Stirring from his morning meditation, Nilo grabs his carefully cleaned uniform and dresses in it. Taking exceptional care not to scuff any of the shine from his newly polished boots he quickly moves about his morning routine and secures his small apartment as he sets off to his first day in the guard.
Walking through the streets and greeting people along his way, he doesn't notice the few snickers or comments about the grand spectacle that his 4' polished image must present. Walking with a spring in his step, he wonders who he will be teamed with and what part of the city he will be presented with. What deeds and wrongs will he be righting today? He imagined how his day might go as he made his way to the station.
Entering into the station and presenting himself sharply, Nilo found himself being guided to a little dark room full of bells. He asked how long he need be here and they chuckled as they started bringing in messages. "You had better get to work, you are already behind," one of the guardsmen told Nilo. And so once again, things were not going quite as planned. The messages came in so fast he barely had time to realize what he was sending. Nilo tried to get word out that he wanted to speak to his superior, he was "sure" that this was not what he was meant to do. Alas, he started coming in every day and every day he sat before these bells. These every ringing, disgusting, noisy, cacophony made of bells. Just as he felt he might be stuck here forever he showed up to work to see a new guardsmen being guided to the bell room. The guardsmen pleaded with Nilo to switch shifts as Nilo just smiled and ran for his sanity. NO BELLS TODAY!!!! Ahahahahahah. He quickly stepped over to the Sgt Tenebrae's office. Nilo rapped upon the doorway and stood at ease to the side of the door as he hoped he was not getting assigned to another stations room of noise. The Sgt barked at Nilo to enter. Quite literally as it seems the Sgt has quite a bit of gnoll in him.
"What was your name again? Oh yes, Nilo, right. We have a situation over in one of the housing districts that should be RIGHT up your alley. I have sent several guardsmen and all have left or been thrown from the house. So, I decided to offer you a chance to leave the bells today. Fail at this and you will be back to the communication's room!" Back to the communication's room? Nilo would run from the city before he sat down before those bells once more. He listened as he received directions to the house and quickly turned and made his way out.
Following the directions as carefully as he could, Nilo soon found his way outside the city in the bazaar. Humm, maybe he wrote that down wrong.While he was going over the situation and how he found himself to be so far offtrack he observed a street urchin pick pocketing a gentleman at the bazaar. Deciding, discretion was the better part of valor, Nilo quickly placed a psychic "tag" on the runner, so that he could follow at his leisure. And follow he did, boy did that urchin know how to run. After longer than he might expect Nilo found the young man sitting on a rock. Gently admonishing the young man, Nilo talked the lad out of the ring he stole and proffered him a silver piece for being complaint and honest(in the end). Taking the piece and running the urchin probably didn't hear as Nilo offered the young man his name in case he needed assistance staying on track.
As Nilo made his way to the start of the bazaar, he quickly found the man missing the ring explaining his circumstance to the rent a cops of the bazaar. Nilo flicked the ring at the man and let him know that no thanks were needed, "Constable Nilo at your service!" He then hurried off back into the city to find the house before he became side tracked once again. This time, having no trouble, he found the run down abandoned house that was causing the issue.
Really, send the psychic for a haunted house? He mentally noted that the guard must not know the difference between a psychic and a medicine man. No sooner than he arrived, did Nilo notice the interest the spirits of the house took to Nilo's strong old soul. Thank goodness he had taken the time to learn the basics of spirit communication as a lad to deal with the interest these creatures took in him, for had he not he would have been back in that damn bell room tomorrow morning.
Methodically searching the outer door and making his way into the courtyard, Nilo began to search both physically and with gnosis(The ability to speak with spirits). After a short, time Nilo found the loci of one of the spirits. It seemed a dog had died on the back porch and it's spirit was frantic and scared. Taking careful time, Nilo used his minor knowledge on spirits to reach out to the spirit of the animal and let him know that it wasn't his fault. Showing the animal forgiveness and love, it started to get playful as it disapparated.
Making his way into the house, Nilo noticed the temperature drop further as he seen the kitchen was coated in ice from this new spirits malaise. Seeing, sharp instruments around the kitchen Nilo was going to put them someplace safe, where they might not land in his thorax. Alas, this spirit already had plans for the knives, as it began to pin Nilo to the side of the table with them. Noticing, however that the knives were not hitting him but only pinning him, Nilo reached out to communicate with this spirit. The spirit of the woman became visible and shook in throbs as she dropped several of the knives to the floor. He questioned her and found that she had been murdered here and with basic communication she showed Nilo that she had a surviving child. As Nilo agreed to take a special chef's blade to her son, she smiled and departed. He had the feeling he had better make quick work of getting the knife to the child, in order to fulfill this spiritual contract.
Nilo thought this might be complete with the house, but as he entered the living room, a spirit wailed down the stairs and left no doubt of it's intentions as it latched onto Nilo's life force. Feeling the overwhelming fear and dread of the spirit, Nilo sadly began channeling in self defense. Pulling the power from the spirit slowly at first and then a little more rapidly he was easily besting it. With a surge of power the spirit took back most of it's energy and turned the tide on Nilo. He felt such dread as he lost the energy back to the spirit that it drove him to strike so hard as to channel every ounce of the spirit away in but a moment. As quickly, as the cold and fear had come upon him, it had left, and Nilo knew the house was now clean. During the death throes of the spirit, Nilo had seen however, the murderer who had caused this situation. A dark hooded figure with a glowing dagger. Mysterious indeed.
On the way out of the house, Nilo found also the body of a courier murdered in the yard by the spirit. He quickly removed the valuables and the sealed courier sheaf and made plans to take these back to the courier service. But first, Nilo had to file a legal claim on this now spiritually clean, abandoned house! Seems this guard service may pay out after all. Nilo heard a child ringing a bell as he walked and visibly cringed.
No comments:
Post a Comment