The Seven Keys of Areid **COMPLETE**

Chapter VII: The Ghost Girl

My lovely readers, this book is starting to wind down. Yes, it's been rather short, but do keep in mind that it will be expanded, polished, and transferred to the account @WeGuardTheKeys, where a sequel will take place! With that in mind, read on!

Scrambling around in the sand had proven to be quite worthwhile, as Adalira had suspected, for soon after her search began she had impaled the palm of her left hand, the hand she normally relied on, on a diamond shaped slab of onyx, which had a keyhole carved into it. Adalira had discovered that upon insertion of the key, the ground around her vanished and sent her into a steep but short drop. This  drop still gave Adalira a miniature heart attack; she had grown to loathe heights and falling along with the seas. But thankfully, it had done nothing to harm her.

Adalira rubbed her stinging eyes, the saltiness of the blue seas still burning. Her hands, she noted, felt much softer than before. Maybe it was an effect of the salt water, she  considered. Adalira hadn't left the vicinity of the tavern since she could recall unless on a job, and thus did not know much about the potential healing properties of salt water. Finally removing her hands from her now red and agitated eyes, she took in the strange scene in front of her.

She seemed to have fallen into some sort of a niche, and stretched out in front of her was a plain. The grasses were short and silvery, like moonlight on water, and the plains were shrouded in a thick, dense mist that taxed Adalira's poor, overused eyes. Looking around, she stood and ventured a few steps onto the plain. Nobody seemed to be around. Just to make sure, she questioned the plain, a cool wind creating a howling sound in her ears.

"Hello?"

Adalira's voice carried on the wind, echoing in diminishing volume across the seemingly never ending fields of silver grasses. She was disappointed to discover the lack of verbal response. However, a figure the color of the pearly mists extending over the plains appeared, standing as still as a statue as the wind blew through it. For its body was transparent, a clear outline, a mere sketch of a person, was visible to Adalira. The figure started to move its mouth, as if to say something. No sound issued, and Adalira looked pleadingly at the figure.

"Help me?" she begged. "How do I get out of this cavern?"

The figure's forehead creased, and then another figure, appearing quite the same, drifted over to meet the first. Their feet, Adalira notices, never once touched the short grasses. They seemed lost, like spirits, Adalira surmised. This did not surprise her much; not much seemed to any more. They did disconcert her though, with their silent speech and their aimless motion. Adalira's eyes grew larger and larger as an audible whispering finally reached her ears. The words she could not distinguish, and as her skirts whipped around her ankles painfully, she looked around.

Adalira now found herself being blocked. Any means of getting to the opposite side of the very colossal cavern was terminated; the ghostly figures had multiplied. There seemed to be not an army or a blockade, but more of a crowd of confused, whispering spirits. However, there was no way to be seen to escape, and after a few moments of desperate scanning the endless rows and groups and bunches of ghosts, she collapsed to her knees, staring at the crowds. So this was it, she thought. This is how her terrifying journey would end? Being denied passage by ghosts that would probably kill her if she approached them? This wasn't any way to go, she decided resignedly, although it seemed far too late for that. 

The wind then stopped short, as if it were avoiding detection. The whispering, grown too loud and indistinguishable for Adalira to focus on, was silenced as well. There was pure quiet on the field, and the ghosts wore the same look of sheer and utter confusion that Adalira knew she wore herself. Why had they stopped their infernal mutterings, she wondered. What had caused them to stop?