Friends

The Astral Realm is one of many surprises—the hands that reach from behind the veil can be beautiful or horrific, and the beautiful ones can just as readily reap a life as the horrific ones. There’s an endless repertoire of paintings and depictions of the ‘higher’ Anima looking down on people as playthings, dolls, puppets or thespians on a stage acting out their strange little lives for their amusement. After all, the Anima are free; they do as they please, with not much in the way of rules and rituals to stand in their path.

And sometimes, these Anima are not content to simply sit by and watch. Perhaps they’d like to play with their dolls, instead of just leaving them on the shelf to look at.

Today is one such case, and a somewhat frightening one at that. You’d been called by an old couple, a Vos and a Human, whose house had become ‘infested’, or so they say. The Vos was the one who wrote you, describing a house rife with ‘unnatural’ sounds and odd warm patches without explanation. But apparently, they chose to write you when it all came to a head—supposedly an intruder had tried to break into their home, and when they came rushing downstairs after hearing all the commotion, they saw him crawling away from the broken window, blood pooling behind him and leg clearly broken.

He lived, thank goodness. They made sure he got to a healer, and the healer took good care of him. He couldn’t describe what had happened to him, and he didn’t want to talk about it. Until the moment they parted, he seemed suspicious that they were responsible for… whatever it was that happened to him.

And so, here you are. Gun slung around your back, bell at your hip, you gently rap on their front door. You take a moment to look around; Sishai is a pretty plain little town, but there’s something about this part of the forest that comforts you. The pines catch the fading light of dusk and mix it into a lovely blue-green; the sound of the crickets rings loud as night begins to fall; and the sky, unoccluded by the light of excessive streetlamps, bares the depth of the firmament to you. What a shame it is, if what they tell you is true, that such horrors would befall such a lovely little place.

As soon as she opens the door, the Vos, Amirra, greets you with a weary smile. You can already see past her just how beautifully cared for this home is, every wall decorated with the trophies of what must be the long and storied lives these two have lived together. You greet her with your usual polite smile, and extend a hand. “Howdy. You wrote me, right, miss…?”

She shakes it. “Amirra, yes! I certainly did… I’m so glad you came. My husband and I really don’t feel safe here anymore…”

“Don’t worry, miss. I’ll do everything I can. Why don’t I come in and we can talk?”

Hurriedly, she urges you into her home. As soon as you step in, you feel something strange gliding around your shoulders; a warmth that spills through your cloak and your fur and into your bones. It spins around you for a moment, before fading back into the subtle chill of the home… perhaps cloaking itself in the roaring flame in the hearth.

Showing no reaction for now, you don’t want to alarm her. Instead, you sit down with her at her little dining table in the kitchen, where it seems she’s already prepared you a cup of coffee. How sweet. “I don’t know how you like your coffee, but…”

“Black is just fine, miss.” You take a sip of the coffee, and do your best to avoid making a face that would betray the lie you just told. You don’t want to make this poor woman do any more work. “Now, when did this all start…?”

“About a month ago, sir. When we got home from a long trip, we opened the door and immediately felt this… strange warmth hit us. Like when you open a metal box in the summer, and it’s so hot inside, but it was the start of winter! It should have been ice cold, right?” You nod, tapping your chin as the gears start to turn in your head. “And then, every night, when we were trying to sleep, we’d hear these little chimes coming from downstairs… and some nights, we’d hear thumps going up and down the stairs, but when we’d come out to look there’d be nothing there.”

“Have you or your husband ever seen anything directly? Has it ever done anything threatening to you?” She shakes her head in response, and you look out into the rest of the room again, peering towards the hearth. You take a deep breath, and drum your fingers on the table. Hmm.

“Has anything happened in this house to draw the attention of a spirit? Or… has someone died here recently?” Again, she shakes her head.

“We don’t know what would have brought it here… surely, we don’t have much to offer a spirit. We live such… boring little lives, haha.”

“You say that, but those shelves are mighty full! Seems like you folks have been all around the world. Listen… I think I might have an idea of what’s going on, but I don’t want to say anything for sure yet. Night’s about to fall, and the Anima are most active by then… why don’t you head upstairs while I stay here? It’s down here most of the time, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes… alright. If you’re sure. If you need anything or have any more questions, you just holler, alright?”

You nod. “You got it, miss. I’ll sort this out for you, don’t you worry.”

…

You sit, cross-legged, in front of the hearth, cradling the bell in your lap. You gently draw the hammer around its first band, summoning from within it a whirring sort of ring. It washes the room in subtle, shaking ethereal light, thinning the veil enough that you might see at least the plantlife. And goodness, there’s so much of it!

This whole house is terrifically overgrown. A dense sprawl of Anima plants swallow every spare inch of space, scaling the walls and even growing in brilliant shades from the hearth. A thousand colors of flowers, grasses, bushes, vines and mosses, all in bright, powerful shades of blue, pink, and the rare red among it all. Thick, woody roots ‘pierce’ through the roof of the ceiling and especially entangle the chimney, from trees that must surely be flourishing above.

Though the few red flowers certainly speak to some conflict that has occurred here, every home has conflict—and what this one has far more of is love, care and shared, eased pain. This couple has been together for decades as you’ve already been told, and their love shows in every single living thing here that has drunk deeply of it. That lives it, breathes it.

Among them… it.

It doesn’t yet know that you can see it. It looms over you, its warm presence hidden by the heat of the flame. It casts a shadow now, its shimmering, ethereal body glowing with a deep, deep blue the likes of which you’d almost never seen. It has a face, almost—the outline of a mouth is visible at the front of its head, but never in quite the same spot for long. Its eyes, though, remain fixed sharply on you, glowing white pinpricks in otherwise depthless pits.

Grisly claws rattle against each other from just-slightly-too-long palms, and its whole body just seems… long. Too tall, too thin. Slowly, you rise to your feet, bell in hand… and chime it, with more force this time.

The sharp ring spreads through the room as a wave, bringing the Astral Wilds into full focus, and the Phantom before you into greater view. It takes a step back from you, now clearly aware that you can see it, and begins to emit some sort of… hissing, rattling chime. It flexes its claws, and hunches its back, as though readying to pounce.

“You… you must be powerful,” you say, quietly. “Can you hear me?”

“. . .”

“I know you can hear me… why don’t you speak to me? You look strong enough to speak, I’m sure of it.”

“. . . Wh y   are y

ou  here?” its voice intones. The exact quality of its voice vanishes from your mind almost as soon the words are spoken, leaving only the words themselves in your memory.

“To help you. And these folks upstairs.”

“I don’t                     need he lp.” It slowly tilts its head at you, lowering itself further—its indiscernible expression makes it hard to tell if it’s being friendly or not. But, with a steady and assured hand, you reach out.

“Did you hurt that man?” you ask, simply. It looks at your hand with skepticism, but lays one of its own clawed hands in yours.

“He wAS GOING to hurt them! HURT   them. They’re my FRIENDS. I L OVE THEM.” It hisses, almost defensively, but you don’t even flinch away. Instead, you just nod.

“I’m sure he was! But… don’t you think you could have done it less viciously? You know, things like you can scare us frail little creatures. Maybe if you’d just… scared him away, instead of hurting him, your friends would have been a bit happier.”

It stares at you in silence for a moment, ducking its head as if it feels some kind of shame. “OK. NICER    next time. WHO ARE     Y OU?”

“My name is Gail. Why don’t we talk for a bit, buddy? I’m sure your friends will be happy to say hi to you, too, as long as you’re polite.”

“…    O K.”