Day instantly turned to night, like the heroes had crossed an invisible threshold separating the two. When they looked back at the open expanse, and the Always Forest, it was sunny. When they turned ahead, it was dark blue and purple hues. Stars twinkled, but their light was masked by a thick, rolling fog. Patches of overgrown grass popped out every few feet.
“Let’s get through as quickly as we can,” Peregrine said, stepping ahead. A large hand grabbed him by the shoulder.
“No,” Wendell said.
Peregrine turned and glared at him, but Wendell stood his ground.
“What do you mean “no?”” Alissa asked.
“I said what I said.” Wendell threw his hands up and pointed behind him. “Did the two of you learn nothing back there?”
“I learned that Peregrine bitched out,” Alissa announced.
“Me?” Peregrine pointed to himself exaggeratedly. “We would’ve died if I had decided to be a big, bad bitch like you.”
Alissa smiled. “Oh. Now you’ve done it.” She started toward Peregrine.
Wendell stepped between them, holding Alissa back. “That’s my point. You both ignored my suggestion. We dive head first into everything without giving it a second thought. A gruesome death will take us all, if we keep at it. The only reason we’re alive is because Vinny, and his gang, are vampires with some sort of weird psuedo-moral compass. I promised a girl we’d save her. Am I a liar, Peregrine? I never was before. Should I go find her blood-covered body and apologize?” His voice changed, like he was playing a character. “Sorry, miss, I was never going to save you. I only meant to give you a false hope. It doesn’t matter if you forgive me, because you’re dead.” He clenched his fists. “I never signed on the dotted line to be made aware of something so horrible. If you had actually listened to “safe and sound” Wendell, we’d be ignorant to the happenings of that god awful cave.” His chest heaved with unsteady breaths.
Alissa didn’t object.
Peregrine wanted to argue, but didn’t have any grounds to do so. His executive decision had sent them marching blindly into that cave. They had likely been one more wrong sentence away from death when he demanded that Vinny let the humans go. He could argue that Alissa was just as guilty as him, by not disagreeing with running into the cave. But what good would that do? They lived and died as a unit now. The only way to survive was getting on the same page.
“Neither of you can muster a response when it’s about something you fucked up on.” Wendell kicked at a nearby patch of overgrown grass.
CRACK!
Wendell dropped like a sack of angry red potatoes, clutching at his shin. “What the hell was that?” He rolled across the ground, muttering scathing obscenities.
For as much pain as he appeared to be in, his health bar had barely budged. But he’d definitely struck something solid. That much was obvious.
Alissa knelt down and pushed the grass aside, revealing a kicked-in-half gravestone. She picked up the broken section and read the crude etchings aloud. “Samantha. Archer Level 5.”
Peregrine revealed the stone hiding behind the next clump of grass. “Antonio. Knight Level 4.”
Wendell recovered and helped search headstone after headstone, each engraved with a name and a class related to combat.
The dense fog made it impossible to tell, but the graves seemingly went on for a good distance.
“What is this?” Peregrine had uncovered eight already.
A wet, anguished cry came from a nearby tree.
The group had their weapons at the ready, aiming toward the source.
A shadow slowly slid out from behind the tree. It was dark, but looked like a head with long hair falling around its shoulders. Then two yellow orbs for eyes appeared, blinking rapidly.
“What the hell is that?” Alissa took a step back.
“Don’t swing, yet,” Wendell suggested. “What if it’s someone who needs our help.”
“Do you think someone who needs our help would be jumping out from behind a tree?” Alissa asked, snippily. “Do the helpless often have yellow eyes with no pupils?”
The shadow fully emerged and shuffled toward them, its darkness giving way to discernible features the closer it got. The fog pulled to the sides as it stepped through, like curtains opening on a stage.
“These are the graves of those who came before you,” the shadow said.
Peregrine tensed, his quill on a short trigger that almost pulled at the disturbance of the voice coming from the approaching figure.
Once in clear view, the shadow revealed itself to be a young woman with porcelain skin. A cowboy hat adorned her head and a white, long-sleeve button shirt, stained with dirt, clung to her body. She carried a shovel, the scoop dented and cracked.
“What do you want with us?” Wendell asked.
The woman responded in an ethereal voice. “I’m the caretaker of this yard. It is my responsibility to bury those who die here … and will die here.”
Peregrine lowered his quill. He found the woman’s voice to be the softest and the calmest he’d ever heard.
Alissa held her sword to the side.
“Death is difficult,” the woman said. “But the burden can be lessened, if one is aware of its arrival. It allows time to prepare and come to terms with it.” Tears streamed down her face. The shovel dropped. Her hands reached up, covering her face while she began crying uncontrollably, shoulders shaking.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Feeling an unexplainably high amount of empathy, Peregrine made to comfort her.
Before he reached her, the crying stopped. Her hands slid away, revealing an expressionless face, the tears all but dried. Her mouth opened wide. It didn’t stop, though. It kept going, wider and wider until her black maw encompassed her entire head and her face folded away, dropping around her shoulders. Then her skin tore more, falling off her arms, peeling down until it was bundled on the ground around her.
What remained was horrifying—more so than her skin peeling off. Her body retained its shape, but what was once skin and clothing was now a scribble. It looked like someone had taken a pencil and scrawled all over her. And the scribbling was moving, like it was continually being scratched on her. Her yellow eyes shone through the black.
Peregrine stumbled back, bumping into Wendell. “Do we run?”
“Where?” Wendell asked.
With the fog surrounding them, there was no clear answer.
The living scribble received an official name from the System.
[Banshee]
[Level 8]
You’ve encountered a banshee. Neither malevolent nor benevolent, banshees herald a looming death. With you in her presence, it is cause for concern that it is your life in question. Their scratch-like appearance hiding underneath their skin is a visual representation of the chaoticness surrounding death. They mean no harm, but their screams are debilitating, often resulting in injury to those near them. If you don’t escape the shrill sound, you will find yourself buried amongst the rest. In this case, where there’s one, there’s often more.
As announced, a high-pitched wail sprang from the banshee, sounding like a blaring tornado alarm. Then a herald of screams came from above, answering the call from the ground. Banshees swooped in and out of the fog, not physically attacking but blowing out the group’s eardrums instead.
The heroes dropped to their knees, desperately cupping their hands over their ears. Peregrine’s stomach turned rotten and he threw up. He saw Alissa’s mouth moving, but couldn’t hear her voice over the screaming.
Peregrine motioned for Alissa to join him, then, on their hands and knees, they crawled to Wendell. Trying to stand was impossible, the power of the sound waves pushing their bodies down. It took every ounce of strength to keep from being mashed into the grass. His health bar was depleting, as were those of his friends. Wendell’s higher defense stats kept his bar from draining as fast as the other two.
How could they escape if they couldn’t move?
Wendell managed to get to his knees and grabbed his shield that he’d dropped, struggling to hoist it. His face turned beet red and the veins in his neck popped out. His teeth clinched like he was grunting, but the noise was muffled.
When the shield lifted, Peregrine saw a couple spots above them erupt in a cloud of black scribbling, before dissipating.
Of course, Peregrine thought.
Wendell’s shield was capable of reflecting damage back at the enemy. The lethal screams appeared to be deadly to their originator.
Peregrine tapped Wendell on the shoulder, pointed to his shield, then to the banshee near them and made an exploding motion with his hands.
Wendell nodded. He got to one knee, bracing hard behind his shield, twisting it back and forth trying to reflect the screams.
Peregrine and Alissa crawled behind for protection, finding immediate relief from some of the screeching. But the pressure from above felt like someone was sitting squarely on Peregrine’s chest.
One by one, the banshees exploded into black clouds, the deafening blare lessening with each. The last remaining woman was the one they had first met. She hadn’t moved from her original spot, staring with her yellow orbs.
“Sorry,” Wendell whispered, turning the shield in her direction. “Thank you for warning us.”
A moment later, the last banshee exploded and faded out of existence. The heroes collected themselves, peering into the fog as best they could to verify they were alone.
“Look, turtleneck,” Alissa said, studying the real estate at her feet instead of making eye contact. “I’m sorry I’m a bit of a bulldozer. Sometimes my body acts before my brain has time to think. From here on out, I’ll make a concerted effort to consult the team before rushing into danger.”
Wendell got to his feet, using his shield to push himself up. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Peregrine was shocked that Alissa voluntarily apologized and agreed to be more conservative with her actions. It would be best if he decided to make a conscious effort to be on the same page with them, as well. Working with others was hard, something he wasn’t used to. “We operate as one. Doesn’t work if we don’t agree.”
“Now we’re thinking alike.” Wendell smiled.
“So we’re clear,” Peregrine started, “I didn’t rush into the banshees. They rushed into us.”
“Yeah, they just kinda happened,” Wendell agreed.
“Be great if the air cleared up.” Alissa swung her arm, watching her hand displace the fog.
TING!
TING!
Peregrine peered into the distance, frustrated with the low visibility. Something was out there. “You two hear that?”
“Here what?” Wendell asked.
“I’m not sure how to describe it.” Peregrine turned his ear toward the source. “You know the sound a magic wand makes in princess movies when they enchant something? A high-pitched chime?”
TING!
TING!
“There it is again.” Peregrine pointed in the direction the sound came from.
“I heard it,” Alissa said. “What is that?”
All three stared into the distance, seeing nothing but a grayish-white wall.
An orange ball of light appeared.
A blue ball of light appeared.
A yellow ball of light appeared
A black ball of light appeared.
The four lights lined up evenly. Their glow cut a tunnel through the fog, revealing that they were resting on top of a long table. Standing behind the table was a tall man wearing a red robe over his slender body. Like the banshee, his skin was porcelain and his hair fell around shoulder length. An infinity symbol floated over his head.
“Did you ever use that Take Flight powder?” Peregrine asked Wendell.
“Not yet.”
“Take it now. I think we found The Magician.”
Wendell produced the powder and dumped it in his mouth, coughing as he choked it down. “My Attack, Defend, and Creative, all went up one point.”
“Good,” Peregrine said. “Hopefully it helps.”
“How do you guys want to do this?” Alissa asked. “Walk up and see what he does? Don’t fire unless fired upon?”
Peregrine shrugged. “Seems as good of an approach as any.”
“Don’t forget our synergy skills that Vinny showed us,” Wendell added.
Peregrine studied his quill. “I’ll go out on a limb and say this guy specializes in magic. Question is, will he be weak against it? I’ve got Holy and Fire to switch between. Wendell, I’ll supply you first, get our line of defense up. Take turns hitting him with what we’ve got until we see what hurts him. If it’s magic, I’ll get your weapon enchanted.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and plastered on his brave face. “Ready?”
