Regardless of how much light the moon may provide, within the depths of Louwoods, everything was dark. Deep shadows and patches of pure darkness were abundant, making the spectres pretty much impossible to notice.

  Even Maarkus, with his pseudo night-vision, was unable to notice any of them after meeting the gaze of the blonde. They kept on tormenting the group all night long, making it hard for anyone to catch any amount of sleep.

  For the cleric, it was pretty obvious that this was exactly the point. Their so-called ‘mother’ must not want to take on ten knights and a cleric at the same time. Her plan was certainly to exhaust them before attacking, or otherwise convince them that they should turn back and leave the forest altogether.

  It was a good plan, especially when you could remain hidden and have the job done by elusive spectres.

  Maarkus had the perfect counter to this strategy. However, his talents were numerous… Few could actually pretend to either the title of exorcist or healer, so to be able to claim to have both was proof in and of itself.

  It was no problem if the knights were too on edge about an attack to fall asleep, Maarkus could simply make them sleep with a single holy spell, putting them into a state of perfect slumber. That way, he could ensure that everyone rested for the correct amount of time.

  The first night in Louwoods thus went by like a breeze. Naturally, the knights were disturbed by the sounds that made up the forest’s ambience, especially as the phantoms decided that it was now time to enact torment during the day as well… But Maarkus remained perfectly calm.

  “Why do you seem so forlorn, Maarkus?”

  One of them asked.

  “It’s nothing of importance. As you know, this mission is very important to Mister Nebulo, but it is also important to me”

  The cleric wouldn’t mind explaining things in greater detail, but Mister Nebulo had been clear that he did not want people to know what this was all truly about. So Maarkus could only leave it at that.

  The knight he was speaking with merely shrugged. He knew well that his boss was a bit of an eccentric. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that he was a weird man… Secrecy about seemingly innocuous topics wasn’t unprecedented for him.

  “HELP ME!”

  A scream rose in the distance, that of a man.

  The cleric and knights all looked at each other. They didn’t need to speak aloud. Everyone knew that the chances that this was a trap were high, but they knew that there was also the chance that someone was truly in danger and needed help.

  After all, the elder had not hidden the fact that many of the villages had been basically taken hostage by The Mother Beast, so it was far from unlikely that these very villages were funnelling wanderers into the woods…

  “Let’s go”

  Maarkus broke the silence, and the group moved forward toward the source of the noise. Even through the high ferns, they moved quickly. Soon, they arrived at another clearing featuring a cabin, this one was larger than the last.

  The previous had been just a single room, but this looked like somewhere a family could live.

  A scream came from within the cabin, so guttural that it was hard to tell if it was even the same person as before, but the scream was accompanied by what sounded like a fierce struggle, furniture falling upon the ground, and heavy bumping, as though two people were fighting.

  It sounded very real, and so, the group burst through the front door and made their way to the source of the noise.

  “Wait a minute…”

  Markuus was just like the knights. He, too, had rushed in, truly expecting that someone would require healing inside, but just as they were about to reach the room in question, he realised that the path leading to this room was missing windows entirely.

  He instinctively reached for another door, and found it locked, or rather, it didn’t feel like a door at all, it felt like a wall shaped like a door…

  The knights burst into the room where the commotion was coming from, and like a lever had been pulled, they only met an empty, windowless room. All noises were gone, leaving only deafening silence.

  There was only a sort of box just lying on the ground, and it was then that Maarkus felt something. It had been dormant until now, its presence concealed even from his sharp senses, but there was no doubt that this cabin was a death trap.

  “Get out of here! This place is full of ghosts!”

  He shouted, and as though the exorcist had been the cue, the doors they had come through all came shut. Forcefully closed by the strength of several spectres, different from the ones that had surrounded them during the night.

  They were far simpler, almost primal. Maarkus could sense them now that they were awakened, but it was obvious that they weren’t true spirits. They were fragmented and forced to stay here to only serve a single purpose… They existed solely to close the doors, and that was it.

  It would seem that The Mother Beast dabbled in spirit manipulation more deeply than first assumed.

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  They all rushed back through the way they had come in, even if held shut by ghosts. The doors were easily smashed through by the knights, but the main problem was not here.

  The temperature had sharply increased, and indeed, flames were rapidly consuming the cabin.

  If Maarkus had to guess, what they had seen from the outside was not at all representative of what this cabin actually looked like on the inside. The hallway they had taken was the only one, and apart from the entrance and empty room at the end, the other doors led nowhere.

  The other ‘rooms’ were probably filled with some flammable, judging by how quickly the flames were spreading, and how erratic they seemed.

  Within moments, they had to be careful not to inhale smoke, but thankfully, the cleric had the means to protect himself and the knights from the flames, manifesting a sort of holy aura around himself that spread to his allies.

  Allowing them to get the hell out of the cabin, watching its last moments as it soon collapsed on itself, the fire destroying it all in record time.

  “It looks like something similar to Maltha was spread all over the cabin after we went in”

  One of the knights commented, noticing that the originally pristine wood had been covered in a black, gooey substance, seemingly accelerating the spread of the flames.

  “Hold on, we are missing someone!”

  Another exclaimed, and a quick headcount confirmed it for everyone: Out of the ten knights, only nine were here.

  Maarkus frowned. He had no idea when someone could have gotten separated, but with the flames, the panic, and the cabin collapsing on itself, it wasn’t hard to imagine that someone could have fallen behind, or otherwise been ‘held back’.

  The cleric channelled energy into his eyes and scanned the remnants of the cabin for any signs of life, but he found nothing nearby. Which was strange, although not invincible in any way, the knights were not pushovers. Had the man merely tripped and been left behind, he should still be alive, if only barely.

  This strongly implied that he had been killed within that minuscule window, even with the element of surprise, which was worrying.

  How strong was their enemy?

  “I guess you’ve always had the talent to be a knight yourself…”

  “What are you muttering, Maarkus?”

  “Nothing, let’s see if we can find him under all that flaming debris”

  They only found a deep hole similar to the one that had been hidden under a hatch in the previous cabin. It seemed like the knight was ambushed and dragged deeper underground.

  There was discussion about what to do from there, but in the end, everyone agreed that it was too risky to go and look for their missing fellow down here. The odds of him still being alive were low anyway, and it was too risky to go crawling underground.

  “Let’s just set up a camp somewhere and stop moving around, it’s too dangerous if these sorts of traps are everywhere…”

  They were here too late. Louwoods had already become The Mother Beast’s territory. The vile creature’s hold was firm… Dislodging her would not be an easy task, especially since Maarkus seemed unable to perceive any trails that might have been left behind by the monster.

  He had been confident in being able to recognise her energy signature, but so far… Nothing.

  “Just… What is going on in you-”

  His mumbling was interrupted as a knight loudly cursed whilst bending the knee.

  The cleric sensed the injury before he even saw it. The man’s fibula had been broken, and his tibia wasn’t in a much better state. Even though he was wearing armour, it had only resulted in worse damage as the steel plates had been bent inward into his flesh, constricting the already serious injury.

  Before casting healing, the first step was getting the leg enough room to actually go back to its normal shape, and that involved removing the oversized beartrap that had clamped down onto the limb.

  Although walking through tall ferns, it should have been fairly easy to spot such a large item just lying on the ground, but it had clearly not been visible, as a small indent surrounded by recently moved dirt stood right where the incident had just occurred.

  “A buried beartrap? Was it infused with a spirit, or a curse?”

  The exorcist wondered as he approached. The other knights were working together to force the trap open, and although it was proving resistant to their intervention, the object was slowly being pried open.

  Maarkus cast some holy spells to alleviate the pain, looking at the trap with a dubious expression.

  The trap was lacking something essential, which was the center piece that one was supposed to step upon to activate the trap. There was only the jaw of the item, and as far as he could tell, it was neither possessed nor cursed.

  It possessed traces of both things, but not in an orderly manner, mere residuals that had certainly been left by the creature that had placed the trap here in the first place… Still, something was off about it.

  A buried beartrap, even if it wasn’t lacking the pressure plate, would struggle to activate whilst buried in dirt. So there was clearly something off about it, but Maarkus seemed to lack the means to detect what was wrong with it.

  He was familiar with negative energy, mana, holy energy, spirits, and curses… But neither of those was to be found here.

  “Be careful with this thing”

  The cleric approached the wounded knight and wove his holy energy into tendrils, using them to carefully slice open the bent pieces of steel before casting his miraculous healing, mending the bones and fixing the flesh in the matter of a minute.

  “Don’t put too much pressure on that leg for a while, the bones won’t be as strong as they should be for a while…”

  No one moved for a while.

  “How do we avoid these things?”

  “Unfortunately, I think we’ll have to stick close. I’ll cast a spell on everyone to protect your feet and legs”

  It would be rather taxing to cast spells of this nature for mages, but helping others was like second nature to clerics. Holy energy was more specialised in being used in such a way as well.

  And by focusing the protection on the feet and legs specifically, it should ensure that the traps would be unable to deal any damage even if someone stepped on one… Which happened less than ten seconds after they began walking again.

  Everyone stepped onto several traps as they looked for a good spot to establish camp. Each trap was identical in all aspects to the first one… For some reason, that made Maarkus more suspicious that something was truly off about them.

  “Over here, there is a small clearing”

  All turned to the knight who had spoken up.

  Right on time to see a beartrap fall from the branch above, right onto his head.

  The cleric’s gaze flickered up.

  “...Shit…!”