| From: | Jett <zmjett@*********.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Vicious little truths |
| Date: | Sun, 17 Jan 1999 04:07:59 -0500 |
>>>>>>[The scene is your average workout center: the red-carpeted room
is empty except for a lone woman doing bench presses with an impressive
amount of weights, seen from the point of view of a tall, black-haired
and bearded troll who is spotting her. The troll's reflection is clearly
visible in the mirrored wall across the room, through the jungle of
workout equipment.
"I couldn't reach you last night, Julie." The troll checks his watch
again.
"Dunno why not. I was home," the woman replies in a husky contralto
with an odd, hollow metallic echo to it. Her face is hidden by black
mirrorshades, and she wears a simple black spandex workout suit that
shows off a body forged by years of hard work and a small fortune in
cyberware. Not the slightest sign of a tremor as she holds the barbell
straight above her, then lowers it gently to the rack. She gets to her
feet.
The troll sighs, and shakes his head, as if he knows exactly why she
didn't answer the phone. "You were drunk again."
She scowls, and starts on the sandbag, a carefully executed series
of kicks and punches landing on the heavy canvas. Between thuds: "Yeah.
I wasn't feeling too well, so I got wasted and went to be early."
*thud**thud**whack* "It just doesn't do me much good anymore. My body
burns it too goddamned fast."
The troll in the mirror frowns, and reaches up to scratch the side
of his neck, where a full set of riggerjacks glint. "Are you sure you
don't want to come back to Cali Free with us, Julianne? Being here
alone...it can't be doing you any good."
The woman bounces on the balls of her feet a couple times in her
fighting stance, then lets loose with a round kick that lands perfectly
at head level on the bag. It's apparent that her style is strongly
influenced by Tae Kwon Do. "Yeah, well...not like I'm alone, really. I
still work with Jazz a lot."
"Work and friends aren't always the same thing, Jett," the troll
says softly.
Jett's beating on the bag grows more intense as she works up to
speed. "Yeah, well...we work together but we're friends, too."
*whack**thud**whump* "Anyone you can do a hit with, then go out with
drinks with afterward, I think deserves a special place in your life."
She stops suddenly, relaxing into a normal stance.
"I'm sorry, Jett." He sighs, yet again. "I didn't want to mess this
up. It's just that we're worried about you."
Jett's reply is a sharp bark of laughter. "Yeah...Fraggus can't even
look at me. Ashwing moves away from me just a little bit. Scrape hasn't
talked to me since the first night I came back." She stops, scratches at
a fine, long scar on her upper left arm. "They know that I've changed,
that I've been touched by something they don't want to face."
The troll signs, and sits down on the bench as Jett goes into a bout
of punching drills. "You don't want to face it, either."
Jett looks up. "I don't have a choice."
He scowls, his warm brown eyes dark under black eyebrows. "You can
face the fact that you're dead. It's easy." He watches her for a moment.
"It's being alive that you can't face."
Jett spins, her lithe form tense. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He shakes his head. "You could never face your life, Julie. That was
always your problem. First it was the morphine, then it was the killing.
Now the booze." He looks away from her pale face, as white and hard as
marble. "And the angst, maybe. Yeah, you're dead. But you're also alive,
too. You walk, talk, breathe, bleed, feel, all that. But being dead is
easier, because the dead don't have feelings. You don't want to face the
facts that you're still capable of all the feelings that led to you
getting hurt so badly. It's easier to be a pariah."
He continues, leaving her face pale and stunned. "Or maybe it's just
that you're punishing yourself for not doing your job. The Shade, right?
Avenger, protector from beyond the grave. But you lost Paul, then Joe
and Killian, and couldn't do anything but stand by helplessly. Then,
when you changed, just when you thought that you had the strength to
protect the ones you loved, you lose them anyway...because they can't
deal with what you've become, even if it's for their sake." He takes a
deep breath. "Guilt, Julie? Or just a fear that if you let yourself feel
again, you'll just feel the pain of being left alone again?"
Jett spins, and for one moment, the troll seems to be bracing
himself for a blow he expects, knowing he touched a raw nerve, spoke a
truth that the woman didn't want to hear. But instead, she sweeps her
arm to the side, and the bag explodes into a spray of canvas shreds and
sand a moment before it's ripped free of its metal moorings on the
ceiling. She snaps off her shades, revealing the horror of her eyes: two
empty black holes that seem to be gates to the coldest, darkest corner
of hell. Black vapor spills from them, and at the very bottom, as if
through the length of a great tunnel, faint blue embers glow. "I am
trapped between life and death. I don't belong to either. And if I
thought that True death would offer ANY relief to my suffering, I would
take it in a minute," she hisses through her teeth. "And I know that no
matter what I do, hundreds of years after you and everyone I care about
are dust, I'll still be here. The Shade. Always the last one on the
battlefield, the ghost who's left behind every fucking time." The edge
of pain and bitterness is plain in her voice.
"So in the meantime, I do what I have to. I make a living out of my
nature because I can't do anything else. And I survive, Derek," she
says. "The way I always do. Whether I want to or not." She turns and
stalks away.
The troll stares at the ruins of the punching bag, and wonders, with
more than a touch of a sense of sorrow, if Jett is capable of surviving
her worst enemy: her own self-destructive side.]<<<<<
-- Snookums <23:16:35/01-11-59>
*****Internal: Bradley's Guide to The Spirit World, chap. 6: Echoes of
those gone before (Ghosts and Necromancy)
>>>>>[
Shade: A ghost, generally a spirit of man, that returns from the grave
to complete some unfinished task. The most common reason appears to be
for vengeance, although just about any is conceivably possible. Shades
are inherently unstable due to the fact that they are not natural living
beings, and as a result have difficulties interacting with the "normal"
world. However, they also have deep senses of purpose that brought them
back in the first place: Shades are indeed restless and angry ghosts, as
they generally spring from a deep sense of personal injustice or loss.
They are also tireless to the point of being single-minded and
obsessive. As a result, a person hunted by a Shade will quite likely get
no rest until he is found and punished in a way that the ghost sees as
fit. Murder or other violent crime victims often become Shades to take
justice on the one who wronged them.
While most Shades will fade once their feelings of injustice are
resolved, there are some who may refuse to leave this plane. They are
occasionally bound to necromancers or other magicians, but others will
simply remain as anima or animus, "guardian spirits" generally linked to
those that they feel strong ties to. Indeed, it is possible for a Shade
to exist solely for this reason.
Some of the more malevolent entities related to Shades that are
created under similar circumstances are covered in Chapter 7.
Duende: A ghost that, for varying reasons, becomes permanently
fused into a human body. The nature of the Duende's physical shell
changes to reflect the highly magical being inside it, taking on some of
the levels of invulnerability and other powers normally only seen in
true spirits. While these powers do not work at full force, they are
formidable. Duende often have other spirit powers linked to the type of
ghost that inhabits the body, and almost ALL Duende have a strong power
of personal Concealment.
There are tales of Duende occurring naturally: an individual with a
strong will may, at the time of death, refuse to flee the dying shell,
and their very strength of will, combined with naturally occurring magic
that is not fully understood, returns the body to pseudo-life. Note that
the creation of a Duende in this manner is not common by any means. The
only time that this could conceivably happen is in a place with high
natural necromantic energies (rather like "mana lines", but with death
energy rather than mana), or through complex and difficult ritual that
can only be performed by a necromancer. Very few places could offer the
level of energy required for this to happen naturally: none are known to
this day, though some Death-oriented metaplanes may offer this sort of
natural tap.
The more common creation of a Duende is when a ghost attempts to
devour the spirit of a necromancer and then takes over the empty body as
a Duende.
Duende, due to the fragile balance of energies required to create
and maintain, often have mental instabilities, part of which comes from
the psychological strain of being a creature that is neither fully dead
nor fully alive.
Lastly, Duende are seen as unnatural beings, and are perceived as
such. The presence of a Duende is usually announced, even to the
mundane, with a ghostly chill and a sharpened awareness of the existence
of death. Most powerful Duende are shunned by normal humans who don't
care to be reminded of their mortality. This of course can be applied as
a weapon in the form of a spirit power called Momento Mori: the target
of the power is suddenly presented with images of his own impending
death, linked to what he is presently doing.]<<<<<
