Ceria-Day One

"Ah. Nice. Should be easy, most of the good stuff is small. And if you ask a couple of ghosts to help, it shouldn't be trouble at all." She puts her hand into the hologram. "Okay, what we need is four things. A: There's the list of government passcodes, good for a week. Hard copy, specially sealed from projection. Those will get us into where we can get my... Item. B: We've got to get this rather unique gun. The tried to let me use it, but I wasn't the right focus. Little Eda there, though... She'd be perfect, heh. C: For you, Earan, there's an old trinket kept carefully locked. It's the first death mage's ring. Supposed to be powerful. And last, but not least, there's a present for Jacky, that she's earned. That one is the most important to me. With it, Jacky can help us out quite a bit." A small image of each item pops up as she speaks about them. The list is on black paper, written in mystically protected ink. The gun looks more like an armband, with a little tube on it. The ring has a diamond embedded in it. "Sound good?"

"Piece of cake. There are quite a few ghosts, even just in Bob's office..."

"Heh. They built it too close to the graveyard, huh?" She says, grinning as she puts the hologram away. "Of course, if you see anything else good in there, you're free to have a look. Don't get carried away, though, only one or two floors are vulnerable."

"How long do I have?"

"As long as I can hold them, which should give you about half an hour. No more than that, they've got good techs. None as good as me, but still, good at their job. I can also jam their projectors, but only for twenty minutes or so. The last ten minutes will be difficult, if you're still in there."

"That's okay. I figured out an interesting thing I could do..."

"Oh?"

"Alright, all death users control souls, right?"

"Yeah. And decay. Any microbiological or metaphysical process that causes and/or relates to the loss and/or necrosis of living tissue can be manipulated." She says, almost a little bit like she had it memorized.

"Okay, watch this, it took me a while to perfect."
He closes his eyes, concentrating, and a shadowy outline of a man appears.

"Wait, are you a darkness focus too?

"No...." He says, obviously in pain, and concentrating hard. "I split my soul."

"Oh. Looks... painful."

"It's quite useful... I can control it, it came in handy when burgling."

"Hmm... Interesting. One second, I want to record this." She puts a finger to the side of her head, and her right eye glows a bright purple. "There, a better look outside of my normal vision."

((She can see, very vaguely, what he can, but is still unable to interact with the dead.))

Even at an enhanced level, it looks like a nondescript male elf.

"Hmm... interesting." She taps her head again, checking certain magical levels around him, and nodding. "Very unusual, even for death magic, although this kind of thing is still unexplored. Most Death foci tend to go for the zombies and skeletons path, which takes ritual. This, on the other hand, appears to be more along the lines of Tech or Nature foci in terms of use and development."

He ends it, looking slightly tired. "Yeah. I discovered it going through a book at the Academy."

"Hmm... Books. They still have those. Never thought to look through them, myself. I was too busy searching the Terra web for new jobs before being sent off to the government."

"I stole it..."

"Ah. You like stealing things, don't you?" She says, laughing as her eye stops glowing.

"Sometimes, if they are useful. Plus, I didn't want anyone using it against me. Better I have it."

"Heh. I did take a few data cards when I was there, just for storage. But they took my Crown when they sent me to the government. That's what we're going to get after we've got the passcodes. The Crown is my best work, I made it after a couple of... Unusual substances had been laced into my food. I got the guy who did it, too, but I thanked him after beating him up. You see, whatever it was, I made the Crown under their influence."

"Cool. Man, do we have any food? I get really hungry doing that..."

"Jake keeps a fridge stocked full of sandwich stuff in the truck. There's some soda too, I think." She says. "I'm gonna connect to the web and see if I can find any more information on death magic that might be valid."