Roxanne walked to her room with Hector in tow. Despite her nervousness, she still seemed content with the cards she had been dealt. As a little prank, Roxanne took off her cloak and asked Hector to hold it for her; once he did, she entered her room by walking through the door without opening it. Hector was left there to puzzle over what just had happened while Roxanne unlocked the door from the inside and then opened it for her. "Make yourself at home Hector; knowing Victor, this is gonna take a while."
Once inside, Roxanne looked around her room humming a tune while Hector did his thing. She went to her desk where little jim was at. "I am going to need something to water him. Wonder if anyone around the farm has a pail...", Roxanne thought to herself. For now she made sure the curtains of her window were open so that jim got enough sunlight as she poked him to get a reaction out of the plant. It wiggled and open his mouth in a fashion similar to a yawn; Roxanne chuckled at the sight. "And to think you are part of Catnip’s year long ordeal..."
It was Hector who interrupted Roxanne’s train of thought. She turned her attention to him as he asked his question. "It’s a long and complicated story but like I said, we have time so sit down and prepare for a story." And a story he got. Roxanne explained how a seemingly normal trip turned south; about how the cave was empty and the one man who not only broke her monomolecular sword. She explained how she died; how Victor claimed her back from the abyssal canyon and then sealed her in the sword. Last bit was about how now she has to pick a wielder and how that defaulted to Victor due to the sword choosing him back when Randael was a thing.
"And that is how we find ourselves right now. I am now a spirit trapped in this sword, I have to find someone to wield it and now we are waiting on the ritual that would stabilize me. You know, the one we were supposed to do if the people in the cave were still among us." She paused for a moment to let Hector process what she just told her. Roxanne herself had a few questions but none that Hector could answer. "Now, you may be wondering what I did at first; why didn’t Victor use some sort of magic to just heal me up? Well, to put it in terms someone not into the arcane might understand: my bloodline in this world was cursed. The shifting allowed said curse to afflict me and apparently what Victor did ended it. I am not the only one who had it but apparently I was the last one. One questions still lingers: I wonder wh-"
Before Roxanne could finish her thoughts, Victor barges into the room and gives a deep sigh. His expression is showing obvious annoyance at something. "Sorry for taking so long, a little hip up came up...Am I interrupting something.", Victor asks.
"We will talk later Hector, we have things to do.", Roxanne said before looking at Victor, "Not really, just explaining to Hector what happened but I pretty much told him everything."
"Very good, saves us time. By the way Roxanne, I need you to teach me how to play Pensive properly later on.", Victor said in response.
"Sure, finally tired of losing to me after all this time?"
"No, I might have ended up promising someone to play Pensive with them. I’ll explain later; for now, ritual." He stepped into the room and walked towards the altar. Once he got there, he took out two books; one looked liked a simple composition notebook and the other was a highly decorated leather bound book. Victor opened both the books and glance at them.
"So, there are three ways for us to do this. Let me see… No wait, Roxanne doesn’t have body anymore… So only two." After a bit more of reading, Victor glanced at Roxanne and then Hector before smirking and going back to reading the books. "Nevermind, there is only one way. We only need Roxanne to step in front of the beacon. As for you Hector, just stay where you are for now and observe; hopefully it might answer some of your questions." Right after he said this, Victor closed the books and turned back to Roxanne; he did a motion for Roxanne to get into position as he got into his.
"Haven’t done this in a while so please bear with me… This is why I wanted them to do it but no used in crying over spilled milk… Alright, let us begin.", Victor announced. Afterwards, the ritual began. It was a straightforward ordeal but with a few quirks. Roxanne stood near the altar next to Victor and in front of some structure made out of some sort of chandelier with various candles. Victor chanted something while Roxanne smiled and closed her eyes. The sword of the void, now back on the bed, glow a bright purple before shifting to white and then back to purple. Roxanne grunted a bit in discomfort but that only lasted a few seconds, her eyes remained closed during the whole ordeal. That’s when the voices started.
“Imposter”
“Intruder”
“You do not belong here…”
“Leave us alone!”
“Burn the witch! Set her sins ablaze!”
“Why do you struggle? It will all end eventually...and yours was already claimed.”
“No matter the path, you always chose the path to ruin…”
“I wonder what Helios would think of this...her student was naught but a failure…”
“Mark walks among us...he wanted so much more…”
The voice kept taunting Roxanne. They poked at her insecurities and she was visibly distressed. Victor and Hector both shared her memories so they would know what most of this voices were referring to. Victor kept his calm as to not allow the voices to become more than that; the ritual was almost over anyways.
"That’s enough!", Roxanne yelled. She could not take the taunting; in the middle of it, she had opened her eyes and before yelling. The voices had now stopped but the ritual had been rendered null. Victor gave a deep sigh of disappointment but said nothing as he could understand why she did so. "Damn it all… who the hell do they think they are...", Roxanne exclaimed while panting in frustration. "I need to relax… Where is my oil."
Roxanne put on her cloak to become corporeal once more and then went to the drawer on the nightstand next to her bed and took out the little jar of her “ceremonial oil”. She began to resume the humming of her little tune to calm her nerves as she applied the oil on her forearms. "Are you really doing this right now?", aske Victor in disbelief.
"What? This is my room after all. Besides, it’s not like either of you haven’t seen me do it before. Tin can over here even joined me once; so back off yo- wait..." A realisation came to Roxanne in that moment, "Victor...how will me being this ‘cursed spirit’ thing affect my indulgence of recreational substances?"
"You mean getting high Roxanne, say it like is at least. Anyways, that is a good question. You no longer have any nerves or even a nervous system for that matter. I wonder how stimuli would work for you… Maybe with some experimentation we could find out of..." as Victor was saying this, he glanced at Hector and then he stopped himself. "Ahem, not that I would experiment you or anything… So to answer you question: we don’t know as of right now. No-one seems to have bothered documentation what happens after one becomes a cursed spirit; only how to become one. We are going to have to wait and find out."
"Greaaaaat, so there is a possibility I won’t be able to get high either now...unless...for now I will wait it out.", Roxanne responded. Meanwhile, Victor looked throughout the new book he had gotten; the “Trinity Coded” as him and Blackjack had referred to it. On a specific page, Victor had found something interesting that might help Roxanne in case drugs no longer worked on her; he would just need to borrow some ideas from the ‘red coffee’ ritual.
"Well, if you ever need any help with dealing with being a spirit, you know where to find me...I know this is technically my fault...", after saying the last bit, he looked at Hector once more to make sure everything was still fine, "But I know how to help at least. For now since the ritual is a bust, I will take my leave. Oh, one last thing before I leave… You no longer have your mutations or bionics so I would seriously recommend you get some sort of formal training with traditional weaponry; I know that is quite the statement coming from me. Still, pick up a gun and fire it a couple times and practice with that sword. I can teach you what I know since I wielded it for so long but that would only get you so far. With that being said, see you two later."
Victor grabbed his books and walked towards the door, opened it and then exited the room. Roxanne and Hector were left there with the former both annoyed and confused. "What a day this has been… It’s at least high afternoon; not like I can sleep anymore. Oh well, I guess I will play the waiting game now.", Roxanne said mostly to herself but loud enough for Hector to hear.