#but artair isn't pushing them because he has too much trust in people and won't assume the worst of them so john hasn't been confronted

[townofcadence]

Artair shrugged. He watched Wendy and John. The two had moved across the cabin, setting up their own supplies for the night. His voice was low as he answered Salena. "I don't know if it'll help, but it's worth a shot. And it might keep them feeling a bit more level if they think it's an easy fix. We don't need panic." People without supernatural experience tended to act out while hysterical, which made things ... exponentially worse. Fear did terrible things to the mind; to the body too, when you were desperate enough to escape it.

He rolled his wrist, a sigh escaping him. "Either way, spirits are a case-by case basis. It's possible something happened they're not keen to tell us, and that's the cause. Something that explains why she felt.... the way she did." He shivered. "But a lot of spirits in my world don't even know they're dead. They could have died too fast, or were disoriented, or it happened in their sleep. Or they just--- enter a state of denial. Or they did know, but so long alone was enough to.... deteriorate, and forget." Artair swallowed, eyes distant and creased.

"But-- mh. But With how.... I don't know, heavy....? How much grief and this utter sense of loss I was feeling.... it's hard to imagine what they even could've done to set her off that badly. It's possible she's .... stuck. What she's feeling is real, but it could be tied to events long before any of us got here. That could explain why she's not coming into the cabin. If she's an old enough spirit to have this kind of strength, she might've died before it existed. Which might mean she's blind to the cabin itself, if she's only seeing things like they were before she died. But.... also maybe something did happen, because the storm is happening now. And maybe she can't get in because--- I don't know, someone salted the outside of the house to help with ice, and it's a perfect enough circle that she can't pass through? It's hard to say. And we don't have much of anything right now."

Artair leaned back and turned onto his side towards Sal, knees curling up to his chest. His meager frame was almost in a fetal position, with his head propped up for now. "I mean, I'm not gonna lie, those two...they were kinda-- asking for trouble, leaving the trail. For a lot of reasons not even related to ghosts. But they don't feel malicious. Just--- curious, and a little foolhardy for it?" Like he and his friends had been, a lifetime ago. "But I don't think there's a good reason to think they did something horrific enough to traumatize a ghost to grief, just yet. But who knows? Maybe they messed with the wrong thing. But also maybe they're just as unlucky as we are, and something else entirely riled her up." He sighed again, before shoving his bag under his head. He slotted his fingers together, resting against the floor beside his face.

"I don't necessarily think it's just they woke her up. But the best we can do at this point is narrow down the variables." Again, he shrugged, this time looking far more tired. "Right now, we know that they went somewhere that they weren't supposed to be. And the same day, within a short span, she started reacting. Hopefully if the cave was her resting grounds, they woke her up by stumbling in there and poking around. If that's the case, now that they've left she might settle, once she's burned through her energy manifesting this storm. But if after tonight the blizzard is still out there, at least we'll know there's something else at work, and we can work on narrowing it down."

Salena had been listening for the most part, trying to think. Artair was the expert here when it came to spirits and ghosts. Her own experience mostly delved into ones that were truly violent... She'd seen other ghosts before, and tried to compare from there.

Something didn't quite add up.

Territory could be something that would cause a spirit to turn violent... but then why did they sound like they were grieving? Even the spirits that attacked her where usually just... angry. Or they were in service to someone else. They just grew to attack whenever anyone came too close. This ghost had attacked them yes... but then why back off after she had gotten Artair? Why wasn't she then phasing through the door to get to them? It's not like they were really protected in here.

Even if that was the problem, if she had grown territorial, then wouldn't this problem persist until they had left?

Artair and Wendy had come to the conclusion that perhaps it would be best to just wait out the time to see if something changed. She'd just shrugged along with them, "Seems a better plan than anything else. Unless anyone feels stupid enough to go back out there without some other idea."

Despite agreeing, she wondered if Artair might have had some of the same thoughts as her. Salena had leaned over to him, whispering so that only he would hear her, "I hope you are right about this... I can't help but feel like something is still... off about this."