In the game, this event had been called the “Procession of the Dead.”
The objective was to protect the designated NPC through the night from a horde of ghosts hailing from the Realm of the Dead.
Because the requirements to trigger the event were actually hard to meet, it didn’t happen often. But even so, there were strats for it, and it was a simple event overall...or at least, it had been in my old life.
If a player found the event too annoying to bother with, they could just log out or Jump away so they didn’t have to participate. But doing so would cause the event to fail, and the NPC would be taken to the underworld as a result. Regardless, failing the event wouldn’t impose any penalties on the player—the event would simply end with one less NPC in the world.
And right now, in this game world that had come to life, this event was trying to take Wal. After all, he’d lost both his father and brother this year.
“Hey, you! Sheathe your sword and give it to me—and all of your other equipment while you’re at it!”
As I urged him to hurry, I manifested a cloak from my Pocket Dimension. Silver thread had been interwoven into the fabric of this one. When I was making it, I had been dirt-poor without a single gold to my name. I couldn’t afford to buy materials for crafting and had gathered them by hand...but quarrying was definitely not my forte. I hadn’t been able to collect enough silver ore to craft everything I’d wanted, so in the end, I’d only been able to weave one piece of spirit-warding fabric.
Wal frowned, feeling uncertain about my directions, but he followed them regardless. He handed me his sheathed sword, as well as the knife he usually kept at his hip.
I shut them away in my storage, then unfolded the cloak and spread it wide open on the ground.
“What’s going on, Kariya?” Wal asked. A hint of nervousness was creeping into his voice.
“Have you heard of something called the ‘Procession of the Dead’?” I replied. “Well, we’ve run into it. Spirits of the dead are hidden in the fog. They’re coming.”
Wal’s eyes shot wide open—evidently, he’d heard all about it. This event must’ve been passed down as a legend or folk tale regarding the Realm of the Dead.
“Looks like you have,” I said. “The spirits are planning on dragging you with them to the underworld. Sorry, but I’m not skilled enough to fight them off all night, and I don’t have any sanctified weapons either. I don’t even know a single holy spell that would send them back to hell. But this silver cloak will make us invisible to them, and that’s how we’re gonna make it through the night.”
“A-All right.”
I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to resist their attempts to confuse you, but make sure you never tell them your name, even if they ask. If they know your name, they’ll take your soul.
I planned on wrapping the cloak around both of us, which would completely shield us from the coming threat. The phantoms wouldn’t be able to touch us if we hid under it because of the silver woven into the fabric.
“We’ll have to spend the night like this until dawn breaks,” I explained.
In other words, we had no avenue of escape.
Wal nodded back, his face blanched.
“Sorry, Kariya,” he whispered. “I got you caught up in this mess too, even though I’m the one who lost my family.” No sooner had he finished speaking than he gasped. “Oh! I said your name...”
“That’s okay, you don’t need to worry about me. I lost my family long ago.” I paused there and assessed the thickening mist. “But it looks like they’re almost here. Promise me you won’t leave the cloak. They’ll call to you and try to lure you out, but don’t leave.”
In the depths of the roiling fog, I could make out countless figures in the gloom. They cried out, their hissing and whispering disjointed and ethereal. The sound of their voices rang hollow.
These were their grieving calls to the living—the whispered invitations of the damned.
“Hurry, over here!” I urged.
I asked Wal to lie down on the cloak, and then I lay face down on top of him. After that, I grasped the ends of the fabric to roll us up under its safe confines.
To ensure that we still had an ample supply of air, I thrust several silver pipes out the end. Thanks to that, it wasn’t hard to breathe at all.
I shifted my body a bit to the side so that we both lay against each other on the ground, and I wrapped my arms tightly around him. If we were to face each other directly, breathing would be made all the more difficult, so he turned his head so that his breath fell on my shoulder instead.
“This isn’t too hard on you, is it?” I asked.
He didn’t respond right away, but then I caught a small whisper of a reply. “May I speak?”
I reassured him. “Yeah, we can talk,” I said. “They can’t see us now, but they already know we’re here. They’ll spend all night trying to lure you out, which is why I’m holding you like this—it’s to keep you from moving. I’m going to wrap my legs around you too, so let me know if it hurts.”
He nodded his assent, so I lifted my leg to straddle his.
Because he still wore the Royal Diadem, I doubted the phantoms could confuse him. The reason I had asked him to remove his weapons was just in case he was prompted to attack me. But I still had to keep him pressed down against the ground, unable to get up—that way, he wouldn’t be able to move, even if he wanted to.
The ghosts’ wails became louder as they approached. Their cries filtered through the fabric from the other side.
They sounded like they were calling a name in search of someone, but their cries were just that—sounds. Their actual words were vague and unclear.
These weren’t really the souls of the dead. Ghosts like these pried into the memories of the living and made use of what they found. Taking advantage of that knowledge, they would manipulate people who desired to see their departed family once more by mimicking the voices of the deceased to call the living to their side.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, trying to reassure Wal. “They can’t touch us through this silver cloak.”
I lowered my face and pressed my forehead against his head. He shifted slightly to gently wrap his own arms around my back.
Our defeat at Croway Plains had been less than six months ago. I knew that he still wept in his sleep, crying out for his father and brother.
It hasn’t even been half a year since then. Not even six whole months.
“My son,” a voice rattled. “Are you not there, my son?”
Wal started with a jolt, trembling.
A frigid presence was towering over us.
A younger voice rang out, its source much nearer...as though the speaker had crouched down next to us to speak.
“Ah, so he is here. My brother is here, father,” the second voice said.
The shaking within my arms grew stronger.
I remembered these voices from the one time Nadar had introduced me to them.
“Father...” Wal whispered. “Brother...”
Don’t listen to them! I tried to shout.
But no sound escaped my throat.
Some sort of interference was at work here in this white fog. My arms were still wrapped around Wal, but I couldn’t move them. If he were to try to push me away, he’d easily break out of my hold.
“It really is you. Come, my son, and join us,” the older voice rasped.
“Come, brother. Father is giving you an invitation,” the youthful voice called.
Wal remained silent for a bit as he shook in my arms. But not long after they spoke, Wal managed to whisper a reply. “My beloved father, brother... If I truly am your son, your brother, then please... Call my name...”
We were now one step closer to safely completing this event.
This was a method to drive the phantoms back that’d been passed down with the legend.
The spirits from the otherworldly realm didn’t know the name of their prey. As long as we didn’t tell them, they wouldn’t be able to use that key bit of information.
And the fact that these apparitions had no knowledge of his name was proof that they were not truly his family.
Wal’s voice quivered as he pressed them once more. “Please, father, brother... Call my name.”
The reedy voice hissed in frustration. “Ah, how vexing...”
“Damn you...” snarled the other.
With their voices laden with anger and resentment, the phantoms left us.
The sounds of wailing faded into the distance until they melted indistinguishably into the other ghostly whispers.
Like the lapping of quiet waves against the shore of a lake, the murmuring shifted back and forth, sometimes near, sometimes far. But it was unending.
Despite the continuing sounds, I knew the immediate threat had faded.
Wal had answered their urging correctly, thereby successfully completing that part of the event.
All that was left now was for us to stay hidden until dawn.
The prince slowly buried his face in the crook of my neck. “I knew it,” he eventually murmured. “They really are dead.”
He must’ve been hoping that they had survived.
I closed my eyes as I listened to him talk more. His voice was unsteady, wracked with sobs.
He hadn’t seen their corpses.
He hadn’t seen the glow of their names fade from the Right of Rule.
He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.
Maybe that was why he couldn’t believe they had truly passed away. He had chosen to place his faith in the tiniest sliver of hope. But in his heart of hearts, he must have known the truth—that his father and brother had died.
These specters had the capacity to mimic the voices and faces of others, but their abilities were limited to only copying those of the deceased. This event had proved they were no longer in this world.
The invisible fetters that’d had me bound vanished, leaving me free to move once more. I squeezed the young man tight in my arms.
The prince pressed his face firmly against my shoulder. He began to wail, letting choking sobs tumble forth from his trembling throat and spill out his lips.
I’m sorry. I should have given you an opportunity to cry, to properly mourn the passing of your family, from the bottom of your heart.
I cradled the weeping young man in my arms until sunlight filtered down through the canopy of trees standing sentinel and the wind began to whistle past their branches. It was only then that the long night had finally given way to the dawn.
As morning came, I heard him say...
“Kariya, I love you.”
To be continued.