<strong>Wagon</strong><br/>The silence hangs in the air, the wheels churning beneath them like the constant grinding of a miller's wheel, as the cart tumbles at breakneck speed, lurching through the paths of the Garden district past the cemeteries and sprawling, overgrown remnants of parks and philosophers' gardens-- both now belonging exclusively to the long-dead.<br/><br/>Cris has settled into a soft, rapid panting, and Fen closes her eyes.  "Can the cart go faster," she asks in a statement, and Declan lifts his gaze in worried surprise.<br/><br/>Closing his eyes a moment of concentration, it is clear to those of magical training that Declan is pushing the cart to its limit... a vein bulges in his temple, and in reply the horses' whinnies echo out into the night like spectral torment, rippling from tombs and statues and walls like the peals of a banshee.  The driverless vehicle goes into full tilt.<br/><br/>"Sorry luv," murmurs Fen into Malia's ear.  "You saw The One tonight, and he managed to worm into your head.  It'll get better, but you're in for a hell of a night.  You're going to have to ride it out."  She sighs softly, leans closer.  "Tell us what we can do.  Every curse is different... if you think it'll help, it might.  Just let us know."<br/><br/>*<br/><br/><b>THE MANOR</b><br/>The cart slows, as if out of honored, ancient respect, or out of sheer, unadulterated terror, as the Manor draws within view, its hulking, wide shoulders like a sentinel on the horizon.  Vaporous yellow eyes stare out, a half-dozen windows casting an amber glow into the night mist from the stout fortifications of darkness, and glowing specters of luminous green seep from corner to corner, from vessel to vessel, crease to crease of the dark, crumbling facade.  This ground belongs to no one.  This ground belongs to the dead. (https://youtu.be/59g5R8rwqpY)<br/><br/>The fence of the grounds looks like a meager remnant of some exotic, decorative iron monstrosity of some artists egotistical design and some craftsman's shop's years of labor, despite its dilapidation and corrosion, the overgrown vines, the creeping, inescapable decay of ages upon ages.  The grounds themselves are full of grasses that have outgrown their roots and dessicated to threads of pale, veinous stalks, of flowers that went to seed so often that they only bear pods, of vines so wild that they are but a tangle and knot of wispy stalks.<br/><br/>It is not without its guards.  Pale, luminous entities patrol the grounds, like silent pantomimes of soldiers, fading in and out of reality in flickering simalcra of loyal determination, of honor and chivalry.  Knights.  Bowmen.  Footsoldiers and gardeners.  All stood guard.  All protected the field.  All, in their afterlife, protected the wall and would die an eternity of deaths for it again.<br/><br/>And with the wagon's arrival, all looked up.  Each skeletal, withered face, to the last armored or half-fleshed visage, recognized the coach, and each turned mutely away to their patrol.<br/><br/>The gates opened, and the wagon careened its perilous path onward, up to the portico, and swiveled with skidding, pebble-spraying madness to a skittering halt at the door.<br/><br/>"We're here," says Fen coldly.  "Let's go."