The Smell of Strange Incense
Overview
From the Story Arc "Dark Visions" given by Blind Makwa.
Souvenir's Text
The Smell of Strange Incense
Sometimes the smell of smoke reminds you of Blind Makwa's spiritual incense and with this memory comes the faces of the great ancestors and the furious forms of the apparitions. But beyond them, somewhere in the back of your mind, you can feel something else... something in the shadows... watching. Sometimes a minute will pass before you realize and all that you are left with are...
Dark Visions
It all began when you met with the blind old medicine man known appropriately as Blind Makwa. What you did not know, however, was that his gift of spirit sight was stolen from him by a witch. Despite the loss of his gift, Blind Makwa's own desire to discover the meaning behind the angry Apparitions in First Ward matched your own and so the two of you worked together to communicate with the dead to discover the source of their rage. After gathering the necessary ingredients from the nearby cemetery you made your way to the Keystone Apartments, the resting place of many spirits from the Hamidon Wars, and set up ritual censers to draw the spirits into negotiations. After hearing the words of the great ancestors you discovered that the Apparitions are not the spirits of the dead, but rather, the spirits of the living!
Blind Makwa was certain that black magic was responsible for the spirits of the living turning so violent. He sent you to Cerulean, a wizard who was once a member of the Midnighters, to obtain the Book of Binding and the Dust of Chains from the Midnight Mansion; the old headquarters of the Midnighters before they were betrayed by Master Midnight. The mansion was a dangerous place that Cerulean knew a secret way into. Inside you obtained the book and the dust and then escaped before Master Midnight knew what had happened.
With the Book of Binding and the Dust of Chains, Blind Makwa and the wizard, Cerulean, set to work on creating a ward to protect the Carnival from possession by the Apparitions. Knowing that the spirits were of the living and not the dead proved key, and after using Blind Makwa's spirit snare to capture the essence of an Apparition from a possessed host, he was able to make the final adjustments necessary to safely ward the Chapel of Enduring Light. The Apparitions, however, seemed to react quite strongly and universally against your efforts to set up the spirit wards, but even their fury could not overcome you. In the end the angry spirits of the living were kept at bay, but left one burning question. Who is using magic to direct the Apparitions against the living?