Welcome to Hemlock Falls

[Craft]

Craft takes a step forward towards the coalescing lights. He's not sure what's going on, but he knows that at least one person in the tunnel is a 'normal' human being, and if there's trouble, he'd like to make sure she wasn't the first to meet it.

"Hello?" he calls out to whatever is starting to appear. Maybe it wouldn't be looking for a fight. And since Craft was, at least at that very moment, unarmed, he was obviously hoping for that.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

(How thoughtful!)

When Aaron sounds distressed, Sarah turns to look at him. This means her headlamp shines onto his face - possibly into his eyes for a moment. She reaches into a pocket and offers Aaron a clean serviette (napkin?) of the type supplied at Rosie's Diner.

She starts to unclip her backpack, muttering "I'll just get my first ai..." Pause. Craft is saying hello to something or someone? She turns her head, sees the blue lights, and swallows. Hard. Takes a half step backwards. Eyes go wide. Ooooh shit sherlock.

 

[Atrus]

Aaron is in too much pain to even notice Sarah or the serviette. It looks like something's drilling in his brain. Hopefully metaphorically.

The blue lights form into the ghostly form of a miner, with a canary cage in one hand, and a pickaxe in the other. The ghost looks at Craft with something like doubt, then starts slowly raising his axe to strike.

 

[Craft]

Craft immediately wishes someone a little more mystically inclined was present with them.

"We'd like to help you... You've been here a long time, haven't you?"

He raises his hands trying to indicate he's not here to hurt the spirit. For the millionth time in the past five years, he does wish for a proton pack, however.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

((Holding for Marcos' reaction. I strongly suspect Sarah's gonna scream right about now, though.))

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

((Thanks for waiting!))

Oh. Great. Of course a ghost would appear the minute he asks about one. Marcos is beginning to wonder if he’d be better off keeping his big mouth shut.

Marcos steps next to Craft, helping him shield Sarah and Aaron from whatever is coming next. Hopefully. He, like Craft, raises his hands, palms forward to show the ghost that he isn’t armed.

“We won’t hurt you,” he says, though his gut tells him otherwise.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah screams, going pale and sweating. Fear reaction, and she suffers it for a moment before her intellect kicks in. Intellect reminds her that she has a patient. She turns to Aaron, hoping the two outsiders can handle the monster-ghost-thingy.

One arm goes around Aaron's shoulders, supporting him or helping him make a controlled drop to his knees - whichever happens. The other hand puts the serviette to his nose, and pinches it to put pressure on the bleeding capillaries. A quiet voice "It's just Sarah. Trying to stop the nosebleed. You'll be okay."


A notable asset, that the others may or may not have noticed: Sarah has a shotgun. The shotgun's holster is clipped to her backpack, and several pouches clipped to the holster have her usual rounds. Given the locale, they're probably animal-deterring rounds, such as rock salt, bird bombs or screechers.

 

[Atrus]

The silent ghost doesn't seem to care for small talk, or offers of help. The pickaxe falls on Craft, and the man has only a short lapse of time to get out of the way or react.

Aaron doesn't seem to want to be a collaborative patient either. He's still clutching his head, way more troubled by the migraine than the nosebleed, but he still struggles against Sarah and kicks dirt up with his shoes. "He's getting inside! He's broadcasting. How? He's not-"
His eyes are suddenly wide open, locking onto Sarah's, before a new fit makes him double over in pain again.

 

[Craft]

In the short moment of time it takes for a disappointed sigh to escape Craft's lips there is a brief flash of golden light and the soft sound of buzzing. As the pick-axe comes down, and if it were in face solid, it would connect with a sword that was not in Craft's upraised hand moments before. Other's often had gifts from Gaia such as the ability to throw fireballs or toss lightning bolts or have massively increased strength. Actual Magic. Craft just had the ability to summon and store one particular object in what he could only assume was the Agartha's version of a storage locker. It was extremely useful in getting through customs.

And protecting oneself from a murderous mining ghost, it seemed.

He heard the struggle and shouting behind him, and called out, "Sarah? Aaron!? Are you alright?" He didn't look back though, he wasn't going to give the miner another opportunity.

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

Marcos happens to be one of those blessed with Actual Magic, but his Actual Magic, in this case, is next to useless. A torrent of water won’t do much to deter a ghost, and neither would a gust of wind.

He wonders, for a moment, if the cross hanging around his neck might scare the very rude specter off.

But-... no, that only works on vampires, doesn’t it?

With an apologetic look at Craft, Marcos hurries over to Aaron’s side. He’d probably be of more help to him — and if anything tried to sneak up from behind, he’d be there to fight it off. Marcos takes out a cloth, soaks it with cool water, and carefully drapes it over Aaron’s neck; he doubts it’ll help much — the kid looks like he’s having an aneurysm — but he figures it’s worth a try.

“Who’s broadcasting? What is he saying?” Marcos says softly, but urgently. He regularly glances at Craft and the ghost, just in case he needed to shift his focus elsewhere. But he meets Sarah’s eyes, too. “He’s looking bad. We should get him out.”

He says that knowing full well that they still have a ghost to bust — and that said ghost is likely behind the poor kid’s suffering.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

"..... --- wait! You, ghost. You're just Matt's and my story." She looks at Aaron for a moment, then back to the ghost. "Aaron said something about stories. You're just tryng to make the story real! GO AWAY!"

A pause, then she dredges up something from an old movie. "YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!"

 

[Atrus]

The sword connects with the pickaxe with a loud clang of metal against metal, despite that one of the two objects was made of blue light. The ghost miner, seemingly undeterred, raises his axe again for a second strike, which gets parried just as easily, and a third. The ghost was strong, it seemed, but not too bright.
The miner is raising his instrument again when Sarah's cry echoes in the tunnel. It seems uncertain for a moment, and the figure crackles like an old TV getting a sudden burst of static. If someone wanted to strike at the ghost, this would be a perfect opportunity.

Aaron seems to recover a little, too. He's still clearly in pain, but either the cool cloth, or what Sarah did, or both, seem to have had an effect. He's breathing easier now, and he seems slightly more relaxed.

 

[Craft]

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there existed a plan.

This plan was called the 'Craft Ramsay Two-Step Plan to Solve Any Problem' and it went as follows:

Step 1: Hit Problem
Step 2: Repeat Step 1 Until desired results reached.

Craft began to execute that plan. He would look back to the others once the ghost miner wasn't a problem any more.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah ad libs. She's not exactly fluent, it's a bit awkward, she just thinks that she shouldn't stop at any point.

She leaves the serviette with Aaron, and rises to slowly walk towards the ghost miner.

"Through dangers unknown and ... and lots of problems, we have fought our way here to the ca-- coal mine to ... to ... to find the source of the problems here.. For our will is as strong as yours, and our kingdom is as great.
"You have no power over us."

She times it so that she is standing next to Craft when she says the key phrase.

 

[Atrus]

Craft's sword goes right through the ghost, but not without effect: the figure distorts, parts of it being thrown out like sparkles in the wake of the blade. The same happens with the second blow, and the third. It feels like splattering paint, but it's effective.
The miner aims to fight back, but that's when Sarah's chant intervenes. As the woman speaks, the ghostly miner seems to crackle even more. The bits that Craft has shaken off its body flicker and turn off.
With one last powerful slice, Craft cuts the ghost in two, and its upper half just falls to the ground, disintegrating in a shower of blue lights. And in that same moment they can hear a pained scream coming from further down the tunnel.

It feels suddenly darker in the mine, despite their torches and the light coming from the bottom half of the miner, now inert. After a few seconds they can feel another groan, close, this time coming from Aaron. "God darn. I don't know what that whole speech was all about, but yay Sarah. You cut him off." He raised his head slowly to look at her. "Did she really never tell you that you're a guardian?"

 

[Craft]

"Someday... a proton pack." Craft grumbles, before looking to Sarah with concern? Curiosity?

"Good work there... First improve exorcism, huh?" He knows there's going to have to be a bit more explaining when this was all over, Sarah'd seen things that can'd just be tucked into the 'ghosts' bucket. But that was something they could deal with afterwards. Aaron apparently knew an awful lot about what was going on in Hemlock Falls, and apparently he felt Sarah should have known more about it too.

As Aaron brought up the 'guardian' question, Craft was all ears, but he addressed Marcos, "The kid doing alright?"

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah is suddenly tired, and bends over, hands on her knees, like a runner who really needs to catch their breath. She turns to Aaron. "A what?"

Right at the moment, Sarah's a bit too overwhelmed to be responsible about checking on the well-being of the rest of the party.

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

(The ever-so-helpful) Marcos only just keeps himself from breathing a sigh of relief. This isn’t his first rodeo. He knows that doing so only invites greater catastrophes.

“I think we are all alright, yes.” Marcos extends a hand to Aaron to help him to his feet, then casts a wary look down the tunnel. “I have a feeling that he won’t be the last we’ll run into,” he says, nodding to the ex-ghost. “Maybe we should call for some help...?”

He lets that question hang for a bit – especially now that Aaron has revealed something about Sarah.
Something which will hopefully make up for their lack of ghost busting equipment.

 

[Atrus]

"A guardian. One of us. Those who can do the- huh." Aaron sways a little, then waves his hand in front of him, like he's trying to make something appear out of nothing. "Drat. He's jamming me! Anyway, we can do the things! Like the lights. And the ghost. And we can speak with the lady." He gives a dry chuckle. "And in exchange for that we're supposed to stay here and protect the town. That's the 'deal'. Except we're kinda born into it. You need the right DNA or something to hear her voice. Ain't really a deal if it was chosen for me, but I try to have fun with it while I still have to be in town."

Aaron points further down the tunnel. "He, however. He's not one of us. He doesn't have the knack. But apparently he can hijack yours, like he did at the mansion, and like he's doing now. And he's using it to block me." The boy puts his hands on his hips, trying to look more mature than he is. "I wonder why the lady never spoke to you though. When she wants something, she blares in my head loud as an air horn. Billy, too."

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah listens to Aaron, then nods. "Okay. So that's why you were mad at me at the mansion. It makes sense now." She then straightens up, looks at Craft and nods to him. "Yeah. First improv anything." A pause, then "Cool sword." Whatever else she might want to say about magic swords pulled out of nowhere, she leaves for now.

She takes a deep breath, lets go. "Okay. First .. is that Dave doing it? And second ... how do I stop him from hijacking me? More of the Labyrinth 'you have no power over me' stuff?"

"Oh. And I get to have a major freakout once the emergency is over. Everyone cool with that? Cause if you're not, it don't matter. Still freaking out."