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The Spook Shack are fighting in a Hollow. Everything appears to be going smoothly and the Spook Shack members: Lucia Elowen, Alice Thymefield, Yidhari Murphy, Manato Komano, and Yuzuha Ukinami are functioning as a well-oiled machine in combat so far. However, Lucia takes out her spellbook and opens it up and says “Now let’s really have some fun!”
Suddenly, more Ethereals start spawning because of the spellbook. Alice gasps. “Lucia! What are you doing?! Those are Ethereals! That’s dangerous!”
“But danger is what makes them so fascinating!” said Lucia as she studied the Ethereals as they fought them. I need to study these more later. Lucia thought as they cleared through the last of the Ethereals. Yidhari smashed the last one with her hammer. “There, that looks like the last of them. Good work, team. Let’s go back to the safehouse.” she said.
“A-are they gone?” asked Alice as she caught her breath. “Their battle formation was so... asymmetrical.” Lucia didn’t say anything and instead she was scribbling in her spellbook. Alice approached her and said “You need to be more careful, Lucia. Who knows what kind of unknown risks Ethereals bring?” She moved so she was blocking Lucia’s light. “Hey are you listening to me? I’m a princess of a wealthy family! I don’t deserve to have an unfair fight because of my own teammate!”
Lucia looked up at her and closed her spell book and said “Yeah, sure thing, Alice! Whatever you say! I have something I need to tend to! See ya!” and chuckled before she put her hood up and quickly ran away.
Alice stomped and grunted and said “Hrmph! Hey! You can’t just dismiss me like that!”
A few moments later, outside the safehouse, Lucia uses her spellbook to summon and study more Ethereals. As she sees the Ethereals show up, she describes them. She gasps and says “Spooky Knocwisp curtain...Choppy Axe... and... Lil’ Spider... What a unique lineup!” Suddenly there’s a much larger Ethereal who walks into the scene. She gasps again and says “Don’t tell me!” and she fell down on her rump and her hood came off, then her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hands and whimpered. Then she said “Avarus is here too...” excitedly. She scribbled down in her spellbook details about the Ethereals and muttered some things to herself with pure joy, until she realized the Ethereals were standing there waiting for a fight.
She turned to them and said “Huh? You guys... Do you wanna play with me?” as she tapped her fingers together timidly then looked at them with her green eyes and giggled. She dodged their attack and named off their moves like “Bully sweep!” and “Hoplitai Punch!”, and “Ahriman Spinning Dance!” which could rival Jim Ross’s play-by-play commentary. Then she crawled beside the arachnid-like Ethereal quickly and said “Lil’ Spider! Don’t be nervous-” then the Lil’ Spider turned around and looked like it was powering up, and launched itself at Lucia but she dodged out of the way and it hit another Ethereal instead.
When the larger Ethereal, called Avarus, powered up and bursted with a red mist, Lucia did an impression of a howling wolf and said “Awoo--!” then she said “Are you gonna roll at me? Right back at ya!” and did a forward roll at the Avarus while pronouncing its name like “Ah-- Var! Us!” then she did what appeared to be laughing on the ground, but that only made the Avarus mad. The Avarus jumped up into the air and started spinning and charging up, and Lucia said “Aaah!” with her hands together and made a dreamy expression, then said “Are you getting serious now?”
She got her mage staff and it was powered up, then she opened up her spellbook and said “Okay then... Time to meet some new friends!” and summoned an Ethereal to help her fight Avarus. Then they rolled at each other and there was a big explosion, which caused both of them to die with Lucia still standing. “Hey, Avar!” she said as she bowed at Avarus’s disintegrating carcass. “Sorry... it hit you a little too hard...”
Suddenly, someone flicked Lucia on the ear with her finger, which startled Lucia and she put her hood up. “Who’s there?” She said from under her hood. She looked and saw it was Yidhari. “Hari? What are you doing here?”
“You should be in the safehouse... What are you doing out here?” she said as she raised one of her tentacles.
“The safehouse is sooo boring!” protested Lucia. “I just came out to play with Avar--”
Suddenly, Yidhari’s tentacle wrapped around Lucia.
“Wait, no no no... I was conducting research on the ecological migration of the Miasma Ravager: Avarus!”
Yidhari’s tentacle loosened its grip, and as Lucia caught her breath, her stomach growled. “Oh...” winced Lucia as she felt her belly grumble. Yidhari’s grip on Lucia was loose but still there, then she put her hand on her chin and took her tentacle off of her.
“Hmm... I have a better idea. How about you and I go get something to eat? I know a place that makes great noodles.” proposed Yidhari.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea, Hari. I’m famished.” agreed Lucia.
“Let’s go then,” said Yidhari. They went to Waterfall Soup, the well-known noodle shop in New Eridu and to its location in Lumina Square. They ordered their bowls of noodles, and as they ate, they decided to chat. “You know, Lucia, I’ve noticed you’ve been real fond of Ethereals lately.” said Yidhari.
Lucia was slurping noodles as she was eating them with chopsticks, then she said “Uh huh.” She swallowed and said “What about it?”
“Well, Alice seemed pretty upset about it, and I just want to tell you that you’re not alone. I know what it’s like to be misunderstood too. I’m a squid Thiren. You don’t see one of us everyday. Well, you do but most people don’t.”
“So you don’t have a problem with me studying Ethereals?” asked Lucia.
“I don’t, but I also hope we can all understand each other in the Spook Shack... although, misunderstandings are bound to happen when we started off as an online forum,” said Yidhari. The two girls both ate the rest of their noodles.
Later that evening, Alice and Yuzuha were walking down an alleyway back at Waifei Peninsula. “So, Yuzuha, don’t you think it’s odd that Lucia summoned Ethereals in the Hollow, and she’s been obsessed with Ethereals ever since we met her?” asked Alice.
“What? Ethereals aren’t ghosts so what are you so scared of, hmm?” replied Yuzuha nonchalantly.
“It’s not that! I just, well, I don’t like Ethereals either.” said Alice. “They’re so lopsided and grotesque, and they can infect you, and--” A coyote whined and ran across the alleyway from a pile of trash, which started Alice so she gasped and hid beside Yuzuha. After a few seconds, Alice got up and they continued walking.
“That’s why it’s our job in the Hollow to fight them,” replied Yuzuha.
“Exactly, so why is Lucia summoning them from her spellbook?” asked Alice.
“She’s got a hobby, so what?” shrugged Yuzuha.
“Oh! You’re not taking this seriously! Mark my words, someone will get hurt because of Lucia!” she declared.
Eventually, everyone in the Spook Shack safehouse had settled down and went to bed. Lucia spent the night looking at her spellbook with a flashlight under the blanket until she fell asleep. Then in the morning, she got up and rubbed her eyes, then she was so excited she grabbed her spellbook and went back outside to experiment with Ethereals some more. “Let’s see if I can summon Avarus again!” said Lucia happily.
Then, lo and behold, Avarus marched back to Lucia. “Oh, ho ho! This is gonna be great! Are we gonna do some more rolling, Avarus?” Lucia didn’t realize it, but someone had stepped outside that got noticed by Avarus, and Avarus didn’t pay attention to Lucia for long as he had quickly jumped up and did a charging roll and launched at somebody and hit them. “Oh no, Avarus?!” gasped Lucia, slightly scared.
It was Manato. He had come out for his morning routine where he goes outside and takes out the trash while he made breakfast for everyone, and that’s why he was wearing a pink apron over his white shirt. Manato grunted and got knocked to the ground when he got hit in the torso by Avarus. Then he got up to his feet and took his apron off and said, “So that’s how you wanna do it?” Then he fired up and punched Avarus into oblivion.
When Avarus was destroyed and Manato caught his breath, Lucia ran up to him and said “Oh no! Oh no! I’m so sorry Manato! I can’t believe this happened!” She bent down and grabbed Manato’s apron and handed it back to him.
He took the apron from her roughly and put it back on, then he looked at her and said, “You need to be more careful,” in his deep and gravelly voice.
Suddenly, the rest of the Spook Shack members Alice, Yuzuha, and Yidhari came outside to see what the commotion was. Alice’s eyes widened and she gasped and exclaimed, “See! I told you someone would get hurt because of Lucia’s mischief! I told you!”
“I...” Lucia started.
Alice turned to Yuzuha. “Yuzuha! Ban Lucia from the Spook Shack at once.”
Yuzuha put her hands behind her head and thought about it for a moment, then said, “Lucia, you’re suspended from Spook Shack until further notice. I suppose that means you’ll need to leave the safehouse and stay someplace else in the meantime.”
“Wait, what? Leave? But... Where would I go?” asked Lucia.
Yidhari stepped forward. “There’s an abandoned cathedral northeast of here that I go to sometimes for the quiet and to read the old books there.” Yidhari moved closer to Lucia. “You can go there to find what you’re looking for for your research, and I’ll make sure you won’t be forgotten about, Lucia.”
Lucia gave Yidhari a small smile, then she turned to head down the path towards the old cathedral, but before she left she turned and made eye contact with Yidhari one last time then turned her head back around and walked to the cathedral with her staff and her spellbook. Along the path there was a field and some trees and landscape had a very early autumn feel to it since it’s October.
When she finally got to the cathedral, crows dispersed from the cathedral into the forest, and she looked up to the top because of how intimidating it looked. It was made of dark stone and looked like it might’ve been hundreds of years old. At the base there’s a moat surrounding the cathedral and a wooden bridge leading to the front entrance which looked surprisingly sturdy. This place looked like it was either a cathedral or a castle and had stained glass windows with various designs on them such as roses and vines. “This must be the place,” she said. She put her head back down and looked around at her surroundings as she walked across the bridge into the cathedral.
When she got up to the double doors, she turned the door knob and opened the door slowly as it creaked. Light shone into the room as the door widened, and Lucia’s shadow was visible on the floor as well. The place had on the main floor bookshelves on the left and right sides and had a bookshelf in the middle as well, and cobwebs were everywhere. And near the far wall there was a stage with a lectern in the front middle, and in the back to the right there’s an organ piano, and on the far wall itself there’s more stained glass with a design that had vines, roses, a crown, and a golden cup.
On the side of the room there were stairs to the left and to the right that go upstairs to the second floor that’s got a balcony on either side and a guardrail on the side of the stairs to keep one from falling since it’s open above the main floor. There’s more bookshelves on the second floor as well as a couple of rooms, and on the main floor there’s the bathroom down the hall to the left.
Downstairs, Lucia shut the entrance door behind her, then took out a flashlight and walked up to the middle bookshelf. She inspected it with her flashlight and said “There’s dust everywhere,” then she blew the dust and cobwebs away but then she immediately started coughing. A few seconds later, she looked at the books again, and grabbed one that she saw was about Ethereals, “Ethereals. Let’s look at this one!” She then went upstairs and read it.
Some time had passed since Lucia went to that abandoned cathedral to do more research about Ethereals and how to defeat them, and also because she was exiled from the Spook Shack. So long in fact that Lucia appeared to have lost track of time. Then suddenly, there was a knock on the door and a few seconds later it opened slowly. Alice walked in nervously and called out. “Hello? L-Lucia? Are you here? It’s Alice.” A dark shadow ran across the second floor walkway crouched down from behind the guardrail and almost looked like a monster. “Yidhari sent me here. She wanted me to come talk to you directly.” Lucia bolted down the stairs to Alice and shook her hand with both hands excitedly. “Oh hi Alice! It’s so great to see you!” she said in a fast and surprisingly friendly manner. “How are you doing? How is everyone else doing? This place is great! You won’t believe how much I’ve discovered here during my--”
“Woah, uh, I see you’re excited, Lucia,” Alice interrupted."But this is what I mean. You seem like you’re going crazy, you look like you haven’t slept in three days, and this place, however beautiful, lacks maintenance and the symmetry I prefer, like that bookshelf over there in the middle of the floor.”
Lucia’s smile faltered slightly. “Alright alright, did you come here to lecture me or is there something you want?”
“Yes actually, I received orders from Yidhari to tell you that we want you for a battle in the Hollows. I personally differ from them, but since I’m the newest Spook Shack member I don’t have much of a say there. But what can I say is, have you lost your mind, Lucia? Has everyone lost their mind?”
“How do you mean, Alice? Ain’t everyone a little insane in the membrane?”
“What I mean is, Manato almost died because of you, and like I told you before, and I’ll say it again: Ethereals are dangerous. I fear you’ll kill us all if we bring you along for this.”
“Kill us all?” Lucia chuckled in disbelief. “No no, I think you misunderstand what I’m doing, Alice. I’m studying Ethereals so we can better defeat them.”
“What?” Alice’s eyes widened. “You need to study them so we can defeat them? N-no, that can’t be. We can just beat them without trying to understand them right? Yeah, that’s it. The only reason you want to study Ethereals is so you can join them!”
Alice was shaken, but Lucia felt her heart drop down to her stomach. “I uh, well...” Lucia couldn’t find the right words. It felt like a point where something is so existential that words aren’t even necessary, or perhaps words can’t describe it.
“Either way, I guess this is not really a choice for either of us. C-come meet us at the Hollow.” With that, Alice turned around and left the cathedral and the door shut behind her. When Alice went back first to the Spook Shack to enter the Hollow, she wasn’t her normal confident self. Something had shifted. Knowledge is power and power corrupts, was Alice’s worldview. But now, Lucia could actually be helping in the long run by studying Ethereals and their strengths and weaknesses, and the gang, especially Yidhari, was trusting in Lucia as well as Alice to help them exterminate the Hollows of Ethereals. Does knowledge not necessarily corrupt?
For Lucia, she laid down on her back on the floor and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about what Alice said. Was she right? Did Lucia really just want to join the Ethereals? Was that the real reason why she was studying them? She spent a while staring up at the ceiling thinking about this, and whether or not she was doing what’s right by studying the enemy so they can beat them. She then realized that she needed to go with her intuition in her innermost being, and act even in the midst of uncertainty.
She got up and grabbed her mage’s staff and her spellbook and said “I can do this,” then she went to the Hollow location that was marked on the GPS on her phone, going back up the trail that she came from and heading to the location. She entered the Hollow and met up with the rest of the Spook Shack.
First it was Manato who said something to her. “Glad you could make it, Lucia.”
“Hey Manato, s-sorry again about what happened earlier with the Ethereal.” Lucia said as she looked down and tapped her fingers.
“Eh, don’t worry about it. I’m still alive, and ready to fight, and I hope you are too.” replied Manato.
Then approached Yidhari. “Lucia,” she said.
Lucia gasped and hugged Yidhari. “Hari!”
Yidhari chuckled. “So are you back from your darkest night and ready to help us take down those Ethereals in the Hollow?”
Lucia and Yidhari broke the hug, and Lucia became more serious and thought about it for a moment. Then she lifted up her staff that was glowing and looked at it and said, “Yes, I am.” Then they all got ready for battle and fought the Ethereals. Lucia used her new-found knowledge to help guide them through battle and even summoning Ethereals and having them fight each other to make less work for them. In the end, the fight in the Hollow was a success.