Seeing Ghosts.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Hob entered Deception's Study using the secret passage he had taken before. The first thing he noticed upon stepping into the room was that the large iron door that blocked off the study was gone. The doorframe was wrecked and bent, and trapped inside the frame the door.

The Angry One of Nod had come here looking for the book. It was fortunate for Hob that he had gotten here first.

Hob gazed around the rest of the room, which seemed mostly untouched. After making sure that nothing else was out of place, Hob strode over to the altar and began to light candles around it using his powers. When all the candles were lit, Hob stepped off the altar and began focussing with his mind and his powers in the Shining Dark. He muttered under his breath, a slow, steady stream of words that ended with a hoarse roar and flung his arms wide. ~ I call upon the spirits of this room to show themselves to me and speak their mind.~

[Jeseth Cloak]

Light ripped through the dimly lit room, a hand clutching Hob by the neck. Strange and eerie eyes devoid of life came into view, the grip tightening around him, cutting of his precious supply of air.

"You're going to wish you hadn't asked that..."

The figure growled, two sharp and animalistic fangs protruding forth from the strange and wicked grin. Jeseth's face came into view, drenched in shadow's that flowed from him like water.

"Did you think you could master in one day what it took me 3 years..."

Hob found himself quickly thrown against a wall, several candle's crumbling beneath his weight, the hot wax sticking against his skin. Another figure quickly began coming into view, his eyes devoid of life, his face contorted in pain and hatred.

"You fool..."

Jeseth grabbed the book as Hob attempted to grab at him, his hand slipping through the web of shadow's that bound his adversary.

“I'm beyond that now. I have become more powerful... than you can possibly imagine."

Another voice shot out from across the room, but this one spoke only in their minds.

And so have I...

Jeseth's eyes blurred for a moment as his head turned, his hair wafting in the breeze. Count Mordrid grinned, extending a hand outward as he bowed. The room shook at his entrance, thunder clapping around them. They were no longer in Bast Castle. Hob would now find himself in a land unlike anything he had ever seen... It was a land of the dead. A land trapped within the walls.

[Aaron Grimm]

Aaron continued to roam the halls in search of a sufficient place for meditation. Aaron wandered through dim hallways decored in dark uneven cut stones. Each stone acted in a deep halucination my mind was viewing. Faces of tortured souls with deep running scars, screaming for pain and for redemption reach out and capture the attention of my eyes.

"parlor tricks from deep in my mind"

Aaron temporarily stoped to gaze at the details of the wall/halucination, and just as he stoped he heard a comotion from over where Jeseth's study was. Quickly Aaron turned to look at the source of the noise and was nearly blinded by a white light.

"What the hell. . ."

Aaron ran to the room more curious than worried. As Aaron turned and rounded the doorway, He found himself in an long unforgiving desert cast with dark violent skies licking the land scape with lightning. Aaron turned his attentioned from the harsh enviroment to notice the goblin, Jeseth , and an unknown individual engaged in a verbal dispute. Aaron figured he would stay in the background now and see how this would develope, and that was when he stomach bgan to ache.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

What had started only as an exercise of his sensory powers had quickly turned into something much more. He had only wanted to be able to see them, not raise them and bring himself into their world. But what was done was done, and this strange world beckoned his attention.

Hob could feel that, though his body was fine despite being tossed about, his mind was somehow separated from it. Hob began ambling forward, feeling his mind move within the castle's walls. Each time his foot or his hands touched the ground in this strange domain, it felt as if it squirmed. As though the ground was made of living souls.

Hob glanced around, taking in this dead and blasted landscape that looked no worse than Vjun, but somehow felt much more dead. His eyes spotted Aaron Grimm, who also somehow saw the two dead ghosts and the one living projection.

But Hob was far more interested in this newcomer who apparently had power over Jeseth in this strange realm. ~ Ye are the one who spoke t' me before. To what purpose?~

[Count Mordrid]

Mordrid's eyes locked against Hob's as he began to worm his way into the depth's of the seer' mind.

Free me... Hob. Free me.

As if by instinct, Hob now knew exactly what he had to do to accomplish the task. A sinister grin worked it's way onto the Count's face as he turned his attention to Jeseth.

As for you... You'll not keep me here.

Tendrils of pure darknes worked their way around the winged creature, constricting him and locking him against the ground. Soon he'd be free... he had to be free. There was so much for him to do now.

[Jeseth Cloak]

Jeseth brought his arms up, holding back to the forces that attempted to bind him - but his influence here was far too weak; his arms quickly crumpled to his side. he couldn't speak... Not in the proper sense of the word. A quick glimpse opened his eyes to something new. Aaron Grimm had found his way here somehow... It hadn't been that long since he had passed away, had it? Surely, his former apprentice could not so quickly have mastered the Dark arts...

Aaron, quickly, I need your help.

Jeseth could only hope that the man's mind would catch those fleeting pleas for assistance.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Hob felt the spirit's touch on his mind. Information slid into his mind, information regarding the qualities of a particular power. The knowledge continued to slide, spiralling down and down inside his mind where it would not be lost-

And suddenly, Hob was struck with a vision.

Before him stood a fountain that shot strands of thread into the air. The threads turned into movie reels depicting possible futures spreading from this one moment. In many of them, Hob died, forever separated from his body. Most of them showed that, in fact. But in several others where things went perfectly, Hob not only returned to life, he gained great power as a result.

The movie reels switched back to threads that spread from the fountain, which was now a grave. The threads continued to arc outwards, going from the grave to hit planets that spit out their own threads. The threads began to weave and interconnect, forming something massive and undefinable.

Hob pulled himself from that grave, and behind him a hand stretched the hand of a specter.

And then the vision faded.

~ Not so swiftly, Deception,~ Hob waved a hand. ~ Your time here has passed more quickly than ye realized, perhaps. Hob has read through the Book of Anger, and gained in power. Now let him demonstrate that power.~

Hob swirled a hand and a ball of energy coalesced above it. The ball cried out, then was silenced as the souls within were converted to energy. The ball then wafted over to Mordrid and a thin tendril of power lit up between Mordrid and the blasted ground of the land of the dead. Mordrid began to glow, and Hob's spirit sought his own body once again.

[Count Mordrid]

The shimmering coil of energy struck him like a bolt of pure malevolence, spreading to touch everything within the vortex of death and desolation. Light began to flare up around the macabre collection of lost spirits. Mordrid yelled out in agony, the feeling of a 100 years of decay seizing every point of his body. Hob watched as the figure clutched for it's throat.

Mordrid's eyes quickly burst, a red and ominous fog beginning to spiral around him, his every vein and artery shattering and pulsating with deadly pressure. They all turned, distracted momentarily from their retreat of that realm. The Dark lord began to cackle, his flesh rupturing and splitting down his every joint. It was becoming apparent that he was deriving a sick and twisted pleasure from his own torment.

Yes Hob... Yes! I knew you would choose wisely!

The voice began to sound as if it were falling apart in and of its self, speaking in delirious tones and undulation - and then it happened: Mordrid's jaw broke loose, a sulfuric and noxious bile pouring forth, intestines oozing outwards from his mouth nose and eyes, the flesh following suite, until it all quickly became mere ashes. They had withheld years of decomposition in a single blink of an eye, and then it was all gone. Hob stood bye the altar, just as he had been when he first called to the spirits, Aaron Grimm opened his eyes up to a room much like what should have been expected, and there was no trace left behind of Jeseth, save a single blackened feather which floated to the ground, crumbling to dust as it touched to the soft plush flooring of what had once been Deception's study.

A cold breeze wafted down the hall way, away from the room. Torches and candles began tearing and falling from the wall as something terrible made it's way down the dimly lit corridors of the Candelabra of Malice.