The Prince, the Monk, and the Wailing Wraith

His heart raced fast and his palms soaked in sweat. Panic painted across his face, a sense of overwhelming dread shriveled up his body. His hands shivered and his chest grew tight by every second he tried to breathe. He closed his weary eyes, hoping It would go away. But to no avail, it only enhanced his hearing even more, he could hear the blood thudded in his ears. Even worse, as he could hear the wail more clearly.

He braced himself to avert his gaze from the ground and looked up above. Not knowing what to expect, his eyes widened in terror as he stared right into the face of the creature above his head looking down to him, towering him from behind. He was about to shriek but Oskari put his hand on Leonard’s mouth, and stayed quiet as much as he could.

"Shuush… stay still, It could still hear us" Oskari mouthed faintly. There was too much risk to let that happen. With all his might, he tried to maintain his breath.

The creature’s face decayed, in a transition between flesh and skull. Its eyes were hollowed, now he understands why the creature had to rely on its hearing. Its long unkempt black hair cascaded from the head to its feet, touching Leonard's shoulder. Dressed in a tattered and worn out white dress and with chains attached to its wrist. He gazed at its feet, barely touching the ground below it as the greenish light mist came out from inside the dress.

He reversed his grip on the dagger and was ready to stab whatever creature behind him. He slowly turned his body against It, trying to make a little sound from it. A sound of a rock hitting echoed through the woods. Leonard turned his body, surprised to him, Oskari grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it away deep into the woods. The sound attracted the creature to the noise that he made and swayed away from Leonard.

Oskari grabbed Leonard's hand tightly and sprinted away from the scene. Oskari didn't care anymore, as their footsteps touched with the damp dirt making a jarring noise through the woods. The game of Cat and Mouse had just begun. As they were making their way through the woods, Oskari swiftly scooped as many rocks he could find and threw them away to various directions to distract the creature.

"W-what the hell was t-that?" they dashed through the woods, catching their breath.

"T-the Wailing W-wraith"

"And YOU didn't tell me before!?"

"I thought w-we would never encounter s-such a thing."

Oskari grabbed something within his robe, an alarm clock. He set the timer and threw it off to the woods, as the timer went off, its jarring noises traversed through the woods.

“W-wait you had an alarm clock inside your robe? Why on earth is there an alarm clock inside your robe? and h-how many things do you even have inside your robe!?”

“Y-you will never know if you ever need it!”

“W-what’s next? a whole bed set!?”

“Don’t give me ideas, J-just run for now!”

As the creature disoriented by the noises, it began to shriek violently. The tormented woe pierced through the depth of the woods, as if it was asking for help for its agony. Gaining an upper hand, together with Oskari, they both zigzagged through the dense woods, running from the creature. As they dashed through the dense bushes, they finally saw a light in the end of the woods tunnel. A glance of hope glimmered in their faces, it finally ended, as they thought but only to find out they were caught in the end of the cliff. A dead end.

They were relieved for a bit as they both laid down on the grass, catching to their breath. "Y-you a-are…" Leonard panting.

“... one crazy monk!”

Oskari laughed out loud. He grabbed the vial within his robes and held tightly the vial as the moon's light reflected in his eyeglasses, revealing a scheming eye in his face. "We're going to lure it into an open field." he smirked.

“I don’t know what to expect anymore but I’m going to follow your ideas,” Leonard added.

Oskari grabbed a book within his robe. He carefully flipped the pages looking for an answer. Leonard took a glance at the book, each page was full of illustrations of monsters, a monster codex he thought.

“Of course! you just happened to bring a book about monsters inside your robe.”

“You still on to that?”

Oskari skimmed through the pages and stopped at one of the pages. "Er Lementjum Skeem, Let me see Mmmm…'' he mumbled. "Description… Mmmm… Where to find…. Hmmmm Aha! Weaknesses'' his eyes skimmed through the words as his finger pointed to one particular section in the page. Intrigued by it, Leonard tried to read the book but he couldn't understand the language. It was written in the Old Tongue, but it seems Oskari could understand it.

Oskari engrossed on the book and ignored Leonard's presence. He took his time to read the entire section of the weaknesses of the creature. "I think I got the gist of it." Oskari said confidently as he closed the book.

“You said we need an open field to defeat the creature right?” Leonard asked while skimming his eyes across the cliff, overlooking the vast expanse below him.

“Yep-Yep” Oskari nodded. “Do you see anything?”

“Uh huh, there’s an open field near the end of the woods, it looks like some kind of graveyard, it's not that far from here.” Leonard added as he pointed out to the other side of the woods.

“That’s it! That's our destination, we are going there… Now, do you trust me?" Oskari added with Leonard a bit reluctantly thinking twice, but he nodded at the end.

"Good, remember it," he responded. "We are going to kill it for good, put a rest to its misery," he looked at the vial with determination. He grabbed Leonard's hand tightly and shouted "Sanius Retjuv". Leonard felt an immense divine energy flowed into him. For some reason, he felt refreshed as if he was just awoken from a long slumber. "Sanius Konect" Oskari continued shouting his incantation.

“Now try to get up and move your body”

As Leonard rose to his feet. He flexed his arm and leg. He felt his body was lighter nor did he feel exhausted from the running earlier.

“Now pick me up!" Oskari asked out of nowhere.

"What?" Leonard glanced at him with surprise, trying to make sense of his words.

"My small feet can't run that far you know, besides my feet hurt right now," Oskari showed him the bruises on his feet. At first, he hesitated for a moment but Leonard ultimately agreed with Oskari as he sighed a bit and he lowered his body and signaled him to climb his back.

"Yoohoo!" Oskari exclaimed with excitement as he claimed into Leonard's back.

“You ready Oskari?”

“Never been ready!”

“Yosh!” Leonard leaned his body, prepared to sprint through the woods. He could feel the divine energy flowing through his body. With Oskari climbing to his shoulder, securing his position, they took off running into the woods. Leonard leaped through the wood with nimbleness as his steps were lighter and floaty. Oskari remembered that he still had something that could attract the creature. He pulled out a bell within his robe, it was already making a tremendous amount of jarring noises within the woods.

As he swung his bell violently, he could sense the presence of the creature nearby. The atmosphere around them suddenly grew heavy and damp. Leonard stopped momentarily while Oskari scanned their surroundings as they went silent for a bit, waiting for the creature to show itself.

From the shadow a greenish mist emitted itself. A crackling and rattling noise echoed through the woods followed by the unhinged laugh and cry distorted into one. They were not afraid anymore. Oskari swung his bell once.

diiinggggg~ as its sound resonated through the woods. Followed by the creature deafening growling as if it answered the ringing. Oskari swung his bell again twice. The creature fastened its movement toward them.

“R-rrun!" he frantically patted Leonard's back. Realized by the situation, Leonard swiftly maneuvered his way through the dense woods. He leaped through the bushes as they were running for their lives while Oskari continued ringing the bell, luring the creature into following them.

“Almost there!” shouted Leonard as he saw a light flashing into his face.

“Finally!” replied Oskari with excitement.

The excitement on their faces slowly turned into a nightmare as a blessing on Leonard started to dissipate. His body began to return to normal and he wasn't strong enough to carry Oskari's body. As his balance started to falter, his footing stumbled into a trunk and both Leonard and Oskari were lunged into the open field and knocked them both.

***

He slowly opened his eyes as his head felt heavy, he looked at his surroundings. He found himself in a graveyard surrounded by countless gravestones. Oskari was found only a couple meters away from him, he helped himself rise from the ground to check Oskari’s condition. Sensing danger ahead, he heard the growling looming from his behind. He unsheathed his dagger and tightened his grip on it while his right hand was ready with the catalyst.

He recklessly turned his body and charged into the creature with a couple slashes at it, but the creature dodged it with ease as Leonard passed through it. The creature swung its chains and managed to hit Leonard’s cheek, leaving him with scratches.

Leonard continued to keep attacking it without hesitation. But the creature blocked it. The creature continued advancing and struck Leonard. Without him noticing, Leonard manifested his blessing and countered it with a shield made from blood. It was the first time he was able to create something without incantation.

Realizing the situation, every time the creature attacked him, it turned into its corporeal form and was able to create contact with him. The creature bombarded him with countless slashes but he was able to counter it with his shield until one of the chains stuck into his shield. He heard a crackling sound from his catalyst as it started to crack. Leonard charged into it and pinned it down with his shield, and the creature fell into the ground.

Without a light affinity, he couldn’t build a barrier to conceal the creature. But then he remembered Oskari had holy water with him. He quickly ran into Oskari before the creature started to rise from the ground.

While looking for the vial, Leonard checked on Oskari’s vital sign. He put his ears on Oskari's chest, though faint he could hear Oskari's heart pounding. He relieved for a second and continued to search the vials. He opened his robe, he caught himself looking inside at Oskari’s robe. He scratched himself on the head in disbelief as he saw nothing on the robe.

"Where the hell do you put your items, Oskari," he said, panicking. "Is it like an item box?" he thought to himself, again not sure what he meant about the item box. "Eh... What's an item box?"

He reached out to the robe thinking there might be some hidden mechanism behind it. As he was about to touch the robe his hand slowly dissipated. "Wait another dimension? inside a robe? huh I never thought about that."

"Sorry Oskari but I need that Vial," His hand rummaged through the items and found a shiny blue vial. “Gotcha!” He grabbed the vial and started to run to the creature.

“How do I make a barrier?” he thought to himself. Although it was never stated in the book when he saw it. He poured the holy water into the ground, creating a circle around the creature. The water started to emitted a faint yellow light as it created the barrier. To make sure, he poured the water into it again, ensuring that the barrier was strong enough to enclose the creature.

The barrier started to take its effect on the creature. The wraith violently swung its chains into the barrier’s wall but none was able to pass through. As it started to wail in agony waiting for its untimely demise. Leonard stood in silence watching the creature cry over its demise. With his last runestone, he created a spear made of blood and thrust it into the creature's heart.

"Y-yatta, It’s finally over," he mumbled while taking one last glance at the creature. As his body started to aching up, he felt exhausted all over and he fell unconscious.