The Cave

Adeline watched the encounter between the man and Kartiel. She stayed silent- it wasn't any of her business, after all. She was just glad that she wasn't the one who James would be angry at. She yet out a little yelp when Kartiel grabbed her and the pulled her with the others, and then with a little tumbling feeling, they were at the beach. Her eyes widened as she surveyed the scene.

"Splendid."

"That seems likely," Thytes said, nodding his head. He flipped through some more of the pages. Tables and charts lay in neat rows on the pages, many filled. "If this place is a store, and this particular book calls itself an inventory, I imagine this must be a list of goods. Though I cannot say what it may be preparing for."

"It list any more brandy?" Kendrik said. The hound had pulled himself to a sitting position on the bed, and was trying to push himself onto his feet. Considering how slowly he did, and how much his arms shook, Thytes could tell the hound wasn't any more sober.

"No," said Thytes, setting the book down on the desk and walking over. He picked Kendrik up and set him down on the bed again. "And you will stay there until you decide to stop making bad decisions."

"I'm gonna be here forever," Kendrik mumbled, but didn't move.

In the meantime, Jaron sneaked up next to Reyes and began scanning through the notes and books. Moving one empty sheet of paper to the center of the desk, Jaron picked up a pen from a holder nearby, tested it on the paper, and began writing down all the four-letter words he could see. Surely, one of them would be the answer he was looking for.

Lucifer to see a strange group of people suddenly appearing on the beach. One of them was undoubtedly Kartiel - he recognized his soul, as well as the clothes that he was wearing. Then there was the woman made of glass. His eyes widened with curiosity as he took the sight of her in. He had never seen someone like her before! Last of all, there was an unfamiliar man standing with James in his arms. James, from the looks of it, was fast asleep.

He did what he usually did - he looked at the newcomers souls to get a good idea of what they were and what they were like. But when he saw what the man holding James' soul looked like, he nearly stumbled back into Kratzer. "It-It doesn't look right," he said, staring at the man. "His soul. I've-I've never seen anything like it before. The shape doesn't look right!"

Souls tended to always have the same basic shape - an almost cartoonish heart shape, with the occasional thing protruding off of it. But this soul was nothing like it. He couldn't even begin to describe it, and that scared the heck out of him.

Kartiel started to lead the group over to where Lucifer was standing. "Hey, Lucifer, where did everyone go?" Kartiel questioned, looking around the beach. He was completely oblivious to how Lucifer was trying to find a good place to hide behind.

"You in there?" Kartiel continued to ask, waving his hand in front of Lucifer's face. The god gently pushed it away. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost. Is there something on my face?"


Reyes wandered through the rest of the room in search for something that would hint at a ghostly presence, but he could find nothing to suggest that one had even existed. Which was surprising, considering the body, but not unheard of.

Still, that meant that other ghosts could be here, and it was his duty to take care of them. It wasn't like anyone else could.

An awkward silence fell over the group for a couple seconds. Kendrik crawled into the bedsheets, Jaron kept on writing, and Thytes tried to think of something to do. When he heard the sound of something crashing on the floor below, the lion leaped at the opportunity to fling open the door, run down the stairs, and pull out his sword when he arrived at the floor below.

Nothing. The bottle that Kendrik had been drinking from had fallen onto the ground. Thytes crouched down at the puddle of glass and brandy, sniffing. No blood or anything out of the ordinary. He sighed. The hound must've set it down at an odd angle and caused it to fall off.

Then came the second crash, accompanied by Jaron screaming. Thytes ran back upstairs, quickly looking around before spotting the disturbance - Kendrik had fallen off the bed, and was now sprawled out on the floor.

Thytes sighed and rolled his eyes. "Will I have to sit on you or something?" the lion said, walking over to Kendrik. He froze when he saw Kendrik's wide-eyed, startled expression. The hound pulled himself towards Reyes and Jaron, eyes darting around.

If not for the whisper by Thytes's ear, the lion would've wondered why.

He's coming.

He had known the moment he heard something fall downstairs that there was, in fact, a ghost wandering around here. He could feel it in his gut. He luckily hadn't needed to explain his suspicion to the three, as the ghost quickly made his presence known to them.

What was likely an ominous whisper in their ears looked downright hilarious to Reyes, and a laugh or two ended up escaping him. This obviously had its downsides. The others probably thought he had lost it, and the ghost had taken to glaring to him instead of trying to pass on his message. He stopped laughing. Whoops. He hadn't meant to make such a bad first impression.

The ghost wasn't terrifying in the slightest. He looked like the stereotypical kindly store owner, with the exception of the rope marks around his neck. That quickly dampened Reyes' mood, and he knew he wouldn't be laughing in the near future.

"Hi," he said, giving the ghost an awkward wave. "I'm Reyes. Reyes Eberhardt. I apologize for barging into your shop."

The ghost, for his part, looked Reyes up and down a couple seconds. Then, instead of attacking or threatening, chose to smile and wave. "Good afternoon, young man," he said. "I'll see to your order in a minute."

Then the ghost paced around the room, staring at the other three as he passed by each of them. He scowled and poked at them; they, unable to see him, flinched and crowded together. The ghost ranted all the while, waving his arms. "Don't bring your pets here, Templeton! He's coming, don't you know. I know! He's coming. Where are you going, Templeton? Don't lock that door. He's coming. I know! Did you steal my key? I want to smash my radio; I can hear your stupid voice. Why are you hiding when he's coming? Yes, he's coming. You abandoned me! You left us all to die! We believed in you, didn't we? He's coming!"

He stopped, turned back to Reyes, and smiled once again. "Good afternoon, young man!" he said. "Did you know that he's coming?"

His weapon appeared instinctively. Whether it was because he was in the presence of a ghost or because he could feel a growing sense of danger, he wasn't sure. But whatever the reason might have been, he made sure to hide the weapon behind his back. It was better to play things safe. This ghost was definitely a regular ghost. He wasn't flickering like a partial would have. But he clearly hadn't been in a good state of mind before he died, so Reyes wasn't going to take any risks.

"Good afternoon," he said with a warm smile. He could easily play whatever part the man thought he fit into - after all, he was an actor. "I admit I didn't know he's coming. Is he coming soon?"

The ghost blinked and pulled his head back. "How could you not know?" he said slowly, clearly startled. Then he grinned. "Ah, you young ones. Trying to play tricks on an old man, aren't you? Good thing I've got a mind like a steel trap." he pointed to his head and laughed.

Then he slumped his shoulders and grew more sober. "But, if you must know, he will be coming soon. Templeton - Templeton! - and the finest minds in SAHR are working on it. Don't you hear them over the radio? Does your family have a radio, young man? They were issued for every home, but I wouldn't be surprised if Templeton forgot one or two. He has no respect for consistency or order."

From behind the ghost, Thytes raised his broadsword. "Who are you talking to, Reyes?" he said quietly. Kendrik clung onto Thytes's feet, while Thytes wrapped an arm around Jaron and pulled him close.

Reyes shook his head. "Our family doesn't have one. We've been trying to get one to call our own, but you know how things are these days." As he talked, he slowly made his way over to where Thytes, Kendrik and Jaron were standing. It would be difficult breaking away from this conversation and talking to the others, but he had a couple of tactics up his sleeve - he had been stuck in similar situations for before.

He glanced down at his foot. "Shoot, my shoe's are untied. Just give me a second to tie them - I don't want to miss out on what you're saying."

As he made his weapon disappear, he leaned down and quickly untied his shoes. Then came the next step: actually tying them. While he was in the middle of staring down at the shoes in question, he whispered to the three, "I'm talking with the man we found." He gave the slightest nod of his head in the direction of the man's corpse. "He doesn't know that he's a ghost, so I'd appreciate it if you don't alert him to that. He's not exactly stable."

Reyes popped back, having finished tying his shoes.

"Sorry about that," he apologized, turning back to the ghost.

"That's quite all right," the ghost said, nodding. "I don't have much more to say. It's sad your family never received a radio! I ought to bring that up with Templeton at our next meeting, but you seem like a nice young man, so I'm sure one of his associates will give you one if you go visit town hall. You know where that is, right? Same side of the street, a few buildings down."

He turned and began to walk towards one of the walls. "Now I must check my inventory - he's coming, don't you know, and we need to be ready - so goodbye! Oh, and make sure to take the dogs and cats with you - they always mess with my books."

Before anybody could reply, he stepped into the wall and vanished.

Thytes, Jaron, and Kendrik stared at the spot where the ghost had disappeared. Finally, the lion let out a long, quavering breath. "The wall just...shook," he said. "Is he gone?"

Adeline peered at where this strange man seemed to be hiding. Her attention, however, was divided between him and the sand. She wiggled off a shoe and started to doodle in it with her toe.

"He's gone," Reyes confirmed, letting out a loud sigh and falling back onto the bed. That had been one of the tougher ghosts he had to deal with. Most had at least known that they were dead, or had some idea that things had changed in the time since they remembered their life being "normal". It had been a long time since he had run into a ghost that was unaware of what they had become.

"He mentioned something about hearing SAHR's plans on the radio," he said, staring up at the old ceiling. "Apparently everyone was issued one, but I played along with his suggestion that my family was never given one. He said I could get one at the town hall a few buildings down this side of the street."

He raised his head back up to look at the three. "And I'm pretty sure he was convinced you three were my pets."


"Your face is fine," the man - Lucifer, apparently - said, giving another terrified look at where Maahes was standing. The djnni was thoroughly worried by the look. He doubted he was looking at James. When Maahes met his gaze for even the briefest of seconds, the man would grow pale and frantically look away.

Which meant he must have known something was different about him.

And that scared the heck out of him.

Maahes looked away to study the strange beach they were on, the perfect excuse for why he was so adamant on no longer meeting Lucifer's gaze.

"Reyes, Jaron and Kendrik went over to the other side of the water," he heard Lucifer say as the man scooted a little closer to Kartiel.

"I'm going to hope that they're far away from the water now," Kartiel said. "Because something tells me we're only going to learn more about this place if we go farther into it, and I really don't want to end up in the middle of a lake when I teleport over."

The three all moved at once on Reyes's confirmation - Thytes let his sword hit the ground, Kendrik rested his head against Thytes's foot, and Jaron plopped down on the seat in front of the desk.

A memory ran its way through Jaron's mind when Reyes mentioned the town hall. One of the buildings had been a bit larger and had looked a bit fancier, if the marble pillars and brick facade had been anything to go by. It had also been split in two, and Jaron had no idea what a radio was, but at least it was a place to look for clues.

At the 'pet' comment, he winced and bit his lip. Kendrik immediately responded with, "Then screw 'im. I ain't no pet, and Jaron ain't, and Thytes..." The lion mumbled something; Kendrik slammed a fist on his foot.

"Yes," Thytes said, gripping his foot and nudging Kendrik's head off the other. "How grotesque. If you would excuse me, I will see to it that the downstairs is secure."

The lion walked off, slamming the door behind him.

Kendrik refused to get off the floor, instead pushing himself so that he looked in Reyes's direction. "Word a' advice," Kendrik said. "Ya didn't know, but Jaron doesn't like the word, so don't go 'round usin' it again."

Adeline, half-listening to the conversation about teleporting, had sat herself down in the sand so that she could better observe it. Both of her shoes were off now, and she entertained herself by scooping up handfuls of the grains and letting them slide through her fingers, burying her legs.

Reyes propped the rest of his body up, looking at the remaining two with confusion clearly written across his face. Ghosts like the shop owner tended to easily mistake a person for someone - or something - else. If they fit the role that they expected in any shape or form, the ghost would likely decide that they were that person. He had been mistaken for all sorts of things before: a lover from the Civil War (easy to act as, considering his past), someone's teenage daughter (he blamed his long hair at the time), and, on one strange occasion, the post man (he still didn't get that one). It was awkward as could be in the moment, but, after the encounter ended, he would always try to at least get a kick out of it. If he didn't, he'd been blushing in embarrassment for the rest of the day.

So he had thought that they would share the same train of thought.

But he apparently had been quite wrong in his assumption, and it was only when Kendrik said what he did that he realized he knew absolutely nothing about the lives of the three he was with. He didn't even know what was considered normal for them - he had just assumed that everyone was like them from where they were from, and that the ghost was like where he was from, where cats and dogs didn't stand on two legs and have full blown conversations with you.

Add in the implications of Jaron's dislike of the word, along with the sudden tension between Thytes and Kendrik, and Reyes found himself feeling absolutely horrible for even uttering the word. "I'm sorry," he apologized, getting to his feet. He was an idiot. Even if he hadn't known that the word had such negative connotations, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he should have known better.

He pointed at the door. "You know what? I'm going to go swing by town hall and find myself a radio, since I'm the only one who seems to know what they are if I'm going off of how you looked when I mentioned them."

He slipped into the hallway, and down the stairs when Thytes had his back turned. It wasn't hard to get back to the front door without him noticing; he had perfected the art of walking quietly over the years.

Then he was out on the road that led to the town hall, desperately trying to get his mind focused on anything other than the conversation that had just happened. Of course, his mind did what it did best, jumping from one depressing topic to another - how alone he had felt when he was the only one who could communicate with the ghost. They hadn't looked at him like he was a freak, thankfully, but it still had been awkward. And he had gained reactions like that before, on countless other cases. At some point he had just decided to embrace it and become the star of a ghost hunting show, but it didn't mean it suddenly didn't hurt.

He sighed.

Stupid brain. He scanned the street for the building that had to be town hall. Just as he was about to climb up the few steps in front of it and enter it, there was a sudden burst of warmth from nearby. It was only when he saw the burst of purple particles that he realized what was about to happen, and by then it was too late - an entire group of people fell from the sky, with someone who could only be Kartiel falling on him in particular.

Both he and Kartiel went crashing to the ground.

"Ouch," Kartiel muttered, unsteadily getting to his feet.

Suddenly I understand why Kendrik was so frustrated back on the beach when this happened, Reyes thought, struggling to get to his own feet. He looked over the strange group that had just arrived in the deserted town. There were only a few familiar faces - the man who had thrown a fit when Kartiel teleported him earlier, Kartiel himself (though he looked considerably different), Lucifer and Kratzer. The rest were complete strangers.