Ghost Rage, Episode 13a- Vote Now!

“I have a contact in the Magisterium,” you say. “I’m going to question him more about Rhazion and his daughter. You two stay here and keep watch over Chrysana. I’ll be back by midnight.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” says Lucan. “Where are you meeting this contact?”

You hesitate. “A brothel.”

Moresti perks up at that.

“Wait,” says Lucan. “You mean the Black Rose? The brothel near the Magisterium chapterhouse?” You nod. “You definitely should not go there alone. The Magisterium wants you dead, and half the magi know what you look like by now. Let me go with you.”

“The magi want you dead, as well,” you say.

“Yes, but not as badly,” says Lucan. “I’ll disguise myself. A wealthy merchant looking to…indulge a bit with the courtesans of the Black Rose. And you,” he smiles a bit, “you can be disguised as a courtesan yourself, hired to accompany me on my revels.”

You feel your eyebrows climb halfway up your forehead.

“It’s the perfect disguise. After all,” says Lucan, “who would expect the Ghost Countess and Lucan Maraeus to walk into an expensive brothel together?”

He’s got a point.

“Very well,” you say. “The Ghosts have a safehouse not far from here. We can disguise ourselves there, and proceed to the Black Rose together. Moresti can be your ‘bodyguard’; his ward against the mavrokh might be useful.”

Lucan pauses only long enough to draw some wards against the mavrokh on the doors and windows, and to equip himself with a variety of weapons and other tools. You aren’t happy about leaving Chrysana alone here, but since Lucan thinks she won’t wake up for at least another day, she should be safe enough. Then you leave Lord Corbould’s mansion, the streets filling with shadows as the sun dips below the domes and towers and spires of Malarae.

You turn a corner, and see a little girl standing in the center of the street, staring at you.

She’s no more than six or seven, with enormous blue eyes and ragged brown hair. She’s wearing a ragged dress, with no shoes, and looks like any of the other poor urchins living in Malarae’s slums and docks.

The little girl is also somewhat translucent.

“A specter,” says Lucan.

You skin crawls with the sudden presence of sorcery.

The specter looks smiles…and starts to decay before your eyes. Her lips shriveled away from her gums, her skin turns gray and wrinkled with mold, her hair withers to ragged strands, and her eyes disappeared into flickering emerald flames.

Moresti bellows a curse in Szaldic.

The specter looks at you and screams, and then shoots into the air, flying like a green comet.

“A spell,” you say.

Korthion, it seems, has resorted to necromancy to find you.

And the worst sort of necromancy, too. That spell requires the death of a child to empower it. Your hands curl into fists.

Korthion just murdered a child to find you.

“A seeking spell,” says Lucan. “We’ve got to get away from here, now.”

You think hard. You have a cloak in the safehouse, a thing the wizards of old wove out of shadow and spiders’ silk. The cloak will make you immune to sorcerous attempts to track your location, and if you can get to it before Korthion reaches you…

Or you could escape into the catacombs below the city; there’s an entrance not far from here. The specter might tell Korthion your precise location, but you know the catacombs better than he does, and you can probably lose him there.

But the thought of running from the murdering scoundrel makes your stomach burn.

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