Deephouse: Further adventures involving the employees of a mid-level adventuring corporation. New to Deephouse? Start here.
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“The thing no one realizes about ghosts is we do not stay in one place. No!
“The bodily needs of the living impose restrictions on a person, yes? One must eat and sleep. Oh—how I miss eating! Eating is a very sensual activity when done properly.
“Mortals need to use the restroom. Yes—even the fairest elven maiden poops. If you find a ghost in the bathroom, it’s not because he was relieving himself. (You might wonder what he was doing haunting such a vile place. Perhaps he was trying to live vicariously through the strained grunts issuing from the stall. Or maybe it’s because even the dead think farts are humorous. Mortals are so pleasantly disgusting.)
“We ghosts have no need of bedchambers. No use for bathrooms. Every room is the same as the last, and none hold any appeal.
“There’s also a lack of physicality you can not understand until you experience it yourself. Movement creates sound. Listen to a dwarf take the stairs and tell me any different. You cannot! All the huffing and all the stomping. Stairs have killed more dwarves than orcs, of this I am certain.
“We ghosts are silent. We do not float around, waiting to yell ‘boo!’ at mortals who wander across our path. No, no, no! The suggestion that a ghost has nothing better to do than to quicken the heart of the living is an ugly stereotype. Ghosts are complex individuals. No two are alike.
“You may think to yourself—how boring it must be, drifting about from one room to the next, lacking the ability to enjoy the finer things. Forever a voyeur, never the exhibitionist.
“There is an adjustment period, it is true. I spent the first 50 years of my un-life watching mortals clumsily paw at one another. I burned with hatred for them For the pleasures forever denied me. In my wrath, I made chandeliers sway eerily, and shouted obscenities from dark corridors.
“They did not notice. They were too busy with all the pawing. I would’ve done the same, but my paws were incorporeal. Unwittingly, I’d become the very stereotype against which all of ghost-kind rails.
“I am a wiser ghost now. A gentler one, yes. I have discovered great satisfaction in the simple act of being. You do not know meditation until you’ve spent a century thinking the same thoughts endlessly. You begin to understand the great mystery that is life. Not why we are here. No! That is self-evident—to fornicate and frolic.
“No, I speak of something more essential, something of the spirit, which survives the transition from life to after-life. I speak, of course, of being of use. Purpose, my fat friend. Even ghosts seek meaning.
“So, when you come to Blasé and ask—nay, beg—for his help, how can he refuse?”
Durgin opened his mouth for the first time in at least five minutes.
“Of course,” Blasé continued, “you were rather rude last when we spoke. So perhaps I should refuse. Tell me again why you need Blasé’s help. Something about a suspicious gnome?
“Hah! There is your problem. All gnomes are suspicious. Do not get me started on the garden variety. Those little perverts, always dropping their overalls to mount tulips. Do flowers need so much fertilizer? I do not think so.
“They mock Blasé, with all their humping. That should be your first order of business. Make eunuchs of them. Let them fertilize the old-fashioned way.
“Now—what was I saying?”
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"Ghosts are complex individuals. No two are alike." Definitely true.