August took a breath, analysing the situation. He weighed the rapier in his hand, all too aware that he had received no formal training in swordsmanship whatsoever and was grossely incompetent in this particular discipline. He doubted whether he was even holding the thing right. The fact of the matter was, regardless of whether the room's ghostly tenants were armed or not, rushing in swinging would only get him killed. Maybe worse. A more tactful approach was in order. Dispelling his blade, August reached into his jacket and pulled out lighter and cigarette. He wasn't sure exactly what kind of ghouls he was dealing with, but he was fairly certain that most of the known varieties were vulnerable to omnivident-manipulated fire. Not that he had received any training in that domain either, but it was better than nothing. It seemed, after all, that his "teacher" intended this appartment cleansing assignment to be a crash course in the usage of his newly-acquired powers. So be it.

August lit up and strode into the room casually, adressed the ghosts with a nod of his head; "Afternoon, gentlemen." He came up to the counter and leaned against it, inhaling deeply as the smoke rushed through his lungs. He exhaled slowly, turning to face the two men. "Nice day, isn't it?"

OOC: twin girl ghosts heading towards Johnathan and Carter btw

The laughing ghost continued laughing with his shoulders hunched and his head facing the counter while the barkeeper washed a mug with a bored expression. He looked over to the child who entered the room with a cigarette in his mouth and slammed a cup onto the counter.

"What can I getchya junior? A glass o' milk?" spoke the barkeeper with a chuckle.

Alice was shocked. She couldn't believed that worked. At first she was relieved that it had gone smoothly, but her happiness faded upon realizing that now it was down to her to contend with the spirit alone. It would've been better to draw it out of the room somehow. Her meticulous planning had fallen apart, the worst part being that it was her fault. "Uhh... I'll be out in a minute, I think" she whispered, unable to answer Li's question in front of the ghost.
"Nice to see you... Ma?" she said while closing the door behind her.

"Yo Johnny boy! We gotz a coupla girls, huh!" Carter chuckled and got into a stance. "I think she got the hots for ya." Carter ran up with his daggers and thrusted them straight into the girls belly. He then ripped out each dagger by opening up his arms like a cross and ran out the door while saying, "Hey, John, care to kill the other one?"

The elderly ghoul clearly only "recognized" Alice. Logan decided that his presence would only serve to upset the woman further. Rather than wait behind, he shuffled off to take on another door alone. Surely it couldn't hurt to expedite the process a little. He made his way to the first door that wasn't already occupied and cracked it open to take a peek inside.

"My how beautiful you've grown" spoke the ghastly old woman cheerfully, "I long for the day you get married and have children of your own. Come sit, the girls will be here in a minute." The elderly woman waved her hand and the chair screeched sideways for Alice to sit. No sooner had the chair moved, two other chairs materialized around the small table and three other elderly ladies with tea sat with knitting needles and playing cards at the table.

"Ah Beatrice" spoke one of the old woman with a bonnet and cards in her hand "You have grown quite beautiful, are you still seeing James? He is quite dashing isn't he?"

"Even more dashing now that he's returned from the war" quipped up the other old woman who hunched her back and knitted incessantly, "Killed many of those wretched Germans"

"Rightly so," spoke the original old woman with the flaming blue eyes while nodding and taking another sip of tea.

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The ghost girl seeing Carter swinging his weapon toward her stomach simply split her upper body from her lower body and the blade passed through without harm. Her eyes glowed a deeper shade of red and her hands began to glow with red energy. She fired a blast of red light at Carter with a cackle.

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The door opened by Logan revealed a room that seemed to be completely underwater. It was odd however in that Logan could breathe as if he were breathing air. A school of goldfish swam about the room idly, that is until they noticed his presence. They then began to swim around in a large circle creating a whirlpool of orange fins and scales.

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One of the doors to the rooms that had yet to be inspected began to shudder slightly near Maximilian. A knocking from the other side could be clearly heard.

"Yow!" Carter excaimed. What is wrong with these blades? It's the right material no doubt "I'm sick of these ghosts. See ya guys at the bottom of the building!" And he ran down the stairs to the bottom. Why face your fears and problems when you can run from them?

Adi threw an overhand right, the one that held his weapon, towards the charging ghost. It was a simple and straightforward movement on both their parts but his intention was to divert the ghost in to the path of his spray which had readied. Whether the ghost dodged or not it would still have to contend with either weapons of his.

Johnathan's dash was cut short, however. "Yo Johnny boy! We gotz a coupla girls, huh!" He then turns around towards Carter voice. He took one of his daggers and slashed straight through a ghost. At first it looked like clean hit. But the ghost....split itself in half? Carter then takes off, leaving Johnathan with both of them.

Wasting no time, Johnathan rushes at the ghost Carter faced off not to long ago. Instead of slicing the ghost, he goes for a different angle. He stabs one of his Billhooks straight into the ghost girls chest. Violently, he starts drawing Fragor. If this ghost tried the same thing again like it did with Carter, he had Arx to back him up. If this backfired, he had to think of something else. Fast.

That was a whole mess of fish. How on earth was he supposed to take all of them out with just a shield and a dagger. He had to think quickly. The whirlpool was beginning to suck him in, and he was going to need a way to attack a wide area of opponents...
Of course! The can of holy water. The junior retrieved it from his pocket and aimed at the whirling orange cyclone. Due to the water pressure, though, the sanctified water came out slowly and dissipated into the water. Fortunately, it was enough to get caught up in the whirlpool. Logan grabbed onto the door frame to keep from being sucked in and waited to see if it would have any effect.

Li's heartbeat rose as soon as the door Alice entered shut. With nothing more the three on the outside could do, Li decided they should split up to be more efficient. He noticed Logan already wandered off on his own and entered a room. The room next to Maximilian started to make a knocking noise as well.

"Alright, I know I just said we shouldn't split up, but in this case we should, as we're sitting ducks out here," Li told Maximilian. "Now Logan seemed to have wandered off into that room over there", he said while gesturing towards the door Logan entered, "so I want you to go in there and help him out with whatever he stumbles into."

With that being said, Li walked over to room that had just made a noise and without hesitation, opened the door.

"I was thinking of something a little bit... harder," August replied. "You have any gin? Tobasco? Cranberry juice, maybe? Pretty popular combo back home, actually. Tastes great on the rocks."

While engaging the barkeeper, August was attempting to connect with the smoldering embers in his cigarette the same way he had learned to see the flame from his lighter as an extension of himself. If he could heat them enough, a butt in the face might be just the thing to distract one of the ghouls sufficiently for a clean hit with the rapier. That would leave him to face the other on more even terms. Or so he hoped.

Admittedly, however, the laughter from the man at the other end of the counter made it difficult to concentrate. He co.cked his head in the brown-clad ghost's direction and asked; "Hey buddy. What's so funny?"

"Now Logan seemed to have wandered off into that room over there, so I want you to go in there and help him out with whatever he stumbles into."

Watching Li ramble off towards the door Maximilian shrugged and headed for the door Logan had passed through. Opening the door Maximilian immediately stepped back upon seeing the 'world of water'

"Isn't that curious." He muttered before crouching down and placing his hand into the water. It seemed real enough, but he wasn't entirely sure of where Logan even was at this point. All that was visible in the water was a school of fish, and to him the whole situation felt rather dubious. "Some type of trap maybe." Maximilian rose from his crouched position and backed away from the door before resuming his earlier pose. He had no intentions of enter the water, for now watching was more than enough.

Basil stood behind and watched, but prepped his knife. He had nowhere to go and stood in the hallway outside the rooms the others were in. He was not frightened of the ghosts, but was anticipating meeting them after reading of dark spirits and demons in his grimoires. With that he awaited their arrival.

How many ghosts are in this place? Alice thought as three more elderly-looking spirits joined the first. She normally wouldn't expect there to be more than a handful in one building, but already the girl had heard or seen almost ten. This wasn't natural.
"You have grown quite beautiful, are you still seeing James? He is quite dashing isn't he?" One of the ghosts asked while 'Beatrice' nervously took her seat.
"Uhhh, J-james? Sure-" She began, but was cut off by another voice chiming in.
"HI! I'm Phora." The familiar pointed towards her totem user. "She's my mom. Why did you put a dresser on the ceiling?"
When did she come out? Alice had already told her not to do this anymore. Phora noticed her glare and shrugged. "I wanted to play house with the ghosts."
"They don't know that they're ghosts! They think they're alive!" Alice retorted, and then realized she was shouting.
The creature looked at the spirits and laughed loudly. "How could you not notice you're dead? You have a fire on your eyeballs. It should be obvious." After hearing that the senior was pretty interested in how the ghosts would respond. There was no way to salvage the conversation at this point anyway.

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Logan's holy water seemed to be having an effect on the goldfish. They darted around frantically as if in pain, breaking up the whirlpool. After a few seconds the school gathered in the center of the room forming a dense orange ball, which began to take the shape of one massive fish as more packed themselves on. When completed the monster's bulbous body was nearly the length of a small shark, with an extra eye and pair of fins which jutted out at odd angles. One eye swiveled to fixate on the intruder. It opened its mouth wide revealing rows of sharp teeth and emitted a deep, rumbling sound before slowly paddling itself in his direction.

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Li opened the door and found himself face to face with a frail looking ghost in a black tuxedo and top-hat. It rushed towards him with surprising speed while swinging a cane frantically.