Sometimes when you go somewhere, there's an undoubtedly strange feeling about this place—sometimes it's eerie, or it's sad. Maybe places have energy that's left behind of who was there… but I didn't arrive home.
I don't know if I'm sad or relieved, but the energy of this place takes me over. It could be, because it's dark. Or that it's clearly abandoned of most, if not all, life.
It's too quiet here. The wooded area, and the abandoned cottage I can see. The moon shines brightly overhead between the trees. The stars twinkle, brilliant—it's one of the clearest skies I've ever seen in my life. Honestly, it's beautiful, and maybe there's a tiny twinge of relief that I stayed in this weird world instead of going back where I probably belong.
"The Dwarfs' Mine… Once it was filled with magestones." Deuce is just as apprehensive as the rest of us. There's a strange energy here.
Grim's fear of ghosts and the creepy-crawlies rears its ugly head, "Who—who knows what's here now?"
"Look—I can see a cottage. Maybe there's someone there?" Ace points it out, he seems a bit more confident.
"That looks long abandoned…" I comment, frowning as I follow the group anyway. I don't want to be alone.
"Why would it be here…?" Ace isn't the sharpest pencil in the box.
"It's quiet as a tomb, Ace—we're not going to find anyone." I argue.
But we're already there.
Deuce knocks on the door. "Hello…?" He calls out, and there's nothing but the eerie silence of this place. "Huh, I think it was abandoned…"
No. Shit.
Of course, they open the door and walk right into the abandoned hut. It's—full of dust, and spider webs. I briefly think about raiding the place a bit for things for the dorm, but they're… tiny.
"Ack! I walked into a spider web! Ptoo! Ptoo!" Grim, unfortunately, is spider-web height. He shakes, pawing at his face trying to get off the remains. I reach down to help as much as I can. That's never a good feeling.
"Look at this! Everything is so tiny! What, did children live here?" It's called Dwarfs' Mine. It was probably occupied by Dwarfs, Ace… dumb ass. "One, two… seven! Wow!" Lucky seven?
"When the mine was full, this house must've been lively." Deuce comments.
"Well, this isn't getting us anywhere. We should go to the mine for the magestone." Ace concludes like the cabin wasn't his idea in the first place. This boy. "Let's go and find it."
We head through the well-worn path toward the mine. It's marked by signs, telling miners that once tred this dirt where to go. While it's starting to overgrow, with native plants reclaiming the earth—it will take awhile more until it can fully become grass in the wood. It's still too quiet. I can't hear much of anything at all besides our walking. The eerie silence only makes this feeling of dread in my chest grow.
It's worse than the sports bra.
We arrive, at… a small entrance overgrown—or maybe it was always under a tree? It's definitely not taken care of by the moss on the rocks. Even worse, it's going to be a bit of an awkward fit? Even the mine cart tracks are worse for wear.
"You want to go in there? It's dark!" Grim is apparently also afraid of the dark?
"You are literally on fire, Grim." I comment.
"What? Scared of the dark, baby?" Ace needs a fresh smack across the mouth and my hand is about to deliver it.
"Nyah?! I'm not scared of ANYTHING!" Grim proclaims angrily. Fine, goading him like that works. And it probably works every single time. "I'm the leader—all of you, follow me!"
Luckily the two aren't idiots right now, and light their wands. While Grim's ears light up the area too. It's a good coverage of light as we head inside.
I have never wanted my cellphone more than right now. That flashlight feature is completely and utterly invaluable. This. This sucks.
I glance around the lit-up mine shaft. Tall. Dark. There's stone everywhere with brilliant jewels sticking out that must be worth a fortune! But—the gemstones aren't touched. Are the magestones so valuable that they'd ignore pretty gems like this? Or are gems so commonplace they're trash-price and not worth the effort of digging them out?
I realize I don't even know what a magestone actually looks like, so I'm pretty close to useless in this scenario.
"Huh! Wait!" Deuce calls out, stopping us all.
"What is it?" Heart-face is as irritated as he makes me with his breathing. My temper's a bit shot.
"There's something here!" Deuce exclaims.
"Nyah!" Grim shouts in fright as what else but ghosts appear.
This place being haunted doesn't surprise me one bit when, in fact, we have already had our fair share of ghost run ins so I'm not really sure why Grim is so scared; he realizes the ghosts at the dorm are going to permanently be there, right? I guess it was their morning appearance that has me a lot less worried when they seem to accept us and have warned us of future pranks.
The eerie chuckle is what lends some credence to Grim's fear, "Visitors! The first in ten, long years!" He's not wearing a top hat, but instead a grey cape and cowl tied with a black bow. It looks new? And aren't these ghosts really… small?
"Do make yourself at home… you can stay here, forever!" Well, and here I thought we found Casper. I'm wrong.
"Hey—we should run!" WE just got threatened with death. I am not sticking around.
"G-gh-ghosts!" Grim takes off running.
"It's fine, scardy cat-" Ace laughs a little.
"Yeah, let's give these ghosts the slip, come on!" Deuce calls out.
The other two are running away as well; their lit wands shooting spells behind them. They're doing their best, but when each makes contact—they just disappear and reappear. We saw this before with Grim. I really hope they just get bored and go somewhere else, but if we're the first guests they've had in ten years—I doubt they're going to give up any time soon.
My heart thuds heavy in my chest; I'm taking in deep gulps of air as we run as fast as we can.
"They're still behind us!" Ace calls out after he takes a glance at our pursuers.
"Magic's not working either!" Frustration comes from Deuce's lips.
"Maybe it's because you're so weak!?"
"And how is yours any better?"
The ghosts have us pinned for a moment. Oh—this doesn't look good. "We need to get out of here, guys!" Fine, I'm a bit scared too. These… these ghosts aren't just fucking around with us.
"I'm OUT of here!" Grim shouts, taking the lead in running awhile. I'm right behind him.
"Wait up!' Ace takes off, too. I can hear the two freshman running behind us; well, soon I'm falling behind. I'm definitely not the fastest runner, but Deuce clearly has some talent as he tears off ahead.
Eventually, the ghosts disappear from our trail, and we slow down to take a breather.
"Man I'm tired-"
"We need to stay sharp."
"DO you hear that?"
"Eep!" Grim screeches.
"Oh no, what's up ahead?" There's ghosts, stopped, and terrified of something else.
I wish it was just ghosts. If they're leaving—I-I don't even know what it could be.
Terror's grip around my heart crushes it painfully in my chest.
