Poltergeist
Poltergeist
| Respawn: ?? | |||||
| Level: 10 | Attack: 256 | ||||
| HP: 5760 | MP: 829 | SP: 829 | |||
Max Drop: 400 gold, 0 silver, 0 copper
- Created by Mathollak, winner of the Halloween Monster Contest 2022.
I don’t know how I got a reputation as an exorcist, but I’ll do it. That kind of money? I’ll do most things. So I bought the shabbiest tricorn hat I could find and found an old duster. ‘Vintage’ I say about it. I’d stick out in Vhys, probably, but that was inevitable.
I took the boat, cruising in a luxury liner. I can afford it and I deserve to treat myself for being so brave about the whole things. Brave and helpful. Cenril to Rynvale, Rynvale to Vhys. A lot of time to read up on ghosts and things, and I take advantage. I learn a few things, but mainly I trust the knife I bring with me. Jade from a haunted mine that cuts things that normally can’t be touched by ‘real’ things. I never tried it of course, but it never came up.
I’m early for the meet-up which is unlike me. But it was at the same inn I was staying at, in the pub downstairs. “What can you tell me about that old chateau?” I ask the guys helping me pass the time.
“Renovations started up months ago but haven’t gotten very far. Money’s dried up after some bad investments.”
“No I heard from my brother the workers all went on strike due to poor conditions.”
“A curse. Anybody who sets foot in there dies in a freak accident.”
So nobody knew anything.
A skinny, uptight guy with brown pants and a green coat, with those goofy shoulder things. Epaulets? Comes up to me. “Are you the exorcist inquired to cleanse Chateau Drakenheart?” Like he can’t see my hat and coat and general demeanor (I’ve been trying seem like I’d seen some things).
“I take it you’re not the boss,” I say dismissively, without even looking at him. I’ve seen too much to look at more things. Exorcists mainly brood. So we go to the boss’s office, not too far away. I keep quiet, even sulk. Part of it’s because that’s what an exorcist would do, but it’s a little bit because the guy is such a dweeb. I can tell when people are boring, with a look.
Boss has a nice office. As many expensive baubles as he could fit without making it tacky. The coolest thing is this big long sword he’s got on a plaque, hanging behind where he sits. One edge and a serious curve. Cavalry man, this guy is. Decorated too, they don’t give bedazzled swords like that to just anyone. Mithril even? I think it was.
I could take him.
“Tell me about the problem,” I say like I’m a guy who solves problems instead of making them.
He hates me right away, I know it. I don’t think it was personal or because I’m a human, either. I think he would hate anyone he has to answer to, anyone he has to wait on, anyone he needs help from.
“You may know the chateau,” he says, like it was a test. If I didn’t know, I was definitely less than. Already looking down his nose at me. Elves, right? He’s only half turned to me, sitting on one of those chairs that spins and wearing pants so tight I can know way more than I should. Maybe on someone else it would be cool but on him? He’s got the epaulets too, and I can see the cufflink on his wrist glinting. A little dragon made of some crystal thing. I’m immediately envious and I grab this globe made of amber off his desk just to give myself something better to look at.
“I know a little about the chateau,” I say, remembering the talk in the bar in which I learned nothing. There’s a pixie inside the amber, looks like she’s sleeping.
“Put that back please,” he says with an annoyed sigh. I do put it back after very obviously thinking about not putting it back. He was giving me a lot of money. “Chateau Drakenheart is mine now, through an inheritance. But it needs to be rehabilitated, it’s completely uninhabitable. It was even before the poltergeist, but now people are dying. Two of my men. The rest refuse to step inside and now no work is getting done, and I’ve waited long enough as it is.” He takes a breath. “You can kill the ghost for me?”
I have no idea. Maybe? “What can you tell me about this ghost? You inherited the place. So you must know who lived there before.”
He narrows his eyes, his patience winnowing. A simple yes was the only answer he could tolerate. “An aunt lived there, stubbornly refusing to leave even though it was always much too big for her to take care of. She clung to it when she was alive too.” He hmphs and shakes his head. Clearly no love lost.
“No kids to pass it on to?”
“What do you think?”
“Where was she seen?”
“I don’t know that, the only people who saw her are dead.”
“Any idea what she wants? A lot of times, they’ll move on if they can wrap up whatever it was th-”
“I don’t know and I don’t care! Can you get rid of her?”
“I believe I can. I’ll need half the money up front.” I say it like it’s a punishment for being rude to me. I still can’t believe he agreed to that. Actually, knowing how desperate he was, I bet I could’ve asked for more.
“Fine. I’ll need it done quickly,” he says, plopping down a bag of money that must’ve dented his desk. I play it cool. It was nothing to him. “You’ll do it tonight?”
“Tomorrow,” I correct him. “And I’ll need blueprints. No guarantees either.. Without knowing more about this lady, I can only do what’s possible. So.”
He frowns. “Okay, I understand.” He hands me the blueprints, sliding out a roll of papers from the drawer in front of him.
“This place is huge. So many rooms,” I say as I unroll the documents, and he knows it’ll take longer than a day.
“Yes…actually,” he says, like a thought just occurred to him. “Try the mezzanine. East wing. That’s where the men were supposed to be working it just…isn’t where they were found.”
“Okay! The mezzanine.” We shake on our deal, and I notice something beautiful on his wrist. “Looks like you’re missing a cufflink, huh? Too bad.”
I go back to my room. I’m pretty sure I’m just going to go home in the morning, I was out of my element and I was just given free money by a jerk. Help him? Nah. But as I soothe the bruise beaten into my thigh by his bag of money, I realize how curious I am about the whole thing. I felt a little bit like a hitman, which is fine, but normally people like him would be the target. And I was already sympathetic to his aunt for having to know him.
But it’s not my problem if people don’t finish their business while they’re alive.
I study the blueprints more closely on the carriage ride over the next morning. If he didn’t tell me about the mezzanine I would’ve quit immediately. I don’t care how much money it was, I wasn’t going to walk in and out of moldy rooms for ten hours.
I walk past a tent city made for the workers who aren’t working, past some discarded tools, and let myself into the open door. This place was a shambles. “Man’s got vision, I’ll give him that,” I say to myself. I almost leave. The vibes are so bad, but it could be in my head, I don’t know. I can tell when someone hates me. I can feel it. But this place almost made me sick. The fireplace is nice though. Or it could be. There’s so much ash and dust a cloud springs up from the carpet near it. There’s a little bunny doll with a half burnt up ear near it. It was nice once, I realize as I pick it up. A trophy for me.
“Ding-dong, Daddy’s home!” I yell out to the ghost as I start walking up the stairs. Ghosts hate the living, sometimes just for being alive. Maybe she’d come to me.
I get up to the mezzanine and face the east corridor. I look down at all the doors and get my dagger unsheathed.
Actually, this is where I get a little scared. Because what if it didn’t work? At least it was pretty I think, as I look down at it. Carved from a single piece of jade, smooth as silk. I like the weight of it, too.
“Alright lady! Time’s up!” I holler down the hall. Not all ghosts hate everyone, but they all hate their anguish being mocked. “You’ve lived here long enough and it’s time to move on. Stupid as he is, your nephew’s got some good ideas about this place. It’s in good hands.”
I take a few more steps down the hall and I freeze. There she is, just pacing on the moldy old carpet like it was normal. Like she was always there. A woman of some venerable age wearing a nightgown, I think. But she’s all white, white as snow. And I can see through her a little bit. Still, I know she’s pretty from here. I freeze. I take a deep breath. I take one more step.
The floor creaks and we both know what a big mistake I made. The sweet old elf sees me, and all vision of her as a person vanishes as she flares out with mad power. Her hair flies out in every direction, her mouth widens into a shredding maw of a million billion needles. She flies right at me!
I take one step back, I wanted to run but she was too fast. She flings her meat hook claws at me like a maniac and I swing my knife like a desperate rookie, falling backwards and I’m sure I’m dead. But I got her.
I cut ribbons of glowing goop out of her arm that cling to the knife like mucus and she wails. Her agonized screams echo through the halls as she flies back from where she came. I note the door she flies through as I get to my feet. “Not used to someone fighting back are ya!”
Obviously, I follow her. It’s in the bedroom, I know from the blueprints. But when I go inside? Nothing but the smell of rotted wood and debris.
So I’m looking around, and her room is a mess. Turned completely upside down. You know how rich people like their things in its place and symmetrical and neat? The bed was pushed at a weird angle, broken glass on the ground from a mirror, area rug half curled up the dresser. Who does that? Angry, temper tantrum having ghosts, I guess.
As long as she’s not here, what else can I do? I snoop. I find the frame of a big painting laying flat on the ground and tilt it up. I was right, she was pretty. But then my mind is blown. “What? No. What?” It’s a portrait of her. And two kids, probably around 8. Her nephew got ugly when he grew up, that’s for sure.
I think she hears my thought, because then she comes flying out of the ground, right out from where I’m standing. Quick as a cat, I jump out of the way. She comes again. Each step I take back, she swings at me with her horrid claws, nearly missing each time until I trip on a bunched up part of the rug and slam right through the rotting floor. No time to sheath the dagger, I drop it as I cling to some splintered planks and I can hear it shatter. Before I thought I was dead? Now I know I am.
She comes out of nowhere, wailing at me with her ear-splitting screech and I can feel my brain getting ready to explode. I truly would’ve died if I didn’t let go to cover my ears with my hands. I fell into that hole and disappeared.
I must’ve landed on two inches of dust and I don’t know where she is now. So I spark up a torch to cover up the darkness. It’s an empty room, stone floor, stone walls. But this dust is not dust. It’s ash. “This wasn’t in the blueprints,” I say. “Why wasn’t this in the blueprints.” The fragments of my knife are under me, but something else catches my eye. Something glinting in the torchlight. I find the tiny thing and pick it up. A tiny crystalline dragon. “Ah! I’m an idiot. Of course you killed her,” I say remembering his missing cufflink. “Mine now, stupid, and I’m gonna haunt this place way harder than she is.”
I’m looking for a good place to die, thinking of what pose I should take. It would have to be a corner, so they don’t see me when they look down that hole. So I find one. A dark little corner to sit and die in. But I can’t go there, because it’s already taken! Taken! Taken by these two tiny little skeletons, huddling together, there tiny bony arms wrapped around each other, legs tucked in to their bodies. “No,” I say. “Kids? No, come on. For a house?”
Then she’s there, and it’s too late for mercy. Now I know. She couldn’t protect them in life but she’ll protect them forever now. She wails again, that awful sound, but I shout over her. “Wait!” I scream as I fumble in my pockets. She doesn’t stop. She might not even hear me. “Wait!” I shove the doll in her face and she changes back to a woman, entranced by it. Very slowly, I lower the bunny down, down, down, until it rests in the arms of her babies.
The next morning I’m all cleaned up, mostly, waiting for the guy to come by his new house. “Is it done?” He asks me.
“Would you like to see for yourself?”
We go up the stairs, toward her bedroom, and I open the door myself. He hesitates. “Don’t worry!” I tell him. “It’s safe! I followed her in here, down into this secret room behind the fireplace. It took me so long to figure that out, too.” I waited for him to catch up. “But I can see why you left it off the blueprints. This is yours right?” I held out his missing cufflink in my hand. I wasn’t smiling anymore, and neither was he. His face grew pallid, as I threw his missing link into the hole.
It clinked onto the hard stone floor, and we both heard wheezing breaths rising from the hole in the floor. “No,” he says. He tries to go through me to the door, but I push him back and close the door behind me.
I hear two people scream and then? Nothing. I decide to go get the rest of my money, because I know I put the spirit to rest, just like I said I would.