cousinsindozens | For unfavorableinvestigation

Sissel had witnessed a mugging - a man grabbing a woman from behind, knife to her throat, and demanding her purse...and maybe something more - and wanted to try to help. So he'd quickly found a hiding place close by for his body, his shell, laid down and hopped out, ghost-trick jumping objects until he'd reached the attacker's clothes. He'd been afraid that if he approached physically, the man would have hurt the woman, even killed her, so he'd opted for a much more subtle approach. The man had been in formal business attire (a ruse, maybe, as he certainly wasn't acting like a normal businessman). Sissel possessed his tie, causing the fabric to cling and inch on itself, tightening the loop around the man's throat. Predictably, he panicked and the woman took advantage of his distraction to escape.

Her trouble was over, but that's when Sissel's began.

The man took off running the other way and down the street, continually just out of reach of buildings or lampposts or trash cans or anything Sissel could have used to get off his charging carrier and back to his body. Then the man got into a car and drove . . . even farther away.

It took many long, frustrating hours - night had ended, dawn had broken, and the sun was now high in the sky - before Sissel made it back into the neighborhood. Now to find or make a path back to his body.

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For Nita, it wasn't all that unaverage a day - school was in session, but fortunately it was a half-day. She was heading home for the afternoon when something struck her as wrong, which made her speed up in the direction of her gut instinct.

She found the cat's body lying unnaturally still, and immediately jumped into action.

First plan? Scan for vitals. Was he breathing? In stasis? Was it a rather realistic imaging? If he was just sleeping, she didn't want to disturb him, but what if someone had stepped on him while he'd been out in the open?

((...if she's using magic to "scan" him, she'll know the cat's not alive...but definitely not dead either...the closest she'll get is "stasis" but even that won't feel right. She might also sense that there's a strange...energy...around the body, something she's never encountered before.))

The little black cat looked maybe six to eight months old, in that awkward stage between kitten and adult. He would seem to belong to someone, as he had a bright red scarf on. He looked comfortably sleeping, but he wasn't moving at all - not even the chest to indicate breathing.

Sissel was . . . well, not tired - ghosts didn't get tired - but cranky and mentally exhausted by the time he finally hopped a cab going in the direction he needed, settled into the core of the rear bumper. Most street drains had cores, so he was watching for the one closest to where he'd left his shell. Finally, it came into view and Sissel concentrated. He had to time it just right to shift into the Ghost World as soon as the cab got close enough but not past it too far. Missing that window could mean another few hours of trying to get back around to this point. The tire passed over the spot, Sissel shifted to the Ghost World, hopped from bumper to grate, shifted back to the Living World, and gave the cab a grin as it continued on its merry way. Thanks for the lift, buddy!

Turning his attention to his surroundings, he frowned to himself as he realized he couldn't see over the top edge of the curb - he was, of course, down at the street level. He shifted once more to the Ghost World and found two cores within reach, an old candy wrapper in the gutter at his current level and the base of the street light up on the sidewalk. He hopped to the base, then looked around again. Oh . . . well, damn, that could complicate things a bit.

Last night, Sissel had thought he'd left his shell in a really good hiding spot - under a bicycle someone had tossed a small tarp over and chained to a wrought-iron fence. Said bike was apparently now in use, as it'd disappeared, taking the tarp with it. And now a teenager was examining his body.

Uh...at least her backpack provided a core he could reach between the base and his shell?

"Indeterminate, huh?" Nita muttered, reading the scan results out from her Manual.

Never a good sign when someone was Indeterminate - especially when their physical form was right there. Hopefully the cat wasn't soulsplit, or something equally dire.

Both her backpack and her Manual would give off usable "core" readings, though the Manual itself wasn't exactly inanimate. If Sissel went for that, it might complain, or at least alert Nita to his presence.

((ooc: ...more like The Internet in book form, with an auto-search engine that's always on and where data is just magically added as needed, automatically and instantly. But it's not sentient in itself any more than, say, Google or Bing are...??))

The Manual wasn't inanimate, but it wasn't exactly sentient, not really, and certainly not alive. Meaning its core was a usable one for Sissel in regards to how his ghost tricks worked. And since he'd been learning to read, well . . . a book was far more potentially interesting than a backpack. The girl herself didn't have a core - why would she? ~~Well, unless she'd died before and been brought back, and she remembered it, and it'd been by someone with ghost tricks...okay, best to just stop~~ - so she wouldn't sense him, so there was nothing to worry about as far as being 'caught'.

He'd stop long enough to see what she was reading, then continue through to his body. Though that still left the question of how to get his body away from her without raising suspicions...

((OH! OH OH OH I just thought of something . . . the Manual adds information on something that's encountered automatically, right? Does it matter how obscure that information is? I just realized she might learn a bit more about the cat's body after all. It's not something she'd /sense/, but if it's the Manual she's using, and data just gets auto-added, there might be something. Hit me up on Plurk tomorrow? Since you're probably already in bed by now...))

[While sentience would be debatable, there was a reaction - and, Nita being who she is and knowing certain personalities - she got two of them.]

/We've got a re-embodying in process, here./ the peridexis spoke up, seemingly spontaneously.

"Gah!" Nita said, jolting in surprise and almost losing her balance despite her low center of gravity at the moment.

She had the sneaking suspicion her Manual had just added a new chapter to her available material. For now, though, she checked on the cat's breathing again.

Was this something done on purpose? Nita asked Bobo - meaning at least some of her attention was off Sissel.

Spontaneously and, for all intents and purposes, silently, as only a Wizard would hear it.

Sissel hopped to the book and the young woman jumped in surprise, causing the ghost to 'jump' as well with his own silent cry of Gah!

What just happened!? Had she sensed him after all?

Figuring it best to beat a hasty retreat, Sissel hopped to his body, stirring to yawn widely and stretch as if just waking from a leisurely nap.

Edited 2018-04-03 17:08 (UTC)

When the cat started moving again, Nita breathed a sigh of relief - only to catch the results of the scan.

"Good you're... all... right?"

/Apparently the spirit is the only thing animating the body,/ Bobo pointed out. Not that Nita found it helpful in the moment.

"Are you all right? That didn't seem like a planned catnap, if you ask me- I mean," she cleared her throat, "I am on errantry, and I greet you."

She'd talk to Sissel in the Speech for now - just to be sure she didn't miscommunicate. That, and there was suddenly a lot for her to read.

Because I think I just got put on assignment.

Edited (She wouldn't have left that line out!) 2018-04-03 23:47 (UTC)

For unfavorableinvestigation

What's Nita going to be able to pick up, vitals-wise?

No vitals, but...

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Let me know if I got this wrong - I seem to remember the Manual is...

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