light somehow made its way through the thick foliage. The forest was dark and gloomy. An eerie, ominous silence reigned. It was even scary to break it by stepping on a branch. Here and there an owl hoots or a wolf howls. And fog, which makes it very difficult to know where you will step next.
– Guys, be careful! Sienna said. – Here mobs appear from the void. Been here several times – unpleasant place. And I don’t really want to come here a second time from the respawn point – I can’t stand this horror.
We walked on, stepping carefully. Then Sienna motioned for us to stop.
– Do you hear? – she whispered. I was just trying to answer when suddenly a ghost appeared in front of us. It was a gray-bearded man in knight’s armor.
– What did you forget, travelers, in our forest? He is ours, and only ours. And we don’t invite guests at all.
«Let us go to Parkwell,» Still said.
– You chose the wrong route.
– But there is simply no other! – Bran intervened.
– But there is also no other way through our forest, except to reach the outskirts of the forest, becoming a ghost. This path is closed to the living!
The knight clicked his teeth and flew towards us. My companions realized faster, and they were already wearing blue shields.
– SAMPT! – I shouted when the ghost was a couple of steps away from me, and he hit the blue hemisphere.
– MALLEBAR! – I shot orange lightning towards the ghost, but he did not pay attention to my magic, which did not harm him
– DONE! – Robert shouted, but the shock wave only hit the trees, and the ghost continued to tear apart our shields.
– KISHI! – said Bran, but a green ray entered the ghost and spread evenly over his translucent body.
The knight laughed:
– Are you thinking of killing the dead man? You can’t have two deaths, but you can’t avoid at least one!
– DEPRESSION! – Still made his last attempt when his shield had already burst. A purple stream enveloped the ghost’s body, and he fell to his knees.
«I listen and obey, my lord,» said the ghost.
– Yes! The subjugation spell worked! – Still smiled. – Tell me, how can you be killed?
– I’ve been dead for half a millennium. It’s impossible to kill me.
– Okay, how can I… Calm you down?
– Please, no need! I will do anything for you…
– Speak!
– The spell of all-purifying light sends the ghosts on their final journey.
– Name him.
– LIGHTENIS! – the ghost whispered, and a light white haze flew from his lips, and a new spell – or rather, a new branch of spells – white in color, shone on my panel. Without the staff, the spells were too weak to do any good or harm. It’s so good that they made me a new staff! Otherwise he would now be as useless as this ghost.
«A second-level spell,» Sienna whispered. Only my staff can do such things; yours will crumble into pieces from it. Tell me, knight, how many people like you are there in this forest?
– Once upon a time there were two hundred of us. We swore an oath to serve King Charles faithfully, just as we served his father. But Charles turned out to be a bad king. He spent his days and nights on wine and women, but he didn’t care about his native lands. When his younger brother Stan rebelled, we joined his army. After all, the threat of attack by the Styrians was great, and Karl did not care about anything except a cheerful and wild life.
Stan and I entered the royal city. Stan stabbed his brother with his sword. But before his death he uttered words of curse. The phrase spoken before his death acquired special power, and since then everyone who swore an oath of allegiance to Charles, but disobeyed it, was cursed forever.
Since then we have been groaning among the forests, and there is no peace for our souls.
– Take us to the edge of the forest! – Still commanded.
– Yes, master. Only I am far from the only one who will attack you. We hate the living. We despise their happiness, which we did not know. We envy their ability to experience warm feelings that we have already forgotten. We also want to be loved, but no one will ever love us. We want to be alive – or at least just die. But even this is not available to us!
The ghost led us through the labyrinth of the forest. He turned left and right, and we could barely keep up with the flying creature.
The wolf sat baring his teeth at us, but as soon as the ghost flew closer, he ran away, howling pitifully.
We found ourselves in a small clearing. Suddenly, out of nowhere, more ghosts appeared. Dead warriors surrounded us on all sides.
«I warned you, master, the path through the forest is dangerous,» said our knight, who was shining with the purple light of submission.
– What have the living forgotten in this forest! – one of the dead warriors shouted in a terrible, sepulchral voice. – We didn’t invite you. Although, I am ready to invite you to our squad. Guys, let’s make them dead too. We haven’t made new friends for a long time.
The knights clicked their teeth, staring at us with glowing red eyes.
– SAMPT! – without saying a word, all six said at the same time, and a large blue shield immediately enveloped the entire brotherhood. The ghosts flew towards us and began to bite our defenses.
«The shield won’t last long against such numbers,» Bran noted.
«We need to try a new spell,» Sienna said. – LIGHTENIS!
For a few moments, time seemed to stand still. A white beam shot out from Sienna’s staff, but literally a moment later the light filled everything around. I went blind, and for a couple of seconds the only thing I could see was a bright, all-consuming light.
When the haze cleared, our shield was no longer there – it seems that the light destroys all spells, even those cast by us. The ghosts suddenly began to turn into fog.
– Thank you! I’m free now! – said the knight who was our prisoner. – The light cleansed me from the curse!
Sienna fell to her knees.
– What happened to you? – I asked.
«The spell drained all my strength.» You see, the energy is almost zero.
– But you alone dealt with so many enemies! Let’s help her, guys.
– SAMPT! – we said together, and the resulting blue shield began to feed the girl with energy.
After
