Vigo the Ghost

Torlin cautiously entered the house, trying in vain to move silently, but every floor board creaked and cracked under his weight.  He pulled his holy symbol, a round medallion carved in wood in the shape of the holy stallion, from his beige and tan robes.  He wiped the sweat from his bald head with his sleeve.  He struggled a moment, caught off guard by the spider’s webs he’d just walked into.  The moan filled the hallway once again, prompting Torlin to duck in fear.

“Why does this have to be me?” muttered Torlin to himself again, “I’m a chapel steward, for Murchin sakes.”  Torlin tightened his grip on the mace, a wholly unfamiliar tool to him.

The voice was deathly quiet now, and Torlin crept forward, trying to straighten his back and think of all the words of the Murchin Tapestry.  Run courageously into battle with the enemy, take heart for I am all around you, all those sorts of lines that were meant to make men feel better in the direst of times.  The priest turned into an old wooden doorway, and peered in.  The entire contents of the room ahead, the furniture, rugs, spittoons, dishes, and dust were all drifting aimlessly around in circular orbits, lazily floating about one central point of light in the room.  The color dropped clean out of Torlin’s face, and he silently screamed for more of those lines.  Please, Murchin, they don’t come any more dire!

Quaking in the knees, gripping tighter than ever on the wood medallion tied to his neck, Torlin stepped through the doorway.  He stepped momentarily on a worn out floorboard in the doorway, and the loud creak resonated.  The light did not itself respond, but every object floating about the room speed up for a heart wrenching second.  Torlin stopped there, watching the fillings of this room.  Afraid to move, to breath.

The light, formerly an indistinguishable white blob, opened a formerly hidden mouth, and sighed.  The whole room seemed to shake with the moan that it poured out, and Torlin’s feet failed him.  He dropped back to his arse, and dropped the holy symbol to fall slack on his chest.  He shut his eyes and winced, momentarily focused on the pain of a leg pinched under him.  Then he opened his eyes again, finding a sheer white face filling his entire view.

“Hi-ih!” Said Vigo the ghost, trying to be friendly. “What are you doing in my room?”

Torlin’s eyes bulged, as he fainted clean away.