Young Writers Society

I raised an eyebrow.

I hadn't expected him to be so willing to do that, but maybe rock climbing was an elf noble's way of spending their free time. The ones from my childhood had always seemed obsessed with strange hobbies.

"I don't know about you," I said, "but I can easily scale that wall. I can check."

The faces would be just the perfect grips for my shoes and my hands. If I placed them right, it wouldn't be hard to climb the wall to the top.

(Oh I love that!!)

"I'll have a go at it." Sorenson rubbed his hands together. "I'm an adventurous sort." He looked at the faces, then placed his foot in the mouth of one and boosted himself up. "We'll go together, then. Last to the top has to make the map!"

I didn't bother to mention that I didn't know how to even make maps, or even know how to read or write. Right now, I had a wall to scale. Not wanting Sorenson to get ahead of me, I grabbed onto two faces above me. With a little push off of the ground, I slipped my feet into the mouths of two more faces down below. I was already a layer of faces above Sorenson—not that the faces were in even lines.

I started to climb the wall.

"So, what do you do for a living?" Sorenson scrabbled at another face, then clambered up its surface. "Stars, these things are slippery! What do you suppose they're made of?" They looked like porcelain, but the texture was...odd. Smooth but not in the way porcelain was smooth.

"Maybe they're made of calcified human skin," I said, nonchalant, as I grabbed at another one of the faces. I didn't know what calcified meant, but I had heard Cubbins use it before. It sounded disturbing enough when put together with human faces.

...It had been awhile since I last tried outright disgusting someone. I joked about it, but it was never really malicious. This was intentional. I wanted Sorenson to pause and falter. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to necessarily fall off, but, just for a moment, I wanted him to question if he actually would.

I pulled myself up another layer.

"And I don't really have a job," I said. "I travel and try not to get killed. Lucky for me and not for anyone else, death isn't a fan of me."

"Calcification, eh?" Sorenson tapped at the face he was about to reach for. "I don't know what that means, but I suppose it could be? I'm not an anatomist or a scientist; all I know is sorcery and which fork you use for salad." He chuckled to himself. "A lot of good that'll do me in this situation. And you know, I'm quite similar in that respect! I'm off adventuring at the moment--or I was before I got dragged off to wherever this is. I'm a wandering soul!"

I set my face into a scowl at the fork for salad comment. I wasn't remotely interested in dining room etiquette. As long as I could put food in my mouth, I could care less about what I put it in my mouth with. I wondered if Natty boy or Lockwood knew anything about that; Lockwood seemed wealthy but really wasn't all that high class, while Nathaniel acted like he wasn't but certainly had been. He had that air to him.

But, maybe even more annoyingly, Sorenson had said we were similar. We were both traveling, sure, but I was sure that was where the similarities ended.

"I'm surprised you're not disturbed thinking about this being human skin," I said, grabbing for another face and pushing off the ones below me. I kept my tone nonchalant. If I was lucky, lingering on the topic would start to make him uncomfortable.

(I love me some bitter non-nobles! And Sorenson's an oblivious goof so it's fun to play with that.)

"Oh?" Sorenson chuckled. "Well, I've seen gruesome things before. This isn't much different. Faerun is fraught with perils and nastiness. It's a pity you've never been; if you're an adventurer I think you'd quite enjoy it!" He wondered why this fellow was so irritable; he'd never met such a disagreeable human. Except that one time in Waterdeep, and another time in Neverwinter. Come to think of it, humans were a rather prickly species.

I stopped.

Traveling was dangerous. I knew that. Usually, I was the kind to scoff at danger and dark things. I had been a ghost for over a century, and a good one at that. It was my thing. I had lost count of the times I had playfully tormented my friends by being exactly what you would expect from a ghost that came back to life.

But something about the way he worded it didn't sit right with me. When I brushed aside gruesome things, it was because I considered myself one of them. Sorenson saw it like an adventure; a novelty. I couldn't remember the last time I met someone like that.

And I couldn't remember the last time I was so irritated by a rich guy like him.

"And you enjoy it?" I asked, my tone dangerously cold. The air temperature dropped several degrees,and I didn't move from my spot.

(At least one of them was, for sure. I've got no idea what to do with the moving faces so that's up to you!)

"It's a new experience!" Sorenson said joyfully, waving a hand carelessly as he climbed. "It gets the blood pumping--at my age that's rather important, you know. How old are you, fellow? I'd put you at---hm, eighteen to twenty in human years? Do tell." Something did feel a bit off about this human, though. There was an odorous sort of magic surrounding him in a way Sorenson didn't particularly like. Oh, well. It'd surface eventually.

(I've decided just now that he sounds like Stolas from Helluva Boss.)

"One hundred fifty-eight," I said in a completely serious tone. I was waiting for him to object to it when something suddenly shifted underneath my hands and feet. But the only thing that was there was-

I looked down.

The faces were moving.

The faces, which had looked like they were just a strange part of the wall, were moving. They were mouthing words I couldn't hear, but I was more preoccupied with them moving enough that I started to lose my grip. I tried to readjust my footing so I had my feet on top of the faces instead of inside. It still wasn't stable enough. I was going to fall soon.

The air temperature plummeted. I could see my breath as I frantically searched for another place to grab. We weren't all that far from the top now, but I wasn't sure I could actually make it. And if my powers kept acting up like they were now, my body would go crashing down into the floor below—either with me possessing Sorenson, or with me being ejected from my body because I tapped into my old ghostly powers too much.

(Make sure it isn't the version of him from the Pilot episode!)

It was suddenly very chilly. Sorenson shivered and looked down to see how far behind Skull was, then was immediately jarred by the absolutely unsettling feeling of the faces shifting beneath him. The one above him twisted into a grimace as it starting mouthing words, and then his hands were no longer gripping the wall. He swung backwards, arms pinwheeling for a moment, and then he was falling quite rapidly. It would be a broken neck or leg from this height, he was sure of it. Thinking fast, he cast Featherfall on himself. Just in the nick of time, too.
He drifted gently to the floor and looked up at Skull. The faces were still moving; he prepared to cast Featherfall again.

Sorenson had somehow fallen to the floor without getting hurt, but I was too distracted by trying to keep my footing to have noticed. As far as I knew, he was laying broken and bloody underneath me.

I couldn't think of anything. There was no one and nothing to conveniently possess, and my ghostly abilities didn't have sway over a wall like this. I could try controlling the faces or freeze them with a malaise, if they were as living as they currently appeared to be, but that would be too much-

I suddenly lost the little grip I had left and went falling down the wall. I tried grabbing at the faces, but they were moving too much for me to get a grip. This was like all those times Nikko had dropped me as a prank.

But she wasn't here to swoop down with her dragon wings and catch me before I could hit the ground.

(I would be absolutely fascinated and delighted by such an outcome though!)

Sorenson cast Featherfall as he saw Skull drop. "Careful!" he called. "They're feisty, might bite you!" Never in all his years had he seen something so strange as a living wall. It wasn't even like a mimic--this felt real. Having rescued Skull, he approached the wall and prodded one of the lower faces. It didn't bite; it simply kept chanting.

The fall suddenly slowed.

When I softly landed several moments later, I sat stunned on the ground. I watched Sorenson approach the moving wall in silence. I didn't have a quip; I didn't know what to say. The temperature gradually returned to normal.

I unsteadily got to my feet.

Sorenson must have saved me, but I didn't know how. It must have been some kind of ability or spell. I walked over and joined him in staring at the faces.

"...Thanks," I said, voice more than a little quiet.