We got out of the forest into a clearing surrounded by mist. I looked ahead to barely make clear of a small bump on the ground, which is the pothole leading to the ex-bandits underground lair.
The group were on their guard and pretty tensed about their journey here. All of them probably just wanted to leave from here as soon as possible.
"We will rest for 10 minutes before we go. You guys stay in a group and make sure none of you goes off to piss or whatever. If you want to take a leak do it now and here. I don't want to waste my time when I come back to find one of you missing." I ordered them.
They nodded in reply, as they were aware that there was a higher chance of danger present when a person inside a grey zone decided to go alone.
As we were walking here I tried not to agitate them further, since the moment I became aware of the ghost following us, since it would just feed the ghost even more.
I had first noticed it when I felt the unusual movement of air currents around me. A breeze when passing you should just keep on moving. Yet the breeze I felt decided to stay behind us and kept following us for a while.
None of them noticed this, most likely due to throughout the journey the number of times they were jump scared because of an insect or bird has been countless already, so they must have thought nothing of the unusual tiniest sound of wind moving behind them.
I had decided to ignore it till we reached the grey zone, but that changed when it suddenly changed its focus to me and started looking at me. I could feel it staring at me through my soul perception, although still limited in range, I could feel the emotion of hunger and curiosity redirected towards my body, which was picked up by me.
As both emotions of hunger and curiosity grew I knew it was dangerous to be left alone, so I turned around to look where the unusual flow of air movement might be. I spotted it right behind Kristof. So instead of warning everyone I looked at where its eyes should be and smiled in greeting, before turning around in order to not increase their fear even more and carried on moving forward.
I took out some rations from my bag to eat. I had cooked some beast ingredient as dried rations for everyone here. All of us here carried nothing else but a huge amount of dried rations just to eat, in our bag, as we would just simply stay in villages when we needed to sleep and cast magi to clean ourselves.
Everyone proceeded to eat in silence for a while.
Unpredictably halfway through the meal, Ellis started glowing for a short duration before it faded. Seems like he ranked up to become a rank 2.
"Congratz Ellis. Kristof seems like we will have much more help than needed now." I said as I patted Ellis on his shoulder, who put up a fake smile of being happy to me.
"Good work kid." The captain said as he nodded his head while eating the level 10 smoked meat.
"Are you capable of any rank 1 spells?" The young man in his early 20's asked as he smiled towards Ellis while acknowledging what I said.
"Yes, I had learned few rank 1 destructive, defensive and support spells, which I had to learn in order to use in case of emergencies when I was rank 1." Ellis answered back, not being happy as what everyone would expect of a recently advanced rank 2.
Kristof nodded, and soon we went back silently eating.
As everyone finished eating and tidied up I got up with my board and umbrella. I placed the umbrella behind my collar as usual, while slowly riding on the board in walking pace.
The 3 of us moved slowly towards the grey zone, although the 2 of them behind me were still slightly scared they were much more confident now that Ellis had just advanced.
We walked towards the uneven ground, where the pothole to the underground bandit lair was covered by dead grass and a lid.
I let Kristof find the handle and open the lid, as he was much more physically capable than any one of us.
In front of us was a 5 meters tall ladder leading to an underground cave system. There seemed to be light in the underground caused by the somehow lit torches.
As I got down I finally observed the cave system in front of me. It was a long, creepy and eerily silent corridor leading on to whatever room one wished to go to.
We had received the map of the cave from the lord who had his men take care of the bandits before. So, we knew the general direction of where everything was and had a guess of where the ghost could be.
Kristof and Ellis walked, while I hovered behind them in my board to the main hall from where we can guess where the ghost would be.
I could hear both of their footsteps walking in rhythm in the quiet long corridor leading to the main hall. Both Kristof and Ellis were on guard while I casually strolled behind them.
As both of them were walking forward suddenly, Kristof grabbed Ellis and moved back next to me. I looked forward to abruptly see 2 bloody hands coming out of the ground where they were staying a moment ago.
The hands strangely crawled out of the ground and dragged itself towards us. Ellis casted 2 ice spike towards the hands and impaled them to the floor. The rotten and bloody hands squirmed for a while before staying still.
"Thanks." Ellis said as he kept looking ahead, while Kristof just nodded. It seemed Kristof had only noticed because of his better-enhanced hearing than me.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder pushing me forwards along with Ellis. We noticed Kristof seemed to have pushed us out of danger again as this time 2 hands each failed to grab both me and Ellis and from each side of the walls, we were stood next to.
The hand fell to the floor and Ellis quickly recovered to cast 2 ice spike again. But before the ice spike even reached, the two hands and impaled them, another set of hands crawled out of the holes left behind the two hands.
Ellis casted another set of ice spikes and impaled them, as he let out his breath he was holding in, while I walked back to my board.
We carried on moving forward in silence and kept listening for anything out of place.
We came across a small crevice and moved forwards ignoring it.
As we kept moving forwards the light from the torches strangely seemed to have gotten dimmer.
Suddenly all of us turned around and witnessed something terrifying for the weak hearted.
A small hand crawled out the crevice on the wall. We thought it would just be a hand but was proved wrong as the hand extended to become an arm which then slowly extended to reveal part of the tiny body that was slowly but silently getting out of the crevice.
Ellis started casting ice spikes, but the small body ignored the ice spikes and kept on coming out. Kristof readied for combat, while I moved back to let them deal with the undead.
Soon most of the body came out of the crevice. The body was that of a little girl between the age of 6 to 8, the only part left of her to come out was her left hand. Her dusty blond twin-tailed hair certainly didn't complement her bloody tear-stained face.
She finally freed her left hand from the crevice to reveal it held a short sword.
If it was normal people they would have probably never noticed her, while she slowly stalked and caught up with her prey before stabbing them.
Kristoff slowly took out the sword from his waist as he turned around to stab a hand that had come out of the ground behind us.
The stab was the start sign as the undead little girl slowly but quietly walked towards us without making any sound. Ellis seeing that his ice spikes were ineffective against the undead was about to cast another spell when I told him "Aim the ice to her foot and head."
He suddenly understood what I said and casted and threw 3 ice spikes. Two to a foot each which impaled her to the ground, while another went for her head.
However, the little girl ignored the ice spike poking through her head and tore her foot through the ice spike impaling her and kept moving forward. I could still see some blood on the ice spike that momentarily stalled her.
"Ellis cast an ice spike to stop her moving her left hand. Kristof as soon as the spell is cast chop the head off and stab her heart. But don't let your guard down and come back as soon as possible." I ordered both of them, as Kristof took his sword out of the still and unmoving hand he just impaled.
Ellis started casting an ice spike which travelled forwards to impale her left hand to her stomach. As soon as the ice restricted her left-hand Kristof ran forward to chop the head off very quickly followed by stabbing where her heart his.
The head flew and hit the wall on the side before bouncing and rolling back to lay on its side, in front of her body, while the eyes on the head still seemed to be staring at us, with the previous casted ice spike still resting there.
I had expected a blood fest but only a small amount of blood rolled from where her neck was and the place where her heart used to be.
I ignored this and watched as Kristof moved back very quickly. It was a good thing he did because despite doing what is considered as fatal blows to all living she kept moving forward.
Ellis and Kristof seemed to be getting frustrated at this unstoppable undead, and their fear seemed to be increasing as they suddenly realised, this wasn't even the main part of the grey zone where the majority of the undead gathered.
"Both of you keep calm. Don't let the grey zone affect your thoughts and feed on you." I said as I watched the undead moving forward.
This seemed to have relaxed them for a bit, but the undead just kept on moving forward.
"Ellis cast a mud block in front of her left leg so she would trip up. And then proceed to impale her arms when she is down, followed by her legs." I instructed him.
Ellis did as I instructed and managed to trip her up. As she was falling he started casting for another ice spike and got it ready to impale one of her arms.
After a few seconds, the undead was stuck with no chance to escape from its imprisonment.
However, the undead didn't care as it struggled for a few more moments, but strangely after a while, it went still, just like the hands that were impaled before.