This man was dead.
Ash smelled it immediately. No matter how lively he looked or how energetic his frantic pleas were, there was no hiding the smell of death fouling the air around him.
The information the village had given him about the situation was sparse. A group of prospectors had delved into an old mine, hoping to find things that the previous miners had missed. They'd trusted aging beams and trusses to hold, and that had been their final mistake.
That was when the wailing started, and the man had appeared. The leader of that band, and the one who had come up with the idea in the first place. Stories had begun to spread about him luring people into the canyon to help his comrades, only for those well meaning souls to be buried alive themselves.
The villagers had caught him before he could get the cart back to Finweald. Somehow, his ability to 'handle' ghosts had gotten out, and they'd practically begged him for his help.
Not your problem, of course. But you've always had problems turning people down.
"Please, help me" the man begged, mere inches from actually grabbing his hands. "I know they're still alive down there, but I don't know how much longer..."
Ash could, of course, just exorcise this spirit. He knew the way to cut the ties that held a spirit to mortality, to return it to whatever Terrasphere considered the 'afterlife'. But there was always something that felt... off about doing that. It was the spiritual equivalent of bodyslamming someone into the next world, and it didn't feel right.
He would have to send some messages, though. He definitely wasn't going to do this alone...
Ash smelled it immediately. No matter how lively he looked or how energetic his frantic pleas were, there was no hiding the smell of death fouling the air around him.
The information the village had given him about the situation was sparse. A group of prospectors had delved into an old mine, hoping to find things that the previous miners had missed. They'd trusted aging beams and trusses to hold, and that had been their final mistake.
That was when the wailing started, and the man had appeared. The leader of that band, and the one who had come up with the idea in the first place. Stories had begun to spread about him luring people into the canyon to help his comrades, only for those well meaning souls to be buried alive themselves.
The villagers had caught him before he could get the cart back to Finweald. Somehow, his ability to 'handle' ghosts had gotten out, and they'd practically begged him for his help.
"Please, help me" the man begged, mere inches from actually grabbing his hands. "I know they're still alive down there, but I don't know how much longer..."
Ash could, of course, just exorcise this spirit. He knew the way to cut the ties that held a spirit to mortality, to return it to whatever Terrasphere considered the 'afterlife'. But there was always something that felt... off about doing that. It was the spiritual equivalent of bodyslamming someone into the next world, and it didn't feel right.
...I'll do my best. But I can't make any promises.
He would have to send some messages, though. He definitely wasn't going to do this alone...
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