Villainous

His writing changed yet again, from fragmented borderline nonsense half-obscured by careless ink splotches to a sudden clarity terrifying in its calm tone and nigh perfect penmanship. The entries became brusque as he wrote of his "brethren", a ritual, and a new, "worthy" master.

The latest entry in particular made the small hairs on Li Mei"s neck stand straight up.

-----

Last night I had a vision.

I saw darkness.

Absolute.

The embrace of nothing.

And then a verdant light lifted the darkness.

Pale rotting hands grasping between iron bars on all sides of me.

Gaping mouths exhale the stench of blood and brine.

I could not hear them, but I could feel them.

Feel their screams resonating in my bones.

And so many eyes.

I saw her eyes.

Watching me as they never did in life.

Emerald, shining.

Beautiful.

The source of the light.

My only light.

Such beloved eyes.

Finally, they see me.

Begging.

She"s waiting for me to save her as that man never did.

Lessa, Sweet Lessa.

Your torment will end by moonrise.

Together forever.

You, and I.

After many painful nights, the vessel has been obtained.

My brethren brought it here, to Lessa"s home.

Our home.

An appropriate location for the ritual.

The halls echo with memories.

Servants protect this house from intrusion.

The body is prepared. Still warm from its last moments.

I hear the call.

Master awaits below.

-----

Li Mei shuddered.

Elysium had three moons, the smallest of which rose and set much later than the other two. She somehow doubted such an obsessed man would wait that long to be reunited with his lost love. The other two...

She glanced at the ever-present clock underneath her minimap on the Interface.

4:13PM. Roughly four hours before the first moon began its ascent.

-----

[Interruption]

★★★

The old house reeks of blood and sorrow. Grief haunts the halls alongside wretched spirits, held captive by one man"s gross obsession.

Interrupt the vile necromantic ritual.

(Bonus): Destroy the 3 Ghost Anchors hidden throughout the house, their position indicated by the presence of grayish-green mana particles. Unlocks Trait [Mana Sight] upon completion.

Time Limit: 3 Hours

Reward: 500 EXP, 1000 EXP for completed Bonus

-----

"Unlocking a Trait, not awarding it? I wonder..."

Thmp.

Thmp.

Thmp.

Barely had Li Mei accepted the quest before m.u.f.fled footsteps sounded on the front porch. Calm, slow, much heavier than Faust"s light walk.

The oppressive silence in the house wrapped around her small form like a heavy blanket, enhancing the footsteps through contrast until they became booming drums echoing in the halls.

Thmp.

CRRRRK...

...

THMP.

THMP.

The front door opened with a now-familiar faint protest from creaking hinges, and after a long pause the footsteps grew louder as they approached the study.

Li Mei"s mouth went dry.

She glanced around the room and summoned a horizontal barrier in mid-air. Li Mei put her dagger away and jumped up, then scrambled from the barrier to the top of the left bookshelf. Her foot barely left the surface of the barrier before it scattered into particles and vanished, dismissed before she even finished her leap.

THMP.

THMP.

The bookshelves were big and heavy, with the sort of fancy raised ornamentation along the top so popular among wealthy households. With that as camouflage, Li Mei pressed herself to the dusty wood and pulled the collar of her dress up over her nose and mouth to keep from sneezing. She had a decent view of the study through a whorl in the ornamental carvings, allowing her to keep sight of the desk and its diary.

A large figure wrapped in a thick black cloak walked into the room, heavy footsteps m.u.f.fled by the faded rug.

Gnarled hands reached to stroke the diary pages, flesh gray and oddly shiny. Then the affectionate movement halted, and one hand was lifted to the figure"s hooded face. Fingers rubbed together, and the figure let out a deep, hoa.r.s.e chuckle.

"Warmth. The girl was right, there"s an intruder..."

Li Mei shivered - his voice seemed to bubble and undulate in his throat like the burble of a drowning man with water in his lungs, an eerie wet sound that made her skin crawl.

The man"s hooded head lifted as he sniffed the air like a hound. He glanced around the study, checked under the desk and behind the curtains, and then...

Looked on top of the bookshelves.

THUMP!

Li Mei"s heart slammed against her ribs.

The man"s face was bloated and oddly bulbous, thin lips pale and irises covered with an opaque misty white film starkly contrasted by dark panda circles around each eye. Damp, greasy greenish-black hair clung to his face.

Those creepy sunken eyes seemed to lock onto Li Mei"s position...

Then slid away, unconcerned.

He didn"t see her!

Unable to find the intruder, the man made an odd gesture with his hand. Grayish-green mana particles emerged from his fingertips and sank to the floor before disappearing. "Activate [Haunting]. Chase away the intruder. Chase, yes, chase... Or kill. Doesn"t matter."

CRRRRRK.

The entire house creaked and groaned, the walls shuddering as though to acknowledge the man"s orders. A sharp yet distant wail sounded from upstairs. The man"s thin lips curved into an awkward smile that exposed blackened, rotten teeth.

Li Mei used Scan before the man tromped out of the room, muttering about how his master was waiting. She laid still while listening to his footsteps.

The man stomped back outside, and now that she knew what to look for she could tell he left around the opposite side of the house.

-----

[Keori Glikrist]

Human (Afflicted)

Male

Rank 0 (32%)

Affected by an unknown ailment. The body and mind are delicate but the spirit is strong, giving him enough willpower to freely create then control ghosts in the house.

A despicable man with a dark aura seeped in the blood of the innocent. His aura traces are that which you seek for the destruction of ghost anchors.

-----

Li Mei"s lips twitched in amus.e.m.e.nt. "He"s so... Weak? Ah, no... I shouldn"t judge ability to kill on something"s Rank. Phytons rarely reach the middle of Rank 0, and with their paralytic venom can kill even a big Rank 2 Verasus with ease!" She exhaled slowly, pressing her hand to her chest. "Almost fell into an overconfidence trap again. I don"t want big monsters to crash through the house to slap my face..."

The diary said the ritual would take place here, at Lessa"s home, yet Keori entered from the outside. That same entry also mentioned the master awaiting below and brethren bringing a vessel.

Thus it was safe to a.s.sume there was a bas.e.m.e.nt with an external entrance somewhere on the property, and there would be several people awaiting inside.

"I"ll find the ghosts first since it"s a bonus objective," Li Mei decided, sliding silently down the side of the bookshelf.

She turned around and froze in her boots.

All the figures in the portraits turned their heads to stare at her.

Li Mei"s skin crawled.

She shuffled sideways, and the faces followed her movement.

As unsettling as it was, nothing else seemed to happen. Sense didn"t even cause a hostility alert! Li Mei grit her teeth and left the study with careful, silent footsteps, ignoring the feeling of so many eyes watching her exposed back.

The ground undulated beneath her feet, steps wobbling as she staggered down the hall. Pale gnarled hands emerged from the walls to grab at her legs, seeking to lock her in place with vice-like grips. Brittle, jagged nails sc.r.a.ped against the leather boots and hooked into the tightening buckles.

Still no hostility alert?

Annoyance rapidly replaced fear, and Li Mei kicked the hands away before stumbling down the hall at top speed, sticking her head into each room she pa.s.sed to look for mana particles. Furniture rattled and slid around as she approached, only to settle back into place once she left.

In a sitting room on the other side of the bottom floor, a slender woman with long black hair and a plain white dress had her head bowed so that her hair hid her face like a black curtain. She sat on a chaise lounge with an ornate jeweled music box on her lap.

Her pale, slender hands turned a bra.s.s crank on the side of the box. Tinny, metallic notes filled the room.

Li Mei fought the instinctive urge to turn around and run. After all, the box had mana particles revolving around it.

An anchor.

In contrast, white mana particles skittered over the slender woman"s body, concentrated mostly around the hand turning the crank and the spot on her knee where the music box sat.

Li Mei took a step into the room, purposefully stomping her heel to make a noise.

No response.

Heart pounding, Li Mei deactivated Concealment.

The woman looked up with a sharp, sudden movement. Her hand stilled, and the music box notes stopped playing.

Li Mei activated Concealment again.

Empty eye sockets peered through a curtain of inky black hair. The woman tilted her head to the side, confusion on her face.
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"Mo...ther? Isss... Tha...t... Youuu?"

The girl"s voice was a hoa.r.s.e croak, each syllable dragged out unnaturally. Li Mei winced at both the sound of her voice and the pitiful tone the words were spoken with.

A begging, hopeful plea.

Receiving no response, trickles of blood flowed out from the empty sockets like crimson tears. The woman bowed her head again and resumed turning the music box crank while her other hand delicately stroked the lid. "Mo... ther.... Ssssaid... Waaaai... t... Forrr... Herrr... I... Willlll... Beee... Goooood... Pl...ea.s.ssse... Come... Hoooome..."

Li Mei"s heart wrenched from an overwhelming sense of pity. She used Scan on the music box, turning over a few ideas.

-----

[Beloved Music Box]

An anchor used to trap the echo of a sad young woman"s ghost. Destroying the box would destroy the anchor, but it would also be very cruel to the girl"s memory considering how much she seems to cherish it. Forcefully destroying an anchor seems to cause pain and torment to the trapped ghost, though not many care about harming those who are already dead.

A kinder way would be to refine the mana in the anchor and make it your own. Then you can absorb the mana into your Core, deactivating the anchor and allowing the ghost to peacefully disperse.

-----

"I can refine someone else"s mana?" Li Mei frowned. Faust"s earlier words clicked into place. He had indeed already told her everything she needed to know! He taught her how to refine mana from the surroundings, and also mentioned ghosts were echoes resonating with mana in the atmosphere to create abnormal phenomena. "Then can I... Refine ghosts themselves?"

She looked at the crying woman"s ghost, and resolutely decided not to experiment on the poor thing. She went through enough of that in life at Keori"s hands. Instead, Li Mei approached the ghost with hesitant steps, stretching out her hand.

Refining mana required circulating mana with a special method. Li Mei"s technique, Celestial Crane of the Northern Winds, didn"t have a requirement on maintaining a specific pose or environment. Finding quiet, peaceful places to circulate mana was entirely Li Mei"s preference, but that didn"t mean she needed to. It was just more comfortable!

Li Mei narrowed her eyes and began the first step of the technique. The temperature in the surroundings slowly dropped. Misty condensation on the windows crystallized into frost.

The woman"s ghost turning of the music box crank slowed as the mana around the anchor changed from grayish-green to brilliant cyan.

It was much easier than Li Mei expected, taking just a bit longer than refining natural mana particles from the surroundings. When all the mana particles changed color she pulled them into her Core and exhaled a turbid breath of frosty air.

-----

[Quest Progress - Interruption]

Ghost Anchors Destroyed: 1/3

-----

The ghost looked up and smiled. Her figure flickered, then began to fade away.

"Mo...ther... I... Willlll... Waaait..."

The music box fell through her leg to rest on the chaise lounge, letting out one last note from the impact. The ghost"s voice softened with each word until it became inaudible, and then she disappeared completely.

Li Mei picked up the music box, turning it over in her hands. Carved into the wooden base was a complex array, which saved to the Archive as [Ghost Anchor (Basic)].

She didn"t appreciate knowing how to capture souls, but even distasteful knowledge might become useful someday so Li Mei let it slide. Then she stashed the music box in her storage with a soft sigh. "I"ll set the ghosts free and make a grave for them later using their anchors," she promised herself, clenching her hands into fists.

The ghosts didn"t do anything to deserve their fate and she pitied them for it. At the same time, her anger and disgust toward Keori only grew stronger.

She checked the rest of the bottom floor among a notable enveloping silence.

There was a s.p.a.cious kitchen with a pantry the size of a shed packed full of rotting food, several sitting rooms with couches and comfortable chairs for entertaining guests, a music room with an instrument similar to a grand piano next to an enormous harp, two studies with lots of books, one of which contained locked treasure chest she promised herself to look at later. There was even a gla.s.s room attached to the kitchen that once held many plants, though they"d all withered and died long ago.

None of the rooms were clean or well-maintained like the first study Li Mei found. Every room was covered in dust and grime, but at least she was free of spectral hara.s.sment as she looked around.

At least until she went upstairs.

Small furniture flung itself around each room, crashing into walls and bouncing off larger pieces. Curtains reached out like clawed hands to grab at Li Mei, who ducked and rolled to avoid their grasp.

"Looks like the anchors also contribute to the haunting effect," Li Mei cursed inwardly, crouching suddenly as a vase flew toward her face only to crash into pieces against a floating bucket behind her. "It went peaceful downstairs after I deactivated the first one. How obnoxious!"

With everything so active she didn"t have time to feel afraid, glancing around each room before rushing to the next on her hunt for anchors.

On the second floor were several bedrooms, bathrooms, lavatories attached to each bedroom, a nursery and a playroom filled with wooden toys. Heavy quilted blankets covered the beds, flapping clouds of dust at her as she ran past, their corners trying to grab her ankles. Vanities with grimy mirrors rattled drawers full of tarnished jewelry that flung itself through the air. Water taps turned on and off with groaning creaks that pierced even the din of crashing and breaking objects.

The second anchor was so innocuous it took almost an hour to find it: an exquisite hand-carved wooden knight on a Fera, fallen to rest partially behind a toy box in the playroom. Li Mei found it on her third sweep of the floor, and only upon approaching it did the second ghost actually show himself.

The ghost was once a fresh-faced teenage boy no older than thirteen, and his spirit cowered in the corner of the playroom while muttering his breath, hands over his eyes. Toys whipped around his body like debris caught in a hurricane the moment he materialized.

His clothes were plain, and over them was a mantled robe with an intricate symbol emblazoned on the left. The robe looked more expensive than the rest of his clothes, which had patches at the knees and didn"t cover his ankles. His figure kept flickering oddly between opacity and almost complete transparency like he was barely maintaining his existence.

Refining the mana powering the array took only a few moments, and the boy"s ghost disappeared in mere seconds like he couldn"t wait to be gone. Toys and furniture throughout the entire floor clattered to the ground.

-----

[Quest Progress - Interruption]

Ghost Anchors Destroyed: 2/3

-----

The house went silent so swiftly Li Mei felt as though cotton were shoved in her ears. Li Mei stashed the knight toy away, staring blankly at the corner the ghost took refuge in. A sense of impending crisis rang bells in the back of her mind. "This is going too smoothly. Even for - no, especially for a 3 star quest!"

The stairs separating the first and second floors of the house were wide, carpeted steps with luxurious polished wood banisters on each side. However, the stairs to the attic at the end of a long hallway were narrow spiraling wrought iron stairs with a rickety metal banister forming the only handhold on the outside curve. Rust flecked the connecting joints and promised a creaky, loud ascent into the dark attic.

"I don"t want to touch that," Li Mei sighed, pressing her lips together. "The entire thing screams teta.n.u.s and evil curses."

She"d checked each of the other two floors and found only two anchors, so the third had to be upstairs. Her fear of ghosts was waning at finding them so easily dealt with, especially as anger at their situation was occupying most of her thoughts, but she still didn"t like the look of the d.a.m.ned stairs.

Her solution was a bit superfluous, but Li Mei didn"t care. She summoned then dismissed barriers underfoot every time she took a step, just a few centimeters above the stairs themselves. In such a way she climbed up to the attic without touching the creaky metal staircase.

The attic was a big, empty s.p.a.ce beneath a gable ceiling supported by heavy wooden rafters. A few round windows set into either side of the roof allowed light to filter in from the outside, while bra.s.s lanterns hung from the beams overhead to provide extra illumination when lit.

Li Mei glanced around the instant her head poked through the attic"s trapdoor opening, surprised to find the place so... Empty.

No furniture, no boxes of old toys or clothes. Not even a crumpled piece of parchment.

Just a vast empty s.p.a.ce covered in dust, and a few little bra.s.s lanterns. But none of the lanterns seemed to have mana particles around them, so none of them were the last anchor. Maybe it was hidden in a shadow?

There were plenty around, after all. The lanterns weren"t lit and the minimal gray light filtering through windows barely pierced the gloom.

Frowning, Li Mei finally stepped up into the attic.

A flicker of mana particles at the opposite end of the room caught her eye. They swirled and danced around a long object judging by their movement route.

An object that was approaching at a slow, steady pace.

A tall, athletic man stepped forward into a shaft of light, holding a long sword with a silvery blade wreathed in grayish-green mana particles. His feet didn"t stir the dust or make a single sound.

When he stepped forward enough to illuminate his entire figure, Li Mei saw his eyes were empty sockets much as the young woman downstairs. His facial features seemed similar to hers as well. White mana flickered over his entire body, and his silent movements were stiff and jolting.

Unlike the other two ghosts, this one was definitely aware of her presence. He kept his eyeless gaze fixed in her direction even if she shuffled to one side, or the other, or back again.

Feeling a little silly for doing a crab-like scuttle to test a spirit, Li Mei coughed to clear her throat and straightened up her posture.

The man lifted his sword, pressing the handle to his chest with the blade pointed straight upward.

But he didn"t move to attack.

Instead, the sword tip trembled as the man"s entire body shook.

"I... Cannnn... not... Reeessssissst... Lonnnng..." The man spoke slowly, his spectral voice deep and hoa.r.s.e. "Pl... ease... R... unnn!"

Li Mei"s eyes flashed. Instead of fleeing as she was told, she stepped closer and held out a hand.

The surrounding temperature dropped.

b.l.o.o.d.y tears fell from the man"s eye sockets, his trembling increasing as she approached. His blade slashed through the air, but Li Mei ducked to evade his attack.

She"d never tried circulating mana in combat, but whatever compelling force controlled the man made Li Mei try out a theory in a more dangerous situation than she"d planned for. Originally she wanted to spar with Bao to test it, but...

Defeating a ghost was out of the question. He wouldn"t grow tired the way she would, couldn"t be physically injured since he didn"t have a body, and she didn"t want to just destroy the anchor.

Not to mention Li Mei wasn"t entirely sure she could snap a metal sword in half to break the array clearly engraved on its very solid blade.

She used a dagger to parry a sword thrust, then side-stepped away to avoid the downward slash it turned into.

The man"s face was twisted with sorrow and pain. He slashed at her again and again, the edge of his blade shredding the skirt of her dress as it narrowly avoided tearing her flesh. His movements were fluid, graceful, but in his trembling hands the silver blade shook like a leaf in the wind.

Dust swirled in the air with each step Li Mei took, but she forced herself to ignore it. She didn"t even dare to cough, keeping her attention on the silvery sword.

The only reason the man ever came close to injuring her was because she was concentrating on refining mana particles around his sword while simultaneously dodging it. She had to stay fairly close to the blade in order to refine the mana, which meant only narrowly avoiding attacks.

He was trying so hard not to hurt her even as a twisted enchantment compelled him to do so. Such a good man taught just a vicious, black-bellied disciple!

Li Mei"s frown deepened.

"I"ll kill him for you," she whispered through grit teeth as the particles around the sword turned cyan. The man"s movements became sluggish, his expression turning into one of surprise and relief as the enchantment controlling him weakened. "I don"t know if you can even hear me, but... Your daughter"s pa.s.sed on. The boy downstairs too. I"ll get Lessa from the locket next, and Keori will pay for what he did!"

The man fell to his knees, dropping the sword with an echoing clatter. b.l.o.o.d.y tears poured down his face and he buried it in his hands, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. The last of the mana particles turned cyan, and his figure faded into nothing just as the other two did.

His whispering voice brushed past her ears just before he vanished. "Th... aaaaank... Youuuu..."

-----

[Quest Progress - Interruption]

Ghost Anchors Destroyed: 3/3

-----

Li Mei stashed his sword away, her eyebrows furrowed. "Wasn"t he a teacher at the magic academy? Why a sword, I wonder... And he seemed pretty skilled too."

She shook her head at the mystery of it all, then turned to head back downstairs. With the three ghost anchors destroyed, all she had left to do was interrupt the ritual.

Time limit remaining for quest: 1 hour and 35 minutes.