Otherworld Lullaby

[sahoni]

Lang pushed the hair back from his eyes. as he confidently strolled into the building, wood creaking underneath his scuffed up skate shoes. "What do we have here?" Lang asked in a rhetorical statement, walking backwards into the dark building, the only light available what came through the cracks of the boarded up windows, filling the room with tall shadows and criss-crossing beams of light. "A few tables to the sides and back, but plenty of floor space. A big grand stage!" Lang says, throwing up his arms in a grandiose manner. "Well it use to be..." he amended, scratching at his head "What do you think this place use to be? A night club? Chairs aren't right for a community theater. I'm banking on an old nightclub." he said, pronouncing old without the d.

Before Lang could get an answer, he wandered farther in, peering over a counter of an abandoned dusty bar. "But what is it now?" he probed further. "That's an important question as well. Might even be more important. Tell me, what do you feel?" he asks, feeling his feet lifted up and off the floor as he dug behind the counter deeper. "Do you feel an electric tingle on the back of your neck? The feeling of someone watching you? A certain emotion?" Lang prodded letting his eyes rest and return to their normal state. Without his other form it could be taxing to keep that up, both mentally and physically. It could be hard to filter out and concentrate on just what he needed.

"Now in an old building like this, That would be many things, toxic fumes or mold allergies for example. We can discount that one I think. Neither of use have been here long enough for something like that to really be effecting us." Lang reasoned, completely disappearing behind the counter with a clumsy thump. "EMF poisoning might be a factor, there was a big transformer near the building and I doubt the wiring in a building like this has aged well, if it was even any good to begin with." He said, finally peaking his head out "Found it! The Lotus Club." Lang said slapping down an old promotional matchbook, the kind they probably had sitting about in little bowls when this place was still running. "That sounds familiar...Can't place where I heard it though."

[Silv]

Robin followed Lang into the decaying building, his eyes following the path of light laid forth by the beam he'd just pulled from his belt.. The other boy seemed to be in his element here. He watched as Lang wandered around the old room and deduced certain things about the room. A ghost of a smile flitted across Robin's face. It would be kind of fun to have someone else on the team who understood how to solve a mystery with the same dark finesse Gotham's underworld required.

"Probably, yeah," Robin agreed with Lang's assessment. The Boy Wonder nodded and considered the area they had just gone through. "It's been closed for awhile, long before I came to Jump, so it's pretty old. That stage looks big enough for a band." Fifty years ago there might have even been couples dancing where he and Lang were standing. Now it was just dust motes and a pair of teenage boys to liven up the place.

But what was it now?

"What?" They'd apparently gone from breaking and entering to psychotherapy at a pace the Boy Wonder wasn't exactly sure how to follow. "Uhh..." he managed. What did he feel? Confusion. Yup, confusion and some discomfort at breaking into a place that'd been locked up with no real good reason. Lang supplied some other things he might have been feeling, but Robin simply narrowed his masked eyes at the other teen. "No?"

To Robin, who knew the perils of sneaking around old abandoned buildings, none of what Lang was suggesting was new. Mold was all over Gotham. So were toxic fumes. What he didn't understand was what they had to do with them being here. Was Lang some sort of magic building inspector too? Because if he pulled out some fire codes Robin was so pulling out his communicator and praying for crime somewhere else.

When Lang popped up with a matchbook that had the name of the club written on it Robin glanced at it before blinking up at the other teen.  He'd never heard of it. No crimes had occurred there recently, which made sense as it was abandoned, so it wasn't exactly on his radar.  "I don't know," the kid admitted with a shrug.  "We can do some research. I have my comm."

TAG: sahoni

[sahoni]

Lang pulled himself up back onto the bar as a seat and just closed his eyes, letting them relax after the strain he put them under. "I'm asking because I think this place is haunted. You can just feel it. It's just something instinctual. Most humans have the ability, but never hone or pay attention to it. Just trying to eliminate alternate possibilities first though." Not that he really had to. Not with what his eyes had seen under the lingering emotional imprints of dance, drink, and music. There was something that left a dark stain on the place, he couldn't quite make it out the specifics, but it was there.

"Ghost, well what most people think of as ghost, can generally be split into three general categories." Lang lectured. "The first is generally the most harmless. Residual type haunts are psychic imprints left over from people or events. Generally something happened that left a mark, something that would cause strong emotions. Most of the time it's just playing an event over and over again like a vhs tape that automatically rewinds." he said, gesturing a finger in a counterclockwise motion. "But sometimes it's something more. There are reports of whole buildings looking and feeling like they did ages before. People able to walk down halls that don't exist anymore. I've even heard of whole buildings. Sometimes they call on specific anniversaries, sometimes they can be triggered by certain circumstances. Light a candle here, a woman with red hair stays here, someone is angry... there is no real pattern I can find outside of it has something to do with the circumstances of the imprint. Fun fact: there seems to be a higher occurrence of these in areas with high quartz deposits...but that seems irrelevant and I'm rambling." he said, stopping himself before he got too off track.

"The second are I guess what you could call true ghost." Lang said in a thoughtful inflection. "These are spirits of people that died and are trapped and tied to the earth due to unfinished business, anger, being cursed, or sometimes just plain confusion. It's not a pleasant existence more times than not."

"Point is these are things that use to be human and have an intelligence of their own at least to some extent. Powers and means of manifestation can vary greatly but are usually tied to their deaths and personalities. There is good and there is bad, just like people. Simple enough to get, but I guess the complications in there comes from the details" he continued, ruffling his hands through his hair.

"The third is stuff that was never human to begin with. Well, living, ghost cows and dogs and all that. Inhuman spiritual beings. Nature spirits, wraiths, some forms of fae, angels, demons, ect. It's kinda cheating to lump them all together like that, but it really does help." Lang clarified "This list naturally isn't including stuff like artificially created poltergeist, nexus points, living curses, and things that use to be human... But if someplace is haunted, chances are you have one of this or a mix of them. And if this place is indeed haunted, I want to find out by what."

[Silv]

Most of the specters Robin bothered hunting weren't actual ghosts and so his experience was somewhat limited. It didn't seem like they were up against Gentlemen Ghost, though. Actually, the Titan leader had no idea what they were up against. He listened to the lecture on ghosts, nodding that he understood, before asking: "Is it illegal to haunt places in the magic...realm or whatever?" the Boy Wonder wondered if it counted as some bizarre sort of breaking and entering. "If it's not going to hurt anybody, if there is a ghost, then it's outside of our jurisdiction." Not that the Titans technically had a jurisdiction being vigilantes outside the law.

TAG: sahoni