A whistling noise rings in the back of my ears, and before I can question what it is, something happens.

The abomination’s head explodes, turning into a fountain of gore and viscera. The tough shell plating has cracked, some parts being blown away. The abomination takes a second to realise it’s missing a head, then rears back, a primal scream of fury emanating from its mouth.

“Oh, shut up.”

A portion of the ground shifts and rises into the air, and the creature finds itself crushed under a pile of earth and stone. Several large rocks pummel its remaining armour to a pulp. It stops moving with a sigh.

“Finally!”

A grizzled owl steps into sight.

“I’ve been trying to catch that bastard all day!”

He turns to us, like he’s just noticed that we’ve been standing there.

“I suppose you’re the ones who lured it here. Thank you for that, by the way.” He smiles.

“Ah, but where are my manners? I'm Vincent, guardian of the forest.”

“Lucinda.”

“I’m Ethan.”

“Call me Linton!”

“Well, come on. This is no place to hold a conversation. Let me show you my home.” He walks into the forest, and we all follow.

“What are you down here for? We don’t receive many travellers, let alone visitors.”

“Our friends fell down here a couple of hours ago. We’re searching for them.”

Vincent ruminates on this for a second.

“Hmmph, well If they’re smart and survived the fall, they’d seek higher ground to get a better view of their surroundings.”

He grimaces.

“The highest point in this forest is a nest for those damned things.”

---

I’m out of breath, panting as my legs work at levels definitely not safe for living beings. There’s a giant monster right behind me with gleaming claws and sharp teeth, and if it’s friendly, I find that I do not care!

Well it’s definitely not friendly then.

I think this as the jaws do their best to grind me into a meat paste, the fate of my carry bag containing my peppers and spices. I don’t think the thing liked them, judging by how it’s trying to kill us.

Did I mention we’re screwed?

---

“So what are the abominations?”

“Ever since those Southern Owls moved in, I’ve been seeing them all over the place.” he shook his head sadly. “Easy to kill, if you’ve got an orb like mine, but the wildlife? They’re a different story.”

“They take animals, hundreds of them, and do something to them. I’m not sure what they do, whether it be black magic or channelling an eldritch god. All I know is that abominations are what come out. No intelligence, but in return, a host of, quite frankly, disgusting abilities.”

“Anyhow, after I freshen up we’re going back to the peak. I have a feeling we might find your friends there.”

---

We’re at the peak.

We haven’t found our friends, but we’ve found something better: a group of bloodthirsty monsters!

Wow, what a bargain.

Vincent makes short work of them though, as a shower of pebbles rise into the air and pepper them with holes. They fall, and their bodies are promptly hurled off the mountain.

“How come you're living alone?” Ethan asks.

“There used to be an army here. Like others, they were wiped out in the 100 year war.”

I begin to hear moans of owls and other creatures like frogs and wolves as we venture deeper into the forest.

“If you're hearing voices, you're not going insane. It’s a spirit forest. The birthplace of orbs.”

“A spirit forest?”

“The spirit forest. When an owl dies, their spirit comes here. There are runes, so that when you go there, you can be judged by the spirits and receive an orb. Ever since orbs were banned, I have guarded this forest from intruders within and outside.”

With this sentence, we hear unearthly groans.

“When spirits are angry, they form agressium orbs. These can corrupt other orbs, which is how the South is making their orbs. Mass killings, then they sneak in here to make orbs from them.”

“And you didn’t stop them?”

“I tried, but I was captured. I hid, and saw what they did. I’m not proud of being a coward. When Lord Toto brought his army here, I knew it was an attack, or ambush.”

We arrived at a cave.

“Theoretically, it would be possible to bring people back to life!” Ethan suddenly yelps.

“Yes, but it takes sacrifice, and death. Someone must die for another to be brought back to life.”

Ethan looks at the distraught Linton.

“A good friend of ours is dying. We need to help her.”

“We hid her in a tree, and went to find help, we need to go back!”

“If you put her into a tree, she would be in a coma for a week. She must be kept safe while she heals with the magic of the tree. The spirits can heal her, but for now, we need to focus on finding your companions, who might be dead.”

“Dead, you say?” Ipzitch’s voice said from the cave.

“Yes, we are most definitely dead.” Duey says.

“It’s so painful.” Huey says.

“We had a 99 percent chance of dying.” Louie remarks.

“Shut up.” Tristain replies.

“How… what?” I ask dumbfounded.

“We fell down screaming and landed on the ground, but it was soft!”

We turn to Vincent.

“I didn’t do anything!”

We glare at him.

“Fine. I might have accidentally, uh, slowed their fall for a bit.”

The glaring continues.

“Ok fine. I slowed their fall by a lot. It’s not my fault my power fucks with gravity.”

His explanation is cut short as a beast comes screaming out of the darkness.

Vincent turns to it and raises a hand. The beast is suddenly lifted, and its paws struggle to find purchase on the air. A swipe of Vincent’s hand sends the beast careening into the cave wall, before another swipe sends it into the opposite wall. Its armour slowly cracks, as do its organs, and the beast dies.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault.

“The amount of those creatures has tripled since the Southern Owls returned,” he said, gasping. The battered remains of the creature fall to the ground, no longer under Vincent’s control.

“What was that?”

“A manifestation of evil owls. The war’s been causing more and more of them to appear.”

“After an owl dies, two things can happen. They pass peacefully, into the beyond, and there’s the end of that. Or they, with enough determination, can stick around as a ghost.”

“With enough time spent as a ghost, they can develop a corporeal form. This is what the creatures you see are. They lose all higher function and become animals.”

“They’re stronger than almost anything, given the fact that ghosts don't have to worry about their body keeping them alive.”

“However, the amount of ghosts coming through right now is absurd. Usually only one or two manage to form a body before getting dissipated.”

“I believe the South has a way to expedite the process of forming ghosts, and I plan to stop them.”

“You’re not alone in your fight against them. Tales of your raid on their headquarters have been spreading like wildfire.” says Ipzitch.

We all turned towards him.

“Small pockets of resistance have sprung up, mostly in the East.” he explains.

“Well, we’ll have to make that our next stop.” Vincent remarks.

I turned to Ipzitch. “Do you even have a plan?”

He laughs.

“Where we’re going, we won’t need one.”