Post by England on Mar 15, 2013 4:15:11 GMT -6
It was the scent of death that first snared his attention.
This wasn't so much an actual smell. Even with the absence of a body, that kind of energy imprinted itself on an area. Arthur had often trod upon places that felt heavy from that potent reverberation of past loss; a snapshot taken in the final seconds of a life, forever superimposed on the location. The Manor was brimming with these moments captured in time and every step felt like an ending. This was the Menai Massacre. This was Trafalgar. This was No Man's Land and Normandy and the death camps all piled together in one mass grave, contained within walls.
Sometimes the weight of it was so much that Arthur wished he could not sense energies of any kind, if just to escape. He had tucked himself away from it as much as possible. Nowhere here was untainted. And buried beneath this heap of despair was the ever present mark of evil. Without company, his mind turned to thoughts of mortality that were better left unexplored. It came to a head when he looked down to the Magnum holstered at his hip and debated whether a bullet might solve the issue of the negative energies pressing at his aura from all around. He took a walk instead.
Carrying a torch with him everywhere he went lent an element of danger. Arthur didn't trust any other source of light here. Plus, while the illumination of that torch was a beacon that signaled his location to hostile forces, it also served as a handy weapon if he needed one. Fire was a force of destruction that the Englishman would never hesitate to use. Evil creatures generally steered clear of its purifying effects. Really, no matter if one was good or evil, the idea of getting burnt was a universal no-go worth avoidance. Arthur counted on that line of reasoning for most of his operations inside of this prison. He kept that lit torch extended ahead of him to light his path. The fire chased the shadows away. It eliminated the darkness.
A glint caught his eye as Arthur passed a crumbled section of wall. The room inside was pitch black beyond that fallen mess of plaster, wood and debris. It didn't look structurally sound in the least. Even the boards beneath his feet groaned when his weight pressed upon them. He altered his movements to creeping caution. Better safe than sorry. The Englishman might have dismissed the glint as a figment of his imagination if it did not sparkle in the corner of his eye a second time. There was something metallic that the light of his torch reflected on. Anything metal could prove valuable.
Arthur crouched down in the corridor. The light wouldn't fully reach whatever the item was no matter what angle he directed his torch. Closer to it now, he could feel a strange aura exuding from it. Not a bad magic, like everything else tainted here. That alone intrigued him. If he wanted it for himself then he'd have to reach into the precarious balance of fallen bits to get it. Arthur was paranoid enough to wonder if it wasn't a trap devised by the forces here. Wouldn't it be silly if he managed to get himself killed over an unidentified bit of metal? He'd deserve his death if that were the case.
He settled both knees upon the mouldering carpet. One hand kept the torch clutched tightly while Arthur carefully extended the other into that space of contained darkness, beneath thick blocks of shattered concrete exposed from when the wall had collapsed. His fingers felt around blindly at the spot where he thought he'd seen that glint. "...Ah ha!"
Success! He could feel the gold texture of the hard metal brush his fingertips, reaching further to close his grasp around it. The energy from that item gave off a warm heat in opposition to the metal's frigid temperature; a welcoming vibe of power that thrummed at the touch of his humanoid contact. That initial tug proved that the thing was stuck to something. Arthur frowned deeply, his other fingers splaying out to attempt identifying what it was that held the thing in place. There was something familiar about the textures beneath his touch that he couldn't put his finger on. He braced his strength and gave a strong pull. The snare holding his intended prize came free with that force, allowing Arthur to draw it out victoriously into the light of his torch.
It was a ring.
Still attached to the skeletal hand that he'd just broken off.
Arthur turned two shades simultaneously; sickly green chased by pale white. He dropped the ghastly appendage to the floor near his knees to wipe his hand hurriedly against the leg of his trousers. "Coo, that's nasty." Arthur muttered with a grimace while staring down at the hand of bones there on the floor beside him. His mouth remained twisted in distaste as he pinched hold of the ring again, this time working more carefully to slide the thing off the remnants of a finger that had wasted away all its flesh with time. The rest of the body must have been buried under the collapsed wall. Had someone been trying to escape only to become entombed by the Manor?
If that were the case, then the spirit attached to the body under that pile of rubble might not have been at peace. It was a shame that he wasn't much of a religious man, in orthodox terms. People generally raised an eyebrow whenever Arthur detailed the ways that he worshipped. Certain practices had simply fallen out of fashion over time, and even modern day pagans were quaint by his standards. Still, Arthur couldn't walk away without an attempt to alleviate the plight of a potentially restless spirit. He'd been hanging around Catholics and Christians long enough to have a general grasp of how they went about situations like this.
He was already on his knees anyway. That was a good start.
The Englishman looked around quickly, pocketing the ring. Then he made an awkward Sign of the Cross that was likely backwards, then clasped his hands together in a praying(ish) fold around the stem of his lit torch. His eyes darted sheepishly skyward with the guilty expression of someone that knows they haven't done much to garner favours from Higher Powers and is plugging in to the Heavenly Network for the first time. "Um." Already this prayer was lacking in eloquence. Arthur pressed on with blurting speed and halting stops.
"Dear God, Baby Jesus, Adult Jesus, angels and et cetera. Hello. We haven't talked much. And I know I'm horrendously guilty of taking your name 'in vain' on a nearly daily basis. So should you choose to ignore this, I completely understand your side of things. However, if you could possibly see fit to . . . put this soul to rest if they're stuck here, that would be smashing. Ye, though I walk through the... er... pastures of Death, thy loaf of bread is mighty and that is really swell. Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust, we all fall down. And may they dwell in your house -- or, really, any house but this one -- forever and ever. Amen."
It wasn't perfect. Shakespeare was probably rolling over in his grave. Arthur had done his best. One couldn't expect him to deliver a perfect eulogy without at least being on a first name basis with whatever unlucky sod was buried under all that rubble. It would have to do. He pushed up to totter on his feet, then pinched a hold of the hand to stuff it back in with the rest of the body. The last thing he needed was to come across a ghostly hand skittering about the place in search of the rest of its earthly remains. Better to air on the side of caution with that business. With the hand now out of sight, Arthur rubbed his fingers off on his trousers again to chase off the sensation of them being soiled. He paused when he heard a sound of movement further down the hallway.
The ghost hand already?!
Arthur twisted around, swinging around the light of his torch as he sought to face whoever (or whatever) was closing in upon him. "Who's there? Identify yourself, or face the wrath of my... brick." He reached to the pile of rubble and lifted one of the chunks, testing its weight. Green eyes squinted at the movement of shadows just beyond the light of his torch and he braced himself for the worst.
This wasn't so much an actual smell. Even with the absence of a body, that kind of energy imprinted itself on an area. Arthur had often trod upon places that felt heavy from that potent reverberation of past loss; a snapshot taken in the final seconds of a life, forever superimposed on the location. The Manor was brimming with these moments captured in time and every step felt like an ending. This was the Menai Massacre. This was Trafalgar. This was No Man's Land and Normandy and the death camps all piled together in one mass grave, contained within walls.
Sometimes the weight of it was so much that Arthur wished he could not sense energies of any kind, if just to escape. He had tucked himself away from it as much as possible. Nowhere here was untainted. And buried beneath this heap of despair was the ever present mark of evil. Without company, his mind turned to thoughts of mortality that were better left unexplored. It came to a head when he looked down to the Magnum holstered at his hip and debated whether a bullet might solve the issue of the negative energies pressing at his aura from all around. He took a walk instead.
Carrying a torch with him everywhere he went lent an element of danger. Arthur didn't trust any other source of light here. Plus, while the illumination of that torch was a beacon that signaled his location to hostile forces, it also served as a handy weapon if he needed one. Fire was a force of destruction that the Englishman would never hesitate to use. Evil creatures generally steered clear of its purifying effects. Really, no matter if one was good or evil, the idea of getting burnt was a universal no-go worth avoidance. Arthur counted on that line of reasoning for most of his operations inside of this prison. He kept that lit torch extended ahead of him to light his path. The fire chased the shadows away. It eliminated the darkness.
A glint caught his eye as Arthur passed a crumbled section of wall. The room inside was pitch black beyond that fallen mess of plaster, wood and debris. It didn't look structurally sound in the least. Even the boards beneath his feet groaned when his weight pressed upon them. He altered his movements to creeping caution. Better safe than sorry. The Englishman might have dismissed the glint as a figment of his imagination if it did not sparkle in the corner of his eye a second time. There was something metallic that the light of his torch reflected on. Anything metal could prove valuable.
Arthur crouched down in the corridor. The light wouldn't fully reach whatever the item was no matter what angle he directed his torch. Closer to it now, he could feel a strange aura exuding from it. Not a bad magic, like everything else tainted here. That alone intrigued him. If he wanted it for himself then he'd have to reach into the precarious balance of fallen bits to get it. Arthur was paranoid enough to wonder if it wasn't a trap devised by the forces here. Wouldn't it be silly if he managed to get himself killed over an unidentified bit of metal? He'd deserve his death if that were the case.
He settled both knees upon the mouldering carpet. One hand kept the torch clutched tightly while Arthur carefully extended the other into that space of contained darkness, beneath thick blocks of shattered concrete exposed from when the wall had collapsed. His fingers felt around blindly at the spot where he thought he'd seen that glint. "...Ah ha!"
Success! He could feel the gold texture of the hard metal brush his fingertips, reaching further to close his grasp around it. The energy from that item gave off a warm heat in opposition to the metal's frigid temperature; a welcoming vibe of power that thrummed at the touch of his humanoid contact. That initial tug proved that the thing was stuck to something. Arthur frowned deeply, his other fingers splaying out to attempt identifying what it was that held the thing in place. There was something familiar about the textures beneath his touch that he couldn't put his finger on. He braced his strength and gave a strong pull. The snare holding his intended prize came free with that force, allowing Arthur to draw it out victoriously into the light of his torch.
It was a ring.
Still attached to the skeletal hand that he'd just broken off.
Arthur turned two shades simultaneously; sickly green chased by pale white. He dropped the ghastly appendage to the floor near his knees to wipe his hand hurriedly against the leg of his trousers. "Coo, that's nasty." Arthur muttered with a grimace while staring down at the hand of bones there on the floor beside him. His mouth remained twisted in distaste as he pinched hold of the ring again, this time working more carefully to slide the thing off the remnants of a finger that had wasted away all its flesh with time. The rest of the body must have been buried under the collapsed wall. Had someone been trying to escape only to become entombed by the Manor?
If that were the case, then the spirit attached to the body under that pile of rubble might not have been at peace. It was a shame that he wasn't much of a religious man, in orthodox terms. People generally raised an eyebrow whenever Arthur detailed the ways that he worshipped. Certain practices had simply fallen out of fashion over time, and even modern day pagans were quaint by his standards. Still, Arthur couldn't walk away without an attempt to alleviate the plight of a potentially restless spirit. He'd been hanging around Catholics and Christians long enough to have a general grasp of how they went about situations like this.
He was already on his knees anyway. That was a good start.
The Englishman looked around quickly, pocketing the ring. Then he made an awkward Sign of the Cross that was likely backwards, then clasped his hands together in a praying(ish) fold around the stem of his lit torch. His eyes darted sheepishly skyward with the guilty expression of someone that knows they haven't done much to garner favours from Higher Powers and is plugging in to the Heavenly Network for the first time. "Um." Already this prayer was lacking in eloquence. Arthur pressed on with blurting speed and halting stops.
"Dear God, Baby Jesus, Adult Jesus, angels and et cetera. Hello. We haven't talked much. And I know I'm horrendously guilty of taking your name 'in vain' on a nearly daily basis. So should you choose to ignore this, I completely understand your side of things. However, if you could possibly see fit to . . . put this soul to rest if they're stuck here, that would be smashing. Ye, though I walk through the... er... pastures of Death, thy loaf of bread is mighty and that is really swell. Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust, we all fall down. And may they dwell in your house -- or, really, any house but this one -- forever and ever. Amen."
It wasn't perfect. Shakespeare was probably rolling over in his grave. Arthur had done his best. One couldn't expect him to deliver a perfect eulogy without at least being on a first name basis with whatever unlucky sod was buried under all that rubble. It would have to do. He pushed up to totter on his feet, then pinched a hold of the hand to stuff it back in with the rest of the body. The last thing he needed was to come across a ghostly hand skittering about the place in search of the rest of its earthly remains. Better to air on the side of caution with that business. With the hand now out of sight, Arthur rubbed his fingers off on his trousers again to chase off the sensation of them being soiled. He paused when he heard a sound of movement further down the hallway.
The ghost hand already?!
Arthur twisted around, swinging around the light of his torch as he sought to face whoever (or whatever) was closing in upon him. "Who's there? Identify yourself, or face the wrath of my... brick." He reached to the pile of rubble and lifted one of the chunks, testing its weight. Green eyes squinted at the movement of shadows just beyond the light of his torch and he braced himself for the worst.