Eldritch Guidance

On the easternmost part of Vaal street, Joe was standing by the sidewalk talking to a mutant woman that looked like a rabbit crossed with a human. She had the ears and face of a rabbit with short fur covering her whole body and rabbit feet too big for shoes, but she was bipedal and wore a simple floral A-line dress that hangs down to her knees. Clothing that you would expect a woman to wear.

Joe: “And you're sure you haven’t heard about someone named Mark?”

Mutant rabbit woman: “No, like I said, I just moved here. Anyways, I gotta go. Hope you find whoever you're looking for,” the mutant woman said before walking away from Joe.

Once the woman was out of earshot of Joe, he started to mumble to himself.

Joe: “That's just great,” he said to no one in particular.

This was the thirtieth person he had asked about Mark, and everyone he asked didn’t know anything about him. The neighborhood he was asking around was old, but there had been a series of renovations over the years. New cheap apartment complexes were put in and many people living around here were new residents that moved in a year or two ago.

Rob had murdered Mark around the time he disappeared, which was eight years ago. That would mean Mark was living somewhere on Vaal street eight years ago as well. But, with many of the people living around here being new residents, it made it hard to find someone that lived around here when Mark was around.

Joe needed to find an older looking person, someone that probably has lived on this street for a while, to have any chance of finding someone who knew Mark. That would have been Joe's main line of pursuit, but there was another problem compounding the difficulty of his search. Most people that lived around here were mutants.

Mutants can have a bunch of inhuman traits that make it hard to tell a person age. Because of how krimson mutates people, it’s impossible to accurately guess a mutant's age by just appearance. The mutations just vary way too much from person to person. A mutant that might look young might actually be quite old and vice versa.

“This is going to take forever. Maybe I should just search around for non-mutants that look old to ask. No, that won’t work either. Even if they look like an old non-mutant, they still could just be a young mutant that looks old and has no noticeable mutation. Damn it. Do I really have to ask every person I come across?” he thought to himself in frustration.

Joe: “I wonder if Mike and Dan are having any better luck than me,” he mumbled to himself.

When Joe and Mike realized how difficult it would be to find someone that knew Mark, they decided to split into two groups. Mike and Dan would be on one team and Joe would be by himself.

He originally wanted to split into three groups, but realized how little Dan understood the city. Combined with the fact that this was in the Nighthounds territory, they both agree it would be safer if Dan was accompanied by one of them. They were not about to take any more unnecessary risk than they had to.

Joe let out a tired sigh and proceeded to continue to walk along Vaal street.

He still couldn't get over how much the east end of the city had changed over the last fifteen years.

Vaal street was an older part of the city and the buildings were packed together tightly. The street was too narrow to allow vehicles into. Many of the buildings towered over the little street with a mix of both modern and old design in its architecture. It all had a certain charm to the entire area from maintaining some of the older design of the buildings.

There were countless signs and balconies hanging off the side of the highrises. There was a mixture of establishments that varied from restaurants to clothing stores all throughout the street. It all created the feel of an active and vibrant community.

“It's hard to imagine that this place was a complete dump over ten years ago. Heck, I'd even live here if it wasn't for the fact that it’s in the east end.” Joe thought to himself as he walked along the street.

As he continued to walk along, there was no one else on the street at the moment. Joe was considering if he should head into one of the nearby shops and question the staff about Mark.

From the corner of his eye, he turned his head and saw someone that looked odd.

It was someone wearing a extravagant black lace gown that dragged on the ground with a wide brim hat. She had a matching parasol held above her head. She stood about a hundred feet away from Joe and her complexion looked quite pale from where he was standing. He couldn’t make out any notable detail about this person's face, he was too far away from her to see.

She carried herself with a slightly mysterious, if otherworldly aura. Something in Joe’s gut told him that this person was not normal.

“Who in the world is that? She doesn't look like anyone else around here I've talked to.” He thought to himself.

He started to approach her with the intention of questioning this strange woman. As he did so, the woman quickly moved towards a nearby alleyway, out of Joe's sight.

Joe: “Crap,” he mumbled to himself, worried that he might lose this person.

He didn’t know how, but he just felt that the person he just saw knew something about Mark. He didn’t want to lose this person.

Joe started to run towards the alleyway he saw that woman enter. As he turned the corner, he was met with a dim and empty alley. There wasn't a soul to be seen. The only notable thing there was some electrical boxes mounted on both sides of the alleyways walls.

“Where in the world did she go? She just disappeared, like she was never there. There are no doors in this alleyway she could have entered, so does that mean she ran to the other end of the alley? But, that dress she was wearing wouldn’t be good for running, and why would she even need to run?” Joe wondered to himself.

Joe’s inquisitive mind analyzed the peculiarity of the situation, but he did not have any clear answer.

He started to make his way down the alley, carefully looking around to make sure he didn’t miss any doors that the women could have entered. Joe eventually reaches the other side of the alley. It exited onto another road. Across from the road was a clearing with a bunch of dead looking trees surrounding a dilapidated and grim looking house.

The two-story house looked like it had been abandoned for years. It was boarded up and bits of the roof had been dislodged and hung precariously off the edge. It looked condemned and ready to collapse from years of neglect. There was also a constant ever so slight haze around it, almost like a mist, but not quite.

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The contrast with the street he just came from was stark. The old part of Vaal street was bright and vibrant. Full of community and life. The place he was looking at felt the complete opposite. The oddity furthered by the fact this place is right beside where he came from.

Joe could feel an uneasiness coming from that house.

“That place looks haunted as fuck.” He thought to himself.

Between the woman that just vanished and this creepy looking house, he was on high alert. There was a sense of danger from the lack of knowledge of his surroundings and an unpleasantness he felt coming from that clearing.

He very slowly and carefully approached the house. Joe slowly crossed the street when he felt someone grab his shoulder from behind. Already feeling antsy, he grabbed his gun and spun around and pointed his gun at the person who touched him.

The person who grabbed his shoulder was Mike with Dan standing behind him.

Mike immediately let go of Joe and quickly backed off while raising his hands up in the air, gesturing he didn’t mean any harm.

Mike: “Whoa! Calm down there buddy.”

Joe: “For fuck sake. Don’t sneak up on me like that. I might have shot ya,” he said as he put his gun back into his holster.

Mike: “With all due respect, both me and Dan called out to you, and you ignored us.”

Joe: “Did you? I swear I didn't hear you. Then again, I sometimes do that. Where I focus on something too much to notice people calling me. If that is the cause, then I'm sorry about that.”

Mike: “Yeah, sounds about right. I hate when you do that. Anyways, you managed to find anybody that knew this Mark person?”

Joe: “No, unfortunately not.”

Mike: “Then why are you here?”

Joe: “I was following this weird looking woman. I lost her and somehow ended up here… wait. The way you said that makes it sounds like this place has something to do with Mark.”

Mike: “That's because it does. Tell him Dan. Tell him about what you managed to find out.”

Dan: “Oh, um,” he paused, surprised that Mike wanted him to explain why there here.

Joe: “You know you could just tell me, Mike.” he said, cutting Dan off.

MIke: “Shut the fuck up Joe. Just let Dan explain. He was the one to find out about this place. Please Dan, continue.”

Dan: “Um, I managed to find out about this old lady living nearby. Me and Mike went to visit her and ask her if she knew anything about Mark, and she did. She actually knew a lot about him. Apparently he would go over to this old lady’s place and play board games to keep her company.”

Joe: “That sounds like a big score. Someone like that is bound to have a ton of information about Mark.”

Dan: “By the light, she did. She talked our ears off about Mark. I guess apparently he didn’t like chocolate very much.” he said, recalling the tedious conversation about Mark he had with the old lady.

Joe: “Yeah, I know the kind of person you're talking about. Anyways, keep it to only the relevant stuff.”

Dan: “Right, Um. So I guess this place is where Mark used to live.”

Joe: “What!?! That haunted looking ass house, is the house that Mark used to live in,” he said while pointing to the house behind him.

Dan nodded his head.

Mike: “Yup, and based on what the locals say about that place, it might actually be haunted.”

Joe: “I mean, it definitely looks haunted. But, do you actually think a necromancer could be at work in a place like this, in the middle of the city without the Nighthounds or church getting involved.”

What people would consider as a haunted place, is a place that is infested with ghosts, something that is not a naturally occurring affair. It is often the work of necromancers. They take the spirits of people and bind them to a place or object. Doing this makes the spirit lash out against the living, violently.

Mike: “That's what the locals are saying. No one goes near there because they say that the ghost of the woman that died there still haunts the place.”

Joe: “You and I know that’s not how that works. The idea that people haunt the places they die is just a superstition. You need a necromancer to bind a spirit to a place, otherwise they just dissipate.”

Mike: “I know that, but the people around here are pretty certain that this place has a ghost in it.”

Joe: “And no one bothered to ask the church to perform an exorcism?”

Dan: “Um, apparently they did. At least, that’s what the old lady said.”

Joe: “Care to explain?”

Dan: “I guess someone that lived nearby asked the church to perform an exorcism here, but it didn’t work. The priest said he needed more powerful materials to successfully exorcise the ghost from this place, which required a very large donation.”

Joe: “Ok, I see where this is going. No one wanted to pay the church, so the priest never came back to finish the exorcism.”

Mike: “It seems that way. Although, I think if this place was actually haunted, the Church of Light wouldn’t just leave this place alone and do nothing about it.”

Joe: “You have a lot more faith in that institution than I do. Anyways, what’s this about a woman dying here. Is that Mark's mother?”

Dan: “Yeah. She wasn't doing too well...”

Mike: “You don’t need to sugar coat it. She hanged herself somewhere in that house,” he said as he pointed at the ominous house.

Joe: “A suicide, huh. Combined with how creepy this place looks, I get why people around here would think it’s haunted. Was there any reasoning to why she did it? For example, she found out her son was killed by Rob.”

Mike: “Kinda? That part gets confusing. The old lady said Mark's mother wasn't mentally well. She was crying everyday about her dead son while Mark was still alive. Eventually she just snapped and hanged herself. Afterwards, Mark just left the neighborhood.”

Joe: “Huh? The timeline sounds off. Jack made it sound like Mark was still looking after his mother when Rob killed him.”

Dan: “Jack could be misremembering. It was years ago when this happened.”

Mike: “That is true. It also didn’t sound like Jack knew much about Mark's personal life. Remember, he didn’t even know what state Mark's mother was in when we asked about her.”

Joe: “Hmm, I guess we’ll just have to go off what the locals say about what happened. So, what do you guys think about this place?”

Dan: “It's creepy as fuck.”

Mike: “Yeah, like you said. I get why people think it’s haunted. So, are we going to head inside now?

Dan: “What!? You guy’s want to head inside there?” he said while nervously looking at the ominous house.

Joe: “Obviously, we still need to figure out the connection between Mark and Rob’s disappearance eight years ago.”

Dan: “If there is no clear connection between Mark and Rob, why are we investigating Mark?”

Joe: “Because it is the only name Rob mentioned before he was killed. Anyways, let’s head inside.”

Dan: “Wait wait wait. What if it is really haunted? I didn’t receive any training on how to handle ghosts at the academy.”

Joe: “That causes the way cops handle ghosts is by getting exorcists to deal with them, not us. OK, now let's head in.”

Dan: “Wait, shouldn’t we bring exorcists with us then?”

Joe: “I don’t want to waste time looking for one. We need to limit the amount of time we spend here on the east-side. So, let’s go already!” he yelled, as he started to walk towards the house.

Dan: “WAIT! If a ghost attacks us, how are we supposed to defend ourselves!” he yelled out in a panic.

Joe: “...”

Joe just looked at Dan with a blank stare before looking towards Mike. Their eyes met and Mike rubbed the back of his neck and made a conflicted expression. Both knowing what was going on in each others mind.

Mike let out a deep sigh before turning towards Dan.

Mike: “Dan, are you afraid of ghosts?”

Dan had his head down awkwardly, struggling to answer the question.

Dan:” Ahh, um. Um…yes. But isn’t that normal? It would be more abnormal if you weren't afraid.”

Mike: “Ah. I see. Well, you can wait out here if you want. Me and Joe can go in by ourselves.”

Dan: “You can’t leave me here alone! Don’t you know what happens to those who split up in a spooky place. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie!”

Joe: “Oh, for fuck sake. Dan, my limited amount of respect for you is rapidly evaporating. So, either get your ass in that house or wait out here for us.”

Dan just looked at Joe with a mix of apprehension and fear. Mike noticed this and tried to help calm him down.

Mike: “Look Dan. If we come across a ghost, we’ll just run. Ghosts can’t leave the place they are haunting, so don’t worry. Besides, I doubt it’s actually haunted.”

Dan didn’t look any calmer, but he did nod his head, agreeing to what Mike was saying. He slowly started to approach the house along with Mike and Joe.

Joe: “Ok, let's see if this place is really haunted or not.”

Mike: “Sigh, why you gotta say it like that.”