His back against a charred wall, Gregory thought about the life choices that led him to the burnt shack he was camped out in. Eldriel had taken him down the path of a thief, and now he made his living stealing the belongings of the dead. What good would they have for it? All of his marks were wealthy folk propping artifacts up as decoration. What was the harm in taking from them? Nights like tonight made him reconsider that train of thought. The living had no use for any of those artifacts, not anything more important than space fillers at least, but they jealously guarded them just the same. Now here he was, exhausted and bruised, cradling a worthless antique.

There wasn't anything even special about the clay jar he held in his lap; it was a plain tan color all around, topped with a tightly sealed stone gray lid. Gregory shook it, testing out its mysterious weight, but neither heard nor felt anything move inside. Still, he couldn't help but feel something was off about it, almost as if the jar had some sort of presence to it. He flipped it around and peered at the lid, wondering what might be inside. Something about it reminded him of what Nasha had said just before he left.

He was packing his bag in the bedroom, just the things he needed most, nothing more. Nasha was there, standing around awkwardly.

"You're really going to go through with this?" She asked for the third time.

"Eldriel wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I passed this up," He replied.

"Eldriel wouldn't let you hear the end of it if you died. Or worse."

"You're the one who gave me the lead, Nasha. Did you already forget?"

She sighed and sat down on the bed, her arms behind her, her head tilted towards the ceiling. "It's a dangerous country," was all she said.

"It's an easy mark," Greg reminded her, trying to stuff a roll of toilet paper into the bag. "In and out, right?"

"What do you know about death?" She asked.

Greg turned to look at her, his brow furrowed in confusion. "I'm sorry?" He asked.

"Usually, when someone dies, the spirit leaves the body to ascend to the next life," She said.

"So they say. Where are you going with this?"

"*They* say Drallens care little for what happens to people's souls. There's talk of them keeping souls from leaving the mortal plane, holding them hostage as toys, or worse."

Gregory scoffed. "Toad splatter. Magic can't do anything like that, even if souls did exist."

"I'm just worried, Furlain," she said, though her face already gave that away. "What if something like that happens to you?"

"You worry too much," Gregory Furlain replied, finally closing his bag and throwing it over his shoulder. "Find me a seller for when I get back."

Here, now, with the jar in his lap and in a foreign country, he remembered her words. Souls, trapped and used as toys. Or worse. None of it made any sense to him, it might as well be a fairy tale. Yet something nagged at him in the back of his mind. What if she was right? He shook his head. There's no way that hogwash was real. Still, it wouldn't hurt to open the jar and see what's inside. He pried at the lid with his fingers, but it didn't budge. Undeterred, Gregory stood up, pulled his crowbar out of his bag, and jammed it into the wedge. Either the lid or the pot would break, but regardless of which gave first, it would be open. He put force into it, until the lid suddenly popped open. Surprised the clay didn't crack, he went to throw the lid off, but stopped when it started moving on its own.

The lid lifted up, gently and slowly, like a breeze was coming out and pushing it off. White wisps of mist rose like smoke, curling through itself underneath the lid. More and more came out, a never ending stream shoving the lid aside, until a formless fog clumped together just over the jar.

Gregory's mouth hung open. He could just barely make out the shape of a person inside the mist. Spit clogged in his throat, replacing whatever words his brain failed to come up with. This couldn't be happening, it was impossible. Souls were just a concept invented by a church to control people, to tax them with tithes and rule them with lies. Yet his widened eyes didn't betray him, even if words did. There, in front of him, a soul floated over the jar. Its wisps formed a tendril in the shape of a human arm, that it raised up and pointed back towards the city he'd just escaped from.

The spirit spoke a single word. Its voice came like a whisper on the wind, like an echo from afar, like a murmur under water. The speech was unintelligible, yet he understood it perfectly well.

"Family," it had said.

"Crap," Gregory grumbled. "Crap," he said again. Its family must be in other jars back in the city proper. He shook his head.

"Not real. You're not real," he muttered.

"Family," the thing that shouldn't exist said, still pointing towards the lights.

"No. No," Gregory declared, twisting around and packing his bags. "I'm going insane is all. Not enough sleep, has to be."

"Please."

Gregory kept fumbling with the rest of his meager belongings. He dropped something, not even sure of what it was, his hands rattling it as he put it away again.

"Help them."

"Just stop!" He yelled, whirling around to face the fog. "Leave me alone, you're not real, you can't be!"

He needed it to not be. If this soul was real, then…

No. No no no. Gregory refused to even begin thinking about that. Just like Eldriel taught him, he needed to hone his mind and focus on the task, cut out all distractions. He finished packing, and snatched the jar away from the ghost, or rather, the figment of his imagination, before storming away from the ruins, all the while ignoring the strangely shaped cloud that followed him, begging for help.