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((Ghosters are not demons. A Ghoster is one of the few purely hereditary Council groups.))

The Ghoster looked Fyrin in the eyes.

"You don't get it, do you?" he said with a sneer. "You are all nothing. Lieutenants of Councilors. Agents of Councilors. But you represent trash. You hold the banners - or rather, conceal the banners, since the Blademaster would kill us all for what we're doing... anyway. You are the best of the best of the weakest, most tenuously held and most often changed seats in the Council of 27. Three Ghoster trainees could mop the floor with everyone in here. I've stopped demons from being Councilors. The only reason your kind is here is because we can't let it get out that it was us or the Blademaster will enforce his infighting bans."

"So what if we walk out? What then?" another demon spoke up. Only after he said it did he realize what he had done. "I... please, don't kill me with the knife!" he begged. He knew better than to ask a Ghoster to let him live.

"Well, since you asked nicely and debased yourself," the Ghoster replied. He snapped the knife of the Silence out at the demon who had just spoken without moving towards him. A terrified scream - distinctly that of the recently-executed antler man - emanated as the purple essence of the Ghoster magic applied the essence of that soul to the next demon in line.

And imploded it.

Unspeakable quantities of energy were released and consumed by the implosion of the soul, and a haunting cry from the antlered one as it was exterminated from existence forever rapidly rose in pitch, passing beyond the audible frequency ranges of humans and demons in milliseconds. When the shock passed, the skin and insides of the other demon were gone, with no evidence of their having ever existed.

"I don't have room for you morons to d**k around. We are killing Legion. This is all that matters. We disembark soon. I'm going to round up a human for each of you to kill so we can ensure no Maskers are among us. Agreed." He ghosted again. The ripple hadn't finished traveling his body before he dropped out the bottom of the car.

"What an a*****e," a demon beside the now-profusely-bleeding body hissed. "And the ******** is a Masker?"

"Maskers take the form and powers of whatever they kill," a Shadow demon replied in a monotone. "If he has each of us kill a human, he can ensure any Masker among is is stripped of his powers when he kills the human. It's a basic precaution, really. I suppose you work for Harron if you haven't learned that yet."

Harron was the most recent demon to dethrone an opponent to take a Council seat.

((Yes. Our glorious task-force-leader is a total a*****e. biggrin ))

((I figure he can show up with a couple of NPC allies whom I will determine the nature of at a time I am less hungry whenever you feel like it. There'll probably still be a West Coast plotline running parallel to the East Coast one.

Also, yeah, anyone who's been here for a while and has posted regularly or at least fairly regularly [especially those in the opening group, but also others] can submit an idea for a second character, which will be refined with PMs and then entered, as with Joe and SirBayer.

Fyrin frowned behind his mask. Or at least attempted to. It was rather... difficult. This posed a challenge, however. Fyrin did not want to kill anyone, and he wasn't quite sure how to avoid murdering. Ideas swirled around in his head. Could he possibly...?

He arrived upon a plan. As soon as the Ghoster was distracted, Fyrin and his men would kill the victims. But they would not remain dead. Fyrin had one little necromantic trick up his sleeve; he could hold onto the soul and restore it to the body as soon as the proper opportunity presented itself. Whatever he did do, Fyrin did not want to irritate the Ghoster at the moment. He had come to the decision that he might be able to survive long enough to get away, but how long could he survive after that? Having lived so long, to have it quenched so soon, so close... it couldn't be afforded.

He'd just have to fake it.

((So... are Ghosters a commonly known type of creature, then?))

Siber thought about it for a moment. "I suppose I have time; sounds like two of our guys just met up again, but everyone's been drifting pretty randomly. I guess... yeah. If there are things you want to teach me, then there are things I want to learn."
Abruptly, screams crashed into his sensitive Ajna, screams that made him clench his teeth as he twitched and made Keldan laugh darkly.
Siber requested another data dump and got it, again having to blink multiple times as his brain digested the information.

Siber listened to the second scream with just a shudder.
The ancestor lapsed into silence and wouldn't speak further on the subject. Whether he was actually hiding legitimate information or whether he was just hiding some history of his own with one of the creatures was uncertain.

((Ghosters are an openly participating organization on the Council of 27 - when they 'ghost' they become unable to be harmed by very few things except for, to the knowledge of your warlocks, electricity, poisons that enter them before they can ghost, and the environment.
For instance, a Ghoster gets a tranquilizer dart in him. He ghosts, but falls unconscious and becomes tangible again. He's put in a room with jets of mundane fire, using something like oxygen and fuel jets to sustain them, with the fire going through the floor, walls, and ceiling. He is now unable to ghost out without being burned alive.
However, to be able to affect an intangible Ghoster fully you must use electricity or heat that is not assisted or guided by magic. Once Unreality is introduced to it, it becomes slightly out of phase with the three dimensions of Reality and the other planes of existence they partially shift to in their evasion, allowing greater deflection with greater amounts of magic applied.
Ghosters are probably in the top 4 of the most subtle working of the Council of 27, alongside the Maskers, cyNet3, and possibly the angels, who are either the most subtle or totally disinterested. In addition, Ghosters have an acute awareness of the kind of fear their knives of the Silence can inspire and use them to... great effect. One of the very few massive disadvantages of Ghosters is while ghosted, their inertia is maintained independently of pretty much anything smaller than planet-scale. Thus, if the van had turned, the Ghoster would've been dumped out the side of it. They can accelerate at ~1/3 m/s^2 and decelerate at ~2 m/s^2 on average. This makes turning while ghosted problematic at times))


((Devath: basically, it gives very specific instructions on how to pronounce every single distinguishably unique sound to get an exact result. Naturally, this will fall under 'this is what he just knows' stuff, but yeah... The words would seriously be a nonsensical mashup of words from languages alive, dead, and never-existing with incomprehensible symbols if it was attempted to actually have us write any of this. Their spellbooks are the results of years of research into every spell.))

Takeshi's muscles all simultaneously tightened. Through the weak but still-present link of his empathic power to Siber, he felt a sort of aftershock of the Demoniac's reaction to the demon's death. He shuddered from feeling it, only to lock onto a new nearby necromantic signature - a strong one.

"Somewhere in this city, very close to a necromancer of a great deal more skill than me, a demon's soul was just extinguished. It wasn't killed, it just was... was unmade." Takeshi shuddered again. "I need to figure out how to cut my empathic link..."

((The knives of the Silence are notable mainly because they're the only thing known to be able to interact with an out-of-phase Ghoster and things grounded in Reality. When the Ghoster is in phase with Reality (tangible, stabbable, etc.) the knife functions as a phase knife in being able to strike other out-of-phase things. Aside from that and the soul-boomboom thing, there's no difference between a mundane knife and a knife of the Silence. Siber's shield would keep the knife from delivering a powerful strike to him by repelling it - thus, he would have difficulty actually doing substantial damage with it until he can wear down the shield. Samuel's would do the same thing, essentially, but by dispersing the force of the blade. Samuel's learning a more elegant version of Helmsborough's decay-field shield that functions a little differently.))