Ill-Fated: A Journey to Death (Dark Times saga #1)

The Dark Forest

The night passed quickly enough and the entire group continued their journey to the Dark Forest. As Mandarin passed through the outer covering of the Dark Forest, murmurs and whispers came to his ears again. People were discussing the various rumours about the place. One of them was scared by the numerous spirits while another one was scared of the mysterious animals which inhibited the island. He told his fellow listeners that there had been rumours of existence of several uniquely dangerous and poisonous animals which came out at night time. Others were also discussing the various rumours they had heard about the Dark Forest. Mandarin kept moving forward and ignored these whispers. All he had heard from the villagers were false rumours, except the ones with the spirits. It was true that the unsatisfied users of Elixir of Power still wandered in the forest. The Elixir was said to reveal itself only to the living and even though the spirits could not see it, they knew where the Elixir was kept and were always hovering around that area.

There was another rumour, though, about which Mandarin was unsure of. It claimed that there was a unique creature in the forest, correlating to the rumour of weird creature, which controlled all the spirits and was the true guardian of the Elixir of Power. The villager told those who believed him that the guardian was the source of the Elixir of Power and his own blood was what they called Elixir of Power. To Mandarin’s dismay, a lot of people believed the story-teller and were too scared to move further.

After several threats, Mandarin finally convinced them to follow him. They would have barely walked for a minute or so before they ran into a spirit. It was a translucent and purple man, dressed in the clothes of early fifteenth century, who was hovering a few feet above the ground. His coat was wrinkled and his ‘skin’ was so white that it could have been papery. The look in his eyes was a haunted one and he looked at Mandarin as if he was looking at his soul in an empty-minded way. His legs were almost transparent and there seemed to be nothing below his knees.

Mandarin raised his hand and began to twist his wrist clockwise thrice and then anticlockwise twice. A bluish glow began to appear as he casted his spell. Nearby, a scared civilian finally recovered from shock and managed to open the cap of one of his bottles. Mandarin casted an immobility spell and it hit the approaching spirit just before it could touch Mandarin.

An invisible net formed around the spirit and it writhed in pain. Without releasing his grip, Mandarin forced him towards the bottle and immediately it got sucked into the bottle. The cautious civilian immediately sealed the bottle and the spirit became trapped. After recovering from the uneasiness, Mandarin congratulated him and gave him a reward. A reward that was unorthodox but useful in this situation.

It was not exactly what one would expect to get but then again it was an unusual place. Mandarin’s reward was that the quick civilian got to stay near the centre of the group. Considering the fact that it was the safest spot in the group, it was a nice reward.

A few more steps later, they encountered another spirit. The followers had already seen the prize and everyone hurried to make Evil Lord use their opened bottle. This resulted in such a chaos that Mandarin lost his control over the spirit. Then, in a second, several things happened.

Mandarin screamed, “Quiet, everyone!” The spirit got free and instantly screamed, in an inhuman way, to call for help. The entire ruckus immediately silenced and any spirit which was nearby came to the troubled one’s aid. There was a new chaos formed as soon as the followers saw the arrival of the new spirits. People began to run away in fear as the angry spirits began to possess the scared villagers. There was a few screams and I saw the people who had been cursed to keep the villagers together for survival choke to death.  Some came to their rescue but they did not dare to touch any of them.

They all died in pain while everyone around them was getting possessed by the spirits. There were almost hundreds of spirits in the area now. Mandarin was fighting to keep as many of the spirits away from those who were still with him as possible. The worst luck was that of the rewarded one. He had been stuck in the chaos as his reward turned into a punishment and he had been one of the first ones to be possessed.