Night had fallen when Kairen woke once more. Even if he no longer had a body, the rest had been good for his mind and soul. He had managed to regain a measure of his composure, helped by the fact that his corpse was no longer visible in the dark. He glanced over towards the spot he knew it was half buried at, but his gaze was slowly tugged upwards towards the night sky. Kairen wasn’t a young child; he had been awake after dark many times before now and had certainly seen stars before. Never like this though. It was a new moon, and with its absence the sky was a tapestry of color and light. Nebulae streaked the sky like crude brushstrokes, while closer and brighter stars flared like beacons, each one a promised guide to some far off destination. Even the dark areas had their own beauty, as Kairen’s sight adjusted and he could begin to make out the millions of dim lights scattered like grains of sand in the background.

Kairen had heard of Astral Navigators, a rare breed of Pathfinder with the ability to find their way to their destination using the light of the stars, but it was only out here in the Sands that he truly began to appreciate their ability. A thousand thousand stars, and a city resting under each one, perhaps. The only way to know for sure is to take the chance and follow each celestial beacon in turn, with answers only waiting at the end of the journey. Some might lead to death by monsters or accidents, but others would lead to mining camps or trading posts, farming villages or sailing ports. A rare few might even lead to the desert cities, with fountains in every square as a show of wealth, and a thousand princesses to be embroiled in plots and stories.

“I would have liked to see some of them.” Kairen admitted quietly, as his thoughts once again returned to his strange situation. He was dead and yet not, and he was still just starting to understand what his new existence would mean.

No longer was he destined for a cruel life as a slave, but it was hard to appreciate that blessing. A month ago he had still had a family, a home in a tiny town filled with friendly people. He had had dreams for the future, dreams of unlocking a Talent, of traveling the world, of rescuing a princess just like the stories talked about. Even if that last had been unlikely, it was still a dream that had been torn away from him along with everything else.

A dull flapping of wings announced the arrival of a new character to this scene of introspection, and Kairen realized that there was still more that the world could take away from him. The dim starlight let him see make out just enough detail to identify the buzzard hawk perched over his body, inspecting it slowly with a hungry gleam in its eye.

Kairen rushed over, yelling and flailing his arms wildly to try and stop events from happening, and he had a moment of hope as the scavenger bird raised its head curiously to look around. Hoping that the bird could somehow perceive him Kairen began to add some invisible kicks into the mix, trying to convey the message that the monster was not welcome here. The buzzard hawk didn’t seem to care at all as it looked around. Kairen desperately made noise and tried to will the bird away, only to stop as the sharp beak plunged downward before rising back up to gobble down its macabre prize.

As Kairen slowly worked through his initial horror, he realized he was more detached from the situation than he ought to be. It was his body that the monster was feeding on, but the key words in that statement were ‘was his body’. He didn’t seem to be using it anymore, and he wasn’t feeling any pain or other effects from the bird’s action. He had been shocked when he first saw it, but that sensation had quickly faded, and he couldn’t muster up the innate outrage and horror he thought he should be feeling at the desecration of his corpse. It was simply nature taking its course, a course he was no longer part of. Kairen was now simply an observer, unable to be seen, heard or felt by the rest of the world. Unable to stop the carrion eater, and disinclined to watch anymore than he had to, Kairen turned away and returned to contemplating his new state of existence.

Eventually the buzzard hawk left, having eaten its fill and Kairen returned to watching the sky as he thought things through. His current situation was better than slavery, better than the nothingness he had feared after death. It wasn’t the afterlife he had desired, nor was it the life he had been looking forwards to, but it did have its upsides. Not needing to eat or drink was a good one, especially as Kairen didn’t have any way to actually interact with food or water to consume them. The intangibility could be nice, he supposed. While it meant he wouldn’t be able to get other people to help him, it also meant that he wasn’t at risk of being hunted down by a monster. Once he made it back to a city he’d be able to do all sorts of things with no one the wiser. From seeing what the priests actually kept in their holy repositories to unrestricted access to the cleaning houses Kairen was able to think of more than a few ways to spin this to his advantage.

Furthermore, he was hardly the only ghost in the world. The idea was silly! Once he arrived at a city there would probably be a few others, maybe even dozens of other spirits who he could interact with and show him how things worked. And without a physical body to get sore or tired or need food or water, there wasn’t any reason he couldn’t just set off right now! Sure, it might take a lot longer to get anywhere without a Navigator in the lead, but Kairen had time to spare.

Buoyed with the positive ideas, Kairen hopped to his feet. There was just enough light for him to make out the ground in front of him and he began to walk, picking the brightest star and making his way towards it. He made it about a hundred steps before he noticed that something was wrong. He wasn’t moving. He tried harder, but no matter how fast he ran or how hard he pushed his new body refused to travel any further in the direction he wanted to go. Sure, he could head to the side or back easily enough, but Kairen already knew the truth.

He was trapped here.