God's Gone AWOL

[7] Little Red Ghost

In the mid 1700s, there was a tremendous lull in the intensity of the war.

Sure, there was still plenty of fighting going on here and there, but it was one of those phases where both sides were in too many stalemates and had gotten rather bored of each other. No new battles had sparked up beyond casual brawling. Nobody made any major advancements on their enemy. Nothing major happened. Everything was rather flat on both ends.

As a result, Heaven needed something to keep their ranks busy until things started heating up again.

Camael sat behind her desk, flipping through a brown parchment file. Her glazed, golden eyes scanned the text without really reading it. Across from her, Atticus sat upright with his hands folded in his lap, his back straight and his expression focused.

"Is it another case involving a loose soul?" he asked

Sighing, Camael tossed the file down.

"We aren't sure what it is," she said, "It may be a soul, but it also may just be some insolent mortal playing a trick on the locals. Either way, we need someone to go down and investigate it,"

These were the sorts of jobs that had become popular amidst the angels in recent years. Ever since the archangel of death had disappeared all those years ago, the Earth was filled with an infinite supply of loose souls. Up until now, Heaven didn't care all that much, but seeing as there were so many angels in need of work recently, they finally started taking care of the mess downstairs.

If it was a mortal, he could just ignore the situation entirely. At most, Atticus could send the prankster a lucid dream asking them to stop. And if it was a lost soul, then everything would be easy for Atticus. He could just descend to Earth, talk to the mortals a little, shepherd the soul towards the gates of Purgatory, and he'd be done with it. At least he would have something to do for the next couple of days. There was no way he could disappoint anybody with a task like this.

"I accept this mission," he said, offering a salute, "Thank you, Camael. I will depart right away,"

It was mid-morning when Atticus arrived in the little human village. The central market was already set up, with dozens of people wandering about the dirt street. There were several different breeds of vendors out selling their wares; from street food to artisanal jewelry. It wasn't as crowded as the larger cities Atticus had visited in his time, but it still had that remnant bustle that accompanied most settlements —thanks, globalized trade networks!

Amidst the meandering locals, Atticus took a little extra time deciding on a plan of action. Before he went charging off to find whatever "spirit" had frightened everyone, he needed to dig for information first. Humans loved to make up ghost stories and exaggerate them into partial reality, so Atticus had to eliminate any possibility of it being an entirely mortal affair. Once he had modified his human disguise to look a little more... human, he wandered around looking for a good starting point in his investigation.

But before he even had a chance to really dig for information, the information presented itself directly. While Atticus was pretending to glance over a display of hand-crafted stone rings, he caught the tail end of a conversation happening right at his shoulder. Apparently this ghostly affair was quite the talk of the town.

"...An evil spirit, you say?" asked a passing customer,

"That's right," the owner of the ring stand replied, "It's been haunting the mountain for a few years now. Nobody wants to go up there anymore cuz' we're all worried we'll run into it,"

Judging by their dialects and differing accents, Atticus determined that while the vendor was a true local, the customer was just a passing traveler. They spoke the same language, but were obviously from different regions. Figuring that the traveler would ask some more questions, Atticus remained silent, gathering as much information as he could scrape.