\ Haven:Mist and Shadow Plotlogs/A Miner Exorcism Sr Rogier 241124
Plotlogs

A Miner Exorcism Sr Rogier 241124

In the depths of Haven National Bank's disused mines, a tale of supernatural intrigue and desperation unfolds. Iris, Neha, Marcy, and the mysterious Toro are called upon to resolve an issue involving restless spirits preventing the movement of gold. As they venture into the heart of the mines, guided by the ambiguous intentions of Maurice Wilson from the bank, they encounter an ancient spirit trapped by the desires and machinations of a Wilson ancestor. This entity, marked by its golden teeth and dual nature as both beneficiary and potential disaster, negotiates for its freedom with promises of wealth and assistance in their quest.

As the team delves deeper, they unravel a gruesome history of miners sacrificed in pursuit of gold, their souls left in torment, yearning for release. Neha, the compassionate and perhaps naive healer, is particularly moved by their plight and the seemingly benevolent spirit's predicament. Toro, equipped with arcane knowledge and a healthy dose of skepticism, serves as a guide and voice of caution, emphasizing the dangers of bargaining with such powerful forces.

In a dramatic turn, the group decides against freeing the golden-toothed spirit, fearing its retribution and the moral repercussions of enabling such a creature. Instead, they focus on appeasing the miners' spirits, with Toro offering modern currency in a symbolic act of compensation, and Iris sacrificing her golden necklace as a token of peace. This act initiates a cathartic release for the trapped souls, allowing them to find solace and causing the mine to further collapse in their wake, nearly trapping the group inside.

As the team narrowly escapes the ensuing deluge and structural decay, the tale closes on their contemplation of the day's events. Neha remains troubled by the ethical implications of their choices, Toro finds a grim satisfaction in their execution, and Iris reaffirms the practicality of their actions amidst the complexities of justice and mercy in the supernatural realm. The spirit's fate is left undetermined, a potent reminder of the unresolved debts and hidden dangers that linger in the shadows of Haven's history.
(A Miner Exorcism(SRRogier):SRRogier)

[Sat Nov 23 2024]

In a secure basement below Haven National Bank

Though kept clean and presentable, this clearly isn't a room the bank expects to see much traffic. Small white tiles panel both the walls and the floor, with the occasional black tile thrown in for that real decorative spice. That's about it, though. A security door restricts access in, and an even more secure door - albeit quite old and chunky - seals off access to the tunnels below.

It is about 50F(10C) degrees.

OOC: Thank you all for coming! It looks like we'll be running with just the four of us.

Once the party of brave volunteers have have gathered, they're led by one of the bank's security guards into a discreet basement room, where a tall, dark-haired and portly fellow awaits them - Maurice Wilson. He brings his hands together warmly, smiling at the group, then launches into a speech.

"Good evening and welcome, all of you," he says, making sure to catch everyone's eyes at least briefly. He has to be personal`s and friendly, after all, or how else will he maintain the bank's good image? "I /must/ begin by thanking each of you for your readiness to assist in these troubling matters. It takes a special set of skills to solve problems like these, and we could only turn to the good people of Haven for their aid. You are a credit to the township, truly, so thank you. Now, I must warn you, we do not allow access to the mines usually, and for good reason. With the installation of the sewers, the integrity of the tunnels was compromised quite a bit, and they have not been maintained in a very long time. Please, keep an eye out in there in case of any tremors or signs of danger - and watch your footing! It gets very cold down there, and it's possible there might be a slipping hazard as you get lower. We're not far from the bay, after all. Now, before I hand you the keys, does anyone have any questions?"

Marcy looks visibly skittish, her eyes darting between Iris, Neha, and Mr. Wilson himself. She raises her hand hesitantly. "I...I do," she says. "Have a question, I mean."

With her arms crossed and eyes trained on Maurice, Iris gives a quick nod "I'm well aware of the dangers of a mine, I even brought a gas mask for the inevitable exposure to sulfur or stuff like that." This sentence being followed with a confident series of pats to her workbag.

Marcy glances nervously at Iris when the woman mentions sulfur exposure.

Neha gives both Marcy and Iris who arrive with her a nod each, looking over them a little curiously - what drives people into delving into dangerous mines, after all? - before they're led into the room with Mister Wilson. "I have my first aid kit," she informs the others, patting the messenger bag at her side which looks suspiciously bulky. Iris's words give her pause though. "... I don't suppose you brought a spare mask or two." Whoops. Anyway, her question: "Will we be, uh, compensated in case of injury?" The Wilsons probably won't take lightly to being sued, surely. Is the guy going to make them sign a contract telling them he's not liable if they fall and break a bone or three?

Lifting his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth into a patented PR smile, Maurice spreads his doughy arms wide and exclaims, "Please, go ahead and ask! We would hate for any of you to feel unprepared or uninformed before you undergo such an eerie task on our behalf."

Turning to Iris, the banker maintains his picture-perfect expression and shakes his head in the negative and says, "Oh, no need to worry about toxic gases, madam. The Wilson family had the mine properly ventilated quite early on in its lifetime, in order to provide their labourers with a higher quality of life while performing such intensive work on their behalf. On the contrary, flooding is more of a concern, with the recent rains - the downside of such ventilation. That said, any remaining water shouldn't be too deep! Clever thinking, though, of course." His smile widens a little further. "It's excellent to know who can take the initiative in town."

To Neha, Maurice nods his head. "Of course. Any care needed will be comped by the bank and provided free of charge to you by the clinic in the White Oak Institute."

"I wasn't sure how many folks were going to be here, you know? Only brought my own, a real bring-your-own-supplies kind of deal." Iris answered someone, Iris setting her hand against Iris' cheek to scratch idly as Iris turns to face Wilson. "Good to know, let's hope it's stable too. Not a fan of overly cramped spaces, especially if they can collapse on me."

Marcy visibly relaxes, and drops her arm once Mr. Wilson explains the ventilation system. She still looks skittish, but it's not quite as bad now.

"I wasn't sure how many folks were going to be here, you know? Only brought my own, a real bring-your-own-supplies kind of deal." Iris answered Neha, Iris setting her hand against Iris' cheek to scratch idly as Iris turns to face Wilson. "Good to know, let's hope it's stable too. Not a fan of overly cramped spaces, especially if they can collapse on me."

Well, that's fair enough. Neha purses her lips in thought, but then nods her head at Iris. "I'm Doctor Neha Pandit," comes the introduction, along with a flash of a smile, maybe a little put-on, but well-meaning regardless. There's an expectant wait after that - she doesn't know Iris or Marcy's names, after all.

"Marcy," Marcy says, nodding to Neha. "Marcy Martinmaas. I'm here because my grandma wasn't feeling well enough to go down into the mines."

Planting her hand square against her chest, Iris answers with "Name's Iris, Iris Draghna, pleasure meeting you two. Looks like the three of us will have to be the ones evicting squatters from the mines today."

"Maurice Wilson, of course," says the Wilson, who clearly believes he needs no introduction but takes great pleasure in doing so anyway. "I'm something of an executive manager here at Haven National Bank. A pleasure to meet you all. Please do take care below - and I say that out of good-hearted concern, not just some inane focus on liability as you might expect." With that, he pulls a series of keys from his pocket and passes one to Iris, Marcy and Neha each, nodding his head. "I'll collect these from you when you return, but for safety's sake, we'd like you each to have access to the door while you're down there."

Scratching her cheek was overrated for now, whatever itch was present there long gone, Iris now playing around with the delivered key between her finger "Excellent, wouldn't want to be stuck down there."

Marcy slips her key into her purse.

OOC: When you're ready, feel free to unlock the door and head to the room below!

"Ah, of course, Mister Wilson," Neha flashes the man an uneasy smile - he's clearly the one she's most uncomfortable with - and accepts the key, palming it. "Is there anything else we need to know about the ones down there?" She asks now, glancing uneasily at the trapdoor. "Have they been open to communicating? I'm suer there's, um... been many who can communicate with them, given... your blood..." She trails off a little bit there, waiting to see if either woman is going to go for the door immediately.

With her phone stashed away in a pocket and replaced by a sturdy maglite, Iris takes point without waiting for anyone else. The key slips in and is turned to help open the way for their adventure "We're talking right now, aren't we? I'm sure we'll have no problem communicating with whatever's down there, whether through words, some hocus-pocus stuff or violence. Now, let's head in."

Marcy falls in line behind Neha, a flashlight in her hand.

OOC: Ahem, sorry, this room appears to have had its desc switched up, one moment...

OOC: Fixed.

Marcy probes the room with her flashlight, letting the beam move over the walls down here. She keeps behind Neha and Iris, clearly willing to defer to the older women.

Nostrils flare up as Iris draws in a breath and releases it with a pleased sigh "Ah, smell that? That's the smell of money, or at least whatever becomes money. Also, goes to show, I forgot to bring a hardhat." Iris said, pointing lazily at the sign and turning to Marcy and Neha "If you two hear, see or smell something, bark, alright?"

The temperature's as quick to fall as the group's altitude is, growing chillier the further down they go. It's quite dark, though, and a flashlight is going to be needed to navigate with any ease. Still, at least this section appears to be reinforced - there's no risk of collapse here. The way down appears to be quite steep, and an off-shoot tunnel leads briefly to the southwest... but it doesn't look like there's much down that way but a dead end.

"Okay," Marcy says, nodding to Iris. it sounds like this girl is more likely to squeak than bark.

"We haven't actually gone down to check, ladies," Maurice's voice filters from the basement. "That's the vital service you're providing us with today. We're very appreciative. Simply put - ghosts are not our expertise! Good luck!"

Iris shoots an upnod towards the southwest, asking the group "Shall we take a little detour before we head down, ladies?" The 'ladies' sounded almost comical, Iris apparently taking a moment to realize that for once in her life, she was actually addressing ladies, this confusion seen on her face.

A sigh. "We'll be back soon, Mister Wilson," Neha promises, and then blinks, and blinks again at Iris's words. She doesn't seem super inclined towards barking. "I'll call out," comes the slow agreement, and then she fishes in her pockets for her own flashlight, switching it on to flash the beam of its light around the place. "My senses aren't as keen as... some might have," she admits after that. "You'll probably see or hear things before I do." No shame in admitting her shortcomings, at least, but she tilts her head to the side in confusion at Iris, seeming ready enough to follow the lead.

A loud tongue click sounds like turning an on-switch for Iris as Iris decides to check south-west first with the words "A slight detour it is then, we'll head down after we check to see if we spot anything in there." Two fingers are used to point forward.

OOC: Sorry, again, have to fix the room descriptions. Frustrating!

OOC: And fixed!

Neha keeps her flashlight pointed solidly at the ground, though there's a shiver that courses its way down her spine, and her free hand is used to rub at her arm to generate the warmth of friction while she walks. "Cold here," comes the murmur, so they don't have to stand in eerie silence. Once they stop walking, she makes a cursory pass of flashlight around the tunnel, just to see if there's anything she can spot. A few steps take her closer to Marcy there. "You doing okay?" comes the question, along with a faint smile.

Peeking around and about, Iris doesn't seem to catch a glimpse of anything too interesting and instead answers "Just a dead end, I guess. And yeah, glad I brought this vest with me." A vest like that helped, but Iris still spent some time rubbing her forearms to warm them up a bit, clearly unused to near freezing temperatures.

Marcy nods to Neha. "Yeah...doing fine," she says, but it sounds more like she's trying to convince herself. She shivers slightly, she apparently feels the cold as well. "Sometimes they make it colder. I know that much, at least."

Iris circles back around with her hand towards the group and points towards the way they came through "Alright, let's head back and down, we've got ghouls, goblins, ghosts or whatever to exorcise and possibly execute."

In a saddening twist of fate, a curve of the sewer appears to have completely cut through this tunnel and blocked it off. Perhaps there's some novelty in looking at a sewer from the outside; regardless, it's a good indicator of what the Wilsons have prioritised, despite the touted 'historical significance' of the old mine. The place has all but been sacrificed for the pleasures of comfortable living up top. Perhaps whatever exists down here is offended by the sewers..? It could be relevant. Maybe not. The sewers certainly aren't new.

"Ghouls?" Marcy 's voice rises an octave. "Goblins? I thought- it was just going to be ghosts." She sweeps the beam of her flashlight around, as if Iris's mere mention of the critters could bring them into existence around them.

Down here, the chill only grows more severe, and the ladies' breaths come out as plumes of warm vapour against frozen air. There's another truncated tunnel splitting off in the opposite direction of the last, but here below the sewer network, no maintenance is to be had - Iris, Neha and Marcy are to walk the same wooden structures as the miners once did... albeit in much worse condition.

And of course, with the cold air comes mist. Whether it's the kind that hides away nasty goblins in the dark is yet to be determined.

A shiver and then another, it looks like Iris was clearly annoyed with the temperature drop. With a near visible breath being exhaled "If there's one thing I learned it's to never know what to expect. Something's clearly wrong, mines are supposed to get swelteringly hot yet it feels like we're descending into a walk-in freeze, not a mine."

The temperature seems to plummet even further as they make their way further, deeper into the mines, and Neha sticks close to both Marcy and Iris - she seems to be under the assumption that the latter can take care of herself, and so it's the former she watches out for more, keeping an eye on her movements. "Maybe if the Goblin Market ones want to branch out..." comes the mumble, though it sounds half-joking.

The beam of Neha's flashlight turns towards the southeast this time. She gives Iris a questioning look. Another detour?

The woman tests out the wooden beams while her hand idly drums against the wall to her side. "Let's check that out as well before we head down, never know what might be hiding around." Iris called out, once more leading the gang southeast.

Iris lets out a short lived chuckle at the mention of actual goblins before turning to the room before them. "Well, well, well, what do we have here? This doesn't seem like mining equipment, or at least none that I've seen on the History Channel."

"Well, it's called the Goblin Market for a reason, right?" Neha points out. "Why would it be a Goblin Market if there's no Goblins?" Checkmate. The humor doesn't last long; it meets an abrupt end when the shallow stone basin comes into focus beneath the light of her flashlight, and she pauses with a soft, "Oh."

"That doesn't seem like anything good." A genius, Neha is.

And now the structure of the mineshaft twists entirely - this brickwork certainly isn't new, but it's much younger than the state of the tunnel they'd just been in. What project had been buried down here? There's little evidence for the nature of things, but the enormous stone doors heading further to the southeast have strange markings that all three of the assembled ladies can identify as genuine arcanism. A basin sits to the side of the door, up against the wall, covered in similar but different markings. A practitioner might attempt to decode it... or guesswork could pave the way forward. Or explosives, for those willing to risk a cheeky bit of tunnel collapse.

Marcy also stops when she sees the basin. She fumbles for her purse, digging through it until she pulls out a little red book. She tries to stick the flashlight in her mouth as she opens the book, flipping through it while trying to use the little flashlight in her mouth to illuminate the pages.

With a hand slipped into her pocket, Iris paces around the basin and the room itself, glancing about passively. "Alright, so, which one of you two is a virgin and how much blood are you willing to lose?" Iris asked in a hilarious tone, shining the flashlight's beam against the doors and then the basin.

Unfortunately, Neha is neither arcanist, nor blower-upper. She looks over the sigils - from a safe distance away, of course - and then turns to the other two. "I don't suppose either of you know what this--" The question from Iris has her pausing abruptly, eyes a little wide. Quite suspicious.

Marcy looks up, flashlight still in mouth, her eyes widened at Iris's question.

Neha says "... let's not sacrifice any virgins just yet."
Marcy relaxes visibly. She approaches the basin, setting her little book on the rim and examining the sigils with her flashlight.

Iris raises her shoulders up in a shallow shrug "Just tossing out some ideas. No need to sacrifice more than you'd give for a blood drive, or maybe even less. Let's see if our resident expert here can read that gaber-gaw nonsense on that basin."

"Expert?" Marcy squeaks, looking over her shoulder at Iris. "I'm...I mean, I'm just an apprentice-" She bites off the rest of her sentence and goes back to studying the sigils, looking just a touch frantic.

"Take your time," Neha attempts to reassure Marcy. "Maybe we can just leave it for later and see what else is down there - might not be the best idea to bleed over a creepy door anyway, right?" Right?

Iris looks around a bit more before turning to gaze at the entrance "Alright, certainly can do that. You done with that thing, short-stuff?"

"I don't think we have the right kind of blood," Marcy reports. "Not to open it easily, anyway...maybe... my blood is probably the most potent."

Iris says "We'll see."
Iris saunters off back towards the main tunnel and then down the gang goes.

marches on down from above and lands right onto iced over, sodden ground, a couple of *shlick* *shlick* heard as Iris' jackboots make contact with the nearly frozen mud. "Damn cold."

/Mud/. Worse, sewer mud. A terrible fate to befall any pair of shoes, yet one that does not easily prompt thoughts of going barefoot. The smell's not awful, in reality, but that's a mild anodyne to the knowledge of what the group was stepping in. At least the ground's nice and level - slipping over should only land you on your ass, rather than take anyone for a full-body tumble down a mineshaft. There's been a collapse, too, just like there'd been fears of - and the chill seems to emanate most strongly from the rubble blocking the way.

And, just beyond, the faintest, saddest moaning; ethereal and ephemeral. Not one that any of the ladies can hear reliably, of course; none can easily speak with the dead. Yet, the presence is undeniable.

A few whiffs later, Iris claims "Smells like-- Wait, do you hear that? Sounds like, something?" to the group.

Marcy keeps close to her companions. Her breath fogs, her skin is covered in gooseflesh. "They're down here," she whispers sharply to Iris. "I might...sometimes I can see them."

Iris motions with her fingers towards the ground they're standing on "*Here* here or around here? I can't really see much but I can hear wailing. Might just be a draft."

Marcy glances around the room, her flashlight beam bouncing as her hand shakes.

Neha certainly does not smell that. She's too busy getting the heebie jeebies to smell shit. "You hear that?" she murmurs to the others. They definitely have to be hearing that, right? A shuffle of boots brings her even closer to Iris and Marcy, not quite wanting to stray too far.

Almost comfortable with trudging through a smelly place for some reason, Iris shines her own flashlight about before posing the query "See or hear anything? If not, we'll delve a bit deeper, our mine-bound poltergeist might be tied to some shovel further on or something."

A curlicue of icy mist winds its way around everyone's heads as they huddle together, though it passes after a moment, sucked back through that narrow crevice as if by force of vacuum. The moaning never intensifies. If anything, it quietens down for a while, then sparks back up again frenetically. Whatever's past that rubble isn't fully manifested enough to be heard clearly - which means they probably haven't caught any attention yet, if they want to reverse course.

OOC: Hold off on moving for a moment, please, someone is hoping to enter the scene.

The smelliness does't seem to be bothering Neha any, if she's even registered it. She /has/ been more spooked about the whole ghostly wailing and moaning situation, really, and her eyes flit over to the crevice now and then as the curious wind is pulled towards it. "I hope nobody expects me to climb in there," comes the little mumble, the light of her flashlight alighting on the rubble.

And then, footsteps from Toro's approach. Neha screams.

Neha 's scream immediately draws a scream from Marcy, who clings to the doctor for dear life.

Toro takes a step back, unnerved by the unexpected scream. A second later, the opportunity is taken, perhaps too late, to turn his flashlight onto his face and murmur a chilly, "Boo."

doesn't scream, instead reaching into her bag, yanking out a firearm and pointing it towards Toro while flashing her maglite at him "Hey!" Moments before a crime was committed, Iris lowers the firearm to say "Hey, wait a second, you're that carnie trick guy. Did you also jape the Wilson guy out of a handreading too or something?"

Marcy peeps out from behind Neha at Toro, once Iris identifies him...or at least expresses familiarity with him.

Neha screams, screams, screams, screams, screa

The echo travels marvelously in the cramped mineshaft, only to be joined by another shortly afterwards. The sound bounces back up the mineshaft, then back down - and the fingers of mist reaching out from the little nook in the rubble suck back inwards. Then there's a scream that does not echo, bouncing in from the south. Whatever sleeping spirit had been lingering begins to stir.

It's a good thing they've got Iris here to point guns at people instead of Neha and Marcy who are more likely to scream than shoot. Neha clutches her chest with her hand, taking in deep, deep breaths when Marcy addresses the man who is not a ghost, and then--

Oh no. It's a miracle Neha doesn't scream again - instead, she just tries to hide Marcy behind herself - gotta take care of the younguns - and looks over towards the south with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. "Oh God."

She's praying already. Absolutely no hope.

Toro slides his light across the trio with an unhappy look. "Yes," he says with a hint of sarcasm, "I've delved into a cave to give a man a tarot reading." The light is swung over his shoulder, toward the South. "I was informed I wasn't alone, but I was expecting professionals. Just what have you all been doing before I arrived?"

Whatever they are, they're clearly not /professionals/. Neha looks scared out of her mind, Marcy's hiding behind her, and Iris. Well. Iris could probably pass as a professional ghostbuster at this moment, comparatively.

"M-mostly fr-freezing to death," Marcy answers Toro through chattering teeth. "We f-found a d-door, but it n-needs blood to open."

Hears the shouts and looks over her shoulder, eyebrows raised and eyes scanning around for a few seconds. Iris turns towards Neha and Marcy, clearing her throat loudly and saying "Calm down, I know this guy. He's some carnie who does hand tarot readings. I'm expecting that he tricked the bank guy into letting him in on account of some card he drew or something. Anyway, we've been exploring this place a bit. I'll have you know I'm quite the professional when it comes to wandering the dark and keeping ner-do-wells doing well."

Toro scratches at his eyes, the dust particulates rising from the muddy soup leading to a small tribute of sneezes. "The spirits are waking and they're wanting their gold," he says, glancing back at the shivering ghostbusters, and taking the time to scoff at Iris's comment. "Have the three of you heard of any gold thus far?"

With arms crossed and a cocked back head, Iris is possessed by the ghost of sass as Iris says "We sure did, Kuzco, we're drowning in stolen Aztec gold here."


Neha mutely shakes her head at Toro, eyes still wide as saucers and fixed towards the south. She's all tense, like she wants to run away, but that would mean leaving poor Marcy to the mercy of whatever spirit's screaming down there, so she stays a hand inching slooooowly, ever so slowly towards her waistband beneath her jacket. "I don't think this is the time for jokes..." comes the mumble.

"Gold..?"

A lone, plaintive voice filters out from the disaster site. It's disturbingly young, probably that of a prepubescent boy's - but there's an unnatural scratchiness to the sound, whether it's conferred by the spiritual medium or some vocal affliction suffered in life. After a moment, though, the voices quieten again. It seems the party's quite audible to whatever spirits linger here.

There are, sadly, no miraculous veins of gold ore still running through the abandoned stone.

winds down a bit and continues with "Might as well call us the Portuguese at this point. Jokes aside, we did find a weird basin next to some large stone doors, and we've yet to-." Iris flicks a quick look to the side and aims the handgun around, trying to find the source of the voice and flick off a bullet in its direction yet finding nothing other than soggy doors.

Iris actually found soggy walls, not doors.

Marcy's eyes widen when Neha pulls out her own piece. She looks between the doc and Iris. "I didn't bring a gun," she mewls. "I don't even *own* a gun."

Toro points at the muddy ground. It's only now that he's noticed that his sneakers, not meant for this atmosphere, are soaking wet. Joy. "This is a gold *mine*. Malevolence tends to arise from negative emotions. If they're asking for gold then it is likely directly related to why they are refusing to pass on." Beady greens flick about, instinctively examining his surroundings when the voice hits again. "We best be a bit quieter," his words now just beat a whisper. "If we proceed from here, I have a feeling we won't be able to return, so let's maybe check that door again."

Look, just because Neha /owns/ a gun doesn't mean she knows how to use it. It's just in her hand, and she's making absolutely no attempts to start shooting anytime soon. In fact, she flinches when Iris lifts her own gun, and there's a turn of wide eyes towards Toro's words. "Yes," she agrees quickly. The creepy basin with the blood is really looking quite appealing right now.

You feel a less than faint chill. It's freezing down here.

Iris points upward with her flashlight, calling to the group "Let's go check and see if trickster over here can read gobbldi-gook better than us."

The woman shivers quite a bit as the gang approaches the ritual basin, Iris internally lamenting their group's lack of a great dane at this point.

Putting her gun away so that she can pull Marcy along, Neha shivers all the way up, and she helpfully sets the beam of light from her flashlight upon the arcane sigils on the door to light them up for someone' eyes, glancing over her shoulder now and then just in case they're being followed by a spooky spirit.

Putting her gun away so that she can pull Marcy along, Neha shivers all the way up, and she helpfully sets the beam of light from her flashlight upon the arcane sigils on the door to light them up for Toro's eyes, glancing over her shoulder now and then just in case they're being followed by a spooky spirit.

Marcy approaches the basin again, staring balefully into it. "Unless one of you is a demigod or a Wilson," she says, her voice faltering. "My blood's probably got the most power to it." She looks back at the group, eyes more than a little hopeful.

Iris glances between Marcy and Toro with eyebrows raised "Well? Got a bit of Thor in that blood of yours there, carnie?"

Oh dear. Neha glances between Marcy and the basin now, back and forth. "I-..." she starts, then clears her throat and tries again. "I've got... Demigod blood. Latent." Another pause. "And the other... thing." Don't make her say it out loud. Please.

Neha moves on quickly: "I will do it. Unless there's a way that doesn't involve giving blood." She looks expectantly to Toro now as well. Really putting him in the spotlight here.

The brickwork here is definitely at odds with the rest of the somewhat dilapidated mine. This certainly isn't fresh, but the brickwork's decades if not centuries younger than the mine itself. Beyond the imposing obstacle and the price needed to bypass it, there's little evidence of what might be beyond. It seems a tighter security than what might be warranted for some sort of gold vault.

Toro grumbles audibly. "You discounted an engraved, sacrificial basin and a mysterious door?" For whatever reason, he targets that comment toward Iris for whatever reason. A notebook is produced from his bag and, after minutes of flicking his eyes between his notes and the writing, he cants his head back at Marcy. "She is right. This was made by an amateur, so enough blood and the right incanting, regardless of the source, will do. However, a Wilson or divine blood would do wonders. And no, not as far as I'm aware."

Iris turns away from the two she glanced at and instead focuses her eyes on Neha, a smirk creeping up on her face "Well, sounds like we've got ourselves someone willing to spill their blood. Also? Other thing? Care to enlighten the group?"

Toro swings the bass case over his shoulder and onto whatever dry-ish patch of rock he can find. "Other thing?" He asks, unzipping the case and digging through its contents; there wasn't a musical instrument to be seen.

"No." No, Neha does not. She scurries away from Iris as though she's the real ghost here to go kneel behind the basin, pulling out her first aid kit out of her bag - she's not going to be /unsafe/, of course, even if she's spilling mysterious blood for mysterious, spooky means. Toro's queries go unanswered as well. She's definitely not going to elaborate on the Other Thing.

A tourniquet is brought out and wrapped around Neha's own upper arm - a feat that requires her to use her teeth to get it just tight enough, and Neha does all the disinfection process before lifting a syringe to it. "Okay, here goes," comes the exhale, and her hands are steady enough now despite their shakiness earlier as though she's done this plenty of times before. With flashlight pointed right at her elbow, it doesn't take long for her to find the right vein, and in the syringe goes, stabbity stabbing and filling up with dark crimson blood. Hopefully nobody wanted her to actually do this the usual, movie-esque way.

Clearing her throat, Marcy takes her hand out of her purse when she sees Neha doing this like a medical professional and not...well, whatever Marcy had in mind.

Iris takes a couple of steps to the side to witness what was about to happen. Iris seems to chew on nothing in particular at the dismissal of what the 'other thing' may be, instead reaching to adjust her radiant sun golden necklace.

If the ritual knife wanted to be used, then it should have been sharper, clearly. However, the blood simply being drawn does not inspire any sort of magic into action; all the energy remains contained between those platelets and plasma and entirely normal count of red blood cells. Neha has been getting enough iron in her diet lately, it seems. Regardless - that basin looks very, very thirsty right now.

Neha is, indeed, a medical professional who doesn't want tetanus from a random knife. The blood is drawn swiftly and efficiently, and she hesitates for just a second, glancing over the others gathered here, before she reaches out with the syringe over. A press of her thumb sends a few drops of blood squirting into the basin. Another pause.

Does it need more...? She presses again.

"... I don't have to fill this, do I? I don't really have... that much blood."

After another shiver, Iris rubs her forearms again and calls out "Maybe it's a delayed effect kind of deal, give it some time. Worst case scenario, we make a cocktail out of it and see if the others have some blood to give too."

Marcy grimaces, looking down into the basin. "You're probably going to need more," she says. "This just doesn't seem like enough. Magic always wants blood." She clears her throat. "Maybe let me do it."

"The other thing?" Toro elects to ask Iris. His curiosity doesn't stand its ground, there were more important things to get to in what felt like an ever worsening structure. With how swiftly Neha had gotten to work, he's left holding a couple of occult toys he'd taken from the instrument case: a skull and a stick of incense. There's a little sigh, there having clearly been some enthusiasm to use some of these before the drawing.

Presuming that blood, alone, was not enough, Toro re-reads the sigils, trying to make an educated guess at the exact quantity and, as he does this, asking anyone to: "Please keep yours lights on the symbols," a bit of chalk is slapped against the skull of questionable origin, adding some cuneiforms to it.

"Wait. Don't," he yells toward Marcy.

With the tetanus knife?! No way. Neha's eyes widen even more when she watches Marcy bring out the whole athame. "I'm not using a /knife/," comes the squeak. "We're doing this the right way, if it needs more." The right way being her way, of course, with disinfection and a tiny little needle prick and nice wad of cotton to stem the bleeding afterwards. She hands the athame right back to Marcy as though just holding it is unpleasant. "Maybe a scalpel if you really--" Toro's yell makes her cut off, head jerking up to see what on earth is going on over there.

It would not appear to require any more blood - it just takes a second for the crude and largely decorative ritual to get its ass into gear. Neha is only a latent demigod, but that seems sufficient, and after a moment the little puddle of blood blackens into ash as the life force is ripped mercilessly from it. The sigils begin to glow in various colours, very artfully and very inefficiently, and after another moment, there's an enormous groan as the stone doors push outwards, all that weight straining the warped and rotten wood settings that once held it in place. The room beyond seems to exhale a breath of very stale air indeed - but the way is clear, hastened by the cuneiform additions provided by the alleged carny. Marcy's blood, quite thankfully, does not need to be spilled. That would have been quite an injury.

Watching the production of the athame, Iris licks her lips at what might happen. With a shake of her head, Iris snaps back to it and shines the light on the sigils. "For once, I'll stick to your words the carnie here 's telling us. And hey, if she's not up for it, there's three of us here besides her, you know?"

Toro releases a relieved sigh. "If the ritual had needed more blood, mixing could've lead to ill effects," he elaborates toward Marcy.

Marcy yelps and scurries back from the basin when Toro shouts. She takes the athame back from Neha and shakes her head, sticking it into her purse again. She dips her head in deference to the man.

Iris cants her head to the side and walks up towards the newly opened entrance, uttering "Shall we?"

Toro claps Neha on the back as he steps toward the door. "Good work," he tells her. He doesn't pass the threshold, he knew better than to be the first to step into mysterious occult vaults. "After you." An upnod is given over to Iris.

The woman wanders in, shining the light and firearm around like a proper tomb raider "Damn, look at this place. I'm guessing our Wilson friends are into more than just gold down here." Iris exclaimed, shining a light on the strange patterns and the tablets around. "Looks like gibberish, though."

Neha gathers up her supplies quickly - first aid box does not get left behind - and nods to Iris, definitely not stumbling from the clap of Toro's hand upon her back. Marcy gets a little pat on the arm as well, a sort of a 'you ok?' thing, before she moves on to the surprisingly lit room - magic is quite convenient sometimes, even if it makes Neha's eyebrows arch up.

"... I don't think they were just doing mining down here," she mumbles. Definitely /not/ her area of expertise, this.

Marcy takes in the details of the room, her brows furrowing in concentration.

As the two lanterns come to life with the entrance of the group, the room is bathed in dim light, exposing the intricate ritual markings spanning the floor. The two arcanists can identify this as still having the useless, decorative features as the outer door... but they're remarkably precise. At least the artfulness had been done with full dedication, rather than being slapped-on afterthoughts. And there, in the middle of the room, is a ritual circle, marked with old blood. The Wilsons had been involved here, certainly, but not for a very long time. Could this have been a secret not known by the whole family..?

"I didn't know the Wilsons were practitioners," Marcy says. "...but then, that's probably the point, huh?"

Iris moves around the room without her usual boisterous abandon for care, instead avoiding most things. "Well, what does our resident carnie think? This look like the usual doings? Are they summoning ghosts for cheap labor?"

Digging through his bass case, once more, Toro produces an ofuda of his own! Not for any particular mystical reason, but meaning to use this (which was written in Japanese as opposed to Latin) as an explanatory item. "They probably were not. They're mixing Eastern and Western mysticism without rhyme or reason and the basin outside was the equivalent to using a bolt lock for a bank vault," he sniffles at the stale, cavern air, holding back a sneeze. "A wealthy family, down on their luck, performing improper rituals to regain lost glory. A story as old as time. Ofuda," he says, waving his jingu taima, "Are typically used to ward off evil or keep it imprisoned." He puncuates the explanation with a poignant look toward the centre of the circle.

"Do we want to do an unbinding?" Marcy asks Toro. "I've...never done one, not by myself, anyway." She pats the little book tucked under her arm.

Nodding as if she understood most of it, Iris leans against a wall and points around with her firearm "So all of this is like some guy buying a some cheap BMW and a knock-off rolex to try and look good? Thing it angered the spirits and if so, how do we kill those spirits?" The word 'kill' there was fairly indicative of how Iris thought, using it instead of the word 'calm' or 'drive off'.

"You can't really kill spirits, ghosts," Marcy says to Iris. "They're already dead. You can unbind them, if they're bound, or you can banish them if they just won't leave."

Toro chews on the inside of his cheek, pondering both the questions and the circle alike. "That is the problem, isn't it? What is trapped here isn't a ghost but a kami. A kami we don't know the identity of, the dealings with the Wilsons, nor its current state of mind. If we were to unbind it, it might kill us in a rage..." he pauses, flicks a thumb toward the Latin-scribed ofuda. "Are any of you able to read that?"

"You can kill anything with enough willpower, or torment it until it doesn't want to exist anymore." Iris spoke almost out of experience with unheard of confidence, turning to look at the Latin scripture "Seems like gibberish to me, can't you just do your own magic-binding-nonsense and hope it works against his? Or we could just blow this room up."

Nuh-uh, definitely not her. Neha looks entirely out of her depth here, most of her attention on the words that are being spoken even if she moves along the room from end to end to inspect it. "We just need to calm down the ghosts and make sure the, uh... transport stuff is working, right?" she points out. "Maybe we can just... make a deal."

Neha says "We'll leave them alone if they leave us alone kind of stuff, maybe direct them on further down where there's... gold or something. Somewhere."
"I think blowing the room up will take the might-kill-us-in-a-rage spectrum to the will-definitely-kill-us-in-a-rage spectrum," Marcy says to Iris. She looks over at Toro for confirmation. "And I don't think the explosion will even do anything to the entity itself."

Clearing her throat loudly at Toro, Iris says "When I said 'blow the room up', I meant without us inside of it, knucklhead. We can set up some mining charges and collapse this place. Never heard of anything surviving that much rubble."

For all that the room does have several flaws and inconsistencies, it does seem the seal is still functioning; redundancy has been applied where middling arcane technique could not cut it. This room is old, though, and the life force found within the dried blood in the ritual circle should have long burned out. If there's a spirit or a kami in there - which only a clairvoyant could tell, at this point - it'll need to be woken for any deals to be made. Of course, there were spirits below, too, and they did seem to have the gold fixation the group had been sent to solve.

It wouldn't be hard to get the attention of either, really. Even without arcanism, simple words could do the trick, if applied with a little occult knowledge.

"Won't that, like... destabilize the whole tunnels? Or something? This is right beneath the bank, right?" Neha asks Iris, but she's definitely not an engineer or an architect herself, so this is just guesswork. Guesswork, and a healthy fear of not wanting to be the cause of the collapse of the entire bank into mysterious caves.

"The explosion would be no different than removing the binding. Aside from..." Toro spins his hand in a big circle, pantomiming intensive thought, "...the fact that it might cause a cave in. It's a kami. The sort of thing you do not want to anger. If," he murmurs, and starts to pace about the room. "If the circle is what's keeping it bound and these tablets are simply keeping it pacified. Lets take down the tablets, wake it up so it can communicate," the statement happens to be a question and he eyes the group with a raised brow. "Does that sound acceptable?"

Neha purses her lips in thought, but that's likely a better plan than anything she could've come up with, given her lack of occultyness. There's a nod of her head at Toro, and then a questioning glance at the other women.

Iris rolled her eyes so much it might as well produce electrical currents. "Alright, fine, we'll go your way. We'll work to strengthen the binding or maybe dismiss it. Honestly, if we can contain it, maybe ol' Wilsons up there can really put the screws to the ghosts. So, how do we do this?"

A little smirk emerges on Toro's cold expression. "You three begin taking down the tablets, I'll work to reinforce the bindings symbols as a backup." Salt and wax and chalk would have to do the trick for that. Drawing what he needed or, really, whatever he had to work with on his person, he got to doing what he could to maintain the long forgotten symbolics that the circle itself relied on.

Iris says "When you say 'take down the tablets', do you mean break them?"
Toro says "Yes, yes. Please, miss Draghna. Break the locks to the prisoner's cell. We wouldn't want to be able to put him back in if he proves uncooperative, would we?"
Neha doesn't seem /too/ sure about taking down the tablets that call for sleep and peace and whatnot, but so far, she hasn't seemed too sure about any plan at all - except for getting out of here, maybe. She'd be down for that plan. Instead, she shuffles over to the nearest wall and slooooowly tries to tug off one of the tablets, as though she expects to be greeted by a jumpscape for it.

Iris moves closer to one of the tablets before stopping midway and turning slowly to look at Toro, squinting for a second "You and I need to have a private chat after this, carnie. Anyway, I got ya'." Iris holsters her firearm and sets the maglite aside, moving to also lower down one of the tablets gently.

Marcy approaches a tablet. "Are these heavy?" she asks Iris.

The moment a single tablet is pried from the wall, a sharp crack rings through the air. Shortly after that, an earthy and metallic scent pervades the room, and a figure begins to coalesce within the ritual circle; porcelain-skinned and utterly naked as its definitively male body forms from the outside in, eyes closed. The moment it seems complete, the figure collapses to the earth, manifested for the naked eye to see, and its eyes open to reveal bloodshot, split-pupiled orbs that fix onto each of the group in turn - Iris, Neha, Marcy and Toro. Something resembling a chiton begins to form over the creature's figure, and then its attention snaps back to Neha, whom it narrows its gaze at. Suddenly, it stands upright, clad in a simple kurta and long pants that reach to the floor.

"Hello," it says. The accent's quite dated - more Colonial than the usual New England accent you'd get around here.

"You have come to free me?"

Slowly shaking her head, Iris sets the tablet down like some flat, wooden infant. "Not really, though-." Iris is intrerupted by the ghastly apparition and its query, eyes now trained on Toro to see his response.

Neha's eyes are wide as soon as the crack rings out into the air, and she looks like she's considering an attempt at affixing the tablet she'd pulled out back into place when the entity's eyes get fixed upon her. Instead, slowly, she places it upon the ground and then slinks over to hide behind Iris. Her turn to do the hiding, while her eyes find Toro. He's to be the Speaker of their little group, apparently.

The uncharacteristic smirk that had initially arisen out of meager excitement had all but disappeared. How was Toro supposed to work with this? Wooden ofuda written in Latin, a Fibonacci Spiral, Arcane cuneiforms; where the tablets even preserved properly?! What started with eagerness turns to sourness as he tries his best to work with, "Amateurs," he whispers. At least the rest of the team weren't having such a hard time. "You're doing excellently," he tells the three, figuring they might need some encouragement.

Toro is not beyond get startled and that unexpected voice when he's so lost in his work does it. He takes a few paces back, near bumping into the wall, and drops his stick of chalk, which clatters and echoes. "Hell. Phew." He checks his heart with his palm. It's beating like a motherfucker. "I wasn't expecting it to just-- hello. We may... why are you here?" he eyes the rest of the team. "You've been down here longer. You want me to?"

A security guard is actually a decent hiding spot, yet one that apparently speaks. Iris turns to tell Neha in a low tone "By the way, we were gonna' get paid for this, right?"

Well, Neha sure fucking hopes they were. She bobs her head in a nod at Iris, though in a very 'really, this is what you're more concerned about right now?' kind of way, given the incredulous look she shoots the other woman. "I have rent to make," comes the mumble back. Clearly the Clinic isn't paying well enough.

Iris follows up with Neha with "Because I'm curious if the Wilsons want to free these guys or trap them harder."

The eidolon cants its head as it looks away from Neha to Toro, gauging the man where he stands.

"I was betrayed," it claims, and its hairless brow knits together in consternation. "By Jeremiah Wilson. Once he had his fill of me, he trapped me down in the mine he'd wanted replenished." It sweeps a foot along the reddish brick underfoot, flinching away as its little toe brushes up against the boundary of the circle. Still, the spirit's lip curls in distaste.

"He caged me in bricks made from dirt and debtors' blood. How poetic." It turns its attention back to Iris and Neha, its mouth splitting into a gold-toothed smile.

"If you're in search of wealth, I would be happy to assist you, once I am freed and once more myself. I have little power as it is now... but that can be fixed with a few bargains and a good meal."

Toro shoots a glance at Iris. "We're getting paid..." then there's an uncertain look and his eyes squint, trying to recall, "Right?" Iris wasn't the only one concerned about that exact detail. He gives his head a quick shake, ridding it of the improperly timed thought.

The gaze isn't lost on him and Toro paces over to Neha's hidey-spot, giving her an encouraging, if a little rough, shove on the shoulder. "You opened the door. Speak to it," he tells her, while waving her cover (@iris) to step aside.


"Meal?" Marcy wonders aloud. She still hovers near Neha

"I don't think /he's/ the one they care about... I thought this was about the screaming ones down there," Neha whispers back up to Iris, shivering just a tad from the chill or the spook or maybe even both. Still, she's going to defer to their de-facto leader of spooky things, and glance over to ennui - right in time for her to be put on the spot. Boo.

Neha yelps at the shoulder-shove, clinging to Iris's back like a barnacle, but then decides to brave up and be a woman and lets go, standing up straight.

"... hi." Why her. It should've been Marcy. Speaking of Marcy, there's another glance at the quiet girl, just in time for her to ask about meals. "Yeah, uhh. Sorry. I've never heard of a Jeremiah." She doesn't keep track of all the Wilsons. There's probably a Jeremiah somewhere. "We're mostly just looking to take care of the, um, ghost problem?" Hopefully the spirit doesn't think she's calling /it/ the ghost problem.

Eyes shift around from one person to another and then to the ghostly creature, with Iris' eyes finally settling on Toro. "Isn't this spirit bound here supposed to be the kind that kills people if released, or did I miss-understand that? It might be trying to trick us."

Iris turns to face the ghost now, saying "Sounds like a rough deal, but before we proceed, what's with the noises further down in the mine? Friends of yours? Family?"

Toro squats down on the floor, resting his legs a little. He's hugging himself for a bit of warmth. Why didn't he bring warmer clothes?

From the sidelines, like a coach advising their star boxer in the middle of a match, he cups his lips and raises his voice at Neha, "We're here due to the issue of gold exports refusing to leave Haven. The spirits are just a suspicion of what's to blame."

Neha nods her head and makes vague hand gestures at Toro. What he said, spirit.

Toro gives Iris a cross-armed shrug. "Kami are embodiments of the world. If it is some embodiment of riches and dealings, then it's likely going to attempt to get the best deal for itself. Which needn't be favourable toward us."

Iris motions around in a circle with her hand "Well, yeah, which means that he's gonna try to shaft us, like a second hand car salesman."

OOC: Sorry for the delay, had to do something urgent.

"My second hand car was really cheap," Neha mumbles under her breath - probably not the time for it, though. She's just keeping an eye on the spirit, another eye on the not-spirit people, and her hands come up to rub at her arms once more to stave off the chill. "Maybe if we can like... give it a meal - life force, right? - in exchange for it to get rid of the ghosts, and then we go out separate ways...?" Of course, that would mean freeing it and setting it free to harass the town too, but hopefully it'll just go to fuck with the Wilsons instead of them? They're the good guys, after all.

Neha's self-appointed coach speaks up from the ringside. "Don't get distracted by the eighty percent off ramen cups. Focus on the primary goal," Toro shouts.

Eighty percent off ramen cups? Where? Neha glances around, and then squints at Toro. "Getting rid of... the ghosts?" she questions a little hesitantly. Is that the right answer, coach?!

"Information," Toro responds. "The ghosts might be entirely unconnected and if they are, this might know how to deal with them." He's getting way too into this whole self-applied coaching thing. "You're taking the car salesman at their first price instead of trying to get the most for yourself for as little cost as possible."

"Let me out of here, and I will remove any ghost you have an issue with," the eidolon offers instead. It can of course hear the thoughts of all those gathered before it, and the distrust pointed at it. "We needn't make any deal more complicated than that. Turn me /loose/. Free me, and you will already have turned things to my favour deeply indeed. It has been... a long time. A hundred years, at least. More. I cannot bear this confinement. Look at how they have caged me, turned the blood of the poor and needy into shackles. Does it not twist your stomach to see it? To leave me would be cruelty, consigned to centuries more before this circle finally burns itself out."

It spreads its arms out again, and a second pair of limbs stretch out to join the first as the spirit's shape molds itself to the House of Vishnu's image. It takes the image of an asura, ready to pledge service in exchange for its freedom.

Iris nods a few times, crossing her arms and calling out "Sounds like a crock of shit if you ask me, and boy, does it stink. You'll just flee or fuck with us once free. Tell us how to deal with the other ghosts and we'll come back to free you after. What's a few minutes to a few centuries, ya' know?"

"Ooooh," Right, yes, of course. Information. That's what they're here for. Definitely not rent money. Information is what's important. Neha can take or leave the reward, really.

After some more lying to herself internally, Neha swallows and nods her head at Toro, before admitting, "My dad helped me buy my car."

That's definitely not relevant right now. Anyway. Yes. What Iris is saying is more important, for sure. She turns wide eyes back to the spirit, breath catching in her throat for just an instant at the emergence of more arms.

Narrowing its bloodshot eyes at Iris, the asura-eidolon replies, "Believe me, young lady, I would have dealt with the ghosts whether or not a deal had been bartered, if I found myself freed. Nothing may harm a spirit but a spirit." It pauses, then clarifies, "I am a very hungry spirit. Free me and I will eat them. I will swear not to harm you, if that is all that's required of me. You would be my benefactors, wouldn't you? I would have no reason to harm you."

Still, it does seem rather fixed on getting free no matter what deal it has to make, so it plays along with Neha and someone' information-hounding.

"I do not know the situation, exactly," it muses, "But I know of the spirits in this mine. Low earners, unproductive. Left to die as the rescuers' last priority when a madman tried to take this place from the Wilsons."

Narrowing its bloodshot eyes at Iris, the asura-eidolon replies, "Believe me, young lady, I would have dealt with the ghosts whether or not a deal had been bartered, if I found myself freed. Nothing may harm a spirit but a spirit." It pauses, then clarifies, "I am a very hungry spirit. Free me and I will eat them. I will swear not to harm you, if that is all that's required of me. You would be my benefactors, wouldn't you? I would have no reason to harm you."

Still, it does seem rather fixed on getting free no matter what deal it has to make, so it plays along with Neha and Toro's information-hounding.

"I do not know the situation, exactly," it muses, "But I know of the spirits in this mine. Low earners, unproductive. Left to die as the rescuers' last priority when a madman tried to take this place from the Wilsons."

Neha glances back and forth between Toro and the spirit while it speaks, waiting for her next directive from her coach. "And... eating them will make the gold able to be transported?" she asks, just to be very sure.

"If it's the ghosts causing the problem," the eidolon says, flashing those golden teeth again in a wide smile, "Then yes. I will remove the problem for you, and at no danger to yourselves. I hesitate to imagine what such spirits might wreak upon you if you anger them in person, in such an environment." His lower left arm unfolds to gesture flatly to the circle binding him, palm flat and its thumb tucked in. "Break the circle for me. That is all that I need."

Iris looks around and draws in a quick breath, only to snap back with "I noticed a few things. There was no mining equipment around, I didn't see any gold ore and this place doesn't smell of cyanide. How *do* they get the gold?" An eyebrow is raised towards the group.

Toro stands up, popping his tired joints and making for the removed tablet, setting it back into place. "It's an old mine. Pickaxes, I expect. The real question is why trap workers? I wouldn't be surprised if that were part of the deal. Let's go. We'll return later, maybe."

Iris looks around and taps at her chin "What if that was a deal made with old gold-tooth here? Life for gold?"

The eidolon raises an eyebrow and tilts its chin a little in thought.

"I do not know," it replies after a moment, regardless of whether the question was directed at it or not. "Not for certain, regardless. The mine was abandoned when it ran dry. I expect the Wilsons simply sold their equipment."

And then it rushes forwards, slamming against the ritual boundary with a crackle of black lightning as it slams its fists against the invisible barrier.

"Do /not/ leave me," it snarls. "You could not be so cruel."

"And... the rest of the town? You have to promise not to harm them too." Neha says slooowly. Harming the rest of the town is harming Neha in a way, right? It will definitely mean less sleep for her. Actually, while she's pushing her luck: "Or anyone alive, optimally?"

"Wha- hey, wait!" she calls out before Toro can put the tablet back into place. "I don't think we should just- I mean," There's a vague motion of her hands towards the spirit. "It's promising not to harm us, right? Or... anyone?" C'mon Goldtooth, promise not to harm anyone, because Neha looks real tempted to free it like it wants, even if she flinches at the crackle of lightning, taking a cautious step away from the ritual circle.

Following suit int Aki's footsteps, Iris lets out a chuckle, calling out "Cruelty is my middle name, weird one too, actually. Let's go see what those ghosts have to say. I have a feeling old goldtooth here's not telling us everything. After all, no innocent person ever goes jailed, right?"

Toro adjusts and re-aligns the tablet, shuddering a bit when the entity slams into the barrier. In a hurried step, he moves over and grabs at Neha by the sling of her bag, pulling. "It's a kami, not a person. You're feeling sorry for the equivalent of a tornado. Let's go. Now." He didn't intend to stay here a second longer.

Iris leads the group onwards and outwards.

Folding both arms over its chest, the asura steps back from the barrier and turns to look at Neha.

"I cannot promise to never harm," it says, frowning. "No spirit could make that bargain. There is no existence without suffering. But I can exempt your little township. I have had my fill of Haven." There's a testiness to its voice, now. It doesn't enjoy Toro's train of thought at all.

Iris says "Let's check out those spirits, I'd be more trusting of blue collar shmucks than gold-toothed tornados, you know?"
Toro says "We best close the door first."
Iris looks around "Does it need some special ritual or do I just pull these two together?"

There's a howling, fierce and anguished, from the eidolon as the party makes their exit - and those heavy, cumbersome doors slam shut the instant everyone has left the room, sealing the spirit away once more. Only now it does not have the benefit of sleep. The raging remains somewhat audible even with the doors sealed, and the glow fades from the sigils that had lit up in response to Neha's blood.

Iris looks at the doors slamming shut with an eyebrow raised a 'huh' slipping past her lips. "That answers that."

Toro paints his brow with a palm. "You need to be more careful with feeling sorry for forces of nature," he tells Neha. "Let's get this done with. The cold is starting to get to me."

Dust drifts down from the ceiling as a faint tremor rumbles through the mine. The unrestrained screaming of the trapped eidolon follows as it strains in futility against its bindings - but only dimly, muted by the heavy stone.

Neha yelps as she's tugged along by her bag, clearly reluctant, and definitely unhappy with this turn of events. So quickly does the student think themselves better than the coach. "Are you kidding?" she asks Iris incredulously, flinching when the doors slam shut. "Innocent people are jailed /all the time/. So, what, you'd be fine being locked up after being betrayed by someone who was just after money? It's- they're /dead/ down there. This one isn't. It's just going to be there, suffering /forever/, that's not-"

She pauses, inhales a deep breath, and declares, "I'm going to free it."

Toro pushes a finger into a thumb and flicks it into Neha's forehead. "You will likely be dooming innocents. The lives lost in this cavern were likely a result of its influence. If the devil itself were in that circle, would you free it just because it asked nicely?"

Iris looks over at Toro and then at Neha, reaching tentatively to Iris's bag before saying "Let's not rush to that, it'll likely rip us apart now if we do that. People suffer every day in this world, be happy that it's not you. And honestly, when was the last time you saw anyone with any good intentions have gold teeth."

The finger-flick at her forehead gets a stubborn frown out of Neha, but she sidles away and out of Toro's reach to make her way back over to the door. "It's not the devil," she tells Toro. "And lives were lost because of /greed/. Look, if I can save a life, even if it's not what you consider a /human/, or a life worth saving, I'm going to do it. It says it'll eat the ghosts, and not harm the town, and I believe it." And then she gets to looking for an opening in the door, seeing if she can get it back open. If not, maybe there's still a drop or two of blood in the syringe she can throw into the basin again.

A hand went into the workbag and a hand came out, now holding the firearm visible. "Supernatural beings are to be contained or destroyed. Nothing good can come out of letting that *thing* out. If we can't banish it or kill it, best it stays locked forever." Iris answered with a vague threat, watching for Toro's response.

Toro presses a finger into his forehead. "Listen to me," he yells at Neha. "That isn't alive. It's a force of nature. It is a kami that likely embodies greed. All it'll do is go out into the world and prey on the desperate to sustain itself. If you free it, you will be damning people. Leave it be. Why do you think it was trapped there in the first place if all it was doing was bringing wealth and prosperity? Leave it and let's go free the souls of the truly innocent."

Neha's shoulders stiffen as Iris brings out the gun, and she comes to absolute stillness where she is near the door. Her fingers twitch by her sides, but she exhales, slowly, and then turns back towards Toro and Iris. "Fine," comes the single word. She doesn't want to be shot at, even if she's protected by Sanctuary. Accidents could happen. "Fine. Let's go." It's obviously out of self-preservation instead of actual agreement with their point of view, but she's willing to let it lie.

Relief escapes Toro. He doesn't even notice the firearm until the commotion dies down. "Trust me when I say this: it's just mimicry. It doesn't feel. It is really no different than an earthquake or a tornado or a strike of lightning." With a gesture, Iris is invited to lead the way back down.

Indeed, the threat of the firearm is to be taken seriously - this deep, Sanctuary no longer applies, and a pointed weapon once more becomes a very lethal presentation. The pounding and screaming continues, but it is all futile. The binding and the castle of blood-bricks will not release their captive. The way below is clear.

Iris motions forth with the flashlight "Let's help those *actual* human spirits."

Iris points towards the south, asking a quick "Ready?"

Toro says "Let's try to stay calm and not agitate the spirits."
The mist has thickened considerably since the party's departure last, and it coils around ankles like greedy, grasping fingers. The insulation from the cold had been one upside of the ritual chamber - now the hungry frost nibbles away at extremities once more.

Iris says "In we go."
Iris walks in and then reaches a dead-stop, nearly tripping over as Iris witnesses the room's contents. "God..."

"I hope you've got enough blood to banish however many spirits there are," comes the mumble from Neha as she walks along, behind Toro and Iris, with her arms folded across her chest - though that last part might just be because of the cold. She fishes her flashlight back out eventually, exhaling out a little sigh. "I am not a ritualist," she tells the other two outright. "If there's going to be--"

Neha cuts off when they begin to move further into the tunnel, shutting up and pointing the beam of her flashlight around the place. It lands upon the silhouette within the stone, and there's a startled gasp that escapes her.

"Shit." Iris exclaims, waving the flashlight around "Somebody really went to town here, this looks almost as bad as my usual date night aftermath. Alright, carnie, do your thing, summon them up."

There's a quiet, wooden groan from some beam or another as the party force themselves through that little crevice one after another - a moment's noise before things lapse back into silence. Then there's a ripple that travels along the surface of the water, independent of anyone's movement. The mist thickens, and thickens, and begins to coalesce into some ungodly, ethereal morass that paints the wall, human limbs and faces pressing out from within some ectoplasmic membrane, flailing in agony and horror.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOLD!" cries a brassy male voice, feverish with desperation. "WE JUST NEEDED A LITTLE MORE GOLD! THEY WOULD HAVE SAVED US! WE COULD HAVE GONE HOME!"

Toro presses a sleeve against nose and mouth alike, keeping the heady scent from seeping in. "Ugh." There's the immediate urge to gag and vomit. It pushes up, but is kept from escaping his innards, leaving just a tingling burn in the back of his throat. "What happened here couldn't have just been a cave in. Gas? They were burnt alive."

He doesn't leave the entrance. The sight is enough to set his spine completely straight. "Summon them? They're right there." Clearing his throat, he announces, "We're here. Who could've saved you?" Toward the entities, trying to keep his neutrality.

Iris glances between Toro, Neha and the ghosts.

"Anyone," sniffles a piteous voice. A child's voice. "The rescuers who could walk into the dream world. But we were last. We didn't give the Wilsons enough gold, so we were last." Those reaching, grasping limbs - haphazard things, belonging to everyone and no one - suddenly turn out, palm up, cupping their fingers like beggars.

"Please," an elderly man asks - too old to have been doing this kind of work. Too old to have done it well, at least. "The Wilsons, they'll have us rescued. You'll see. We just need to pull our weight a little more. We just need to give them more gold. Then they'll save us. Then they can fight that madman."

Iris gives a quick upnod towards Toro "See? Knew it, no good guy has golden teeth. You're talking about that golden-toothed guy, right?"

Neha swallows heavily, taking a step closer to Toro and giving the man a Look as the whispers of the ghosts make their way to their ears. She doesn't look Iris's way at all, just waiting for the arcanist's cue regarding their next steps, but the doctor is clearly shaken, her lips pulled into a deep frown.

Detecting her trepidation, Toro can't help but share in Neha's sadness. "They're dead and it wasn't your fault. We can, at the very least, give them a gentler departure." From his wallet he takes a handful of coins. Quarters, pennies, dimes, and nickles. Every coin in there was scrounged out into his palm and, after lighting his candle and a stick of incense (both of which clutched in one hand while the other held the loose change), he cautiously ventured forward through the muck, intending to give the three dollars worth to the begging hands.

"I'm sorry. I have no gold. This should suffice for the boatman. Do you see a way out?" He asked the spirits.

Iris grabs at the necklace around her throat, asking "Would gold set you free? Truly? And would that allow gold to flow once more?"

Neha's got platinum and silver on her - absolutely no gold, but she does eye Iris a little bit while Toro pulls out his coins. "You probably don't want to go in there..." she murmurs when she notices, a little too late. "Don't end up infected with something weird." Just because they had a disagreement doesn't mean she's not going to perform her doctorly duties of informing him.

Of course, the living and the dead cannot touch, but that does not mean Toro cannot drop his coins into cupped hands, which close their fingers greedily around the offered coins. At once, the child's voice asks in confusion, "Not gold?" while a man's voice whoops in jubilation.

"No, lad, no!" the elated voice calls. "We're paid! We're paid! It's the Wilsons!"

The morass of souls surges, straining to pull itself free of the wall, to spill out and sweep up Toro in their celebration - and the mine shakes terribly as the dead attempt to claw their way free of their grave earth. The ghosts do not see it or do not care, straining and squeezing and forcing themselves loose, even as fused together and horribly burnt as they are.

"We're saved! We're saved! We're saved!"

The child's arm - that lone, puny thing, reaches for Iris's necklace, instead, but of course it does not have the reach, nor the strength to divert the teeming mass of miner spirits away from their efforts.

Iris watches as the child approaches her and reaches behind her head, undoing the clasp holding the golden necklace and then holding it forth, allowing it to drop into the child's hands and, most likely, onto the floor. "You're free now and paid. Go get your rest, you deserve it."

Oh, well, shit. That doesn't seem good. Neha yelps as the foundations of the mine begin to shake, and reaches out in an attempt to grab Toro by the arm if she can reach him. "Back!" she cries out. Sure, maybe she's not an arcanist, and she doesn't know how the fuck any of this works, but whatever is happening here does /not/ mean anything good. "You don't wanna get caught in that-" Maybe he does, what does Neha know? She looks ready to sprint if they come towards her, though, alarm written all over her features.

Toro lets out a yelp as the force of the forgotten souls take him along for their procession. Spirits were often unaware of the truth of their physical surroundings, and that included him. So, not wanting to risk getting inadvertently hurt in the jubilation, Toro is more than glad when Neha reaches for him. He grabs her wrist with both hands, dropping whatever he had (he could always just pick it up later), and held on for dear life, struggling to pull himself off onto the dirty floor.

"Thanks," he coughs out, the horrid stench making it difficult to talk. "We better get ready to leave after them... I figure that three dollars, whenever they died, must've been a good amount..."

Well, Toro's right enough to save his own life, at least - and Neha's right enough, too. It's an easy thing to pull the so-called carnie free of the grip of the spirits, with their touch passing unpleasantly through their flesh, but by god they shall not let that money go. A few of the morass' heads look upwards, tears in their eyes glinting from the light of a sun that no one else can see, and the mass begins to dissolve... as does whatever's keeping the damn mine together. This room's already half collapsed, and without the spirits, that process resumes. The sewer fault suddenly fractures into something serious as salty seawater-sewage begins to pour down into the room, and a wooden beam collapses under its own weight. The spirits are gone, but the living are going to have to leave /now/ to avoid being crushed or partially drowned. Iris' necklace and Toro's three dollars are swept away with the water even after they're dropped by the ghosts. Now is the time for urgency.

Iris motioned up, calling out "Out! Head out now!" While rushing as fast as she could.

Iris rushed forth, now caked in dirt and sweat despite how cold it was, falling down on her ass to catch her breath once up.


The smell hadn't bothered Neha so much earlier, but she outright gags now as the water begins pouring in. She's certainly not the strongest though, so Toro's going to have to put in some real effort of his own to pull himself out - and it's a good thing he's shorter than she is, even. She certainly doesn't need any more convincing - as soon as he's out, she's running after Iris as fast as she can - which may not be that fast, in all honestly, but it's fast enough, hopefully.

Toro coughs and waves his hand about, batting away the dust and dirt that followed their hasty escape. He keeps his eyes squinted, more than is even typical for him, trying to keep the debris from irritating them further. He doesn't say a peep for a bit, concentrating on his ragged breathing and the pitched whine of his ears. He keels over and spits and spits, trying to get the nasty taste of old mud out of his mouth.

"That was... exciting," and he doesn't mean that in a good way.

It's a lucky thing that Iris is quite as nimble as she is - the upwards slope of the mineshaft had been slick and sloppy and all but a death trap to outrun a flood. Her leading shows those /less/ mobile where to stick their feet, saving them in turn with the mad dash above. The stench follows them up and out, covering their footwear and clothing in a fine, stinky paste that glitters just a little golden with all the dust washed up with it, and everyone can watch on in horror as the water level climbs and climbs and climbs up after them until it finally levels out with the sewer pipes, cutting off all but the top storey of the mine. Gold-tooth should be save, though - that door had been airtight and waterproof. A little leak won't be washing away the seals on his prison. The floor shudders just faintly as the mine's lower level collapses some more - and then all is peaceful.