebony, and polished to a reflective shine.  The weapon itself would probably qualify as a short sword, although it had a bit of curve to it, like some eastern Asian weapons. The handle was wrapped in black cloth with a long green tassel, while the blade was a simple, single edged affair with an almost liquid looking surface that rippled with greenish light.  There weren’t any emotions attached to the weapon.  It simply carried the weight of many many deaths. This was either an exceedingly old sword, or a very busy one. I had a suspicion that it was probably both, in order for the efficient simplicity of pure death to have sunk into its blade to such an extent.

There was a baldric for my belt and I attached the sword to it, adjusting it to ride behind my back. The handle ended up extending from behind my back to the right, which was appropriate for a backhand draw. I’d have to practice with it… oh, and learn how to use a sword. Still, I felt more comfortable carrying it.

In only a few steps, I was leaving the old house behind with mixed feelings, predominantly relief. I realized, idly, that a large portion of that feeling stemmed from Eric and Samantha.

Bia Keres was waiting outside and I thought I saw some expression flit over her features before they returned to their regular impassivity. She rose smoothly to her feet and assumed a slightly bowed posture. I felt relief of an entirely different kind just seeing that she was still here. I glanced at the sky and did a rough calculation.  An hour , two maybe?  My chorus of native souls agreed that it was merely one o’clock. It certainly felt longer.

I flexed my hands, painfully. They were now suffering shooting and sparkling pains as they unthawed. Bia Keres stepped forward and took one of my hands, concentrating silently for several seconds. The crystal on her staffed pulsed dimly as the pain faded and I felt my strength and flexibility return.

You have been healed for 6 hit points.

The numbness in your hands is gone.

“Thank you, Bia,” I murmured. Part of me was shocked, but the more logical portion calmly noted that in a world with magic swords and deadly haunts, why wouldn’t there be magic capable of healing. I felt her hands, roughened with calluses, but gentle and warm.

“I am Bia Keres,” she answered, but softened the subtle correction with a nearly imperceptible smile at the corner of her mouth. She withdrew her hand from mine but the warmth on my palm lingered for a moment.

I flexed my fingers and half drew my sword, since I’d heard that’s what you did to check that a weapon would draw smoothly. It did draw smoothly, coming easily to hand.  It wouldn’t be a long draw to have it in my hand, since the blade was less than three feet long.

“Then we’re ready,” I stated with more confidence than I felt.  I cast out my senses and identified the arena once again and the old death hidden beneath it, then I led the way back through the narrow streets.