After days and days of travelling through a perilous mountain range, I finally came down and entered a city. As any self-respecting city would, it had high stone walls around it in case of a siege, and great ornamental gates in case of a festival. It was bustling with life; even a little too much for my tastes, for as soon as I stepped past the disinterested guards and into its streets I was attacked by sounds, smells and sights from all sides. The dizzying atmosphere was almost too much to take in at first, especially after a long time spent in the wilderness, but after an hour or so I grew accustomed to it enough to start enjoying my stay.
I walked up to a stall, where a bored man sat, pretending to care about produce-mongering. His face showed a story of his whole life — many years spent in the scorching sun and the pouring rain, tending to his fields, as well as at least three different fights or accidents that left pale, shimmering scars on his otherwise weather-beaten skin. When he saw me approach and start to peruse his wares, he reluctantly stood up and, leaning on the counter a bit, asked in a painfully bored tone:
"'Ow can I 'elp you?"
I picked up three potatoes and a bulb of garlic and put them on the counter, asking how much they would cost.
"Three obols," he responded. Fortunately, the price wasn't so high as to make me bankrupt, so I shelled out the appropriate amount and decided to trouble him some more, seeing how bored he looked. I wanted to know what is there to do, see or discuss around here, although I could've just wandered about until Fate decided it was time for an encounter. I'm good at wandering about, but who knows, maybe this man held some interesting stories already.
"Well," he started, waving his hand around like the thoughts he was gathering were pesky flies that he wanted to catch, "if you wan' somefin' to see, the church is a marvel, so they say. The city 'all is also not ugly at all, er —"
I interrupted him, saying that I knew that already (though I didn't, not really, just suspected), and specified I meant less obvious sights, like a pub with a weird name and even weirder story behind it where only the locals ever go, or perhaps a back alley behind an old millinery where local cats gather between discarded and tattered hats. He raised his eyebrows, his mustache going up with them, and after a while he responded:
"Well, if that's the kinda sights you wanna see…" He leaned closer to me. "Some say, if you go out the backdoor from the Skylos1 Street theater, you'll find that it's haunted. Some… unwanted props coming to life for revenge, or other such bullcrap." He spat behind his left shoulder with a grimace to deter bad luck and continued:
"But that's just local legends, you understand. All my life I've lived 'round 'ere — I know almost everyone!" he seemed to light up with pride upon these words — "and no one ever actually saw these supposed spooks. It's always some third cousin of someone's mother-in-law, who 'eard from 'er friend that 'er uncle was almost killed in that back alley when 'e was twelve," he finished, looking a bit disgruntled, like he didn't like the fact that he started talking about it. But it was too late now, because his natural penchant for gossiping kept him from staying silent upon such a strange request from a simple tourist.
I thanked him for his time and he slumped back onto a wooden box trying really hard to be a chair. I decided to go around the town and at least try to find this Skylos Street he talked about, although I did not intend to go through any back doors just yet. Everybody knows that you can't have a proper haunt in broad daylight; I had to wait until dark if I wanted to discover any ghostly affairs. I put the vegetables into my pack, for later, and ventured forwards, starting to smell some proper food.
Hours passed while the sun made its way through the firmament. With my stomach full of stew, which I kindly received at a community kitchen, I found my way to the theater. It did not look very interesting from the outside, so much so that I didn't even register it was there at first before I saw a poster advertising tonight's performance. While I could communicate with the people of this region just fine, I had never fully learned how to read their alphabet, so I couldn't quite make out the title of the play. Fortunately, posters tend to have pictures on them, and this one was no different, as in-between all the text there was a bust of a person wearing a wolf skin, with the fearsome fangs of the creature piercing their eyes. The imagery filled me with a very slight, but noticeable anxiety, though probably mostly due to the fact that I've already set myself to think about ghouls and such.
The inside of the theater was exactly as unassuming at the outside, with the exception of one nice chandelier in the foyer. I found a clerk, a spiritless young woman (why was everyone I happened to pay closer attention to so bored?) inside a ticket booth, and inquired about possible jobs for a day or two, as I was in need of money and a corner to sleep in before I leave off again. She was a little bit surprised at my request, as usually these types of deals take place in inns or forges, not theaters, but she got up and told me to wait while she fetched her supervisor. After a short while, an older woman came out from behind a staff door and we discussed the details briefly before agreeing on the deal. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have another pair of hands, we do have a performance tonight and there is usually much to tidy up afterwards," she said in a creaky voice. The young clerk, apparently named Samantha, showed me to the boiler room where I could spend the night if I had no other options. This was more than enough; I supposed I could even use the hot pipes to steam my potatoes if I needed to.
This evening, a surprising amount of guests came to see the play, which I now knew was called "[name]" and told the story of [something]. They, of course, made quite a mess, because what else an audience in a theater is supposed to do, when they all stand around the scene and can't see over one another's heads while drinking ale and eating fruit? At least I could earn my pay fair and square.
One thought occupied my head throughout all of this, and it was, of course, the one about the haunted back alley. I saw a lot of props backstage, even unfinished or unused ones, and even more in the storage rooms deeper into the building, some even almost completely destroyed. The man at the stall talked about "discarded props coming to life," but all of them looked quite inanimate. I was wondering about why would anyone here throw a prop out onto the street, if even the destroyed ones were kept safe and sound, and came to the conclusion that it must have been haunted or cursed in the first place for someone to try and get rid of it. I ate my supper, a few leftover oranges which were distributed to the audience during the performance, and decided to finally step through the back door and put the haunting claims to the test.
