“What do we do?” asked Julie in a hushed voice, breaking the tense silence that hung in the air.

The trio had kept quiet for a whole minute, waiting for whatever ghost they had heard to float through the wall or ascend from the floor below. Yet, since the shriek, they had heard and seen nothing except for each other.

“We get the hell out of this town,” said Arc, keeping his pitch low and soft. “Idol be damned. The plan was to take care of things before the spirits woke up. I don’t want you two getting hurt. Can’t say I fancy meeting these ghosts much myself.”

“No need to tell me twice,” said Jack, looking out the window. “What’s the plan?”

“We make for the stairs and the pair of you keep close. You see something, you say something. I’ve got a single Arcane Shot and it can hurt a ghost, but they’re immune to weapons unless they choose to go corporeal.”

“A single shot?” asked Julie. “What about the—”

“Is this really the time to ask about the other cartridge?” snapped Arc, leading the way from the room and back into the hallway.

He ran down the hall with the twins staying within two feet of him the whole way. Upon reaching the stairs, Arc’s face contorted into an expression of utter horror as he a trio of spectral figures floating up and towards the trio.

Each of the ghosts were translucent with an eerie bluish-green tint to them. Their forms emanated a wispy vapour that streaked out behind them before fading into nothing. The first figure was of an old man whose mouth was agape as he reached out towards Arc with his spectral fingers. The other figures, a middle-aged man and an adolescent woman, raised their own arms as they floated towards Jack and Julie.

Arc glanced to his left and to his right, looking for somewhere else to run, only for more ghosts to emerge from the rooms on either side of the group. The encroaching horde of ghosts were of men, women and children, all of whom had no doubt once lived in this town before being condemned to forever roam it in the darkness. It seemed as though the awakening of a single ghost had stirred the rest of them and they knew they could have an early dinner this evening.

“Upstairs!” barked Arc, hurriedly pivoting and giving the twins a shove.

They sprinted for the staircase at the far end of the corridor, only to find ghosts ascending from the floor. All three ignored the rising ghosts who reached out with their hands, grasping at the living humans desperately trying to escape them.

Jack and Julie took the stairs two at a time and Arc took them three at a time while the undead continued their pursuit. Arc took an educated guess that the ghosts wanted the three to join them in being bound to the town, but the method of the kill was something he had no desire to discover, least of all which be inflicted upon the younger ones.

The trio emerged onto the third floor and, as the swarming ghosts started to fill the corridor around them, Arc stashed his gun. He grabbed the two teenagers and threw them over his shoulders, deftly stepping between the lunging phantoms and charging straight for the door at the far end of the hallway. He knew it would be painful and he had yet to fully recover from his goblin-induced injuries, but he knew he had no choice. He tucked his head low and rammed it into the door, breaking through it.

He continued his run and skipped over what would have been the mayor’s desk and kicked the glass balcony doors, shattering them into thousands of tiny fragments. He skidded to a halt, almost topping over the stone railing, but managed to remain upright with the twins over his shoulders.

With a sigh of relief, he set them back onto solid ground and turned to look at the town hall. He could see the phantoms slowly retreating downstairs, knowing that they could not reach their prey who were now safely in the daylight.

“That was too close,” said Jack, flopping onto the ground and running his hands through his brown hair.

“You saved us again!” decried Julie, joining her brother on the floor.

Arc was clutching his pained head and cursing under his breath. “Only after getting you into this mess,” he said as his piercing blue eyes remained fixed on the now-empty corridor. “I shouldn’t have treated this job as if it were still a solo run. I should have left you somewhere safe and then came here myself, only bringing you into Purdue once I was certain there would be no spirits to worry about.”

Julie slouched over as Jack patted her on the back. She was on the verge of tears, but held them in knowing that crying wouldn’t make the situation any better for anyone.

“Why do they want us dead?” she moaned, throwing her head up.

“Why do goblins want to eat people and why do bandits want to pillage people?” asked Arc. “It’s just in their nature. Fighting against one’s nature is no easy task and lonely spirits who have a grudge against the living world are probably the ones you can rely on to rebel the least.”

“How do we get down from here?” asked Jack, standing up and looking over the balcony and onto the stairs that led into the town below. “I reckon that’s a forty-foot drop.”

“I used my rope trying to get the jump on Colt the other day,” sighed Arc. “It would have been nice if you two plundered that too, but I suppose we’ll have to think of something. My legs are so battered and bruised that I think they’d snap if I dared jump.”

Jack squinted back into the room. “The spirits are gone; couldn’t we just make a run for it?”

“The spirits are out of sight, but they’re certainly not gone. Now that they’re aware we’re here, they’ll be lurking quietly until they see a way of reaching us. They know that time is on their side, not ours and the sun will set eventually.”

“It won’t be much longer,” said Julie, looking towards the sun that was already moving beneath the western horizon.

“What we need to do is destroy that idol from the balcony,” said Arc.

“You make it sound easy,” said Jack. “We couldn’t even find it when we were going through every room in this building. It mightn’t even be in this building.”

“If it was going to be anywhere, it would surely be here,” muttered the spellslinger.

Arc walked towards the doorway and peered into the mayoral office. He looked from desk to cabinet to table and took in every little detail that he could, but none of them yielded as much as a hint that would help him find the stone idol. Had he known for certain it was in the room, he could have taken a few targeted shots that might have blown it apart.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Can I ask you about the other spell cartridge now?” Julie asked Arc, looking to the Golden Hawk.

Arc answered without looking away from the room, desperately raking through every inch of it with his eyes over and over in search of the idol. He knew the odds of it being there were virtually zero, but his backup plan to escape wasn’t especially desirable.

“There are eight schools of magic, Julie,” he said, “and each cartridge is colour-coded to the school. Red is for evocation spells, like Arcane Shot. If it ain’t a red bullet, then it ain’t dealing much damage. The white ones are from the protection school and can help protect you in various ways, much like the name suggests. The wizards of old had many tricks up their sleeves, you know?”

“And what does the white cartridge you have do when you shoot it?”

Arc grinned while still watching the room. “You’ll have to wait and see now, won’t you?”

Jack suddenly rushed into the room and wrenched open the cabinet doors and the all of the drawers before scurrying back to the balcony. As he sidestepped the desk, a ghostly hand reached from under the floor to grab his legs, but he was too quick for it.

“You’re a madman, Jack,” chuckled Arc. “But I respect that.”

“No idols,” said the young man, nervously looking into the room for spirits, but the hand he had narrowly avoided had vanished again. “It looks like we’re out of options. We’ll need to head downstairs to escape.”

Arc nodded. “We’ll need to head downstairs, but we’re not going to go down the stairs.”

“I don’t want to know, but tell me more,” sighed Jack, sensing more danger on the horizon.

“These floorboards are old and brittle. Julie managed to break one with just an unlucky step. All it takes is enough force to break a big enough hole in the floor and we can drop down to the second floor, right? Drop down one more and we’re back on the ground. And don’t forget that we’re more or less directly above the entrance. See for yourself.”

Julie leaned over the balcony and saw the steps leading into the town hall. As she leaned back up, the statue in the square of the old man with the book caught her attention. She remembered how he had been facing the entrance.

“Go on,” Jack said nervously.

Arc continued. “If we can break through the floorboards, we can hop our way down and bypass the long back and forth along three corridors. It’s our best shot.”

“Isn’t there anything less dangerous that we can do?” asked Julie. “Maybe run down one corridor, taking the stairs and then trying our luck jumping from a second-floor window?”

“That is an option,” said Arc, “but we’re still braving the ghosts to do that.”

“Whatever we’re doing, we need to decide quickly,” said Jack as the sun slipped lower and lower. “We haven’t got much longer. Getting out of the building is one thing, but if we can’t get out of town before sunset then we’re in a whole heap of trouble.”

“Very true,” said Arc. “I’ll just make the decision for us, alright? Alright.”

Arc grabbed his hammer from his pack and slammed forcefully it into one of the floorboards by the balcony door, breaking the wood with ease. He grabbed the nearest half of the broken plank and pried it up, revealing the rotten ceiling from the second-floor underneath. He thrust the half-plank into the ceiling and the plaster caved instantly, leaving a small hole that revealed the floor beneath.

“And we’re meant to be able to do this quickly?” asked Jack. “I can’t see how this will work.”

“This was just me testing the waters,” said Arc coolly, daring to take a few quick steps into the room.

He ducked under the mayor’s desk and pushed up from a squatting position, taking the heavy load on his back. He felt his cuts and scrapes tearing as he strained himself before flinging it over his shoulder and letting it crash into the ground. Arc fell onto the ground and was pulled back onto the balcony by Jack and Julie as the desk crashed through the floor, taking the ceiling with it and then smashing through the second floor right after. When the cloud of dust had settled, all three could see the ground floor visible below.

“See?” grunted Arc, clutching his side.

“Should you see a doctor when we get to Pembroke?” asked Julie, feeling a small surge of hope that she may live to see another day.

“That would be wise,” said Arc. “But for now, we drop and pray we don’t break something on the way down. Jack, I want you to go first and I’ll follow with Julie. If any of the ghosts come for you, I’ll take my one shot and give you a chance to escape.”

“And what about you and Julie?” asked the young man, not wanting to leave his sister behind.

“I’ll scoop her up and throw her out the door while the ghosts do whatever they want to me. I’ll put her life before my own, I promise you.”

“Alright,” said Jack, leaning into the mayor’s office and trying to work out the best angle of approach. He knew that if ever there was a time to trust the bounty hunter, it was now. “I’m going to jump over to the left and then shoot for the right. Once I’m down, I’ll make a break for the door.”

“Good,” said Arc with a confident smile. “Let’s get cracking, eh? We’ve got maybe minutes before we lose the last of our light.”

Jack rushed into the mayor’s office and lowered himself into the hole, swinging himself over to the left and landing on the second floor. As Arc and Julie followed, Jack dropped down to the first and the horrifying shriek of dozens of ghosts echoed out as they emerged from the walls.

“Go, go, go!” Arc called, desperate for Jack to move out of the landing zone.

Arc held Julie tightly as he threw himself down, landing on the floor awkwardly and rolling over, dropping his spellcaster and watching despairingly as it flew across the ground and towards four ghosts that encroached upon him. He pushed Julie onto her feet and scrambled over to his gun, reaching out an arm and curling his fingers around the barrel.

The spellslinger forced himself to his feet and spun his gun around as a ghost reached for Julie, opening its mouth as if to try and suck her soul from her body.

“No, you don’t!” Arc cried, pulling the trigger and launching an Arcane Shot.

The orb of magical light struck the ghost on the side and it wailed in fear as its body dissolved into a flash of vapour before vanishing from sight. Arc dove out of the way of six pairs of lurching hands and sprinted outside, following Julie through the doorway and into the last remnants of daylight.

“We did it,” sighed Jack, hugging his sister tightly. “You’re alright?”

“Thanks to Arc,” said Julie, grabbing the spellslinger’s free hand and shaking it vigorously. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“As much as I love being showered with praise, let’s save that for later,” he replied. “Run!”

Arc, Jack and Julie sped down the stairs and towards the town centre, aiming for the street at the opposite side of the statue. They bounded over the iron fence surrounding the square and then vaulted over the railings at the far side, before storming straight down the road. Before they got far, the last remnants of light vanished as the sun disappeared behind the hills and spectral forms faded into existence, materialising in the shape of humans.

“Oh no,” gasped Julie.

“This way!” called Arc, turning and running back to the square, hoping that one of the other roads out would be clear.

Much to his dismay, ghosts were appearing on every road, passing through the walls of the shops and houses, even starting to float their way down the steps of the town hall. There was no easy way out and Arc was out of all offensive cartridges that could aid their escape. As he turned towards the square once more, desperately seeking a way to safety, a sudden realisation burst into his mind.

“Could it be?” he said, looking towards the statue and pulling out his revolver.

He took careful aim at the statue’s leg and fired all six rounds, blowing chunks out of the stone. He hopped back over the iron fence and climbed onto the plinth, shoving the statue with all his might, but it did not budge. As Jack and Julie ran to him with the ghosts reaching out to them, he hurriedly shoved three more rounds into the cylinder and leapt back to the ground.

He shot each of them into the statue’s other leg and then whipped out his hammer, striking the bearded man’s legs until the last man of Purdue rigidly fell from his resting place and fell onto the concrete slabs below, breaking into a dozen chunks. From his broken book, rose a bluish-green mist that disappeared into nothingness.

There was an eruption of screams from the ghosts as they were all whisked from existence and faded into vapour before trickling out of sight, never to stir again.

“The idol?” asked Jack, rubbing his eyes and clutching his head. “The statue was the idol the entire time?”

“I always heard they were small things,” shrugged Arc as he walked over to the stone book and picked it up. “Well, I guess that’s that. I’ll take this piece and that’ll have to do for proof of the job being done. At least it’s safe to stay here now that the ghosts are no more.”

“That’s not happening,” cried Jack and Julie in unison.

“Alright,” said Arc. “It just seems like a real shame to let all these buildings go to waste. We’ll go find another miserable cave for the night. You must both enjoy sleeping on the ground.”