• Jean tried to look casual while walking to town, which was hard to do while she was still bleeding out of an empty eyesocket, and anyone who tried asking her if she was ok got a mouthfull of rude remarks. Jean saw ripaway spirits all over the place, always following someone around, or skulking around in the shadows. All the ripaway spirits took different forms, which ranged from giant bats to hooded ghouls. The ones that were following someone seemed to be obsessed, unaltering their attention from the person, as if riddling out a particularily complex puzzle, but the people were blissfully unaware.
    Jean looked in every back alley she could find, there were no shops behind any of them, only punks and other scum of the earth. Jean sat down in an empty lot, just outside the main area of the town, just about giving up hope of ever finding Kergo, and thinking about making up some dimwitted lie as to how she lost her eye and telling it to her parents. Jean got up, but then noticed a bizarre flyer, slightly hidden in the grass, she picked it up and examined it.
    On the top of the flyer, in plain solid print, it said "Kergo's Curios." and below that, was a circle formed by an angelic wing and a demonic wing connected to eachother, both wings arched upwords so that the tips were touching, in the center of the circle was an eye, below that it said "Follow the wind.". The flyer gave absolutely no information as to the shop's location, or even information on what the shop was. Jean dropped it and walked off. The fly got picked up by the wind, and fluttered around Jean, it started flying on the wind in irregular patterns, it never seemed to touch the ground, and the wind was only mild.
    "Maybe it's not just some crappy proverb..." Jean muttered, and started chasing after the flyer.
    The flyer led Jean through the more dangerous parts of town, through slums and back alleys, Jean progressed deeper and deeper through the ghetto, until finally, the flyer stopped in a dark back alley, it floated for a second, then started ripping itself apart.
    Jean walked cautiously through the alley, till she came to a door on one of the walls, there were no windows, and no doorbell, the only thing that could be seen was the door, and the symbol with two wings surrounding an eye in plain chalk on the wall. Jean opened the door and walked quietly through, the shop was full of creepy old things, a monkey skeleten hung on strings attached to what looked like the handle for a puppet in the corner, an entire shelf was filled with human skulls, old cobwebbed books piled up all over the room, one wall had racks full of different kinds of weapons, many of them were blood stained.
    Piano playing could be heard from the back of the room, Jean progressed her way around the macabre knick knacks towards the sound of the piano, when she finally got past the shrunken heads, she saw a young man wearing 18th century style clothing and a powdered wig, playing a piano made entirely of bones. The keys appeared to be finger bones, the entire thing was held up on femurs, a spine held up the lid of the piano, even the inside of the piano appeared to be made of bones.
    The young man wasn't playing anything too complex on the piano, just childish things such as mary had a little lamb, and appeared to be having trouble figuring them out.
    "Listen you freak, I don't know what sort of shop you're running here but-" Jean was shushed, while the young man went back to figuring out twinkle twinkle little star, and looking as if deep in thought.
    "I really don't have time to listen to this crap-" Jean was shushed again, when the young man had finished figuring out twinkle twinkle, he turned around on his chair to look at Jean.
    "Yes?" He asked.
    "Yeah, I need to find some guy named Cargo or something."
    "Kergo, and you needn't look any further, for he is right here."
    "Some lady named Ganonvent sent me here, some crap about big blobs of tar threatening humanity or something." Despite having been attacked by a spirit, and losing her eye and her normal life, Jean was still her regular self.
    "Ganovyn, yes, I've been expecting you for a while now, Jean. The ripaway spirits-"
    "Have been stalking me a long time, yeah I know that, and it's not something I have any plan of forgetting. Look at what they did to my eye."
    "You're lucky, some people lose their limbs to escape ripaway spirits."
    "I'm hardly lucky, my life was just a bunch of lies, and now I'm forced into some sort of fairytale book, thanks for making my life worse."
    "You'll get used to it."
    "So now that I'm in a shop full of dead things, left everything from my old life behind because of some tar blobs, and just brought me into another crappy life, what can you tell about the bastards who did this to me?"
    "Ripaway spirits, moochers, first off, they technically shouldn't exist, but they've been around as long as us other spirits, running around giving us a bad name."
    "So, you're a spirit? Of what? Are you the spirit of, creepy morbid things?" Jean said looking around the shop. "I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find another eye."
    "I'm the spirit of lost memory, Ganovyn always sends the lost to me, because I remember everything that's been forgotten, I know everything there is to know."
    "So why the creepy shop?" Jean said, picking up a rusty metal hook lying on the floor.
    "These are all tied to lost memory, things that should have been forgotten, and have been." Kergo whsipered, glancing over at the monkey skeleton puppet.
    "Ok mister all knowing, tell me what I need to know."
    "Ripaway spirits have been around since the beginning of time, mindless ghouls who have an absolute need to take someones soul and make another ripaway spirit, but in the end the other ripaway spirit dies in the process of making just one other. They were eventually banished into different dimensions, but they came back about two thousand years ago. We've been fighting them for a long long time in human reckoning, they're easy to destroy, but somehow ten more take their place, when only one can be made from the other. It just makes no sense."
    "What do you want me to do about it? It's not like I'm any good at getting rid of soul stealing spirits."
    "You're a very rare case, very few humans can see what's right there before their eyes. It's almost as if they don't WANT to see us."
    "Neither did I, but here I am caught up in all this lame ripaway spirit crap."
    "We need you to riddle this thing out, how did they escape their banishment, and how are so many being created, despite how many we destroy."
    "Great, I was just a pawn to society, now I'm just a pawn to you spirits."
    "Go ahead and turn your back on this, go back to your normal life, pretend not to see the spirits, and just live your life out."
    Jean just stood in the shop, as if she knew she didn't have a choice.
    "I thought so. Now I've had these prepared for you, so you can settle more easily into all this." Kergo pulled out a katana and an eye patch.
    "Gee thanks," Jean muttered as she took the katana and eye patch. Kergo stood up and put a hand on Jean's shoulder.
    "Listen closely, you must remember that it's not just the ripaway spirits that will try to harm you. You will go many places, meet many people, no matter how friendly they seem, always put into account that they're not what they appear to be."
    "Whatever." Jean mumbled as she put on the eyepatch and strapped the katana to her belt, then walked to the door.
    "Try going on the road less traveled, who knows what you'll find?" Kergo said tapping his nose.
    Jean left the shop abruptly, slamming the door, she held her head in her hand. She had no plans on figuring out the mystery, Jean had only one thing on her mind, crushing the ripaway spirits' skulls, and making them beg for mercy so she could have her life back.

    To be continued...