Chapter 5
Spook at the Office
It had been a couple of days since their first mission, and with the team rested and the new members all settled in, they were all starting to get a bit restless, wanting to go out on another mission. But it had been quiet from Charles since they got the first mission, but considering the threat to the Ghoul Room, it wasn't surprising that he was busy elsewhere.
Trying not to think about that, Josette had used the time as well as she could, going through her handbook, more specifically the pages with her team. Since acquiring Gold Plasm, additional information had been added to the pages, new powers that could be bought with the Gold Plasm, and how much they cost. There were many interesting options, but as one would guess, the stronger the power, the higher the cost. As it were, she could only afford a few of the lower tier powers, but choosing which ones and for whom was a difficult choice, so she instead decided to save the Gold Plasm for a later time.
Leaving her room, she walked over to the map and looked at it. The raised paper house representing the house they visited earlier still stood where it was, but now it had a flock of tiny ethereal bats flying around it, signalling that the mission there had been completed. Josette still felt proud of that, but then suddenly, a new paper building rose up from the map, this time looking like a small office building, meaning only one thing. A new mission.
"Finally." she said, glad that the wait was at an end, and called together the Haunters for the briefing.
With all the spirits gathered in map room, Josette reached out and touched the new paper building, then they all heard Charles' voice from the map.
"I bring you good news, Ghost Master. While the deal concerning the selling of this land is all but finished, they still have not signed the contract, it and the deed to this area are both kept in this office according to my research. Without these documents, it will be impossible for the mortals to legally do anything that would threaten your Ghoul Room. Find and destroy the documents, and feel free to take your revenge on those that attempted to sell your base. Have fun. Oh, and one final thing, you will only be allowed to bring five Haunters with you, so choose wisely."
Five Haunters he said, and Josette had seven, she had wanted to bring her full team, not wanting to leave anyone behind, even at base, but at least they could keep an eye on things. She thought for a while on which to bring with her, a far from easy task.
"Firecracker, Twitch, Jack, Flow and Jabu, you are going with me. Bobby, Swarm, please keep an eye on the Ghoul Room while we are gone."
"You can count on us." said Bobby, and Swarm took the shape of a hand giving the thumbs up.
With her team ready, Josette touched the green light above the building, opening a green portal above the map for them to enter.
Arriving outside the office, the team saw that it was just a few floors bigger than their own base, shouldn't take too long to scout, but where might the documents be? Josette flew ahead to find out.
Pretty much every floor was filled to capacity with offices, with only a few exceptions, such as the ground floor that also housed a lobby, and the basement, where there was a large archive room. Further more, all floors had a set of bathrooms, and the second floor had a canteen, and on the top floor was the owner's own office, larger than the others and with several paintings on the walls. Despite the late hour, there were a surprising amount of mortals working at the office, and that pleased Josette, as they might need the extra plasm that the mortals' fear would generate, and it would allow her team to both practice and have some fun. Scaring two mortals with one boo, as her mentor used to say.
Once Josette had the layout of the place, she continued with looking for any possible restless spirits while trying to figure out where to start. Passing through one of the bathrooms, she almost ran straight into another spirit, just nearly avoiding a collision.
"Be careful, you simpleton!" the spirit yelled at Josette. Taking a proper look at the spirit, she saw that it was an electric eel, with blue electricity crackling around it every now and then, chained to the sink.
"You are in the presence of the mighty Voltic, king among Gremlins! State your business, or leave me to my misery."
Josette had to force herself to keep a straight face, she knew that they didn't have that kind of hierarchy among the spirits, so the Gremlin's claim was nothing more than empty words, yet she could feel that he was powerful, and a valuable ally, so she had to play it safe.
"It was not my intention to offend you. I am Josette, a Ghost Master sent here on a mission by the Haunter Committee. Is there anyway I can help you?"
"Hmm, perhaps you can. As you can see, I and this sink are bound to each other, and this unholy union has severed me from the lightning that I once wielded. Bring my thunder back to me, and I will be free."
"I will see what I can do." she said, continuing on her way.
A short while later, after going through the rest of the building and finding no more restless spirits, she had made her way to the basement and the archive that it housed. It had row upon row with filing cabinets and a small stone figurine of some sort that seemed oddly placed, but Josette didn't pay it much thought, instead she quickly checked the labels on the cabinets to see if she could figure out where the documents they were after where.
"What are you looking for?" a calm and monotonous voice suddenly asked. Josette spun around and her eyes searched the area, but saw no one else. However, looking a little closer, she saw that the rock figurine was moving slightly, now looking vaguely humanoid with a short but broad build.
"I didn't expect to find an Earth Elemental here. What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I am waiting, for the curse to be lifted."
"A curse?"
"Yes. A long time ago, these hairless monkeys signed a pact with others of their kind, claiming the land where I resided for their own. Since then, wherever the pact goes, I go. Only when the pact is broken, will I be free." First now did Josette notice the chain binding the Elemental to one of the cabinets.
"Sounds a little like our own problem, we are also looking for documents that we need to destroy. Do you know where this pact is kept? Is inside this cabinet?"
"I do not know, it might be, or in another one of those that are here, but it is here somewhere."
"I will see what we can do. I will be back." Josette said and returned to her team, thinking up a strategy as she flew there.
"Here is the situation, we got two spirits trapped here, while I try to figure out a way to help them, I want the rest of you to spread out and start scaring the mortals, so we can get the Plasm flowing. Just don't scare away too many of them, we might need them in some way."
Said and done, the ghosts scattered and bound themselves to different areas and things all over the place, ready to strike at the mortals within a moment's notice. Twitch started the haunting by using one of the many computers as a fetter, and using Spark, the man sitting by the computer, got so scared that he spilled his coffee over his lap. The burning hot liquid caused him to yell and jump up from his chair, alerting everyone else on the floor.
Then the lights went out in the room, and that event was followed by a loud moan. Now the four workers were starting to get nervous, and things were about to get even worse as the invisible quartet of ghosts were just getting warmed up. Jack took over, using his Shattered Nerves power to unsettle the mortals, making them even more vulnerable to whatever came next, and that happened to be a little combo that Firecracker and Jabu both enjoyed, maybe even a little too much.
Every loose object in the room slowly began to float upward, barely noticeable at first, but once they were all lit on fire, everyone were ducking under the swirling, burning objects as they moved at high speed.
It didn't take much to scare the mortals half to death, they were laughably weak-willed and not far from breaking, but they would be spared, at least at that time. The team had been ordered to only keep the mortals on edge, in case they would be needed, and would move from one area to the next, keeping the pressure on the mortals, while Josette figured out a way to both help the trapped spirits and find the documents they were there for.
Her first objective was Voltic, while she wasn't sure he really deserved any help with his attitude, at the time every spirit was a valuable ally, there was also the possibility that helping him might make him a little more humble. With the Water Elemental Flow in tow, she returned to the bathroom where the eel Gremlin was trapped, looking around to see what her options were. Being a bathroom there were, of course, a lot of water based fetters for her Elemental, but water alone wouldn't be enough, as the eel had lost his electricity. Then she spotted the solution to her problem, and electric hand dryer.
"Twitch, I need your help with this." she said telepathically to the little squirrel, who happily squeaked in response.
"Flow, if you would be so kind, we need to soak this room in water." Josette then said to the Elemental.
"I shall do my best." Flow said and bound herself to another sink, not wanting to use the toilets unless necessary. Channelling the Plasm, she created dark clouds by the ceiling and rain started to fall. Once the rain was under way, she used the power of Flood, making water seep through the floor and filling the room with several inches of water, all while Voltic eyed the two with both suspicion and hope.
That's when Twitch arrived, and following Josette's directions, he used the hand dryer as a fetter. With all the water and everything wet, his Spark had far greater effect than usual, electrifying everything in the room, including Voltic. He too sparked wildly as the electric current filled his spectral form, smiling in pleasure when his chain snapped in two and disappeared.
"I had almost forgotten the feeling of lighting after being trapped here. And now that power is mine again! I am in your debt, Ghost Master, and, at your command. Set me upon our foes, and I shall show them real power."
"You will get your chance, but first I have to see to another spirit that has been trapped here."
Hurrying down into the basement, after sending the three spirits at her side to aid the rest, while calling for Jabu, Josette hoped to be able to help the Earth Elemental Bedrock. Once there, the greatest problem with freeing Bedrock was still to find the right document, but first they needed to get inside the many cabinets, for despite their powers, opening them was not an easy task. However, from reading up on the restless spirits in the building, she knew that Bedrock could help, so she asked him to use an Earth based power called Tremor.
The Elemental slowly lifted his arms above his head, and brought them down, slamming them against the floor, sending a shockwave of power through the entire room, shaking it so that every cabinet was opened. Jabu then followed up with Kinesis, pulling out every single piece of paper from the cabinets, covering the floor with them.
Josette had come to the conclusion that it would take far too long to search for the papers they were looking for, so since they still needed to destroy them, they might just as well destroy all the papers in the archive, just to be certain. Now they just had to wait until Firecracker showed up, he had been very busy scaring mortals and had fun while doing so, having found one mortal that was deathly afraid of fire, whom the Fire Elemental focused wholeheartedly on, together with the Wisp Jack. Once he was done, he hurried to his Ghost Master's side.
"You called?"
"Yes, Firecracker. We need to destroy all these papers, think you can do that?"
"That's easy, I'll turn it all to ashes. Just need a fetter and I'll get right on it."
Contrary to what one would think, an electrical fetter can't just be any form of socket or lightbulb, as they don't possess enough electricity, not even fluorescent tubes are enough, it has to be some other form of electrical devices. After a quick search, the salamander found what he was looking for, a surveillance camera. Josette had not noticed the camera earlier, but she wasn't worried, all the camera would catch were the cabinets open, the papers fly out and them soon bursting into flames, all of which would only further increase the mortals belief in the supernatural.
Firecracker unleashed his flames, using even more heat and power than normal, and everything made out of paper instantly caught fire and was burned to cinders in mere seconds, fast enough to destroy everything before the sprinklers could start.
But once the papers were completely ruined, the chain tethering Bedrock snapped and faded away, freeing the Earth Elemental from his prison. It seemed to take a short while before he even noticed that he was free.
"Ah… I am free." he said in his slow, monotonous voice, though there was still a hint of joy in it. "Now I may return to the land which I once called home, but it is far away from here. May I stay with you instead?"
"Of course you may." Josette answered with a smile. But that smile vanished when she noticed that something was off.
There was no pull from any portal, not like when they had succeeded with their last mission, which meant that they weren't done yet, and Josette soon realized why.
"The deed and contract were not here." she said. "They must be kept somewhere else, but where."
Using the telepathic powers granted by the handbook, she focused hard to send a message to all her Haunters at once.
"Our targets were not in the archives, spread out and see if you can find where they are."
All the ghosts, Josette included, searched high and low for the papers, but with little success. That is, until one of them took a closer look in the owner's office.
"Ghost Master, this is Voltic." the eel said through the telepathic link. "I believe I have found what you are looking for, I will wait for you in the main office."
Hearing that, Josette hurried to that room, where the Gremlin waited with a sly smile.
"The mortal was clever. Look behind that painting, inside the wall." Voltic said, nodding at a painting of a forested landscape.
Josette moved through the painting, and saw what he had found, a hidden safe, and inside it, she saw a thick letter with several papers inside, the deed and contract. She felt her spirits lift, but she was unsure of how to destroy them, the inside of the safe offered no fetters that any in her team could use, at least no any with the powers to destroy the documents. They needed to open the safe somehow.
However, before she could think of a plan, the owner barged into the room. He was a man in his forties, with a heavily receded hairline, and he seemed upset.
"In all my years," he said. "I've never believed in ghosts and such nonsense. But with everything that's been happening now, I'm not sure what to believe. I can't believe that I'm doing this, but I can't see any other option, I have to call those Ghostbreakers, let them deal with this mess."
"The Ghostbreakers?! Voltic! Stop him!" Josette cried out, terrified that they would have to face the dreaded Ghostbreakers. And she had all right to be afraid.
The only mortals that could threaten the ghosts, were mediums, holy men and women, witches and psychics, and they were not overly common or active in combating ghosts. In fact, there were even a few that helped spirits move on, that respected the Spirit World, but the Ghostbreakers, they were a whole different story.
Ordinary mortals, though often with some form of scientific expertise, that were equipped with technology to not only detect, but also banish and even capture spirits they crossed paths with. After their defeat in Gravenville, the organisation would be after vengeance, and Josette did not want to tangle with them now, she was not ready for that kind of foes, hence why she had to do something quickly. And Voltic wasn't slow to respond.
Just as the owner reached for the telephone, the Gremlin bound himself to it and unleashed one of the most powerful electrical powers, Surge. The entire room, and every electronic device within it, began giving off violent sparks, electrocuting the man so his skeleton could be sighted every few seconds of the short surge. It didn't hurt him, but it still stung like hell, and was more than enough to cause him to faint once the effects had passed.
"That was too close. Good job, Voltic." Josette said, with a sigh of relief. But then she heard something behind her.
"Look." Voltic said, pointing at the painting behind Josette. And when she looked at it, it had swung ajar as a door, together with the door to the safe. It was an electronic lock, and while that hadn't helped them before, the Surge had short circuited it, leaving the safe wide open for the ghosts.
"What a stroke of luck. Now we can destroy the documents."
It didn't take long before Firecracker came to Josette's side, and once again used his Bonfire, this time destroying the real documents.
Once there was nothing but ashes left of the deed and contract, a portal opened above the office building and the team felt its pull, returning to the Ghoul Room, with two new additions.
While Voltic had claimed that he was a king among Gremlins, choose to settle down near a dishwasher, in the kitchen of the café-part, which seemed strange for a so called king. The Earth Elemental Bedrock stayed outside, under one of the trees, and even though Josette didn't think it was possible, the very calm spirit seemed to be even more relaxed.
He wasn't the only one that relaxed, shortly before they had entered the portal, they heard Charles' voice telling them that the Ghoul Room now was out of danger, as well as congratulating them on a job well done. With all that accomplished, and new team members and Gold Plasm, Josette felt exhausted and headed to her chambers to take a well deserved nap before doing anything more.
Phew! That was a bit too close for our team, but they made it, with some new ghosts added to the team. And now their headquarter is safe, but the Ghostbreakers seems to be present in the region, and that might be a far worse threat than they have faced yet.
New pictures of the newest team members will be up on my Diviantart page soon. Do check them out.