dead again???

[juelz4sure]

Any help would be nice right now in my WIP Toby, one of the main characters, is dead and in the underworld being tortured while trying to escape the volcanic underworld where demonic creatures exist feeding off the screams of tortured souls...

meanwhile Le'on a new main character performs an old ritual which allows him to enter the underworld to find and rescue Toby, while the dead start to gravitate to him because they can feel life reverberating off of him.

My question is how should Le'on deal with the tortured souls of the dead, a well placed arrow to their head would do nothing seeing as they are already dead. any suggestions?

juelz

 

[Warren_Paul]

Well Sara Douglass in her Axis trilogy made it that the characters have to shoot Skraelings (ghost like creatures) in the eyes to kill them because that was the only part that was solid.

I've also seen it done in other works that if you ignore the ghosts they can't hurt you.

In Supernatural, salt and iron chase away ghosts.

Supernatural's way is from real life mythology involving ghosts, you could use it without worrying about copyright - Of course, fans of Supernatural will cry you foul on it for originality.

 

[juelz4sure]

But where would the dead go if they were killed again especially if they were already in the underworld where the dead reside?

 

[Warren_Paul]

Sorry, I made a couple edits to my above post after you replied.


anyway, I said salt and iron chases them away, it doesn't kill them. They would vanish for a short while but eventually come back.

You could also have him wearing a charm that scares ghosts away.

 

[juelz4sure]

sorry, I like the charm idea, and the fact that it can be removed accidently whether by a demonic creature or by it getting snagged on something as he goes deeper in the underworld

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Or the charm might need to recharge after driving away so very, very many dead.

 

[Colbey Frost]

If it were a comedy, you could have him tell bad jokes to drive them away... you might not carry salt with you, but a bad joke is never too far away if you need some space.

Or he could just tell them about that dream he had one time...

 

[David B]

Either:

1. The tortured souls are trapped/chained, incapable of moving and inflicting damage, letting the rescuer pick his way round their ravaged bodies feeling sick,

or

2. They can run from whatever the demons do to torture them once they're caught. In which case, your rescuer just needs to be as evil as the demons to scare them off.

I would expect more trouble from the demons themselves.

 

[Jammill Khursheed]

You could go the South Park route, where people in Hell could be killed, like normal, and then they just returned to the place where people first enter Hell to suffer again.

i.e. Satan's new boyfriend 'Killed' an already dead Saddam Hussein, then Saddam Hussein came back saying "Where else was I gonna go, Milwauke" or something similar (it was just a random American town, might have been San Diego or something. Don't have a photographic memory for quoting cartoons.)


Jammill

 

[Abernovo]

You could go the Classical route (and by that I mean ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Sumerian myth-style) and take a big sword. Fight 'em off. You don't have to kill them, as most things, even dead but animated souls I imagine, find it difficult to hurt you when they're missing limbs, heads etc. As they're already dead, they might be able to reassemble and lie in wait for you on the way out.

Alternatively, if you want comic relief (presuming it's not already a comic thriller), you could send the dead-again souls to a central administration office to be reanimated. Loads of bureaucracy al a Betelgeuse (don't say it three times).

 

[Glen]

how should Le'on deal with the tortured souls of the dead

Teach them phenomenology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk

I don't want to appear flippant, but you know brainstorming, maybe there's the germ of an idea there...

 

[Flugel Meister]

If the souls are being tortured then that implies that they can feel pain or are capable of suffering.

Perhaps you just need a special kind of bow that only works in the underworld. It's harmless when used against the living but against the dead it's fatal, sending their spirits into a ‘Hall of the Lost Dead’ where they cannot escape and spend the rest of eternity in communal isolation, i.e. no chance of reincarnation, no chance of visitation through apparition (ghosts) and no chance of conversing with the living via a medium or perhaps earning their place in heaven.

Basically, to be shot by this particular bow means eternal suffering with no chance of redemption. Ever.

In this case, the dead would fear an eternity of nothing.

The Hall of the Lost Dead could be a single, large and ancient ethereal building where the Lost Dead occupy every available window, gazing at those beyond (Hell, Heaven and on Earth), knowing they can never again have any impact on those outside or interfere in the affairs and matters they are involved in.

And they can’t speak in the Hall. They lose the ability to communicate altogether, so the Lost dead can’t even talk to each other.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Why not do the 'give them a little bit of what they fancy' route?

If the dead are attracted to the vibes of the living and, say, your weapon of choice is bow and arrow, then have special arrows that hold the souls of living people (or animals perhaps, maybe the dead ain't that choosy or can't tell), so that when your protagonist shoots the arrow at the dead person, the dead dissappears for a reasonable while to feed off the vibrations of the living soul - so it has the effect of stopping it.

 

[juelz4sure]

Well i decided there are different levels of dead, 1st the obvious and they wander the underworld. there are different types of the first level you have the mindless, those that have been tortured to the degree their mind is shattered, evil dead those that feed of pain suffering and souls, and then the good dead those that are at peace with death (there will be better names )
2nd level when the dead is killed again they become floating orbs with no body just spirit form,
3rd level when either the physical dead or spirit dead is struck by a magical arrow made of the bones of demons.

what do you guys think?

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I like the hierarchy idea. Especially if the characters have only met the good dead and the mindless dead, and then they get a shock when the evil dead come to feed on them...

 

[JandenHale]

I like Venusian Broon's idea. Also, I don't know if this would fit into the mythos of your story, but in other stories there are magical artifacts that are capable of sucking up souls. What if he took one of these in there with him? He could activate it and deactivate it (so as not to suck up his friend he's there to rescue).