The Spectres Of Amatsu, isn't this the most boring title ever?

[Tenshinoakuma]

Btw, how long can a topic lay idle before the forum deletes it? o__o

Summary: A priestess runs into a strange ghost when she enters the Tatami Maze looking for the Incantation Samurai. Intrigued, she sets out to find out who the ghost really was, and a way to rid Amatsu of it's infamous Spectre.

Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

[Tenshinoakuma]

Author's Notes: *prays there isn't a chat filter on forums*

--

Ragnarok Online
The Spectres of Amatsu
Chapter One

--

…And the great samurai roared, cursing us as he tried to find a way through the barrier. We backed away, praying that the barrier would hold. And hold it did. The samurai slashed at it with his swords, only to have them disintegrate. He attempted to cross the seals we placed over the Tatami Maze, only to have his spectral shape burned away. Finally he withdrew, swearing an oath that every single person who entered would join him in death. He would build an army of undead followers, until one day he could take revenge. With little else left for us to do, we left the Maze, our job here in Amatsu done. But the price of sealing the samurai was high; we had lost many fellow brothers and sisters, and Amatsu no longer had an heir to the throne.

- Aleran Lizray

--

“I swear we’ve been here before.”

“That’s because we have. Seriously Cairn, your skills as a pathfinder are distinctly sub-par.”

“I’d like to see you do better, girl-man.”

Lise tried to ignore the argument that was flying from the head of the party to the tail. Raile, their knight, gave her a ‘what-can-you-do?’ shrug as the assassin in front argued with the hunter bringing the rear. Lise did not personally know these three, but it seemed that these kinds of arguments were common between the assassin and hunter. Cairn, as good as his senses were, could not compare with the sharp hearing and eagle eyes of Haneul (Han for short), their hunter. But in turn, Han could not move nearly as stealthily as Cairn, making the assassin a better scout. However, Lise had underestimated just how confusing Amatsu’s famous Tatami Maze really was. As a result, the party was well and truly lost, going around and around in circles as they were lead by an equally confused scout.

Lise had to admit that the trek through the Maze was not much of a chore; the Tatami Maze was as beautifully designed as the city that housed it. The translucent papery walls were decorated with various artworks. Calligraphy, paintings, carved doors, the beautiful living miyabi dolls, they were everywhere. Lise couldn’t help but feel bad when the party ruined the tatami mats and walls in battles as they passed through. But she took some comfort that the miyabi dolls would somehow repair them to their old beauty. The dolls and traditional artwork that were part of the Maze hailed from a time so long ago, a time Amatsu wished to restore. In the recent years, the royal family of Amatsu had publicised the secret they had kept hidden for centuries. The throne wanted to use the lower floors of the palace known as the Tatami Maze, but did not have the resources to clear it of its undead and demons. As a result, the royal family requested for adventurers looking for excitement to help clear the Maze of its monsters. They had also warned of a being within the Maze called the Incantation Samurai, but no one had ever seen the Samurai. As a result, the Incantation Samurai was shrugged off as a mere myth.

Which was exactly why Lise was in the Maze.

Even though she was a priestess of the Pronteran Church, Lise had no interest in clearing the undead; she had come to Amatsu with the sole purpose of finding the Samurai. She had been interested in myths and legends from the very beginning. As a child, she had wondered if there was a grain of truth in all the stories she read and listened to. As a priestess who had served the Pronteran Church faithfully for fifty years, she now had the knowledge, the expertise and the resources to chase those stories. However, with the way things were now, she doubted Cairn could even find the entrance to the Maze, let alone Incantation Samurai. It was a good thing she could always warp the party out if they needed to return to the city.

The sounds of the argument grew louder. “Even the ugliest of pockmarked mermen has a better looking face than you.”

“Oh really? Well, you can shove that fancy bow of yours right up your–”

Lise sighed, running a hand through her auburn hair. Maybe hiring these three had been a bad idea. So far they hadn’t come across anything she couldn’t handle herself, and these in-party quarrels occurred on a too-frequent basis. The trio had come with a rather large recommendation by the Pronteran Church, but she should have realised they weren’t as good as their paperwork said they were. She should have known there would be undead, undead and more undead in Amatsu. After all, that’s what was advertised. She was more than experienced enough to take out the undead that made the Maze its home. Of course, she wanted back-up just in case they ran into Incantation, but then again, it was also called ‘Samurai Spectre’ by the locals. Logically that would mean it was a ghost, an undead, meaning she could handle it alone. Undead and demon killing were the priest class specialty after all, aside from supporting others.

“Put a sock in it you two,” Raile interrupted irritably, his naturally calm face disturbed. His voice was low and hushed in fear. “Do you want to bring the Incantation Samurai on our heads?”

Lise watched the assassin roll his eyes and fold his arms. Han, however, raised a delicate eyebrow. “Raile, I was under the impression we were hired to find the ol’ Amatsu myth.”

“There is a big difference,” the knight snapped, the shadow of terror flickering across his face, “between sneaking up on the Samurai, and having it unexpectedly jump out at us.”

“Oh come on, you’re so superstitious.” Cairn flapped his hands dismissively. “I doubt it even exists anyway. If it did, someone would have spotted it already. I bet the royals were just bullshitting about it to attract more tourists to the city. Incantation’s just a load of bullshit in my opinion.”

“Have you ever thought that the reason why no one’s seen it is because no one lived to tell the tale?”

Lise felt an unconscious shiver run down her spine. Something felt wrong, but she wasn’t sure if it was Raile’s horror story-esque predictions getting to her, or if there was genuinely something dark out there stalking them, watching their every move. Han seemed to sense it too, suddenly getting the sleepy-eyed look that belied his actual alertness. Noting their sudden alertness, Cairn and Raile silently drew their weapons, their eyes scanning the dark corners of the Maze. Lise had to admit the party worked well when they weren’t fighting each other. Several tense moment passed, but there was still no sign of anything, living or undead, in the Maze. Lise was about to call it quits and suggest they all go back to Amatsu when Han suddenly barreled into Cairn, knocking the assassin over.

There was a flash of steel a split second later where Cairn’s head had been.

Quickly chanting, Lise let a Kyrie Eleison barrier fall over the whole party. She nearly passed out when she saw her powerful barrier shatter under another sword strike. The only thing that saved Raile’s life was his quick reflexes, parrying the second strike with his sword. Rolling onto his feet, Han shot into the darkness, but fell back when the barrier over him shattered as well. Cairn pulled out a small orb and threw it to where the attacks were coming from, bathing the whole Maze in light. Lise replaced the shattered barriers over Raile and Han, rather than blessing them and increasing their agility. She knew that if she didn’t replace the Kyrie, they would quickly be two party members short. But she didn’t finish her chant when she realized what exactly they had been fighting.

The huge spectral shape of Incantation Samurai loomed over them. A giant of a samurai, Lise could almost smell the undead stench on it. But that was what scared her. She couldn’t hear its approach, she could barely feel its ghostly presence and the smell associated with the undead was the lightest trace of smoke in a black room. Its lacquered armour only added to its fearful appearance. The two swords it carried were currently crossed over its chest, the steel glinting maliciously in the faint light. The empty skull under its helmet seemed to grin as the samurai let its red-eyed gaze rove over the fear-stricken party.

“Ah, fresh meat.”

Lise squeezed her eyes shut and screamed when the Samurai swung its swords at Raile, realizing she hadn’t completed her barrier spell. There was no way she’d be able to finish it before the swords met Raile’s neck. But instead of hearing a sound like a knife cutting through sashimi, she heard a clash of metal on metal. Some choice words in the Amatsu language soon followed. Cracking open an eye in curiosity, she saw the Samurai facing a man.

“You again!” Incantation Samurai hissed between clenched teeth, completely ignoring the party. “Why can’t you ever let me kill in peace?”

The ghost grinned and held up his dagger. “I live to annoy, you should know that by now, you fat tin-can.”

With a frustrated bellow, the Samurai slashed at the ghost. Laughing, the ghost danced just out of range, becoming translucent; a ghost, Lise realised. Incantation and the ghost were almost blurs as they fought each other in a flurry of movement. Lise couldn’t help but be captivated by the flashes of steel as they dodged and parried attacks from each other, dancing in perfect harmony. Their forms continuously shifted from solid to translucent to invisible and back again, as if they were trying to gain an advantage over each other by doing so. She nearly cried out when one of the Samurai’s swords came nail-bitingly close to slicing the ghost. But instead of turning the attack aside with a glancing blow from his dagger, the ghost grabbed onto the blunt side of the sword with his free hand. In the blink of an eye, the Samurai was sent stumbling backwards from a powerful kick by the ghost. It was the first blow that had landed since they had begun.

In the moment of reprieve, the ghost turned to face Lise. Frowning, he yelled, “What the hell are you doing? Run!”

Not wanting to question her party’s good fortune, Lise gathered the others and ran and ran and ran, running until she thought her lungs would explode. Pausing when they had run far enough, Lise clutched her side where she thought she could feel a stitch forming. Cairn and Han flopped over, panting heavily while Raile kept an eye out, chest heaving. They remained silent, trying to catch their breath. Chanting, Lise quickly opened a warp portal to Amatsu. The other three tumbled over each other to get to the warp, quickly disappearing as they reached the portal. Lise was about to enter it herself when the ghost suddenly appeared before her, inciting a gasp of surprise from her.

Now that she could see him up close, Lise realized the ghost looked quite young, maybe in his late teens or early twenties. He had dark, untidy brown hair with a lock flopping over his right eye. The remaining eye gleamed a bright gold, the strangest she had ever seen. His lean frame was marred by a garish wound to his side, still pouring ghostly wisps of blood. As she watched, the blood disintegrated the moment it touched the floor. Lise unconsciously took a step back as he approached her, his one visible eye examining her. She squirmed under his gaze, not liking the appraising look he gave her, as if he was mentally undressing her to see what was underneath. She breathed an inward sigh of relief when he stopped his approach, a frown creasing the ghost’s brow.

“######,” she heard him whisper. “For a moment I thought…” He trailed off. A shadow seemed to pass over his face. His visible eye narrowing, he snarled, “Get the hell out of this place, priestess! I don’t ever want to see you here again!”

“What? Who are you?” Lise demanded, reflexively clutching the rosary she wore around her neck. The terror from her close encounter with Incantation and the unease she felt around the ghost was transforming unto her usual post-stress anger. The ghost’s harsh words clashed with something inside her with a horrible screech.

The ghost glared at her. Lise felt her red-hot anger drain away, quailing under his angry gaze. “I’m a ######ing idiot,” the ghost snapped before disappearing.

--

Author’s Notes: I’m getting lazy with chapter names, so they’ll just be called chapter 1, chapter 2 etc. etc. What Cairn was referring to when he called Han a girl-man is that Haneul (하늘, ‘heaven’) is a type of name usually given to girls. Man, I hope Lise doesn’t become as flat (personality wise) as my other female characters. And I’ve just realized I’ve stretched my timeline again…

I’ve personally never made it through the Maze. I went there once, got so annoyed at the invisible walls and the walls that aren’t really walls that I bwinged out. Pity, I should have explored more; it would've helped. I’ll give a cookie to the person who gets what’s referenced in Incantation’s first words. As always, comments and criticism welcome.

[BB_Zuess]

What, a prize for guessing what the fresh meat thing is about?

[Tenshinoakuma]

Author's Notes: Yeah, a prize, although that's gone to waste now =\ "Ah, fresh meat" is the Butcher's signature line from Diablo I & II. Aaaaah, I should go play that again. Fun game.

--

Ragnarok Online
The Spectres of Amatsu
Chapter 2

--

Amastu, named after Amatsu-Mikaboshi, is one of the most beautiful cities off the mainland. Its signature cherry-blossom trees, known as sakura, are world renowned. They only bloom for a mere week, when the flowers cover the tree in blossoms of white and pink. How lucky I was to be there when they were in full bloom! The first son of Amatsu’s royal family tells me the sakura trees are a symbol of the beauty, but brevity of life. He says, ‘life is beautiful, like a cherry blossom. But, like a cherry blossom, life is short.’
- Trian Lizray

--

Lise pinched the bridge of her nose, her mind slowly digesting what she had been told. The other three members of her party sat at the table, carefully watching her reaction. Raile’s eyes darted frantically about the room, as if he feared a steel blade seeking his flesh would come out of the shadows. Cairn had the look of a hunted animal in his eyes. He gripped the neck of his bottle of drink so tightly his knuckles bleached. Han, though, didn’t display any outward change, patiently waiting for her reply. Finally Lise spoke.

“If you bow out now, the report I send back the Church will not be favourable.”

Cairn shot to his feet, the palms of his hands slamming into the table. “Do you want us to die, Ravella?” he hissed furiously, his fingers clawing the table’s surface. “What happens if that ghost isn’t there to save our asses next time? What will happen then, huh?” Lise discreetly edged away from him, the sour alcohol in his breath something she didn’t want to inhale.

Han waved a hand at the assassin, indicating he should sit down. Reluctant, Cairn slowly sat down. “Forgive us, Sister Ravella,” the hunter said quietly, “but we no longer need to accompany you. It was stated in the contract we would be your bodyguards when we either found Incantation Samurai, or after 3 months. As of yesterday, our contract has already terminated. If you want us to continue, you will need to pay extra.”

Lise clenched her fist, narrowing her eyes at the hunter. “Why, you money-hungr–”

“Do not misunderstand, sister,” Han interrupted, calmly matching her angry glare with his unblinking stare. “We would not accept even if you offered. Do you really think it is wise to drag us into your pursuit of the Samurai when we are no longer able to perform as a party? Do you really want to work with people who are so plagued with fear they see monsters where there is nothing?”

He tilted his head, indicating his partners. Her gaze followed his gesture. All she saw were mere shadows of the men they had been. Only skeletons of their bravery remained, clinging to what scraps of pride they had left like hungry dogs. They would not be so willing to forfeit their lives this time. Lise chewed the bottom of her lip as she returned her gaze to the hunter. Unfortunately, he had a point. “Unlike you,” he continued, “we age faster, we don’t live so long. You are still in your prime, and will be for another twenty years. In another twenty years, we will be on the edge of retirement. We do have families to return to. I hope you understand, sister.”

Lise ran her thumb over the beads of the rosary in her hand as her mind’s wheels turned. She didn’t like this at all. She doubted the Church would be willing to spare her anyone else for a ‘whimsical romp that serves no purpose’. And she didn’t trust mercenaries that had no recommendation. All too often they were greedy, slovenly bastards who didn’t do the job right. She didn’t want to be associated with felons who would stab her in the back for her money.

Sighing, she let her frown slide from her face. They were such fools. If they truly valued their lives, they would not have become mercenaries. She could only forgive them and hope they had the sense to take up some other occupation.

Sliding a small envelope containing the rest of their pay towards the hunter, Lise stood up to leave. “I understand. My report back to the Church will not be unfavourable.”

She didn’t see Han’s nod of acknowledgement at her retreating back. The hunter traced the wooden grain of the table in thought. He understood that not unfavourable did not mean necessarily mean favourable.

Lise massaged her temples as she walked, feeling a headache coming on. She needed to do something so she could clear her head and think. Her best option was to clear some undead, and what better place was there than the Tatami Maze? Although she did not wish to repeat the encounter with Incantation Samurai, she had previously roamed the Maze with her ex-party members for a whole Samurai-free month. She was willing to take the risk involved in entering the Maze. After all, the risk was still the same as when she first started investigating the Maze.

She walked into the Maze, giving a curt nod to the guards outside before dropping blessings and a barrier over herself. Lise easily fell into the role of ‘killing’ the undead so they could move on. But even the simple task of releasing undead souls from their physical constrains was not enough to clear her mind.

Part of her thoughts was occupied with mentally composing the report she would have to return to the Church. The rest her mind dedicated itself to trying to sort through the confusion the previous day left behind. There were so many loose ends that needed tying up, but they were all hopelessly tangled from the questions that frolicked amongst them like kittens with a ball of string. Each question mewled in its own pathetic voice. How did the Samurai break down her Kyrie Eleison barrier so easily? How was it that Incantation had no undead smell? But one question’s voice rung out louder than the others.

A frown tugged at her face as she stepped over the ashes of a turned undead. She wanted to find that ghost who saved her. She wanted to know who he was, but she realised that when all this was over, when she knew everything she wanted to know, she would have to release his soul too. After all, he was still a ghost, an undead. It was her duty to ensure they went to a peaceful afterlife.

“What’re you doing here?” a cold voice suddenly demanded from behind her.

Lise reflexively whirled and released a blast of holy light at her unexpected assailant. Her eyes widened when she realised she had just attacked the ghost she had been hoping to run into. With lightning fast reflexes, the ghost dodged out of the way, but even he didn’t escape unscathed. The ball of light struck him in the right shoulder, imprinting an image of a brilliant cross. Lise watched in horror as his shoulder turned to thin fingers of mist before her eyes. Clenching his teeth, the ghost disappeared as the light from her spell faded away. Using several words the Church would have been shocked that she knew, Lise cursed her trigger-happy instincts. Her reflexes while she was in auto-pilot had saved her in the past, but that had to be the worst time for it to kick in.

“Ohhhh sheeeeeet.” She mentally smacked herself in the head repeatedly and cursed, just stopping short of using God’s name in vain.

Good job, Lise, she inwardly berated herself, You just scared away that ghost. Why don’t you get someone to carve ‘Stupid’ onto your forehead?

She stayed a little longer in the undead infested corridors to recollect her thoughts. Her thoughts were now a maze as frustrating as the one she walked; all the paths she took were dead ends created by that ghost. But even as she turned and turned and turned again, she was lost, unable to find the right path.

Because she didn’t know what the Finish looked like.

--

When he wanted something, he took it sneakily out in the open. He did it blatantly because he knew he could get away with it. If he couldn’t, he wouldn’t lose much anyway. But when he wanted something he was afraid of losing – though there were very few times that happened – he would watch and wait and watch and wait…

Then someone told him it would be better to come out from the shadows. It would be better, and less suspicious, and less prone to misunderstanding. And less creepy stalker-like.

He fingered his sore shoulder. Maybe she thought that too.

--

Lise sighed as she lay under a tree. She had looked for that ghost every single day, to no avail. Every time she turned a corner in that godforsaken Maze, she hoped to see the face of that ghost. But more often than not, there had been either an ugly skeleton standing in her path, or simply nothing at all.

She had asked around Amastu – with some difficulty; she wasn’t fluent in the native language – and as far as she could tell, no one had ever heard of there being a ghost in the Maze. Everyone only recounted undead and the androgynous looking miyabi dolls. Nothing about the Incantation Samurai, and nothing about the ghost. No one had even heard of a man wandering the Tatami Maze that fit the ghost’s description. None of the drunkards who usually yielded small snippets of information could describe the Samurai accurately. Nothing was new. Everything was simply rehashes of what the royal family of Amatsu had announced. The trail was running cold. She couldn’t find either of the two spectres – not that she was in a hurry to find the Samurai – and she couldn’t find any recent rumours of them. Both had practically vanished, as if they had never existed at all.

It was like trying to find…well…a ghost…

A frown tugged at her features. Was she just wasting her time? Was her whole idea of finding the truth behind the myths just a waste of energy? What if all this searching yielded nothing? What if all those legends really were just legends…?

Making a face at the carefree clouds, Lise sat up. She needed a walk. Or maybe she needed to kill some undead. It wasn’t like her to be so negative.

But even as she walked to the Tatami Maze, Lise couldn’t help but wonder whether she was doing the right thing by killing the undead. Did the undead truly die? She had never really thought about it until now, but there were still undead roaming about even though the Pronteran Church’s aim for centuries was to exterminate them. Were there really that many restless souls being created to offset the numerous mass undead purges?

Shaking her head, she cleared her mind of all her thoughts as she entered the Maze. Its beautiful walls were becoming increasingly familiar to her. Lise knew if she took a right turn, the maze would split into three paths. And although all three lead to dead ends, the middle fork would take her to a room with a small table. A little bunch of flowers grew in the ceramic jar placed in the centre of the table, and a beautiful night scene in a bamboo forest was painted on the sliding door that wouldn’t open. Lise found a longing to see that room. It was perhaps the only room that was completely unsullied by the undead filth. In all her visits, there were never any undead in this room. It was a tiny piece of tranquillity, a small slice of heaven, in a place that was filled with evil. A visit to that room was in order, before she began to clear the undead again. She may not have another opportunity to see it, if she decided to give up trying…

She nearly started when suddenly spotted the ghost in the room, watching her with his golden gaze. Noticing she had finally seen him, he approached her as silent as the trickling of sand. Lise was unnerved by how he was simply ‘there’. The ghost, like the Samurai, didn’t have any kind of indicator that alerted her to his presence. No sound, no sense of presence, no undead smell. They were so similar…

“Why’re you still here, priestess?”

How long had he been watching her? “I was actually looking for you.”

If Lise had been looking for some kind of reaction to her words, she was bitterly disappointed. “I don’t care. I told you to stay out of here, and I mean it.”

Lise felt her right eye twitch in indignation. How dare he? She hated it when people told her what to do. “Who are you, my mother?” she snapped at him. “I wanted to come here, and you can’t stop me.”

Before she knew what was happening, he was right in front of her, holding her chin. He tilted her head upward so that she could see the angry glare in his golden eyes. Lise felt a shiver run down her spine as he breathed. The blood drained from her face when she realised he was breathing on her like a wolf just before it went for the kill. In one swift movement, he had her pressed up against the wooden panelling of a wall. She began to struggle, but the dagger he carried pricked her under the chin, forcing her into stillness. Using her dagger point to tilt her head, he kept her in his gaze. “Just because I’m dead,” he whispered, his voice freezing her inside, “doesn’t mean I can’t kill you. But I suppose I could always have a little…fun…with you.”

Lise let out an unconscious whimper as he pressed himself harder against her. He was cold, so cold. She shivered, all too aware of how tangible the dagger at her throat was. She nearly cried when she felt him slide his leg between hers, a cold arm encircling her waist. Her breath hitched in her throat.

Oh dear God, what’s he doing? This, this can’t be happening to me!

“I can be your worst nightmare,” he breathed, a lascivious smile drawing his lips wide in a fiendish grin.

For a terror-stricken moment, Lise believed him. In the past, she had always scorned rape victims, believing they were weak to allow a man to overpower them. But now, she understood how crippling it was to know that all it’d take would be a swift jerk of her knee to be free, only to be held back by the chains of terror. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his golden gaze; it was as if someone was holding her head, preventing her from turning away. She didn’t even dare move, not even when he drew closer, a hungry smile on his face. It was as if he was draining her of her will to fight back, like a vampire draining his victim of blood until all that was left was a hollow, empty husk. She was a tiny bird trapped in a snake’s coils; her eyes were locked into his, unable to see the fanged maw open wide…

But finally, that stupidly logical part of her brain kicked in, and screamed at her to listen to it. “Y-you can’t kill me,” she stammered through her dry throat.

Lise winced as the dagger point pierced her flesh, drawing a single drop of blood. It oozed out from her skin, running down the side of the cold, cold blade. “Are you so sure, priestess?”

She resisted the urge to swallow the fear in her mouth in case she choked. “Y-yes. Killing me would defeat the purpose of saving me in the first place.”

“I only saved you because I thought you were someone else,” the ghost whispered, drawing his face closer. His tongue darted out and licked the tiny wound shut. An unconscious shudder, revulsion burning the clammy hands that squeezed her heart, ran through her in response. “You mean nothing to me.”

Feeling the sickening terror rising up into her throat, Lise tried to fight it down. She felt the snake’s coils slowly but surely constricting. Drawing on her final reserves of bravery, she made her final cry for life. “But you still continued to warn me away. No one in Amatsu has even heard of you. Yet you’ve appeared to me three times. Why…?”

…The world stopped.

Suddenly, the harshness seemed to seep out of his face like the water receding from a beach. He looked strangely saddened by her words and dropped his head, unable to look her in the eye. But it was a long, heart-pounding moment for Lise before he took the knife away from her throat. She breathed an audible sigh of relief when he backed away from her, giving her room to breathe. She clutched her arms, covering her chest even though she was fully clothed, still shivering. Lise felt the urge to warp herself out there and then and take a cold, cold bath to wash away that disgusting feeling he had left on her. She felt so very dirty, a mere object of lust for the ghost.

The priestess stared at the ghost, wondering why he was just standing there. She was torn between leaving to put as much distance between him and her as possible, or staying to see what he said. In the end, her curiosity – which had often gotten the better of her – won out, bridging the chasm of fear he had created.

There was a long pause before he finally replied. “You look like my wife.”

Lise’s mind just…stopped. W-what?

She unconsciously shrunk back, clutching the rosary around her neck as if it would protect her, when he turned his gaze onto her. But he didn’t make any move towards her, instead sitting on his haunches like some kind of twisted human parody of a wolf. Maybe his wife had tamed this wild beast; without her, the beast now ran free, doing as he wished. But perhaps this wife of his had left behind some reins, some leash of control, for Lise to use…

“Who was your wife?”

He tilted his head to the side, staring at her. She stared back defiantly. He wouldn’t dominate her with fear; she wouldn’t allow him to, not when she knew there was a way to make him give up the answers she sought. “Was?” he said cooly. “Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean she is.”

“I see.” So he was only dead recently. “Then, who are you?”

“Why are you asking again?” He yawned, opening his mouth wide and showing her a round, metal stud on his tongue. “I already told you, priestess.”

He had? Oh. Lise glared at him. “‘A ######ing idiot’ doesn’t answer my question. What’s your name?” Maybe he would give her his name if she gave hers. “Mine is Lise Ravella.”

“You’re starting to bore me, priestess. I can’t believe I mistook you for her; you’re nothing like her. There’s no reason for me to stay.” And he was gone.

Lise didn’t realise she was grinding her teeth until a few moments after he had left. There was something about the whole exchange that had irritated her. Perhaps it was the way he called her ‘priestess’ rather than use her name, but Lise thought it was the fact he had just ignored her questions. It was completely unacceptable. She wanted answers!

“Tomorrow,” she vowed fervently, “I’m going to wring every bit of information I can from that damn ghost!”

--

Author’s Note: I’m not too happy with the ending of this chapter, but it’s all I could come up with for the time being. Mmm, not sure how accurate I was with the whole sakura thing was either. Ah well. There have been so many times I typed the ghost’s name by accident. I have to check this lots of times to make sure a spoiler didn’t slip through x.x;;

As usual, comments and criticism welcome.

[Tenshinoakuma]

Author's Notes: I still hate the end of ch2, but it'll stay like that until i can think of a way to fix it. Also, posted here because of a trojan scare on ff.net

--

Ragnarok Online
The Spectres of Amatsu
Chapter 3

--

It should be noted that people living in the hotter lands on Rune-Midgard have characteristically darker skin, while those living in colder climates have pale complexions. The only exceptions to this rule are the Yunoans, who are the exceptions for almost any general trend or universal law, the long-haired bastards.
-Enves Tan’gari

--

Of course, it was typical that she wasn’t able to find the damnable ghost the next day. Neither was she able to find him the day after that. It was only five days later Lise ran into the ghost again. This time he was waiting for her in that secluded room, sitting cross-legged on the short table. It seemed almost blasphemous; tables were not made for sitting on. Lise was torn between interrogating him, or telling him to get down from the table like she used to do with little kids in the Chuch.

“I guess I can’t stop you from coming here.” He mock sighed.

There was no sign of anger anymore – thank God – and any signs of advancement of the wrong kind were dispelled. If anything, he looked happy to see her; there was a casual ease to his posture. Even so, she chose to question him before he ran off again. Just in case. She had hundreds of questions for him and she wanted to know the answers to them all. “Who are you? Who is your wife? How did you meet?”

The ghost laughed, interrupting her. His face split into that infuriating grin of his and she could see a glint of amusement in his visible eye. “Why are you asking me questions I know the answers to?”

Lise resisted the urge to hit him for being so stupid or stubborn or both…or was he pushing her buttons on purpose? She didn’t trust that grin of his. It looked as smug and misleading as the Cheshire Cat’s toothy smile.

“Because I want to know the answers.” She managed to keep her voice perfectly even, despite the frustration that was bubbling underneath.

“Why don’t you use that brain of yours,” he tapped the side of his head, “and tell me who you think I am and everything else?”

Lise blinked. Was he going to tell her what she wanted to know after she gave her opinion? She sat herself down on the tatami mat a little distance away, eager to get the weight off her feet. Bringing a finger to her lip as she thought, she said, “If your wife looks like me, she’s probably a priestess. Maybe your wife is a good and holy priestess and you were a dark and mysterious…” She trailed off.

Mysterious what, though? Definitely not a wizard; the fight with Incantation made that obvious. “Well, maybe you were someone who grew up on the streets. A thief, or,” his clothes were distinctly Morroccan, but she hadn’t seen it before. She made a guess, “an assassin maybe?” That sounded logical. Opposites attracted after all. “And I guess she helped you overcome your sins and you couldn’t help but be drawn into her light and–”

She was cut off by a loud burst of laughter. “Ahahahahaha, you’ve been reading way too many romance stories, priestess. You’re not even close, priestess.”

Lise frowned. She didn’t think he was lying; he seemed far too open to be lying. The ghost looked rather like a rogue, but there was something about him that told her he wasn’t. It was worth a shot anyway. “Are you a rogue then? You look a lot like a rogue.”

“No, I’m not a rogue.” That grin-she-wanted-to-punch-so-hard grew wider.

She gave a sigh of exasperation. It was like playing a guessing game with a child. “I give up. Tell me the answers.”

He pouted, somehow managing to look cute – she didn’t just think that did she? – even though he was wearing a spiked dog collar. “You’re no fun. Go find out yourself.”

“Well, escuuuuuse me, but you haven’t exactly given me a lot to work with. I don’t even know your name.”

He snorted, the smile fading from his face. “Names aren’t important. Only Rai’den called me by name in Morroc anyway.”

She blinked in surprise. He was a long way from home. “You were born in Morroc?”

The ghost rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Do I look like I was born in Morroc?”

Lise had to admit he had a point. His skin was far too pale to be Morroccan. Al de born perhaps? No, he was too tall to be from the alchemist city. Not Yunoan or Geffenese; his face did not match their aristocratic features. Pronteran maybe? He seemed to fit their physique although he was on the lean side. But his eyes…she had never seen anyone anywhere with eyes like his.

There was a frustrated twist to the corner of his mouth. “You’re always asking questions, questions, questions, priestess. Think of the answers yourself.”

He vanished, leaving Lise to ponder over fragments as small and insignificant as the grains of sand in a desert and the faintest memory of saltwater rain. And they all slipped past her fingers, like flour through a sieve. He was a ghost, something that was not alive. She had to remember that. He was a book to be read, not a stranger who could become a friend. He is ashes and dust held together by memory, but is that all he really is?

…Lise thought she could smell rotten eggs.

--

“Go find a woman or a man – don’t look at me like that; I know you’ve tried it before – to love. It’s much more satisfying.”

“Is doing it with someone you love different or something?”

“You could say that.”

“So, what is this love thing?”

The assassin tried to explain, but he didn’t understand. Later, he asked around for answers, because he had nothing better to do and he wanted to know. But the replies he received were unsatisfying.

He decided love wasn’t worth his time.

But the angel with the heavy boots showed him how wrong he had been.

--

Morroc’s vast expanses of land were rivalled by none. Prontera’s territory was large, but the other cities had a share in it; Al de Baran, Geffen, Payon, Alberta, the list went on. But unlike Prontera’s fertile fields and valleys, Morroc’s land was stretches and stretches of inhabitable desert. The desert cut Morroc off the rest of the world like a castle surrounded by its moat. The city’s deserts held the other cities away from it at arm’s length; close enough to tell them it wasn’t going to disappear, but far enough to keep its distance. There was nothing like standing in an undulating mass of sand as far as the eye can see to appreciate the empty isolation of Morroc. If haughty detachment was a city, it was Morroc. Even though in these times, people no longer had to trek through the desert to reach the city, Morroc did not even attempt to accommodate tourists to its harsh conditions. Its motto was ‘deal with it.’

Lise had come a long way to find Enves Tan’gari –though the Kafra made intercity travel much easier with their teleporting services – and even now, the person she was sitting with was not him. She couldn’t make out any of the man’s features (although his voice was definitely male) as he was draped in a dark cloak and his face was covered by some kind of mask. Even the eye holes had some kind of mesh over them. So while he could see her perfectly fine, she couldn’t see his eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that this middleman didn’t show up in the inn wearing that garb. It would attract too much attention and inform others that someone was contacting the enigmatic Tan’gari.

Enves Tan’gari was no fool. But his services were also very expensive to hire.

“I expect fifty thousand to keep your contact with me secret from the Pronteran Church, regardless of your request.” The Church did not look very kindly upon those who associated with scum from the human underworld.

Lise glared at the tiny crystal ball on the table before the middleman. She had seen similar, much larger, scrying devices in the homes of rich wizards. However, those crystal balls would show faces on the surface. This one simply contained mist. Lise had began to think that Tan’gari had been given a defective crystal when she realised he may have made it like that on purpose. The crystal would not reveal his identity, and even the voice that came from the crystal was distorted. She could hear his words clearly, but she would never be able to recognise his real voice if she met him in the streets.

“I may a priestess, but I’m no longer with the Church,” she lied, looking at the middleman where his eyes would be.

“You are Lise Ravella.”

The simple statement revealed the lie for what it was, losing any advantage she could have gained. Lise had not used her real name while she was in Morroc, where Tan’gari’s information web was at its tightest. The enigmatic Tan’gari was known to have little interest inter-city politics. Because of that, she had assumed he had little information of people outside of the desert city. But Lise was obviously wrong; the web of information was larger than she thought. And Enves Tan’gari sat in the centre of it all like some grossly misshapen spider pulling the strings.

Tan’gari’s distorted voice spoke again. “You are here for information.”

“I’m looking for a ghost. I encountered him in Amatsu, but he’s from Morroc, or at least lived here for some time. He has a pale complexion, Pronteran perhaps, bright golden eyes and looks similar to a rogue. He mentioned someone who knows him, a person called Rai’den. I want as much information on who he was when he was alive.”

“Your request is very vague.”

She knew she was trying to find a single grain of sand in a vast oasis of pebbles. “I know you have pieced together a whole picture from a few dots.”

“I require a down payment of one hundred thousand. You need not worry about how you will give the money to us; we will handle it. The final price will be delivered to you upon our completion of this task.”

She was slightly disturbed that Tan’gari seemed to be implying he could take money from anyone as he pleased. But there was little she could do about it now. Lise rose and nodded to the cloaked man and the crystal ball. “Thank you for your help.” A thought struck her as she turned to leave. “I was wondering,” she tossed over her shoulder, “do you ever feel lonely in your line of work?”

“I am only as alone as you are,” was his curt reply. “Goodbye, priestess.”

--

He fidgeted, feeling self-conscious for the first time in his life. Spotting the person he was looking for, he gave a questioning glance to his old friend. His friend, guardian, gave him an encouraging grin, as if to say, “Go on, you can do it.”

Confident, he ran up to the auburn-haired woman. Exchanging greetings, he kneeled before her and said the four words that would change his life.

The sound of heavy boots on pavement as she turned to give her three word reply was the closest he had come to heaven.

Golden eyes fluttered shut under heavy eyelashes.

--

“This would be a lot easier if you have a name. A name will narrow things down a lot.”

The tall sage put her stack of books on the table nearby and began to shelve them. Feather was the Head Librarian of Yuno and had a near perfect recall on well known facts. Harder to find information would take a little longer for her to remember, but if there was any information of the ghost in the shelves and shelves of books, Feather would know. When she wasn’t running the library, the bright sage had her nose in a thick book.

Lise sighed and idly ran a hand through her auburn hair. “I would have,” she replied, “but it’s hard enough getting him to tell me anything about himself.”

Seconds, minutes passed while Feather shelved books and Lise listened to the soulful tick of the library’s grandfather clock. Lise lost herself in the faintly musty scent of the library and the sounds of life that were barely there. Even in the City of Wisdom, the library was so quiet, so big, so…empty…

“Do you know how he became a ghost?” Feather suddenly asked, interrupting the priestess’ thoughts.

Lise refocused her eyes on Feather. “No, why?” It never occurred to her to ask.

The sage delicately picked out a book and opened it. “I, personally, am interested, but there is another reason. Very little information is known about how ghosts become ghosts in Yuno’s library. There are only two known humanoid ghosts mentioned in all,” she waved a hand at the rows and rows of bookshelves, “these books; Geffen’s doppelganger and Amatsu’s Incantation Samurai. If I could talk to him, maybe I could unravel the secrets behind ghosts and add to Yuno’s vast wealth of information.” She sighed. “Pity my duties here don’t allow me to leave on whim.”

Lise knew Feather well enough to understand the implied, “unlike you,” at the end.

The librarian licked her fingertips and turned a page. “I’ll see if there’s anything that may resemble your so-called ghost.”

The dust had settled. It was up to Lise to sweep it away.

“I’ll get you a name.” It was a promise.

--

Author’s Notes: (pulls out WarCraft III and starts playing xD) Comments and criticism welcome :D

[Tenshinoakuma]

Author's Notes: Edits to chapter 1 & 2

--

Ragnarok Online
The Spectres of Amatsu
Chapter 4

--

“I had a dream once, where all that is dead was alive and all that is alive was dead. And then I opened my eyes.”
- 石川健太郎 (Ishikawa Kentarou)

--

“…Charming.”

Lise pinched the bridge of her nose and tried not to look at the ghost. When she had walked into the room, the priestess had not expected to see a grown man happily rolling around on the floor. He just looked…utterly ridiculous. And with the spiked dog collar, she couldn’t help but be reminded of an overgrown wet dog flopping on the ground during a hot day. The woman who married this…puerile ghost must have had the strangest taste in men.

He shot her a wide grin from his place on the floor. “But you get the best views from here.”

Ahwhat?

A tinge of pink appearing on her cheeks, Lise hurriedly smoothed down her robes and aimed a kick at his face. But before her foot could connect with the satisfying crunch she so desired, the dog-man-thing rolled out of the way. Phasing to a more appropriately ghostly look, he passed right through the table before getting to his feet and languidly stretching. The ghost quickly shifted back to his more solid shape and sat himself down onto the table, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Before she could restart her interrogation, he jumped in.

“Lemme ask you a question for once, priestess.” He tilted his head as he looked her straight in the eye. “Who are you?”

It was the question she still wanted the answer from him. But she had already told him who she was, unlike a certain frustrating ghost. “What do you mean? I already told you, I’m Lise.”

He waved away her answer, shaking his head. “No…” He turned his gaze upward, as if he was searching for the heavens he could neither see nor reach. “Who are you really? I know you, but I don’t…”

“What about me? I don’t know who you are either.”

“You already know who I am.”

“No I don’t,” she argued, placing one hand on her hip. “All I know is that you’re a ghost, that’s it. I don’t know who you are and what your name is.”

He yawned and leant back, lying on the table. His long legs dangled off the table and his feet were placed awkwardly on the ground. “Names don’t mean anything, and I’m exactly what I told you before.”

Argh, they were going around in circles again. Couldn’t he just give her a straight answer? “But calling you by name would be much better than always thinking of you as ‘that ghost’.”

“You call people by who they are to you, priestess.”

“So I’m just ‘priestess’ to you?”

“Yes.”

The bluntness of his reply stopped her mind dead in its tracks, as if he had thrown a stone into the clockwork. But he still had not answered her more important questions. And his reply didn’t sit very well with her. Lise decided to try a decidedly different approach; he wasn’t a real person anyway. “Look, please, could you just tell me your name? It would make me feel better.”

He seemed to be tracing invisible patterns in the ceiling. “No.”

He didn’t even look like he was paying attention anymore. He could not be ignoring her! She wouldn’t allow it!

“Why?” she cried out in frustration, fake tears welling in her eyes. Her knees turned weak and she gracelessly slumped on the floor. She buried her face in her hands, as if she was crying. “God, I just want to know your name!” She raised her head to look at him, her crocodile tears slipping down her face through her fingers. “Is that so much to ask for?”

She watched him – through her fingers – sit up and stare at her. It took only a few heartbeats before he was there, squatting before her. The childish mask he wore had a tiny crack, giving her a glimpse of the creature within. He was torn, the harsh ‘who the hell cares’ Morroccan attitude struggling with the other side that saw her as his wife; his golden eyes betrayed the storm and turmoil brewing inside. But concern won the war over disbelief and apathy. She couldn’t help but flinch at the sudden bite of cold as he took her worn hands in his own calloused ones. “I just want to see my wife again,” he whispered, bowing his head. “Is that so much to ask for?”

Guilt drove a knife into the pit of her stomach; the mask that no longer hid him told her to look away. She could only stare when his cold hand brushed her fake tears away.

“It’s NightEyes.” He left the faintest of breaths when he vanished, slipping through her slack hold over him. For a fleeting moment, Lise thought she saw something crystalline gleam in the dim light.

She tried to smile to herself in victory. She had finally managed to wrangle the ghost’s name from him. Maybe her method had not been very priestess-like, but she had finally gotten a straight answer out of him. Besides, he wasn’t really alive anyway; he was just a memory, so he couldn’t actually feel emotions...

Then why did she feel she had done something very, very wrong…?

--

“We had an agreement.”

“I just want to see her one last time. You know…before I go. You’ve been waiting for…how long was it again?”

“Millennia.”

“Yeah, that. Can’t you wait just a bit longer?”

“…Alright.”

But when he reached the entrance of the Maze, those weird squiggles he had seen glowed. And when he tried to step over the threshold, he burned. He didn’t hear the shrieks for him to stop, for him to get away from the entrance. He continued to push forward, screaming. Because he didn’t want to accept he was trapped here, just like the Samurai.

--

“Hmm, NightEyes, you say? That sounds vaguely familiar.”

The sage continued to shelve books, while Lise leaned on the counter. Feather’s attention seemed to be focused on a spot up on the ceiling though. Lise could barely contain the wide grin that was threatening to split her face. If Feather recognised the name, then she was definitely going to get information on the ghost within a couple of days, max. Maybe she wouldn’t even need Tan’gari’s aid.

“Would you happen to know what era he lived in?”

Lise brought her head off her hands as the looked up at the sage, who was balancing precariously on her ladder to place a book on a shelf just within her reach. “I was thinking he lived in our time, since he mentions his wife is still alive.”

“Impossible. He can’t have died within this century, or else I would be able to remember him quite easily.”

Lise flicked an invisible speck of dust off the counter. “You could be wrong.”

The sage drew herself up to her full height and said haughtily, “I am never wrong.”

“Maybe he was just an ordinary guy.” Lise leaned forward and pillowed her head on her arms. “Not important enough to be in any records.” Lise didn’t know why she said it.

Feather clambered down from her ladder with yet another book open in her hands. She made a clicking noise with her tongue and picked up a different book. “If I remember him,” she said, “he was definitely something more.”

“Well, then maybe–”

“Lise, Lise, stop worrying about your little ghost,” Feather interrupted, placing her book on the counter. “I’ll find the answers soon enough, never fear. You should get out and relax. It’s nearly Christmas! You shouldn’t be working so hard at this time of year. Go to Lutie or something and enjoy yourself.”

Lise wanted to point out that the librarian would still be working through the holidays. But she knew that Feather truly enjoyed what she did, and never thought what she did was work at all. Not that Lise considered shelving books a job at all.

“Well…I have been busy all these years.” The priestess chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. “You know, coming to think of it, I’ve never gone to Lutie before…”

The sage shot Lise a beatific smile. “All the more reason to go! Now that the Church isn’t cooping you up in some smelly cave, you should go.”

“I suppose…”

Lise knew she should take a break from Amatsu and that ghost – how did her focus change from the Incantation Samurai to NightEyes? – but she wanted to pursue the strings of answers that dangled just within her reach. She was a falcon perched high, watching the movements of her prey. She didn’t want to take her eyes off him, lest she let him escape like sand through an hourglass. But she had no choice. For now, she could only wait for the answers to come to her.

She prayed Feather was wrong about him.

Feather looked up from browsing through her book. “Oh, and if I get you the information you need, you owe me lunch at Gracie’s.”

--

“You said you could wait.”

“You have already postponed our agreement once.”

“I haven’t seen her yet and I won’t be able to until that bastard’s dead. I’m not asking you to wait again.”

“That is true. But do not forget–”

“I’m not him .You can shove your immortality up your–”

He had seen that familiar face, the face he thought could end it all. The face he had waited for so long to see again. But she wasn’t her; she was never her.

But in the moments of boredom, she was all he had.

And it hurt.

--

“Information has been scarce, but with that name, the task will be much easier. We will have more answers when you next return.”

Lise frowned. “If you don’t have more information than my other contact, then I will have to seriously reconsider your usefulness.”

“If we don’t have more than your other contact, then I have no right to the name of Tan’gari.” Lise thought she could detect a hint of offence at her words.

If Tan’gari’s information network was as good as his reputation – which she was beginning to doubt – then he would already know about Feather’s words. Lise said them anyway. “The other contact also mentioned that NightEyes may be from another era.”

“If that is so, there is little information to be found in Morroc. No official paperwork was kept in the past. You know that only in the last fifty years the government started to write records. Anything other than ancient history from antiquity has been lost.”

“Are you saying you cannot complete your end of the bargain? If that is the case–”

“You misunderstand,” the distorted voice cut in. “I am simply stating that information will not be found here if your ghost turns out to have been dead in between these times.”

“I see. If that is all you have for me today, I will take my leave.” She stood up, but didn’t turn to exit. “Do you think the undead have emotions?” Morroc, like most of the other cities, had its own undead problems, past and present.

“If they can, they do.” There was a pause. “You are a priestess of the Church. Farewell, Sister Ravella.”

Lise stared at the crystal ball before dipping her head to the cloaked middleman and excusing herself from the room. She shielded her eyes from the unrelenting beat of the sun as she stepped out onto the dusty streets of Morroc. A small group of children were playing with diabolo – how could such an innocuous toy have a name with demonic connotations? – and laughing. She stopped, noticing the laughter and smile of one especially skilled girl.

Lise had always liked watching diabolists at work – or was it at play? – so she sat down on a nearby bench and watched the girl. The girl played with two of the brightly coloured toys, deftly juggling them through the air and along her string. There were moments of simple spinning, but there were moments where there was a flurry of movement, and everything changed. And when everything is in the air, there would be some scrambling to keep everything spinning smoothly. All this was difficult enough with one diabolo, but add another one and there was a whole new dimension to the game.

It was just like adding another person into her life.

Lise clapped when the girl finished her tricks. The group turned as one to stare at Lise, whispering, but the girl smiled and gave a little curtsey after her surprise faded away. Lise watched the children run off, laughing as they clutched their toys to their chests, leaving her to delve back into her unanswered thoughts. She was a priestess of the Church. What was Tan’gari telling her by saying that?

Lise clutched the rosary in her hand more tightly as she paid the Kafra for a warp to Prontera.

“…It is our duty to step into the darkness and wield God’s light to help the restless souls who have lost their way find the path to heaven. The undead do not belong in this world, but in the afterlife, and it is us who are their guides to the land beyond…”

She was digging her own grave.

--

Author’s Notes: For those who don’t know what a diabolo is, look it up in Wikipedia and have a look at www.diabolotricks.com after that for little animated .gifs that illustrate what the tricks are like. I find diabolo utterly fascinating, although I haven’t seen them around for a few years. And yes, my game characters all have backstories :D Comments and criticism welcome XD

[delsora]

Night!! =)

[Grace]

Love this! But then, re you gonna continue on the other chapters? I'm desperate to finish this! It's really good!
I'll rate it 9/10!