Danny Fenton walked rigidly through his kitchen. "I guess that's what the Observant was doing there. I thought he was just checking in or something. I don't know. I didn't think about it that much. If I'd known they were the ones who did that to him, I'd have pounded that freak right into next week."

Tucker put his hand on his shoulder. "It's alright Danny, you weren't thinking straight. You were worried. It was a shock for all of us. Also, did you just rhyme on purpose?"

Danny relaxed and elbowed Tucker. "No, but it was pretty good." He sighed. "Yeah. I guess I wish I'd figured it out sooner."

"I can't believe this has been going on for so long without someone setting those monsters straight!" Sam stomped up the stairs to Danny's room. "It's a gross violation of his rights!"

"Do ghosts have rights?" Tucker asked, following her through the door.

Danny flopped onto his bed. "I dunno. If we do, they're weird rights. Walker can sentence you to life in prison for literally anything, and apparently everyone has to keep the Christmas truce. And Skulker tries to skin me like, weekly, and nobody else seems to have an issue with that."

Sam crossed her arms and paced. "Well then we'll just apply human laws to them until they set up a proper bill of rights."

"Hate to burst your bubble, but I doubt they will," Tucker said from the desk. "Besides Walker and a few goons, none of them seem to really care about laws and stuff, human or otherwise."

Danny groaned and put his hands over his face. "I'm not going to singlehandedly set up a ghost government. I'm not even interested in law."

"Well, we have to do something," Sam insisted. "Let's start with the Observants. What do we know about them?"

"They'll all identical ugly eyeball things," Danny offered.

"The first and only other time Danny encountered them—well, saw them—was about a month ago," Tucker noted, consulting his phone. "That was when you got lost trying to find Frostbite. You tried to ask for directions but they had someone on trial or something?"

"Yeah," Danny said, sitting up. "And it seemed pretty legit, so I assumed they were an actual ghost authority. They were debating how to keep this ghost away from humans, because she'd caused too many deaths or something. I didn't stay for the end, so I don't know what happened."

"It's probably a kangaroo court," Tucker scoffed.

Sam and Danny gave him puzzled looks.

"It's a court that's not really legitimate, either because they're acting against the law, or they don't have any real authority. It can look legit, but actually be a huge scam."

Sam raised her eyebrows, impressed.

Tucker glared. "What? It was in a video game!"

Sam snorted. "So, we know they like to prosecute other ghosts." She frowned. "For harming humans? Why would they care about that?"

"Maybe they're involved in time stuff too? That's probably why they need Clockwork, right?" Danny swung his legs back and forth.

"That would make sense," Sam agreed. She pulled a notebook out of her backpack and started jotting down notes. "Maybe they're getting some sort of personal gain or power from changing time? And humans just happen to be part of the whole thing?"

Danny shrugged. He stared at an astronaut poster on his wall. "Maybe it's just me, but—something seemed off. When Clockwork was talking. Why was he so reluctant to tell us anything?"

"I'm surprised he told us as much as he did," Tucker said.

Sam shook her head. "Danny, you of all people know how hard it is to share personal information that can be used against you."

"Ah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's true." He propped his head up on his hand. "We need to figure out what this thing is, that's controlling him. He said it was like a curse, and that it was an agreement."

"And a misunderstanding," Sam added.

"A contract, maybe?" Tucker set his phone down and booted up Danny's computer. "But like, a ghost contract? Might even be a situation where the exact wording matters and can be misinterpreted. Like Desiree's wishes?"

Sam nodded. "Might be something like that." She looked at the books in her backpack and sighed. "I'm gonna go grab some books on this kind of stuff and meet you back here. Tucker, scour the web for likely leads."

Tucker gave her a mock salute, already switching between five tabs.

Danny got up and took a breath. "I'm going to check Vlad's place. He might know something."

Tucker spun around. "You're asking him for help?"

Danny put his hands up. "Only as a last resort! I'm gonna snoop around first."

"Just be careful," Sam warned him.

Sam and Danny left, and Tucker put on some music.

…..

Danny Phantom hung sideways in the air, reading the titles of the books in Vlad's private office. He stopped at one titled Hexes and Jinxes: A Comprehensive Guide. He noted its location and moved on, keeping watch for anything on ancient ghost history, contracts, ghost law, or curses.

Nothing.

Danny sighed and hovered over the large office desk, looking over the papers on top. Portal stuff, a bunch of numbers, a sleek blaster sketch.

He was squinting closely at the rows of numbers when a grinning face phased up through the desktop.

"Bwah!" Danny lurched backwards. "Plasmius!"

"What are you looking for?" Vlad floated up to his full height. "Your competence?"

"A reason not to blast you through the wall, actually" he retorted on reflex, slipping into a defensive posture.

A moment later, he forced himself to straighten up. He put his hands together in front of his face. "Okay; no. I have that already. We can duke it out like usual, or you can be super unhelpful in ensuring that we both live past eighty."

Vlad bristled. "Eighty? I'm only forty-five!" He composed himself and crossed his arms. "Talk."

"I was planning to," Danny said, jumping onto Vlad's tall desk chair.

Vlad ignored the guest chair and sat on the desk, legs hanging over Danny's side. He looked impatient.

"Do you know anything about ancient ghost history? Or curses?" Danny asked.

Vlad perked up. "Did you get yourself cursed?"

Danny made a face at him. "No."

"Pity. Why the sudden interest, then?"

"Can't tell you."

Vlad crossed one leg over the other and adjusted his cape. "How does this help me? What did you mean about living past eighty?"

Danny looked away and leaned back. "This kinda indirectly involves both of our lives," he said carefully. "If I don't—if this doesn't work, our chances of meeting a messy and honestly horrific end go up, like, a lot. And soon. Like 'within ten years' soon."

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "I have some information," he admitted. "What do you have?"

Danny shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't think this far ahead."

Vlad sighed and let his head fall back. "See, this is what I'm talking about. You can't even negotiate a simple—"

Danny straightened up. "Wait, I know! If you help me, I'll—ohh, I can't believe I'm saying this—I'll spend a day here and you can mentor me or whatever it is you always want to do. Weird father stuff. Fishing. I don't know. But no funny business!" He wagged his finger at Vlad. "I'll do this and then things go back to normal, you understand?"

Vlad placed his hands over his heart and beamed. "Why, Daniel!"

Danny stared pointedly at the desk. "Stop making that face or I'll take it back."

Vlad laughed loudly. "You're improving! That's a fantastic offer! You must really be serious about this." His grin turned into a smirk. "Make it a weekend and we have a deal."

Danny whined and let his head fall to the desk. "Deal."

Vlad giggled and got up to pull books off the shelves. Danny recognized them as ones he'd dismissed. Vlad shucked off their dust jackets and dropped them onto the desk one by one. They all had different titles than their paper covers. "Simon's Guide to Ancient Ghosts, Curse Me Once, Supernatural Antiques, Advanced Witchcraft, and Ghost Zone: Origins."

Danny snatched up Simon's Guide and began flipping through it.

"It would help if I knew precisely what you were looking for," Vlad commented, flipping idly through Curse Me Once.

He ignored him, fingers flying over the text as he scanned. He found Pariah Dark easily. There was a single vague paragraph about the ghosts who had supposedly overthrown him, simply known as The Ancients. Nocturne got a whole chapter.

He found the Observants about halfway through. The illustration showed one wearing unfamiliar robes. Their section described how they kept to themselves except when there were disasters or massive changes of some kind. They always seemed to know more than they should, the author noted, and experts had speculated that they might be omens of great misfortune or tragedy.

Danny hummed thoughtfully and kept reading.

Vlad leaned over his shoulder to see what had caught his attention but refrained from speaking as Danny madly searched for something else.

Near the back were the vaguest descriptions. Unnamed entries; ghosts distinguished instead by era, shape, or disposition. A blinding mass of screaming light. A child who stole people from their beds and returned them changed. A grim reaper with only two recorded sightings. A giant shield. Something fast and malevolent that made ghosts disappear forever. But nothing on Clockwork.

Danny sighed and exchanged the guide for Advanced Witchcraft.

Vlad cleared his throat. "The Observants, hm?"

He glared up at Vlad. "Yeah." He flipped sharply through the pages. "What about 'em?"

"Did you meet them?"

"Just one, but yeah."

"Just one?" Vlad asked incredulously. "I thought they always travelled in groups."

Danny shrugged.

"Where did you see them?"

"Uh," Danny's hands stopped. "Just out in the Zone," he said.

"Hm." Vlad sat on the desk again. "Don't trust them," he advised. "The book is right; they know too much."

"Ohh, I already don't trust them," Danny assured him, shaking his head. "If you want to know what happened—well—they cursed someone, and I told them I'd help break it."

"The Observants cursed someone?" Vlad repeated. "That's not exactly their style."

"Maybe, but it's the truth," Danny said. "Only it's an ancient curse, and not exactly a curse at all? Like, an agreement gone wrong? But I need to find out how to get rid of it."

Vlad frowned and put down his book. "That sounds more like a contract or a deal. A vow perhaps, or an oath."

"What's the difference?"

Vlad shook his head and clicked his tongue. "A contract involves an explicit agreement to trade items or services."

Danny's eyes went wide and he squirmed in his seat.

Vlad facepalmed and chopped at the air. "Not that kind of explicit, Daniel! Explicit just means it's stated clearly, so that even a dunce like your father couldn't misunderstand it."

Danny's face shifted rapidly from shock to embarrassment to fury. "You leave my dad out of this!" he seethed, bracing his feet against the floor and clenching his fists.

Vlad smirked and held up his hands. "I've been trying to," he said under his breath. "Anyway, back to contracts. They're usually public and can be enforced by law, if there is any. Fairly solid and legitimate form of trade if you don't mind only dealing over the table."

Danny crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair.

"A deal, on the other hand, involves a similar trade but is less likely to be written down. Deals tend to function on the honor system. The participants trust each other to hold up their sides. Deals are easier to change, and oftentimes the exact terms are left up to interpretation. Deals are like I-owe-you's; flimsy and frequently vague, but immensely useful if you play your cards right."

"I keep forgetting you're a businessman," Danny said neutrally. "And a crook."

"That's not all," Vlad said, grinning shamelessly. "A blood deal is exclusive to ghost dealings. It's the same as a normal deal, except that spectral powers charge the agreement, binding the participants to their terms like a curse or wish would. Or laws, for that matter."

He paused, thinking. "I suppose you could think of it as a combination of a contract and a deal. They can be vague or secret, but a blood deal actively obligates all parties to keep their sides of the deal and punishes any participant who doesn't."

He noticed how Danny's face fell and how his hands folded tightly together, but he continued.

"Now, oaths and vows are very similar. Both involve a solemn promise or commitment to some action. They're more one-sided than deals or contracts; the agreement of both parties isn't strictly necessary."

"Oaths are likely to invoke a deity or higher power and tend to cover both positive and negative promises. Vows are usually positive or neutral. You can swear an oath to avenge someone, or you can vow to be a loyal friend, but the inverse is less likely. They're not interchangeable, but they are extremely close. They also only involve spectral energy if tied to a haunted object or a powerful ghost."

Danny shifted to sit cross-legged in the chair. "Well," he said at length. "Sounds like I'm dealing with either a blood deal or an oath. Probably a blood deal though, if I'm understanding this right."

Vlad's brow creased. "And you said you wanted to help this friend back out of their blood deal?"

"No, it—they've been in it a long time, but they want out. I guess 'end the deal' is a better way of saying it. They kinda got stuck in it by mistake in the first place."

Vlad leaned back. "Who is it?"

"I can't tell you that," Danny said firmly. He looked Vlad in the eye. "How do I help them end the deal without... The punishing part happening?"

Vlad frowned and broke eye contact. He grabbed another book off the shelf, simply titled Stakes, and opened it. "I'm not sure," he muttered. "It should be in here though."

Danny floated up and kneeled on the desk beside Vlad to read over his shoulder.

Vlad flipped to the middle and skimmed the pages. "If both members fulfill their end of the blood deal, it ends on its own. The exception is perpetual blood deals, like if one of the promised items is, say, a dollar every week, forever. Is your friend's deal one of these?"

Danny nodded, eyes on the book.

Vlad turned the page. "In that case, both parties can agree to end the deal together."

"No," Danny dismissed immediately. "Impossible."

"Alright then," Vlad said, raising an eyebrow. "If one of the parties is permanently destroyed—"

"That's not an option either."

Vlad sighed in irritation. "A greater spectral force would have to counteract it, then. Maybe get ahold of Desiree and wish that they hadn't made the deal?" He shook his head before Danny could react. "No, nevermind. If the Observants are one of the sides, nothing short of Pariah Dark's royal decree could budge it."

"Is that it?" Danny asked anxiously.

Vlad closed the book. "It's all I could find," he said. "If there's something else that works, it didn't make it into any of my books."

Danny groaned and hung his head. He let out a long breath. "Well, thanks anyway. If you learn something new that might help, let me know. Remember, your life is on the line."

"Of course," he said, without any smarminess or derision. He put his book back on the shelf. He rested his arms on the high back of his desk chair. "Good luck, Phantom."

Danny kicked off the desk and floated to the ceiling. Suspicion and confusion mixed on his face. "Thanks, Plasmius," he muttered, and flew away.