“DEFECT!” the shaman raged around a large tent, there were three more people present in the tent, two of whom sat next to a big bonfire, and the last a woman who was seated at the largest chair, the chair of the tribe leader, she didn’t have any guards next to her, not that she needed any anyway. The shaman had returned after collecting another specter, and was eager to chow the tribal chief the success, it was still nighttime and as such it was the perfect time to show off his shamanic arts, his two disciples were sitting behind him attentively listening to what was being said and done, the shaman and his disciple wore raven feathered vests and trousers and shirts made of dark wolf skins. The disciples had yet to receive any tattoos.

“What ails you shaman?” the tribal chief finally uttered a sentence calmly, she was leaning forward her jaw resting on her hand, she had charcoal hair which was braided, her furs made of bear skins and several red tattoos on her face, her features were sharp and her scowl told more about her opinion than her innocent question to the shaman.

The man finally stopped his raging as he felt the ice cold stare of his tribal chief; he turned his aged face towards her and went down on one knee in a practiced motion “Chief I apologize for my outburst!” he yelled loudly before he continued in a normal tone of voice “I have indeed gathered sadness and anger, I also successfully gathered resentment tonight…” he trailed off.

“But?” the tribal chief said icily.

The old shaman drew in a large breath of air “the specter is a defect” he lamented.

With a creaking of her chair she leaned back and sat up straight her piercing grey eyes locking in on the shaman “explain yourself”

“Of the six specters that I need to gather the easiest are anger and sadness, people die all the time and remain in our world because of these two emotions, two of the emotions are slightly more complicated as they are multifaceted and that is resentment and jealousy”

“Get on with it” the tribal chief sneered as she interrupted.

The shaman visibly shivered but continued “The specter of resentment is damaged somehow, it is as if part of the specter was injured heavily before death occur, most likely the result of an experiment gone wrong, and as I’ve explained to you before the ritual needs the specters to be fresh, and as such I have no control over the specters I summon, I cannot check them in advance, the issue now is that the ritual cannot be interrupted, as we have gathered resentment, we simply cannot replace it with another”

“Are you telling me that the staff of wailing cannot be completed then?” her voice strangely silent and soft.

A shiver ran through the shaman’s spine setting off every single alarm bell in his body, he gulped as his brain went into overdrive, when he finally spoke it was slowly and deliberate “not yet, it should be possible to repair the specter, but I will need ectoplasm, I will have to go to the Desolate Battlefield that place should have what I need” The shaman was still looking into the ground as he kneeled, he could hear that the chief stood up and walked towards him slowly, every step feeling like his last breath, finally she stopped in front of him.

“So be it, do not fail me shaman” then she continued out of the tent, every step confident and deliberate.

Inside the tent the old shaman had finally collected himself as he stood solemnly watching the flames licking the firewood in the bonfire, his mind was in tumult, his heart was shook, would he live to see the next full moon? His plan was most likely going to fail. He let out his breath as he ordered his disciples to pack up for a trip.

. . . .

It took almost a month to reach the desolate battlefield; it was a mountainous area, with sparse tree-clusters. The closer the group came the more void of life it was, an eerie mist enveloped the battlefield, the outskirts somewhat visible, but the further in one travelled the denser the mist would become.

The old shaman looked grimly into the mist, the battlefield was just how he remembered; the sound of wailing could be heard constantly, initially he had thought it was solely the wind passing through the mountainous passageways and large rocks, how wrong he had been. They left their horses behind as they continued into the mist, the two disciples gazed around the battlefield in wonder and fear, they saw large craters and rifts in the pitch black soil that marred the landscape, and there were blade scars on the mountain sides and random spots of dried magma in some places. They still had pretty good visibility around them; they silently followed their master until he reached a small cave opening, which they quickly entered.

With a swoosh the old shaman lit a torch as he led the way for his disciples, the cave wasn’t very deep and they soon made it to the end of the cavern, there they found the remnants of an ancient skeleton with strangely shaped blood red bones, it was obvious that it wasn’t a human’s remains. In front of the skeleton there were rocks placed as a makeshift altar, it was now covered in cobwebs. The shaman went over and brushed off the webs, he then pulled out a small fatty candle and placed it on the altar, whereas he lit it.

“Bow down to your great-teacher” he spoke silently yet with authority emanating every word. The two disciples looked shocked but quickly bowed down to the skeleton and altar. After a short while the shaman spoke up again “As I was a young man I was often reckless and daring, it wasn’t until one day that I got into trouble and had to flee here that I calmed my youthful urges” his gaze distant as he reveled in nostalgia “living is strange, and you never know what is up the road, when I was lost here I was lucky to survive, my pursuers perished in the mists, I still remember their pleads for mercy” he heaved heavily as he continued “I fled into this cavern and found this skeleton here, together with the skeleton there was a half burnt book of spells clutched in his hand, that was how I walked down the path of a spirit shaman” the shaman’s eyes cleared as his mind was brought back to the present, his past memories nothing more than that, memories.

He had persevered here before, he had found hope where there had been none, who is to say it wouldn’t happen twice, his weary eyes gazed out on the misty battlefield beyond the cave entrance “Lok, Tok” the shaman addressed his disciples “I have already taught you about what little we know of the dangers within the mists, do not lose your calm, and stay together” his voice stern and uncompromising.

The two disciples answered in unison “Yes master!” they trusted him blindly, they had been adopted by the man many years ago, and as he had treated them well and taken them under his tutelage, they too had responded in kind, their kinship that of parent and children.

The shaman and his two disciples walked within the mist scanning the ground for anything they could find, most of the items in the outer area of the Desolate Battlefield had already been scavenged through the centuries so the group was forced to enter deeper within the mists, they could feel an unnatural chill freezing them to their cores, their sweat slowly turning into tiny ice crystals, luckily they soon found some remnants of a couple of skeletons in ragged armor pieces. The shaman and his disciples hurried to pick up the armor pieces and scurried back to the cave.

The shaman drew up a ritual circle with strange arcane symbols, in it he placed one skeleton, afterwards he drew up another similar circle where he put the other skeleton, in-between the circles he placed the runic carved salamander bone, when that was done he connected the two circles via a half circle made up of strange symbols, from the middle of the half circle he placed tiny shimmering crystals in a straight line connecting the half circle to the top point of the triangle.

“The two of you will sit absolutely still when the ritual begins, now go your circles and start chanting” he issued the command confidently, although he felt anything but confident, the two disciples sat next to a circle each and began chanting a strange tongue in unison. The shaman too began chanting the same chant, initially there was no reaction, but eventually a cold wind started being pulled into the cave, more and more violently, the torch succumbed and icy crystals began forming everywhere, yet the three continued chanting in unison, they knew what was at stake, they could not fail now. Soon the two circles lit up each symbol glowing a bright green colour, within the circles the skeletons slowly began to become animated, moving in strange inhuman short movements as they rose bit by bit, their eyes glowing dangerously, however they were trapped and could not exit the circles. The shaman saw his cue and changed his chant, he could feel his eyebrows were frosty and that his eyes were dry from the increasing wind, then he slammed his hands onto the ground which instantly lit up the half circle in a green light too, it spread to the crystals and then finally to the triangle, lighting it up in a green light. It didn’t take long for the skeletons to start wailing in pain as their soul was being drained from their very beings into the runic bone piece, the runes lit up in a blood red colour as the specter within blinked into being it too wailing in unspeakable pain as its broken soul was being repaired forcefully, each time it blinked into being it would be clearer and clearer, its previous shapeless form slowly began to take the shape of a young man, at some point the blinking stopped and its shape was simply writhing there . Exhaustion was evident on every single one of the people in the cave, the unrelenting wind kept gushing over them, they could barely see anything, but they kept chanting, until the point that the half circle began dimming, and eventually went dark. The skeletons in the circles fell to the ground lifelessly, as if the strings that moved them had been cut, the resentful specter disappeared back into the runic bone fragment.

The shaman picked up the bone fragment powerlessly, his body strained and tired from the task, as for the skeletons in the circles? They were left behind. While the shaman and one of his disciples were leaving the cave, the final disciple had a flash of bloodlust in his eyes as he instantly and silently grabbed his fellow disciple and cut his throat with a strange and eerie looking dagger, the shaman turned around in a shock when he heard the gurgling and smelled the fresh blood, the moment he did he too was met with the dagger deep in his gut, over and over. He blankly looked into his disciples eyes as his own faded into obscurity, ‘why?’ was his final thought.