Chapter 54 Judging and community home for ghosts

five months in and Van has been having a lot more fun learning about necromancy than he first thought. The many different applications and uses of necromancy, not to mention the noble nature of helping lost souls find the path to whatever afterlife awaits them, spoke to him on a level he wasn’t even aware of.

He always knew he had a soft spot for helping people in need, and what better way to scratch that itch of helping people than those who are dead and don’t want to be anymore? Even better, like most people, and even vampires, ghosts and spirits are something most would fear, even if it's just on an instinctual level. While he was somewhat still afraid of ghosts, and for that matter true undead, he has gotten better at dealing with it. And like when he had to take a more professional mindset when he was in the lovers guild, he did the same when he dealt with things that were now not of this world. Allowing him to, while still a little afraid, do his job in taking care of ghosts and seeing them on their way.

He also learned practical skills like exorcism and ways to banish ghosts and spirits as well. Skills to raise the undead, and skills to nullify any magic that might make them move. Unlike in the lovers guild where they run you through a three-month program. The necromancers guild just taught you until you have learned everything you needed to know, up to a certain point, or until you decided it's not for you and left.

Van had been making pretty good time learning all the first stage curriculum. Surprising his teachers with his ability to learn and retain information. At the rate he was going, he would finish the first stage of learning within the next few months.

With that in mind, they had allowed him to sit in on more judge sessions so that he would get a better idea of how it was done. With testing afterward about what he had seen. Followed by some more training and after that would be the final test, where he would go through a haunted house.

Which didn’t seem really scary to him at this point, only weird, but there was probably a catch. Either way, Van turned his attention back to the courtroom to hear what was being said.

“I know we said we’d love each other forever, but this is ridiculous!” a ghostly male said.

“You don’t love me like you used to! We hardly touch anymore, or hug, or sleep together! Now all you want to do is study!” A ghostly woman yelled back.

“We can’t touch each other because we are ghosts! I can hardly flip a page on a book without tiring myself out!” the ghost male yelled back then giving a defeated sigh. “Look, I’m trying to help us be together. But it’s not that easy. We could wait until we become a little more powerful, or we figure out how to properly materialize ourselves without having to use a circle.” he finished, pointing at the circle they were floating above right now.

“Excuses!”

“It's not!”

“Order!” the judge finally shouted, banging his gavel. The judge looked very tired, with several dark circles under her eyes as if she had been through this numerous times before. “What is it this time Mr. and Ms. Melton,” she said in a long-suffering tone of voice.

After that was a bunch of yelling back and forth, but Van was able to get the gist of what was going on. It turned out the two ghosts died in their old home, a very old home. One of the support beams somehow avoided inspection for too long and the top roof collapsed on top of them. The male was some sort of professor or tutor with a side job of working spell paper for mages or perhaps that was his main job, and the woman was a housewife who tended a garden that helped feed them and grow herbs that could be sold and turned into useful potions. She would also do odd jobs from time to time.

They were a largely self-sufficient family that loved each other dearly. There was only one problem. Once they died, they also lost most of their stuff, and they were stuck haunting the same spot unless removed with the help of a spirit caller. Their financial outlook was grim, to say the least, on top of the fact that they had great difficulty touching things without expanding themselves. once more, the wife was extremely sexually active, and the husband was always willing to go around. But now that they have difficulty touching each other, or for that matter, touching anything, and they can’t enjoy vacations or explore out of their limited range. Their stress slowly went up the roof with no outlet, which makes them ready to blow at any given notice or for any reason.

Which is why they were sometimes forcefully dragged here to be put in front of a judge. Their fights, while not doing much on a physical level, on a spiritual level can harm people who walk too close to the house that they thankfully still own, in no small part thanks to the fact they were able to save up enough money to buy the house outright before dying.

One wants to learn as much about being a ghost as possible, or save enough money to order a man-made body from the necromancers guild, and the other just wants to be paid attention to again.

Either way, the judge seemed to have been through this many times before and just waited for the eventual makeup before dismissing them with a sigh of relief. Which turned immediately sour as the next ghosts came in and began arguing.

“It's 42!”

“NO, it's 4!”

“You would be right, if it wasn’t for the fact you were missing the 2!”

And back and forth they went. Apparently, these were two ghosts who were huge math nerds with two much time on their hands. And using that time, they decided to figure out the equations of anything and everything they can math at. Until one day, some brat asked if they could know what was the meaning of life in number form.

At first, it went fine. Until a little later, when they both reached completely different conclusions.

“The meaning of life is 4! It's so obvious!”

“And yet my math shows that the number four has more to do with death than life! So there's no way that could be the meaning of life!”

“Same thing! That just goes to prove me right! All things die, therefore the meaning of life is four!”

And back and forth they went, then things got really weird when they pulled out their protractors and started to do some sort of math where they challenged each other to answer the same math equation with the first getting it right winning. Doing it right on the floor in front of the judge and the courtroom.

The judge had to order the bailiff to remove them, then ordered them to be kept separate for the next few days.

After them came a woman with a flamboyant outfit with a sour face and a bitchy attitude.

“What are you fools doing! I paid a highly-skilled spirit caller to see me off to the afterlife! But I’m still here! I want my money back and I demand to see your manager!” the woman shouted.

“We are very sorry for the inconvenience, but it seems your spirit holds some lingering attachments still to this world.” the judge began. “We know you asked, in case of your death, to have someone make sure your transition was smooth. But there is only so much we can do. And our head spirit caller is still out, so if you just wait a few days for your exorcism-”

“Screw that! If not your head spirit caller then your head judge! Or necromancer! I demand customer satisfaction! This isn’t like Baloes or any of those other barbaric nations who treat their dead poorly. This is Alcray! And I demand to be paid the respects that I as a member of the dead are due!”

She then continued for the next half hour, much to the distress of the judge, even going as far to pull out a receipt to show them what was promised to her. Only for it to be the wrong one...

After much bitching and moaning about the system, they were finally able to convince her to leave for the moment, much to everyone's relief.

Then their final ghost of the day came in. covered in ghostly chains and followed by two ghostly guards in armor and a spirit caller. The rough-looking women stood before the judge and the courtroom was filled with a new set of people.

“Well, well, well, look what we have here. After all this time, we have finally caught you.” the judge said, narrowing her eyes and glaring daggers at the chained women before her. “Four counts of rape and seven murders. You then tried to suicide yourself after finally being caught. Thankfully a spirit caller was nearby, and before your spirit had a chance to move on to the other side or go dark. You were caught and now will face the judgment you tried to avoid in life.”

Going dark was a term for when spirits or ghosts started to go bad. It was usually followed by their incorporeal form gaining a negative energy trait and them becoming more vicious and dangerous. What's worse, is this new negative energy trait of theirs was like a form of corruption that could spread to others slowly if not dealt with in time. Thought it could also be resisted.

The judge then recited a bunch of other major and minor crimes that the chained woman did, going into detail about what she did to her victims. After she was done, she gave the chained women a chance to defend herself or if she wanted, to ask for someone to do so on her behalf. The women-only remained silent and refused to answer.

After a bout of silence. The judge sentenced her to fifty years in the black prison, where she would be periodically drained of some of her spiritual essences for use by the spirit callers and necromancers. Afterward, she will be forcefully exorcised without rites that would ease her passing.

Once that was done, Van left for the day. Realizing that, while sometimes funny and silly, some of the ghosts coming to a judge may be. It could also be very serious. Giving him a newfound respect for a judges and spirit callers job.

After that, he went to do his tasks. Which had him go to some form of housing complex filled with ghosts. There were also entire complexes where they stored spirits in their ashes and urns. Rows upon rows of them. And it was his job to clean those urns, then go help the spirits that still had their ghostly forms in small apartments like homes. Reminding him more of those community homes for the old.

There he sat with experts to learn how to deal with ghosts that have a hard time dealing with being dead. Watching as one such counselor helped a ghostly child with many burn marks on her body, and another who had fallen and died. It used to be that their still-living family would come by to pay them a visit every few months. But that was fifty years ago.

Their task was to help make their ghostly life as comfortable as possible. And it wasn’t just ghosts either, there were a few skeletons and zombies like undead, who still had their souls. No offense to the zombies, he preferred not to get too close to them. They were a little too much like true undead for his liking.

Van learned dutifully how to talk to ghosts and hear them out. And while he would still feel goosebumps from time to time doing so, they thankfully lessened over time as he got used to them and his tasks. Again he felt great respect for the spirit callers and the other staff that put a lot of energy and time to help these spirits.

It was during his time here that he found someone he was not expecting to find. A person who had died during the attack by the Vrankarra’s all those years ago. During their talking, they sat down on a couch, one that had a nice few of the cemetery, and would give them some privacy. Or at least he did while she pretended to, or perhaps this was one of the few pieces of furniture that were enchanted to allow ghosts and the such to interact with. it was then that Van found out that the ghost actually knew Kella.

“You know Kella?” he asked the ghost.

“Know her? I worked under her! When those blasted Vrankarras attacked, me and a few others were ordered to hold the line while the citizens made their escape! Poor Kella though, she wanted to stay behind and fight too. But the commander ordered her to escape. Must have been tough for her.” the ghostly woman said.

Van asked many more questions then, pertaining to the fall of the city and castle. Finding out that many more people had died than he first realized. That at the time, Kella was a knight in training who was deemed to have great potential. Though she was known to be a little single-minded and hard-headed from time to time.

He learned a lot about what the city was like before the attack, even learning about his father's sister.

“Oh, she was an amazing woman. Strong, smart, beautiful, she could do it all. Whenever it looked like the Vrankarras were going to make a breakthrough, she would rush the lines and push them back! It wouldn’t be a joke to say that she single-handedly at times changed the course of the battle. Many skilled and powerful warriors fell to her blade. And she wasn’t even a fighter! She was more trained for governing than warfare. But then again, she always had to be better than her brother, she was always trying to be someone he could look up to. No matter how much work that put her through.” the ghostly ghoul then got misty eyed just thinking about her and the past.

She then started to talk about Vanessa, Alvaroz’s older sister, for the next few hours. Singing her praises and reciting all her accomplishments. Van could only stare in wrapped attention, listening to her every word.

On and on she went. Talking about her skill in the sword and bow, her expertise in shadow magic, her ability to command troops, and the happiness she brought the people with some reforms and suggestions to her parents on how to better govern the city and its inhabitants.

Van would ask questions every now and then, about Vanessa and even of his grandparents. How it turned out that Vanessa had a zapper familiar of her own, or that she also loved remshola very much. It being her favorite drink. How the man would fall for her at first sight. How she had the trust of her people and the praise of her tutors.

“She was a very amazing woman…” the ghostly ghoul sighed wistfully. After she was finished singing Vanessa praises, and in some small part, his grandparents as well.

Van sat back to absorb everything that had been said. It was then, after much thinking, he realized that there were still many questions he wanted to ask, but one of them was what happened to Kella’s lover. So he asked.

“Oh my…” the ghostly ghoul slowly began to smile. “Are you Kella’s new lover!” She then did a little dance and made some noise of excitement. “Oh I knew she would be able to find herself another male!”

“Well… were not exactly lovers… I just want to know what happened to him.” Van then told her what little he knew about the situation.

“Ya… that sounds about right. Poor, poor, Kella.” she then went into what happened to Kella’s lover. It turning out that he stayed behind to help some people escape, but an explosion made one of the ceilings cave in. he was able to make himself crawl out, but he was greatly wounded, that was when some Vrankarra soldier found him and ended his life right then and there when they realized it would be to much of a hassle to take him, prisoner.

“I see…” Van said dejectedly “I'm sorry to hear that.”

The ghostly ghoul shrugged. “It's war, it's what happens.

It was silent between them for a while, but then the ghoul spoke up again.

“You know… it was nice to talk about the past again. Even if it hurt a little.” she then looked to Van, “And you are so much like Vanessa, your father must be proud.” indicating that she knew or figured out who he was. “Not to mention Kella finally found herself a new lover… everyone has moved on… it seems for the better...” her expression turning downcast.

She then started to act strangely, almost as if she was drunk. “You… can really surpass Vanessa… I know you can…” her words started to slur. “It was so fun… talking about the past…” her expression turning wistful. “I hope we can do it again someday…” slowly she began to fade until finally she disappeared and a floating ball of spiritual energy was left in her place. The ball slowly moved towards and entered Van, and a feeling of warmth soon followed.

Van just sat there, his mind completely stopped, as it slowly dawned on him what just happened. Wishing he could have asked a few more questions and wishing he never had.