So, there might be a ghost after all.

Looking at the see-through apparition, James could sense a feeble will in it. It was unfocused and even less noticeable than a plant monster’s.

However, once he was over the initial shock, his brain started working again. He knew two things. That Spirits were high level creatures one could not find in H-rank dungeons, and that they never bothered to hide their presence.

Putting two and two together, it became apparent that what he was looking at was not what it appeared to be, as much as it might seem like it.

Still, he didn’t say anything, playing along. “I suppose you’d be the girl who was murdered here, then?”

His voice was calm and conversational, as if he were meeting an acquaintance for the first time in a while. The others picked up on it and relaxed slightly, knowing how acute his senses could be.

The smile the ghostly girl graced him with was macabre, if only because of her appearance “Yes, I’m that Greta.”

Despite not having known the name, James still indulged her. “To think you’d still be here, haunting the place of your death. People still talk about your tragedy!” He said, technically not lying. He’d never heard of her before, and he doubted her story had been more than a blip in their chaotic world, but it seemed she enjoyed thinking of herself as a famous victim, so he’d go with it.

Her smile took a satisfied tilt, and she giggled happily. “Oh yes, I knew it. But you must tell me, what did they do to those monsters that killed me? Hanging? Execution by firing squad? Oh, maybe old fashioned drowning?”

James had frankly no idea, but considering the gruesome end most gangs that didn’t fold into guilds had, it wasn’t hard to lie “Shot to death.”

Greta clapped happily, sitting down on the bed next to the cat and sighing in satisfaction “I always knew justice would be done, I just can’t believe people would turn this house into a mausoleum to honor me! You can’t imagine how dreadfully bored I was for all these years, with only Miss Dalloway to keep me company.”

The cat and apparent dungeon Boss, meowed loudly at its name being called before returning to licking its paws, apparently unconcerned with their presence.

“Now that you know that, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let go? We still need to clear this dungeon.” James said. Though he didn’t expect the apparition to agree, he would try to solve things without violence.

Diplomacy wasn’t his best skill, but with intelligent opponents, one should always try to find another way. If that didn’t work, well, he had his ways.

Greta's ethereal form flickered, a brief look of contemplation shadowing her spectral face. "Let go? And what, leave my beautiful home? Now that I was just starting to have fun?! I have just become able to manifest again!”

The cat ceased grooming and fixed its glowing eyes on James; the mild interest previously displayed now transformed into a focused stare.

Maria's voice wavered, yet she stepped forward, placing a reassuring hand on James' shoulder. “Greta, don’t you want to rejoin your parents? Staying here must be lonely.”

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say, because the girl’s expression twisted, hate overtaking her features “My parents?! If it wasn’t for them, I would still be alive! Nothing would have happened if they had just listened to me when I told them to give me the money!”

By the end, she was screaming, and the entire house shaking. For a moment, the apparition of Greta seemed to waver, becoming translucent, before gaining solidity once again.

Having felt another of the flickers, James turned his gaze to the walls, and his theory strengthened further. There was something weird about the whole house that went beyond it being a dungeon.

“It wasn’t your parents who killed you, Greta.” Ezekiel interjected, sounding incensed. “The gang members who hurt you are dead, and this place is a danger to all your neighbors. You need to let go.”

The ghost girl laughed, but it lacked her previous mirth. It sounded hollow, defeated even. “Let go? There is nothing for me. Nothing but the cold, eternal dark. At least here, I am remembered. At least here, I am something.”

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“Ah! I think I get it now.” James interrupted, running a hand over the wallpaper. Everyone turned to face him, and he smiled, feeling like a sitcom detective at the end of an episode, as he was about to reveal the real murderer.

“You see, it’s true that Greta was killed here. Even more surprising, this is actually the real her.” He said, gesturing to the spectral entity.

“Initially, I believed it might be an illusionist playing tricks on us, trying to scare us away so they’d keep the dungeon for themselves. But now that I met her, I’m convinced there is no conscious trickery on her part.”

Daniel, the most observant of the group, got a look of realization at his careful choice of words, but he kept his silence, letting him have the big reveal for himself.

“That fateful night, when her family was attacked, Greta Awakened.” He revealed, and the others finally understood where he was going. James continued with his explanation, however, because the real audience was not his team “The wounds they inflicted on her were simply too much, and should have killed her. That was, if her Talent could not sustain her life outside of her body.”

Now shedding the appearance of explaining to the whole group and facing only the spectral girl, he concluded “That night, you used your newfound powers to transfer your consciousness into the building itself. A unique variation of Druid or Psychic, if you ask me.”

The girl was shaking her head in disbelief, evidently unprepared to accept the truth. “No, they killed me! You have no idea what the cold, lonely dark was like for all these years. I just gained back my mind!”

James smiled, the last tassel fitting in perfectly. “That’s exactly what makes me think you did not truly die that day. Spirits are not creatures known to wait for so long. They are flighty and unpredictable. They wouldn’t have waited here for someone to explain what happened after their death.”

“The Sink gave her enough ambient mana to recover beyond what was needed to sustain herself.” Ezekiel said in a tone of realization.

Instead of soothing Greta, the knowledge seemed to ignite a fiery turmoil within her. Her transparent eyes glowed fiercely, an eerie light emanating from within as the surroundings darkened ominously.

"No, I don’t believe you!" Greta’s voice morphed into a shrill, echoing through the dilapidated house. "This is my place, my sanctuary of remembrance! You won’t erase me!"

As Greta’s spectral form convulsed with denial and anguish, Miss Dalloway stood up, a low growl building up in her throat.

Despite being the size of a house cat, the will within her blazed fiercely, and James took up a stance, expression grim as he prepared to fight.

He had hoped it would not be necessary, but the poor girl seemed too far gone. Greta was beyond consoling. Her wails intensified, and the house itself seemed to groan and shudder under the weight of her anguish. The furniture rattled, windows cracked, and an oppressive force descended upon the room.

They were left with no choice.

Daniel’s shield blazed with light as he took up his position, intercepting a lunge from Miss Dalloway, which made him grunt.

The cat, undeterred, bounced off it and tried another attack vector, making for James. Flooding mana into his system, he met its charge with one of his own, bowling the beast over but not seriously injuring it.

A blazing hot fireball passed over his head, aimed at taking Greta out of the fight entirely.

Unfortunately, it passed through her as if she were an illusion. But, when it touched the wall behind her, scorching it entirely and blowing a hole in it, she wailed in pain.

Seeing her fireball’s effect on the girl through the wall's destruction, Maria’s eyes sharpened in realization, and she quickly shared her insight. "Her consciousness is bound to the house! Damaging the structure hurts her!”

Simultaneously, Ezekiel’s hands glowed with his buffing spell, granting all his teammates much-needed AGI, which allowed them to move better in the cramped room.

In the midst of their offensive, the team neglected to account for Miss Dalloway, who, despite her diminutive feline form, erupted with a spectral roar that rippled through the room. Translucent tendrils of energy lashed out from the beast, raking across Daniel’s shield with surprising ferocity, causing him to stagger back, his protective energies flickering.

Before it could continue its assault, James was on it. “Destroy the house!” He yelled, avoiding a spectral tendril and catching the beast mid-air with an enhanced kick, shooting it through the broken door and into the hallway.

While his teammates did their best to demolish the building, James grappled with the Boss, exchanging a flurry of blows and sending it flying down the stairs.

He stopped momentarily at the top, looking at where Miss Dalloway was painfully picking itself up, and decided to end the fight as quickly as possible.

The wails and sounds of things breaking continued in the background, and he really needed to get back to his friends.

He moved back two steps and charged his legs. With a grunt, he took off, closing the distance and jumping off the staircase, falling like an angry meteor on the tawny cat.

For just a moment, James saw its pupils dilate as it watched the approaching death, before it condensed its spectral limbs into a shield.

Unfortunately for it, they didn’t do nearly enough to save it.

Releasing a good fifty mana points all at once through his feet, James caused the protections to be blown away entirely, and the cat’s VIT turned out to not be sufficient to survive the blow. His foot pulped it, crushing the beast against the floor, which broke apart.

The force of the explosion was such that it looked like a bomb had gone off in the living room. More than half of the wooden planks had been blown off, cluttering the remaining space.

James spared one last look at the loyal beast, which looked very little like anything now and climbed out of the hole he had made, quickly running up the stairs and reentering the last room.

The walls around it had been blown away, the cause evident as he watched Daniel pull himself out of the crumbled remains of one.

Lauren and Ezekiel were active trying to hem Greta’s flickering projected image, keeping her busy as she threw furniture at them, which they danced around and only added to the confusion.

Maria, meanwhile, was holding a marble-sized orb of fire between her hands, looking very proud of herself. “I can blow this bitch up whenever we want.” She said once she saw him, panting with effort.

James sighed, used to her pyromaniacal tendencies, and yelled “Let’s jump out, Maria’s gonna burn it down!”

He received grunts of confirmation, and the others moved to the broken walls, launching themselves towards the ash-filled garden in an acrobatic display made trivial by their enhanced stats and Ezekiel’s buff.

Once all three others were out, James grabbed Maria by the waist, put her like a sack of potatoes on his right shoulder and made to jump.

Greta’s scream reached him just as his feet left the floor “Cowards! Run away before I kill you all!”

Any ensuing profanity was drowned out by the sound of Maria’s spell going off.

James barely had the time to soften the landing with his knees and pull Maria in front of him, flooding his back with mana, that the wave of fire reached him.