Hey there, sorry it's been quiet here. As I've mentioned before, it's been a little busy on my end, both with writing and in my head. But my Alchemicals draft is in and I've emerged from the Realm of Brass and Shadow to start getting caught up on way-too-many Exalted sessions.
So let's get into it.
Where we left off, the Circle was waiting in the sitting room at the Liczka Estate in Silverpost. They've tracked the hungry ghost haunting the city to the home of the wealthy merchant family that owns/runs it, and Stray Dog Serenade has recognized the ghost's visage in a portrait of a younger Marku Liczka -- an early victim of the ghost, if not the first. At least officially. He's still alive, but the group is pretty certain the hungry ghost is rising from him, which is a rare but possible feat in someone near-death.
Lecht tells the others they have a plan that might guarantee they get rid of this ghost one way or the other. Lecht's artifact wrackstaff, the Grave Warden, can prevent the dead from approaching. The ghost has to return to its host before the sun comes up, or it's destroyed. If they can ward the old man with the staff, and it stays put, they can try to take out the ghost themselves. At worst, it can't get back to him and is trapped. But the tricky thing is that the ghost is already in the house, and Lecht isn't sure if the staff can force it out in the first place.
So I, as Storyteller, settle this issue in the most traditional of methods: I make up a roll to see if the ghost can resist.
So Lecht plants their staff into the floor and activates the warding effect. There's a ripple outwards, and Lecht can feel the ghost resisting it... but it pushes through, like someone leaning into a stiff wind with an umbrella. So it's not ejected, but it is awake, and shrieking in rage upstairs.
Lecht rushes out of the room and the others follow, past a wide-eyed servant who was about to bring in some tea. Stray Dog stops, grabs a cup of tea, chugs it, carefully sets it back on the tray, salutes the servant, and then resumes dashing behind the others.
They run up a couple of flights of stairs, to find a man who bears a resemblance to the Liczka family -- his son, Luca -- at the top of the stairs, demanding to know what in Heaven's name is going on.
"We are ghost hunters, who else are you going to call?" Lecht calls out as they rush past.
A guard moves to stop the characters from rushing down the hall to Marku's room, but before he can do anything about it, the ghost bursts through the wall and lunges at them.
"Wandering Dawn," Lecht begins. "Hit it as hard as you can, and force it through the walls."
That's all the Solar needed to hear, his armor beginning to glow with light as he manifests a tetsubo made of sunlight. He rushes at the ghost, swinging with the tetsubo to sock it and use Heaven Thunder Hammer to fling it through a convenient window.
"After it, hurry!" he yells.
Lecht dives out the window, despite being a couple of stories up, and manages to land just right to get underneath the ghost and blast it in the small of the back with a Crypt Bolt. It swoops at Lecht, slashing at them with salt-encrusted claws, but they fan their robe in a wide arc to conceal their location and throw off its attack. Lecht raises a hand, chanting something intimidating to try and ward it off.
Stray Dog, standing at the window, belts out a verse about 'the dawn wandering into the yard and smiting the ghost extremely fucking hard,' inspiring the Solar enough to not only boost his next attack but also to get his anima flaring up. Then Wandering Dawn looks down and sees the ghost going after Lecht, and he takes a few steps back for a running start, to leap out the window and bring the tetsubo down with both hands. His anima banner lights up the yard like it's noon for a second as, with a flash, he violently discorporates the ghost.[0]
As the noise has gathered people outside, Wandering Dawn -- still glowing, mind you -- waves at them to reassure them everything's okay and that he and his group got rid of the ghost.
Lecht rushes inside and back upstairs to Old Man Liczka's room, only to be interrupted at the door by Luca demanding to know what's going on. Lecht explains that his father is being haunted by a malevolent spirit and they're here to release him from it. Luca doesn't move, and Lecht gives him a stink-eye backed by supernatural fear, enough that he's almost physically shoved back.
They then grab the locked door handle and channel a Crypt Bolt through it to blast the handle and lock into shards and dust. They enter the room and Anica, Marku's daughter, is standing next to the old man's body. And he looks like hell, too -- when a hungry ghost emerges from a living body, the host suffers damage dealt to the ghost.[1] So he looks like he's been set on fire and had his head bashed in. He's probably comatose, at first glance. Anica's holds up a knife to defend herself or her father and asks Lecht what they're going to do. They say they're here to tend the patient. She hesitates and they ask if they need to spell it out for her -- is she not educated? The knife drops and she backs off under the intensity of Lecht's baleful gaze.
(Meanwhile, downstairs, Wandering Dawn is just now coming back inside to find Stray Dog back in the sitting room, enjoying the snacks left there.)
Lecht examines the old man and determines that he's certainly on death's door. They take out some oil, anoint him with it, and begin singing a low funerary chant, a hymn intermixed with lines of a chanted prayer. They feel his body near-death and his soul barely hanging on in fear of the beyond, and with a spark of their power they nudge him across so he passes on to Lethe -- ensuring that he won't leave any ghost now, hungry or otherwise. As he goes still, they turn to Anica and say they're sorry for her loss as she watches, stunned.
They then politely and professionally walk out, past the son who's rushing in past them. They head downstairs, hearing Anica's nervous -- even manic -- laughter as other people in the house start to freak out. They run into Wandering Dawn and Stray Dog, who are on their way upstairs, and Dawn asks Lecht if they're done. Lecht says they're done, but it might be in bad taste to give the family a bill. Stray Dog suggests they can always come back later, and so the group takes their leaves to go and recover at the inn.
And we left off there.
[0]-- The ghost isn't destroyed, but under normal circumstances it will reform in a couple of days.
[1]-- This is a detail that Lecht deliberately left out before with the others. Which means that, yes, destroying the ghost would also kill the host (and vice-versa).
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