Salias the rhuen hunter

    “So you want to know who I am, what I am doing here, and what I am huh? Well if you folks behind the window that you for some reason think I can’t see through will shut up for a second I’ll tell you. I am Salias, I am what is called a Rhuen hunter. Now I know that might mean something to you, but like I said, please shut till I’m done. I have told a few people this on this world; I had someone think I was hunting letters, another thinking I was after relics or a treasure hunter, this one guy thought I was insane and chasing after some uber-monster you folks have on this world. I did find out a little later, that it’s the name of an individual from an alien race from the Makai Cluster my people call the Rai, but you people call Dires for some reason, and think are some local god beasts or something equally crazy.

 

    No, in the Makai language Rhuen means deity, but to my people it means the mind, the spirit…and some other stuff like that. Well you see people from my world; for the most part don’t know about these round worlds floating about in endless black death, but sorcerers and sorceresses are another story.

 

    You see these people got a weird trick they like to play, a game for them as it were, they will project their minds into these other worlds and possess people. Their powers are then limited by the physical limitations and spiritual limitations of these hosts, but just because someone doesn’t know magic doesn’t mean they can’t learn it. Now what I understand from the history of it, this technique was invented like over a thousand years ago or some shit, for the purpose of studying these other worlds and their people, but there are a lot of folks who do it just for kicks, for fun; and what’s worse is if they stick around long enough they might just figure out a way to come over physically, then you’d be a world of hell, because some of these ass-holes are damn near being gods from what I can by what you people and your monsters tell me about your local shit. So my job is to come here in person, hunt these ass-holes down, and send their minds back home, their Rhuens in other words, and then seal them off, or anyone for that matter from using that host again. Because you know, they are selective, they want a host strong enough to do some magical damage with, but not so strong they could repel them.”

 

    ******

 

    The man doesn’t look like much sitting at the plain table on the plain chair in the little white room looking straight ahead at the one way mirror, his dark red eyes following the people who should be hidden behind the glass. Just some guy in a black trench coat and jeans with shoulder length dark hair creating a backdrop for his pale complexion; hell they thought he was a vampire when they picked him up. Sir Rust speaks into the microphone, “Okay mac, now what are you? You know, species, not profession.”

 

   The man named Salias looks right at him and says, “Aesperian.”

 

   *bump*

 

   Jessica steps back and hits a chair against the door.

 

   “You heard of them before?” asks Sir Rust seeing her expression.

 

   “I…” says Jessica on the spot, “I…I’ve heard of them, in a possession case, but it was…a machine that was possessed.”

 

   She thinks to herself, “That’s mostly true…Aesperian…so they do have physical bodies after all, and they…are actually a they.”

 

    Kathryn has remained calm, standing near the door thinking, “Idiot, damned Aesperians, they didn’t even tell us they could leave their world, bastards are more advanced than they let on.”

 

    Three people in the control room watching the man named Salias, three different points of view, three different ideas, but they are not alone, there was a fourth there when they caught they guy, and she seemed to know a great deal more than they three do, a shame she’s being held in another room, and that she isn’t interested in telling them anything, but instead insists on asking questions.

 

    ******

 

    -a few hours earlier

 

    She has traveled to many worlds, many times, and many different realities. She has been to worlds that to outsiders would appear to be cartoons, anime, CGI, and even various puppetry and claymation, although she much prefers to walk in the skin of neutronic reality rather than a photonic one. In many places she has been her appearance would be out of place, Victorian worlds, Noir worlds, Steam Punk worlds, Cyber Punk, and even a few resembling Medieval worlds but with magic, real monsters, and even technology. This day she appears from the ripple, her semi-random reality leaping portal, its apparent electric strikes not but illusions to scare off or place in awe those who see it. Her brown curly mid back length hair is blown by a gentle breeze, blowing just slightly off her pale neck as her hair seems to weigh too much for the breeze to move in any significant way, it’s as though it is under some spell to forbid the strands from going errant. Through her pale blue eyes hidden behind a pair of librarian glasses she looks around her, a dark alley, bits of debris blowing about, and a trash cans. She sees a car drive past, “Well, it does appear I won’t look out of place in this world.”

 

    Indeed she is right, to a certain degree; her attire is a grey skirt bottom business suit. She wouldn’t look much out of place, except for standing in a dark alley. She moves her hand through the air, a blueness appearing as though she were running her fingers through water. Something collects between her fingers and forms a shape in her palm, this blueness (primarily) mixed with a few similar colors and shades looks to be made of energy yet is congealing in her hand like some amorphous gelatin. She holds the blob to her lips, gently flicks it with her tongue, and then takes a dainty little bite out of it. She drops the blob as one may drop an errant leaf; it vanishes into the air like mist and then nothing, although the space around it does ripple a little.

 

    “Interesting,” she says with about as much expression and tone as one might have when just looking over an article but not really seeming all that invested in it, “this Earth is close to Other World, and yet….”

 

    She licks her lips, “it also has a demon world of its own…hmmm…yes one in the demon universe, a Dark World, a negative copy of this one.”

 

    She looks over to her right, not at the wall there, or what is on it, or even just past it, her gaze is one of looking at something a good distance away. Her eyes narrow and she utters one word, “teleport” before vanishing with a blink.

 

    ******

 

    -still a few hours earlier

 

    The Paranormal Control Agency, a national organization founded by the government in the 1960’s. Its function is to locate, observe, control, and contain or kill if necessary the supernatural creatures that hide amongst humanity.  This is one of their smaller offices, however despite this they have in their arsenal a rare magical device used to track powerful supernatural creatures that enter their city. Recently Agents Jessica and Kathryn, who were transferred from the alien observation division, made a quick name for themselves despite their labels as “temporary agents” which is something of an oxymoron as no one is temporary, it just means they are business women in the public eye, a few lawyers, some politicians, carefully placed secretaries, a handful of detectives, a few cops, and even some blue collar employees, number amongst those who are placed in the everyday world to keep an eye out for anything supernatural and dangerous going on. It is from these very agents and their own special means of spirit detection, shorter ranged devices and less precise warning systems they’ve developed that they learned of a very unusual case, an ethereal demon possessing people, and while in their bodies granting them super-human strength, speed, agility, and in some cases even super human powers and magic. A link was first established when a few agents noticed the same voice, same manner of speaking, same martial arts moves, and even the same names for spells and attacks.

 

   That is the case Jessica and Kathryn are on right now, using the compass to find it. As they run through the night in the ware house district, each circling to a different door they remember their past encounters with this entity. It was rather direct with them, it even explained that its limited by its hosts, only able to access those powers of its own that its host’s spiritual power can handle, but admitted to mutating them a little with this power. Most possessing demons are minor cases, even over looked at times, but this one aside from causing mischief has stolen from their store houses, draining energy from mystical items rendering them useless, for what reason they don’t know, and has left each person it possessed mutated in some way, granting them the physical boosts it has in their bodies although granted with out its skill in using that, and even a few super-natural powers. This is of particular concern, a demon which just by possessing someone turns them into something they have to from then on keep an eye on, so far twenty new case files have had to be added in the last two months just to follow and aid when needed these people being pulled into the world of the supernatural.

 

    “Who the hell are you?!” yells Kathryn with out realizing how loud she was, as she bumps into a woman even she hadn’t heard being there.

 

    “Hmm,” says the woman in the business suit and glasses, a new comer to this world from another, “You can call me the Wanderer. I do believe you and your associate are seeking out a particular entity in this structure. I can be of assistance to you, I…have valuable information on dealing with this one. No doubt you’ve noticed her unusual habits in dealing with her hosts, this is of great concern to your organization, another group out to control or kill in some fashion supernatural life forms correct.”

 

    The Wanderer speaks in a nonchalant style that throws Kathryn off, however her scent tells her this Wanderer is no human, or anything she’s ever smelled before, however she is close to a few things Kathryn would rather not encounter on this world “Fine, do what you want, I don’t care what ever you are, just don’t get in my way.”

 

   The Wanderer shrugs as she follows Kathryn into the building, her strange almost toy like gun drawn.