Forgotten Greed: Volume One: Greed's Bonds

The Cabin

"Shen are you sure this is the way?" Sillnia said, moving through a thick brush.
"If we don't want to be mauled by a bunch of flesh eating monsters, then we need to go through this way." he responded, his voice coming from a few meters in front of her. They had been walking through the day to find the cabin, the sun had begun to set as the shadows from the trees grew with the ground now lit by the moon. There were periods of time where Sillnia and Kally were the only ones who could see due to clouds moving over the moon's illumination. Even with Sillnia's night vision obtained from being an elf she could only see five meters ahead of the group, where Kally couldn't see more than three meters. She could hear Shen occasionally trip on things as he moved through the dark forest. Sillnia struggled to keep herself moving. This was a new environment for her. She had been on her own adventures out in the woods but she mostly traveled on trails during the day with Umamari there to guide her. Her thoughts of a heroic adventure began to fade as she walked straight into a spider web. Chills ran through her spine as rapidly began to wipe them off of her flailing her arms around slamming one of them onto a branch, as she let out a shriek. The sound of Kally laughing caused a rush of embarrassment with a blush that could not be seen due to the darkness surrounding them.

"Do we need to carry you Princess?" Kally said mockingly.

"No, I am doing just fine, thank you very much." Sillnia responded defensively. She began to walk again rubbing her arm. "I wanted this, and I've been through much worse," She thought to herself. A memory came to mind.

"Silni wait! Don't leave us!" a little girl said as a man in a purple cloak grabbed her covering her mouth and dragged her away. Sillnia began to run across a broken forest, trees with missing tops, shards of broken wood littering and sticking out of the mud. Her bare feet sinking in mud up to her ankles. Her breath was sporadic and quick as she came to a cliff. She could hear the sound of footsteps moving through the mud behind her. The sound of vesper raptors behind her with a high pitched echoed howl. The sound resinated in her mind as she moved through the tree following shen.

"Found it." Shen said, lowering his voice. The group came up behind Shen making sure to stay crouched down below bushes surrounding an open area in the midst of the forest. Sillnia peeked through the bush to see the cabin. It was a small building with a partly caved in roof on top of a hill. The windows were completely boarded up and the chimney had smoke lightly flowing out of it like a river to the starry night sky. As she looked around the house's exterior she noticed tombstones littered around the property that was distinctly marked out by a meter tall stone fence that was covered in vines.

"So what's the plan?" Kally asked, moving behind Shen and Sillnia.

"All we need to do is sneak as far in as possible and then take out the Ghouls we see closest to the doors." Shen responded. Suddenly an awful growl came from the right of Sillnia. She turned her head quickly coming face to face with a horrid site. What was once a woman, now a corpse with sunken eyes that were blocked out by shadow, the creature's jaw was broken and exposing its tongue through its cheeks and rotted teeth. It was wearing a torn burial gown covered in a dark tar substance. Sillnia let out a scream falling backwards harshly hitting the ground. She felt pain in her tailbone, but she ignored it crawling backwards away from the ghoul. "Damn it." Shen said as the ghoul stumbled out of the thicket falling on top of Sillnia. She let out a yelp holding the ghoul by its shoulders so that it wouldn't bite her. She could hear the group scrambling around before the ghoul on top of her suddenly stopped moving. Sillnia closed her eyes and mouth as a splatter of the tar substance spirited onto her face. She rolled the body off of her to see a small sword stuck in the ghouls head. Kally grasped the sword's hilt struggling to pull it out of the ghouls head.

"Come on Sillnia get up! We woke the horde!" Kally yelled helping her up, Sillnia was shaking with her vision not focusing. Kally turned her and gave her a push. Sillnia stumbled and moved through the bush towards the cabin with the others as six ghouls began to stumble their way towards the group.